Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Stefano Casazza ulib john fremin teepeedee2
heard about it on john fremin's blog
http://john.freml.in/
Fast, persistent, memory-mapped Lisp object store
Monday, September 28, 2009
lisp web framework vs ruby John Fremin
dunno what the fuck this is but its awesome
BREAKING NEWS Riots break out at Pittsburgh University, students gassed and beat
Friday, September 25, 2009
tutorial D replacement for sql databases
http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/
Thursday, September 24, 2009
rock on con kolivas
http://ck.kolivas.org/german_linux_magazine_interview.txt
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Con-Kolivas-Introduces-New-BFS-Scheduler
Con Kolivas Introduces New BFS Scheduler
Sep 02, 2009
After two years deep into Linux, the Australian Con Kolivas has emerged with a new scheduler that above all should provide significantly better performance on dual and quad processors.
The Australian developer Con Kolivas
Whoever hasn't recently had a good enough reason to translate the kernel should take a look at the new patch from Con Kolivas. His Brain Fuck Scheduler (BFS) should, after compiling on a quad system, demonstrate better performance than the current Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) from Ingo Molnar.
As Kolivas writes in his FAQ to the BFS, the performance improvement contrasts with how the current schedulers work with the CPUs:
"For years we've been doing our workloads on Linux to have more work than we had CPUs because we thought that the 'jobservers' were limited in their ability to utilise the CPUs effectively (so we did make -j6 or more on a quad core machine for example). This scheduler proves that the jobservers weren't at fault at all, because make -j4 on a quad core machine with BFS is faster than *any* choice of job numbers on CFS."
The name Kolivas gave to his scheduler obviously meant to be provocative. On the one hand he was determined that it was possible to write a good scheduler using simple means and straightforward thinking. On the other he wanted to point out that it was totally unsatisfactory to have a scheduler support 4096 processors but be incapable of successfully running a Flash video on an average system.
Kolivas nevertheless doubts that his newest scheduler will ever be accepted into the official Linux kernel, even though it can run faster on systems with up to 16 CPUs than any previous scheduler. It simply doesn't scale to 4096 processors nor does it work satisfactorily on non-uniform memory access (NUMA) systems.
The BFS patch along with benchmark diagrams and other details are on ck.kolivas.org. Why Kolivas turned his back on kernel development two years ago was revealed in an interview with Linux Magazine, a transcript of which also appears at the same website.
AUR new brainfuck bfs scheduler archlinux install - feels fast as hell
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=29842 download the tarball
pacman -S base-devel
edit /etc/makepkg.conf and set the -j to your number of cpu
for me with 1 cu hyperthreaded [2 total] this meant: MAKEFLAGS="-j2"
tar xvfzm the tarball, cd into it, do a makepkg -s --asroot, install the package with pacman -U
now carefully edit grub, adding a new (0) option and incrementing the other 2; then reboot:
# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26-bfs root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e594fe32-a76e-4a03-a9bf-2e16743a5869 ro
initrd /kernel26-bfs.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e594fe32-a76e-4a03-a9bf-2e16743a5869 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
# (2) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e594fe32-a76e-4a03-a9bf-2e16743a5869 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img
It feels much faster on my p4 3.0ghz hyperthread [2 virt cpu] with 4g ram [3168m visible to os]
$ uname -a
Linux 2.6.31-bfs #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Sep 24 20:14:02 PDT 2009 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
go con!
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Con-Kolivas-Introduces-New-BFS-Scheduler
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
navy seals workout
(2:04:44 AM) Angevin: it is already extreme to begin with
nerd chix=the best (1:49:53 AM) shemale_magic: chick loves light sabers and horror movies and peanut butter shakes=keeper
(1:49:53 AM) shemale_magic: chick loves light sabers and horror movies and peanut butter shakes=keeper
perils of multi master database replication
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
lxde desktop on solaris
solaris a joke -linus
Newsmaker: Torvalds: A Solaris skeptic
See all Newsmakers
Now Torvalds and his allies face a new side of that old competitor. Sun has turned Solaris into an open-source project. The company also is building its own community of programmers around Solaris, while promoting the operating system's deployment on the widely used computers with x86 processors, such as Intel's Xeon.
But the 34-year-old Finnish programmer isn't fazed by Solaris. In fact, he's downright dismissive, calling it a "joke."
Torvalds worked for years at now-struggling chip designer Transmeta, but he now plans to stay with his current employer, Open Source Development Labs in Oregon, "for the foreseeable future."
There, along with co-worker and chief deputy Andrew Morton, Torvalds is spearheading a new Linux development process: frequent small changes to the existing 2.6 kernel of Linux rather than a massive overhaul many months down the road. The result: faster improvements.
Torvalds discussed Solaris, his improvisational programming style and other issues in an interview with CNET News.com.
What do you think of what Sun is doing with Solaris 10--technology improvements, open source, and the move to x86 chips?
I'm taking a very wait-and-see attitude to Sun. They like talking too much. I'm waiting for the action.
It seems to me that they have taken some action besides just grandstanding. They have resurrected the x86 version and added several interesting features--containers, DTrace, and ZFS, for example--that are available today in beta versions of Solaris 10. They're actively rounding up support from developers and software companies. And they announced that the production version of Solaris 10 on x86 will be available for free. What do you think about the x86 move and the new Solaris features?
Solaris/x86 is a joke, last I heard. (It has) very little support for any kind of strange hardware. If you thought Linux had issues with driver availability for some things, let's see you try Solaris/x86. (Editors' note: Drivers enable an operating system to communicate with specific hardware such as a video card or network adapter.)
IBM's Steve Mills said a lot of the Linux development road map is an eight-lane highway: Seeing where Unix has gone makes it obvious where Linux needs to go. Is Linux charting its own course or just picking up Unix technology?
I'm a huge believer in proven concepts. If I have a hero, it would have to be Sir Isaac Newton, partly because he's unquestionably one of the most influential scientists who ever lived, but perhaps more importantly because of a quote he is famous for: "If I have been able to see farther, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
Now, Newton may not actually have been a very pleasant person in real life, but I think that quote is what personifies science. And open source. The whole point is to stand on the shoulders of giants, and make incremental improvements on concepts and ideas of others.
To invent something totally new and different just because you want to do something new and different is in my opinion, the height of stupidity and hubris. Linux is doing great things exactly because Linux isn't throwing out the baby with the bathwater, like so many projects tend to want to do. The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease.
What Linux myths or misconceptions do you find particularly galling?
I don't get upset that easily, so I can't say that there is any in particular that I find galling. One myth that I find interesting, but which has nothing to do with Linux or even the IT sector in particular, is the myth of how a single person or even a single company makes a huge difference in the market. It's the belief that things happen because somebody was visionary and "planned" it that way. Sometimes the people themselves seem to believe it, and then the myth becomes hubris.
I have to continually try to explain to people that no, I don't "control" what happens in Linux. It's about having an environment that is conducive to development, not so much about any particular leader. And I think that is true in most cases, be it the "great sport coach" or the "great spiritual leader."
I've always been skeptical of the great man theory of history, though it's had its moments. On the flip side, you clearly have had a pretty big influence over Linux, and Linux has a big influence over the computing industry. Has Linux made you more humble or has it boosted your ego?
Hey, it's not like my ego was that small to begin with, but Linux sure as hell hasn't made me more humble. What it has done is to make me realize just how much the movers and shakers really do depend on the environment they are in, or have been able to build up around them. And while that still doesn't make me humble, it hopefully keeps me at least a bit more grounded.
And I'm not trying to say that individuals don't matter. Individuals do matter, and I'm a huge believer in the theory that a motivated and smart person can do more than a thousand people who aren't. But what matters more than any individual is the kind of environment that brings in the people who shine. One of the things I think Linux has succeeded really well at is to let people shine.
When Sun releases Solaris as open-source software, will you take a peek?
Probably not. Not because of any animosity, but simply because I don't have the time or the interest. Linux has never been about "others," it's been about getting better than itself, so I don't really have any motivation to play around with Solaris. I'm sure that if it does something particularly well, people will be more than happy to tell me all about it.
Surely if you like the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants, there might be some handy ideas in Solaris. Why ignore it?
Because I personally don't think they have anything left worth taking after I've applied the general Unix principles. I really do think Linux is the better system by now, in all the ways that matter.
But more importantly, if I'm wrong, that's OK. People who know Solaris better than I do will tell me and other people about the great things they offer. To try to figure it out on my own would be a waste of time.
Let us suppose it's a few years down the road and Linux has crushed the versions of Unix in the marketplace. Where do you look for inspiration at that point?
I've never had a dearth of inspiration so far.
The things to do come not really from other systems, but from users. People seldom say "I need Linux to do Y, because Unix did Y," and in fact, that's an argument I fundamentally don't believe in. Rather, the problems that people have are more along the lines of "I need to do X, and I can't find a way to do it" to "I can do it this way, but it sucks because of Y." And that is where the inspiration really comes from.
How much do you spend on near-term planning and on long-term planning? I think you tend to be an improvisational, issue-of-the-moment person, not a let's-design-a-big-framework-that-will-last-five-years person.
Yes. I really can't plan my way out of a cardboard box.
All my long-term stuff is very fuzzy "intuitive" stuff, not something I could really put into words. I try to avoid having very specific goals in the long term, and instead have more of a general feel for what kinds of things I like and don't like. Some people may see that as undirected, and hell yes, it is. On the other hand, it's pretty flexible, and exactly because I'm not focusing on some specific goal five years from now I'm also not losing track of the problems people experience today, or ignoring somebody else's vision.
I find people with big visions interesting but often a bit scary. One of my constant arguments on the kernel mailing list (in various guises) is to not redesign the world, but try to make specific small improvements, and let the big payoffs be kind of incidental.
Do you think the Gnu's Not Unix (GNU) project to clone Unix and the GPL--foundations for Linux, obviously--could have happened without Richard Stallman's big vision?
I think it could have happened without him, but that's like saying "what would the world look like if X (some arbitrary great person) hadn't been born?" It would be different, and there's no question that the kind of drive that you get from having a vision is very powerful.
So you might as well have asked whether Linux would have happened without me. Obviously not in that sense. But maybe one of the BSD (versions of Unix) would have grown up instead. Or some other crazy undergrad would have done his own operating system.
Why did you select the GPL to govern Linux, and what kinds of changes would you like to see in the next version?
I really want a license to do just two things: make the code available to others, and make sure that improvements stay that way. That's really it. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else is fluff.
It may sound like a very simple concept, but even most open-source licenses fail my criteria very fundamentally. They tend to fail in allowing somebody to limit the availability of improvements some way.
And the thing is, in my fuzzy "cannot plan his way out of a cardboard box" world, I don't worry too much about the next version of the GPL. I'm not a lawyer, I don't worry about the exact wording. In many ways, my only gripe with the GPL has been how many words it seems to need to say something very simple. That seems to be a common theme in any legal situation.
How is the kernel-development process changing?The biggest change was probably that I expected to open up a 2.7 tree (Editors' note: a new experimental version that branches off the current 2.6 version) but didn't really relish the notion. Nobody argued strenuously for that, and instead there was a fairly widely held belief that the current 2.6.x development model actually works pretty well.
Which is not to say that 2.7.x won't happen--it probably will in a few months--but it does mean that the stable release branches are starting to overshadow the development ones. I think that's both a sign of maturity and of the fact that the stable releases are so important to so many people these days that you can't leave them behind as easily.
Does the new process mean improvements make it into Linux faster?
Yes. That's one of the advantages of this model--much lower latency of new things. People always hated the two-year development cycle, as you could tell from how all the threading work we did for 2.6.x ended up being back-ported into 2.4.x because vendors just couldn't wait for it.
What changes are radical enough to trigger the 2.7 tree release?
If I knew, I'd tell you. It basically boils down to: "Do we need to change something so fundamental that we can no longer assume that the things that rely on it work the same way any more?" All the previous development cycles have had core issues that we knew we needed to fix, but that would cause major havoc in the parts that used that core infrastructure.
How many developers do you estimate are working on Linux today? I'm guessing a small fraction of people contribute a large fraction of the code.
It's pretty skewed, yes. On just the kernel, there's a couple of hundred fairly active people. The change logs show about a thousand people in the last year, but many of those are people dipping their toes in the water. And that's totally ignoring a large set of developers, namely the ones that do testing and (quality assurance) and feedback.
What do you think about the increasing prominence of Red Hat and Novell in the Linux marketplace? Does it trouble you that they're increasingly the ones who define Linux for customers instead of you?
Heh. The less I have to do with customers, the better. I've always felt that the biggest contribution the commercial vendors do is exactly the fact that they end up being the interface between customers and developers, and that they also thus end up being the balance between purely technical issues and the purely marketing thing. And open source keeps them (and the developers, for that matter) honest.
Does it seem to you that the Linux sellers are driving the Linux train and you're becoming more of a passenger?
Not to me, it doesn't. I don't think the vendors think that either. But they certainly have a lot of input. That's how it needs to be: People need to feel involved...If anybody feels like somebody is just a passenger, that's bad for everybody.
Is the limiting factor for Linux on the desktop engineering or marketing?
It's a combination of things. (There's) engineering in the sense that there's a lot of details around that can be improved, there's the marketing/perception side and most importantly there's the "user inertia" side.
Monday, September 21, 2009
what government agency is successful? no government health care!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
learn from your mistakes and have fun at everying
computer performance testing
making things run FAST and long
mistakes
not workout more
not work for others
jeaninie dooshe
too nice
concentrate on 1 thing and get strong in it
do lots of pushups
do squats for legs
We not guna fuck? take me home I'm not your ay friend
corporations and government loves married people because they are big consumers
Saturday, September 19, 2009
http://www.tiavastube.com/videos/459/917732/blonde-with-huge-tits-teasing-bends-over-movies.php
http://www.tiavastube.com/videos/459/917852/drunk-girl-with-glasses-shows-huge-tits-movies.php
Friday, September 18, 2009
http://www.phact.org/e/forth.htm forth
FORTH A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
FOR REAL PROGRAMERS
Links to great FORTH SITES:
Excellent article on FORTH in Electronic Design - November 22, 1999 Volume 47, Number 24
Forth Incorporated -they created the language and offer the most support
good overview on Forth
Forth Interest Group Home Page
THE JOURNAL OF FORTH APPLICATION AND RESEARCH
Commercial Forth Sites
The Forth Scientific Library Project
free sources of forth
other Forth resources
see Napier's and my article on Forth in Circuit Cellar Magazine
ESP - August '98 - Programmer's Toolbox -column on Forth by Jack Crenshaw
Forth links JForth home page ! Forth programs Forth for Mindstorms real time Forth
This page is found at: http://www.phact.org/e/forth.htm
note: Some of this is a paraphrased version of stuff where the copyright willbelong to Circuit Cellar Magazine. Consider
getting your own subscription for under 22$ !
This Forth Programming Webring site owned by Eric Krieg.
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-Eric's intro to Forth:
At this point, I presume the reader is too creative and free thinking
to knee-jerk succumb to the group think, "because a massive
company is pushing it, I must follow like a proverbial
lemming"
Sure, all languages allow you to think in a higher level and
be spared the slower development of assembler. Both can support
developing and simulating code on a PC. Any language will
support modular design, commenting and other good programming
practices. And Forth usually comes with simple tools to
explore call stacks, set breakpoints, trace execution. All
languages have syntax quirks and need programmer responsibility
to adhere to voluntary indenting standards. In C, higher level
functions keep calling lower indenting standards. In C, higher level
functions keep calling lower level functions - in Forth, later
defined words call lower level words. Forth insists on
a logical order of compile to eliminate need for C prototypes.
All the standard program control of C (do,if, else, while, switch,
etc.) are in there with just different names and syntax. The
important logical and mathematical operators are all there,
but transcendentals and advanced math are available
extensions. Unlike C, there is no goto - but good programmers
shouldn't need them. Conditional compilation, arrays and
unions are all supported with a unique Forth flair.
Forth data types supported are strings, bytes,
2 byte values, and 4 byte values. It's up to you to make
responsible use of address pointers, signed vs unsigned
or other matching constraints. Many versions come with advanced
data types. - But you can at least add support for your own
data types better than any language I've seen. Converts to forth
will be relieved to dispense with those cursed { }
all through code. Also, the ; still serves as a terminator.
the advantages of forth are as follows:
The whole development environment is far more simple: there
is no "development suite" with bunches of CD'
a forth development system can reside on a 330K floppy. You also
have a single tool set as compared with one compiler vendor, an
OS vendor, a debugger and maybe a target monitor program. Forth
gives you them all with one set of rules and one look-feel.
The object code can easily fit in 8K on most architectures. A major
up side is that you often can get all the source code for your
whole development environment. Forth is most easily
written in Forth - I used to follow all screens of code to generate
a new copy of Forth. Try telling a C or Ada vendor
that you want to upgrade the language and knock out a few
quirks.
Target systems can include the compiler. In my present C contracting
job, I use a overpriced Sun to run Make, compiles and link a target
executable. Then I go to a target machine and download the code, powerup
and test my code. If I want to make an adjustment to the code I take an
hour to go through the whole loop again. If I had Forth, I could type
in a new word (analogous to C function) right into the serial port of the
target push parameters on the stack and call it to see if it works. I
could then easily "splice" the new word to intercept any calls to the
old word. As a demonstration, I used to take a deep breath and do
all this on a Forth machine before taking another.
Compiler extensibility means you can track what ever new
coding fad that comes along with out switching languages. Forth
has really always been object oriented, JAVA-like, platform
independent, etc. from the get go. Adding data structures or
operator overloading is easy.
Shifting into assembly language is no problem and
and all data structures are accessible from assembler.
Target testing is intuitive. Exactly the same
commands you use in code are the same ones you
use for debugging. My present environment has a
whole different tool kit with a different look-feel.
Parametersfor words (Forth functions) can just be typed in as
numbers to be placed on the stack and then taken
by a word that you just type in to execute. To do
the same thing in C requires advanced knowledge and
lots of key pressing to dominate a debugger. In
C you may learn one companies make system, another's
C compiler and another debugger. In forth, you just
use the natural existing commands which are pretty
common to all versions.
Forget hunting for an OS (for easy apps) Forth likes to BE
the OS. It can't do preemptive multi-tasking and inherited priority -
but if you are into the design frugality endemic to Forth - you may
find bright ways to avoid such complexities and all their unexpected
side effects. It has a multi-User multitasker and it's simplicity makes
any kind of operation time determinate (as compared with the unknown
time typical OS's can spend defragmenting memory). You call the
word pause to allow other tasks to run - how much you sprinkle this
in affects priority (but at least you don't have the class of statistically
related bugs from unanticipated preemptive context switches. Forth doesn't
directly support some stuff I hate to put in real time apps: like
dynamic memory allocation: - you can code your own. I admit that
huge very complex real time applications
will quickly miss Forth's lack of semaphores, task priority,
resource management and messaging. Such things would not be
hard to implement in Forth.
I admit that Forth would be a little slower and slightly
more code in large programs than with newer C compilers. But a hello
world program would likely use less code in Forth than C - there are
no massive libraries to be linked in. Programs are generally faster in Forth
where programmers stay with the natural philosophy of using fixed
point notation. If you are the consummate engineer, you probably
have used old HP calculators and are mentally conformable with
a FIFO stack. Beginner C programmers delight in being spared
from having to visualize how data is stored and passed. Advanced
C people learn to think ahead how the stack is used by the compiler.
Forth programmers think in terms of stacks just as the computer does.
I admit that C does a much better job of hiding the complexities of
going from a 16 bit to 32 bit architecture. Running Forth in
true 32 bit mode does become slightly wasteful of space - but still
orders of magnitude more parsimonious than executing the most basic
function on a "Gates-infected OS".
Forth suffers from the self fulfilling (and sustaining) prophecy of
"golly, I don't want to use it because other people don't" that's the curse of
any upstart idea: there aren't many people who know it - and
people won't usually bother learning something unless everyone
else is already using it.
Forth in it's more simple versions is a little more Republican then
Democrat - it expects you to be responsible for yourself. You won't
see a whole book chapter dedicated to compiler error codes.
The language isn't designed around protecting the program from
an inept programmer.
Forth is called a programmer amplifier - a dubious programmer will
produce the kind of horrendous code that gave too many managers
a bad taste for the language; BUT a good programmer will reap
tremendous benefits.
Moving between any other language and C is much more natural
than between C and Forth. C merely continued with the mindset
lineage of mainstream status quo languages. Programmers seem
to be "programmed" to accept infix notation. The biggest
differences between Forth and C are rigidity of type
enforcement. The forth compiler considers numbers to be
just numbers to be manipulated - if you take the result
of a mathematical computation and use it for a pointer
to memory, Forth will not complain. In the world of C,
you are more protected - but then you also have to do
things like type casting to circumvent a patronizing compiler
that acts like your mother. A advantage of C is that it
supports structures from the get go. Newer versions of Forth
in an effort to provide C-like OS calls have acquiesced.
Unlike C, you have the power to easily extend Forth to support
any kind of structures you want - but then you would unfortunately
not have a universal standard. There are however many public
domain or sold proposed extensions to Forth. The most simple
versions of Forth do not support floating point. "Real Programmers"
can remember virtual decimal place position and then reap more
performance.
this page is available at:
http://www.phact.org/e/forth.htm
Are young C programmers losers?
Many of them have no idea of things like:
writing disk primitives
compiler theory
how to represent real numbers with straight integers
how to make a program go fast
how to write their own OS
how to store in their own interrupt vectors
how to use a logic analyzer
how to hack programmer in assembler
saving disk space rather than wasting it
counting up instruction cycles
making your own tools
See, "now-a-days" kids coming out of school are spoiled with
lots of code space, run time speed and disk space to just waste.
Their "computational forefathers" built our own computers,
wrote our own monitor programs (often hand assembled) and
debugged everything. Even when we stole code, it took skill
and intelligence. There were fewer people into it because fewer
people could think in binary. In those days, we'd wire up a few
ttl logic chips and LED's to make a crude logic analyzer or convert
and old TV to a scope and debug stuff. We didn't have this wimpy
drag and drop interfaces where you don't even need to know
command line arguments. Wimps! Now compilers are so
dumbed down that you don't really need to think and debuggers
use enough cute icon keys where you almost don't need to read. I
envision Forest Gump pitching the next new programming paradigm.
The smart programmers don't seem to even want to write code.
They either live in a world flowing with new paradigms, models
and theory or they #$%&-ing sell out and become managers. In the
project I'm currently on - most routines have a history list starting
in 1993 and wasting a page. I just noticed a perfectly written routine
written in 1990, and I thought wow, how did that guy write it and have
it not need any changes since. Then I noticed the name was the
big fat ugly manager of our dept. He was able to code well, so they
promoted him to be a manager (maybe he got a lobotomy along the
way, I don't know). It's funny when two of us older guys meet -
we have inverse one-up-manship contests. "Oh, you may not
remember this, but we used to use the old XYZ 1k memory board"
- "oh, you guys were lucky - we had to get by using . . . - we
assembled them our selves"
I think Bill Gates has a vision of these palm tops being marketed
to the village idiot. Laugh at me if you will but just as America
no longer makes TV's - we are losing skills like how to write
disk primitives, video drivers, memory test code or monitor
programs. Maybe just as there are mechanically anachronistic
people with support groups for keeping antique cars and trains
alive, there will be people someday trading versions of pong
for TRS-80's. Half the stuff people use computers for are mind
numbing anyhow. As a final thought I ask you:
have we all bought so much into paradigms, entity relationships, etc that
we have lost our roots? No matter how sophisticated computers get -
they are built on a foundation of the same simple logical operations that
we cut our teeth on years ago. Ever wonder why old computing curmudgeons
like Jack Crenshaw spontaneous break into sentimental rants about "I worked
on stuff so old that . . ."? Well, it's that we "embedded" programmers must
keep the skills to thrive (please don't say bottom feed) - on that layer
of code close up to the HW. If we can't think in hex, maybe we should just
drift into the database end of the computer employment landscape."
Additional notes:
from Forth Inc., we hear they've expanded their line of SwiftX Windows hosted cross compilers to include the 6303, 6809, 68HC11, 68HC12, most 68K variants (68000 & CPU32 cores), UTMC69R000 (rad hardened RISC processor), 8051, 8086, Atmel AVR family, ColdFire, H8/300H, i386, and Patriot PSC1000. Leon has been working on a Linux cross-compiler host since many engineers are heading in that direction as a more stable networked development environment.
FastCounter by LinkExchange
A few notes by Beth Rather – one of the original gurus of the language:
The Forth Interest Group is no longer operational at the address given, or able to publish Forth Dimensions or sell
books. The web site is still being maintained, however.
As you note, Starting Forth is dated, and no longer available. But we offer two books on contemporary Forth, the "Forth Programmer's Handbook" (a reference book) and "Forth Application Techniques" (an introductory tutorial with problem sets). Both are available from our web site or (with a service charge) Amazon.
Cheers,
Elizabeth
>
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310-491-3356
5155 W. Rosecrans Ave. #1018 Fax: +1 310-978-9454
Hawthorne, CA 90250
http://www.forth.com
>
>
go to more of Eric Kriegs wacky rants Eric's skeptic pages or info on the ITEC International Tesla Electric Company UCSA BWT program to distribute free energy
.
solaris opensolaris process map port listening to app name
sockname: AF_INET 127.0.0.1 port: 52280
590
# pargs 590
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
comedy
http://notnews.today.com/2008/09/19/apple-declares-ok-were-evil/
http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/1198469.html
Subject: 1957 vs 2007
Sad but true,
Jcamp
SCHOOL DAYS 1957 vs. 2007
Scenario:
Billy goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Principal comes over, looks at Billy's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Billy.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Billy hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
********************
Scenario:
Johnny and Mark get into a fist-fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Mark started it.
********************
Scenario:
Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.
********************
Scenario:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.
********************
Scenario:
Sheri gets a headache and takes aspirin to school.
1957 - Sheri shares an aspirin with a student.
2007 - Police called, Sheri expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.
********************
Scenario:
Pedro fails high school English.
1957- Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
********************
Scenario:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Homeland Security and FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
********************
Scenario:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Heather. Heather hugs him to comfort him.
1957- In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Heather is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in state prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.
********************
By an American High School Graduate 2007
Saturday, September 12, 2009
happstack haskell appserver webserver web rockin
Friday, September 11, 2009
erlang+mnesia+yaws+opensolaris
http://yaws.hyber.org/dynamic.yaws
http://erlang.org/doc/apps/mnesia/
Wall Street may find itself on the hook
Reuters BlogsCommentariesNow raising intellectual capital« Previous PostNext Post »16:44 September 10th, 2009Wall Street may find itself on the hookPost a comment (13)Posted by: Matthew GoldsteinTags: Commentaries, CDO, insider trading, lawsuit, liability, Moody's Investors Service, Pursuit Partners, UBS
Sometimes legal fishing expeditions pay off.
A year ago, a Connecticut hedge fund sued UBS, contending that it knowingly sold toxic mortgage-backed securities to institutional investors but never disclosed that information.
At the time, the accusation by the fund, Pursuit Partners, seemed intriguing. But because the complaint lacked any sign that it had the beef to back up its potentially explosive claim, the litigation all but fell off the radar screen.
Now, it appears the hedge fund managers were onto something, thanks to a Connecticut state judge’s decision to allow Pursuit’s lawyers to get limited access to some of UBS’ internal emails.
In some of the emails, the investment firm’s employees describe the $35 million in collateralized debt obligations sold to Pursuit in summer 2007 as “crap” and “vomit.”
At first glance, it might be easy to chalk this up as simply another case of Wall Street bankers peddling securities they privately thought were junk.
But the big revelation unearthed by Pursuit’s lawyers is the extent to which credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service shared information with UBS about its impending decision to lower its ratings on some of the CDOs the firm was selling.
In short, what struck a chord with Connecticut Superior Court Judge John Blawie is the evidence that Moody’s gave UBS a sneak peak into its decision-making process and that UBS used the information to its advantage. In ordering UBS to post a $35 million bond in advance of a trial, the judge said the firm’s bankers “were in possession of material nonpublic information regarding imminent ratings downgrades.”
The judge didn’t call what UBS was doing insider trading. But that’s one way to think of the critical allegation in this case.
And that’s why the Pursuit case could be bad news not only for UBS, but for other investment banks that packaged and sold exotic securities that were dependent on getting a stamp of approval from one of the major credit rating agencies.
It’s doubtful that this sharing of information between a rating agency and a Wall Street bank was an isolated event.
In one of the emails turned over by UBS and cited by Blawie, a banker is quoted as saying, “It sounds like Moody’s is trying to figure out when to start downgrading, and how much damage they’re going to cause — they’re meeting with various investment banks.”
That email should prompt some enterprising securities regulator or prosecutor to begin asking bankers at UBS and other firms who were packaging CDOs in the spring of 2007: What did you know and when did you know it?
In response to the bond order, a UBS spokeswoman said that “the decision by the Connecticut Superior Court is a preliminary procedure to require defendants to post security while a case is pending, nothing more,” adding that the bank expects to prevail in the case.
It’s less clear whether Moody’s, which also is a defendant in the Pursuit lawsuit, has any liability. There’s nothing to indicate that Moody’s had any knowledge of UBS’ plan to sell the CDOs to Pursuit.
A spokesman for the rating agency said Moody’s believes the claims against it are baseless.
The litigation sheds light on the all-too-chummy relationship that exists between the big rating firms and the investment banks.
And it’s just one more reason why the Obama administration needs to push harder for reforms that would make it easier for smaller credit rating firms to compete for work with the two big gorillas of the debt-rating world.
That’s a lot of heat coming from a lawsuit that most on Wall Street weren’t even aware of until this week.Post a comment (13) Share Trackback Comments RSS13 comments so farSeptember 11th, 20099:22 am GMT This rating agency/ bank relationship is largely at fault for the credit crisis. The collapse of the CDO market happened not because there is anything fundamentally wrong with these products. Instead there was a problem of information transfer that led to institutions taking on more risk than they thought they were getting as these products were being advertised with very high ratings.
There is no doubt that certain key salespeople within these product areas and their colleagues at rating agencies knew the ratings were bogus but maintained the illusion while the banks tried to offload the assets. By summer of 2007, the CDO market was beginning its collapse and, as one of the biggest structurers, UBS must have been well aware they were holding toxic assets.
Very naughty.- Posted by alejandro September 11th, 200910:39 am GMT The whole Credit Agency/Score scene needs revamping in the US. Basic financial planning 101 requires that you look at ASSETS as well as liabilities before making judgments on how ‘creditworthy’ a person is. Its one thing for this not to be recognized on an individual level, but at the corporate level… the mind boggles.- Posted by Arthur Vann September 11th, 200911:05 am GMT The wheel of justice turns slowly, but it grinds fine.- Posted by Casper September 11th, 20092:02 pm GMT Something similar occurred with Merrill Lynch back in the seventies.Can’t recall the name of the firm, but again Merrill has inside track and used it to dump the stock on unsuspecting investors. As long a people are involved their will be fraud. Caveat emptor.- Posted by David September 11th, 20092:04 pm GMT To my way of thinking this highlights the conundrum facing the world… banks that are too big to fail, corporations who have domination over the market, and a massively wealthy elite with their tame political poodles who are daily becoming more and more disconnected from the “regular” citizen, spiced with an underlying waft of righteousness and intolerance.Is it possible to “level the playing field” while maintaining a competitive business environment? or does it need to get to “Game Over” first?- Posted by Peter H September 11th, 20092:17 pm GMT These people are all a part of the same alphabet soup, with four letters being especially prominent within the murk: G, R, E, D, with the letter E being doubled in number.- Posted by jr September 11th, 20093:06 pm GMT I have the utmost faith Goldman had no hand in this. But then again, I may be naive.- Posted by Matt September 11th, 20093:41 pm GMT hoooraaaaay for the free market model.participants with equal information.
Matt, Paulson bailed out AIG so he wouldn’t have to bail out Goldman.- Posted by C C Reider September 11th, 20093:48 pm GMT [...] >>>Source Article [...]- Posted by Gweedopig.com :: Economy // Finance :: Insider Trading Lawsuit Threatens UBS, Moody’s, & Wall St. // stories, news, and information from around the globe. September 11th, 20093:52 pm GMT Posted by alejandro“By summer of 2007, the CDO market was beginning its collapse and, as one of the biggest structurers, UBS must have been well aware they were holding toxic assets”.
Actually the start of the downturn was around February of 2006, that is when the price of the bulk loan sales started to decline to somewhere around Par (sub-prime).The investment bankers started to tighten up on the quality of the loans they were buying and the bids where coming in much lower due to their losses on first thru third month defaults.The writing was on the wall starting in 2006, it is just that the news media did not start to take notice until 2007.- Posted by Jim September 11th, 20094:01 pm GMT The first most important thing to prevent these crises happening again in future is to ban the practice of administrations and governments appointing top executives from Wall Street and financial institutions in the top government, finance, treasury, and regulatory positions.
For example, ppointing H Paulson as Treasury Secretary was the most serious mistake.- Posted by progress September 11th, 20094:03 pm GMT The first most important thing to prevent these crises happening again in future is to ban the practice of administrations and governments appointing top executives from Wall Street and financial institutions in the top government, finance, treasury, and regulatory positions.
For example, appointing H Paulson as Treasury Secretary was the most serious mistake.- Posted by progress September 11th, 20094:13 pm GMT Racquel Welch (alias NR), The Subprime Mess & A New Order - A Tongue-in-Cheek View of the Subprime Mess
Fantastic Ratings!, a re-make of the 1966 movie, Fantastic Voyage was shot in the summer of 2007 and won an “Oscar” for its surprising effects – an Oscar which I believe was well deserved. Although the effects have dated in the sense that they appear to be in a very 1960s psychedelic style, they are still impressive.
The storyline has a medical ratings team reduced to the size of microbes, who are given the task of being injected into a CDO’s body to cure him of an incurable blood clot on the brain – the subprime region. They have to navigate their way around the CDO structure and layers of artificial tranches, previously rated as healthy, in a green-powered submarine which has also been miniaturized. There are lots of action in the film – witness the volatility and liquidity crunch in the voyage - and the presence of Racquel Welch alias NR in any film makes it more than watchable! Other cast members include the “nursing” members of the CityBears’ team, the ML (“mortgage lenders”, etc.) team and other luminaries on WS.
The premise of the re-make was based on the fact that prior to miniaturization, the health of the CDO was mistakenly rated and diagnosed based on its bodily krebsz@web.de (portfolio) measures like BP, BMI, etc., which tended to be very static in the “corporate body” framework, rather than on the dynamically unhealthy delinquency rates of the underlying “retail loan organs”. Investors depended heavily on these ratings/measures as the underlying parts of most CDOs, especially those that were retail-based and asset-backed, were very opaque.
Intermediaries, financial health structurers and insurers like CityBears and the other WS firms, typically also received the health information at the portfolio body level, rather than at the granular “loan” organ level. As the affliction grew from the subprime region and spread to the rest of the body (housing market), encompassing even the so-called healthier HB (home buyers) organs, the deteriorating prices rapidly impacted on those “ARM1 and HEL2 drug treatments” re-setting to higher thresholds, further exacerbating the crisis!
While part of the blame lie at the doors of the aggressive sales brokers, who reaped huge commissions by selling these exotic ARM treatments, one fundamental flaw as depicted in the re-make, Fantastic Ratings!, is the whole process of structuring and treating the CDO bodies, where the medical ratings team used an approach more suitable to a fairly static environment of a corporate body framework, rather than a more dynamic rating on the granular retail organs, where health delinquency rates may change more quickly. While the health ratings of bodies like CityBears tend to remain pristine, in spite of the widening spreads, at the microbial “consumer” organ level, if the individual cells lose their functions (jobs), their credit-worthiness would simply deteriorate.
In the real world, a company like Merrill or Citi, etc., would hardly have its ratings downgraded, even in a crisis. Typically, the manifestation would appear as a credit spread widening rather than an actual downgrade – this is because the corporate ratings of such companies are benchmarked to default rates over a span of 5 to 20 years as default incidences are actually scarce in the corporate world. Hence, the ratings of highly rated companies (those with AAA or AA ratings) tend to remain pristine or static (more TTC).
In comparison, asset-backed securities like the CDOs based on the subprime and other residential mortgage payments were also assigned AAA ratings, partly because of the equivalent ratings of the bond insurers like MBIA and partly because they were rated based on the “portfolio” loss rate (default) information. Here, the payments to the investors have their origins in the consumer credit mortgage payments.
If one of these borrowers works for Merrill or Citi and loses his job as a result of the crisis, e.g., in a cost-cutting exercise, his FICO (or credit score) or individual credit rating would be downgraded as his credit-worthiness would simply deteriorate. Hence, consumer credit risk rating is a different animal from corporate credit risk rating as it tends to be more dynamic and susceptible (more PIT) to the “boom and bust” economic cycles. Moreover, the ratings agencies would not be able to capture this information on credit deterioration at the account or granular level as their model is usually based on information obtained at the portfolio level.
As a start, one possible solution is to revamp the whole process of structuring financial products. Firstly, there is a need for some form of entity, with a fiduciary duty to protect the interests of certain groups of investors, esp. the pension funds and as a counter-check to the ratings agencies, to demand some form of accountability in terms of having access to the information on or tracking the underlying behavioral scores/ratings of the underlying pools of consumer credit loan payments that constitute the tranches in the CDOs, that were rated by the ratings agencies. Secondly, the current modeling process of rating these structured financial products would need to be modified in a holistic manner to take into account the nature of the underlying ratings (consumer vs. corporate), the asset-liability or liquidity risk environment (witness the drying up of the liquidity in the ABCP3 space), the dimensions or impact of the other players like the bond insurers and their own ratings. Thirdly, like what Yul Bryner said in the movie, “The King & I” - quote, “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, ……”!
Here then, lies the nub of the subprime mess! Thank you.- Posted by gskhoo
Thursday, September 10, 2009
bash script to remove all but newest subdirectory for 10,000 movies
for x in /opt/movies/*;do echo "$x" >> titles;done
cat titles|grep -v somcrapidontwant >> titles3
mv titles3 titles
cat titles|while read x;do cd "$x"/wmv;y=$(ls -t|grep -v $(ls -t|head -1));for z in $y;do find "$x"/wmv -type d -iname "$z" >> /root/me/oldburns;done;done
ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS
ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling 'Pimp,' 'Prostitute' How to Lie to IRS
Thursday, September 10, 2009
ShareThis
An employee at ACORN's Baltimore office advises a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute during a videotaped meeting in July.
Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.
The videotape was made public Thursday on BigGovernment.com, a political blog launched by Andrew Breitbart as a companion site to his BigHollywood.breitbart.com blog.
In the videotape, made on July 24, James O'Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named "Kenya" who posed as a prostitute while visiting ACORN's office in Baltimore. The couple told ACORN staffers they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.
ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — bills itself as the nation's largest community of low- and moderate-income families "working together for social justice and stronger communities," according to its Web site. The organization has been accused by Republicans and conservative activists with fraud in voter registration drives around the country and has been under fire since last year for its support of President Obama and for its planned participation in next year's census.
A spokesman for ACORN, Scott Levenson, when asked to comment on the videotape, said: "The portrayal is false and defamatory and an attempt at gotcha journalism. This film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed. ACORN wants to see the full video before commenting further."
On the videotape, "Kenya" can be seen telling an ACORN staffer that she earns roughly $8,000 a month. The ACORN employee then suggests to "Kenya" that ACORN could submit a tax return for 2008 showing that she made $9,600 for the entire year — instead of $96,000 — and that ACORN would charge "Kenya" $50 instead of the usual $150 fee for preparing her taxes.
ACORN offers tax preparation and benefits application services free of charge during tax season; it charges nominal fees during non-tax season.
The ACORN staffer can also be seen suggesting that the prostitute list her occupation as a freelance "performing artist."
"It's not dancing, trust me," the "pimp" says.
"But dancing is considered an art," the ACORN staffer replies. "[Exotic dancers] usually go under performing artists, or yeah, they usually go under performing arts, which will be what you are — a performing artist."
The "pimp" later says that he and "Kenya" plan to bring up to 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador to work as prostitutes. Although an ACORN staffer points out their plans are illegal, she also suggests that the girls can be claimed as dependents.
"What if they are going to be making money because they are performing tricks too?" the pimp says.
"If they making money and they are underage, then you shouldn't be letting anybody know anyway," the ACORN staffer says, and laughs. "It's illegal. So I am not hearing this, I am not hearing this. You talk too much. Don't give up no information you're not asked."
The "pimp" then asks ACORN staffers to "promise" not to discriminate against his sex worker because of "who she is and what she does," according to the audiotape.
"If we don't have the information, then how are we going to discriminate?" the ACORN staffer replies. "You see what I am saying?"
If the girls are under age 16, the ACORN staffer says on the tape, then they are not legally allowed to work in the state, regardless of what they do.
"So it's like they don't even exist?" "Kenya" asks.
"Exactly," the ACORN staffer replies. "It's like they don't even exist."
The staffer goes on to suggest that as many as three of the underage girls can be listed as dependents at the home, but a "flag" will be raised if as many as 13 are listed.
"You are gonna use three of them," the staffer says. "They are gonna be under 16, so you is eligible to get child tax credit and additional child tax credit."
The ACORN workers also appear to be promoting the group's services to the "pimp" and "Kenya."
A second ACORN employee can be heard on the audiotape suggesting that the couple join the organization for an annual cost of $120 prior to attending one of its first-time homebuyer seminars, which are underwritten with taxpayer funds.
Later, when the "pimp" asks what would happen if the organization is somehow connected to the scheme, the ACORN staffer replies, "First of all, it's not gonna damage us because we not gonna know. And with your girls, you tell them, 'Be careful.' Train them to keep their mouth shut."
"These girls are like 14, how can we trust them?" the pimp asks.
"Just be very, very careful," the ACORN staffer says. "Whatever you do, always keep your eyes in the back of your head."
Reached by FOX News, O'Keefe said he was "shocked" at the level of assistance provided by ACORN staffers.
"I was prepared for them to call the police, throw me out of the office and be hostile," he said. "Without hesitation, they helped me every way they could with evading taxes and setting me up with a brothel, with getting around federal tax laws — doing everything they could to help us. I was completely shocked."
House Republicans issued a report in July accusing ACORN of engaging in a scheme to use taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda. California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called for a criminal investigation into the group, which dismissed the report as a "partisan attack job."
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
jailbait lol
opensolaris audible bell turnoff
In order to make this persistent, one should edit the Gconf properties for Metacity. First install the SUNWgnome-config-editor package by issuing the command
pfexec pkg install SUNWgnome-config-editor. Then invoke gconf-editor from a terminal. Go to apps -> metacity -> general and uncheck audible_bell property and exit gconf-editor. This should disable the system beep for all applications under Gnome and make the change persistent.
awesome posters
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
forth on the atari
two implementations of prevalence-style persistence for CL
bknr's datastore.
"Political Correctness."
>This year's term was "Political Correctness."
>
>The winner wrote: "Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a
delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous
mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely
possible to pick up a turd by the clean end"
>
>
>(This guy has nailed it.)
Monday, September 7, 2009
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Movie Studios See a Threat in Growth of Redbox
Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times
A Redbox kiosk at a Walgreens in Villa Park, Ill. The company and its rivals have 19 percent of the DVD rental market.
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By BROOKS BARNES
Published: September 6, 2009
LOS ANGELES — In 1982, just as the VHS tape was taking off, a “Star Wars” buff named Mitch Lowe had a radical idea. What about building a vending machine that could rent movies? He called his invention Video Droid.
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Digital Domain: When the Price Is Right, the Future Can Wait (July 12, 2009)
Enlarge This Image
Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times
Mitch Lowe, the president of Redbox. The company started with 12 machines in 2004 and expects to have 22,000 by December.
Enlarge This Image
Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press
Redbox says it processes about 80 transactions a second on Friday nights, and low overhead allows a fee of $1 a day, and tax.
It failed. People were not yet comfortable using credit cards for casual transactions, the tapes broke easily and the technology involved with manipulating their bulk proved too expensive.
But Mr. Lowe did not give up, and his moment seems to have finally come.
Mr. Lowe, 56, is now the president of Redbox, a fast-growing company in Illinois that rents movies for $1 a day via kiosks. By December, there will be 22,000 Redbox machines in spots like supermarkets, Wal-Mart Stores and fast-food restaurants.
Redbox’s growth — it started with 12 kiosks in 2004 and now processes about 80 transactions a second on Friday nights — has Hollywood’s blood boiling. Furious about a potential cannibalization of DVD sales and a broader price devaluation of their product, three studios (20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and Universal) are refusing to sell DVDs to Redbox until at least 28 days after they arrive in stores.
Redbox is suing them on antitrust grounds. Leery of waging their own battles, two other studios, Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures, have signed distribution deals with the vending company. Walt Disney permits third-party distributors to sell to Redbox but has so far shunned a direct relationship.
Redbox and its vending rivals now have 19 percent of the rental market, compared with 36 percent for rent-by-mail services (Netflix) and 45 percent for traditional stores, according to the NPD Group, a market research company. NPD estimates that vending will grow to a 30 percent share by the end of next year, at the expense of traditional stores.
Studios, aware that consumers are unlikely to pity their plight and muzzled by the lawsuits, are keeping quiet. Fox, Universal, Warner and Disney each declined to comment for this article. But Hollywood’s powerful public relations machinery is in motion behind the scenes to connect the news media with a group that is equally threatened by Redbox but much more relatable: mom and pop rental store owners.
“These machines are to the video industry what the Internet was to the music business — disaster,” said Ted Engen, president of the Video Buyers Group, a trade organization for 1,700 local rental stores.
Mr. Engen is enlisting lawmakers to attack Redbox for renting R-rated movies to underage viewers — the machines simply ask customers to confirm that they are 18 or older by pressing a button — and trying to rally the Screen Actors Guild and other unions.
“It’s going to kill the industry,” said Gary Cook, business manager for UA Local 78, which represents studio plumbers.
Mr. Lowe, meanwhile, is portraying the studios as greedy giants scheming to trample the little guy. “Don’t let a few movie studios prevent you from seeing the latest DVDs for an affordable price,” reads a headline on a new Redbox Web site, savelowcostdvds.com.
Redbox, formerly owned by McDonald’s and now part of Coinstar, is only the biggest of a host of DVD vending companies. DVDPlay, whose kiosks are also red, has been aggressive in California, while MovieCube is big in Canada.
Blockbuster is scrambling to introduce its own rental kiosks. There are now about 500 Blockbuster Express machines, and plans call for 2,500 more by the end of the year; the company expects to open 7,000 in 2010, a spokesman said.
The kiosk boom is fed by several consumer and business currents, all related to the recession.
For starters, the dismal economy has made people think twice about buying DVDs, especially as the likes of Redbox have made renting easier. Consumers are also tiring of the clutter: The average American household with a DVD player now has a library of 70 DVDs, according to Adams Media Research.
Over all, DVD sales are down 13.5 percent for the first half of 2009 compared to the first half of 2008, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, a trade organization. Studios say some new titles are selling 25 percent fewer copies than expected. Rental revenue is up about 8 percent over the same period, according to the group.
Retailers, struggling to keep people shopping, have realized that having a DVD kiosk in a store creates foot traffic, making it easier for companies like Redbox to sign wide-ranging installation agreements. Some partners, like Walgreens, have offered discounts that essentially make rentals free.
Redbox is also getting a hand because of Hollywood’s troubles. Analysts say Sony and Paramount signed agreements with the company in part because their home entertainment units are under pressure to meet financial targets, set before the DVD decline.
Sony’s five-year deal is worth about $460 million in DVD sales to Redbox. Paramount’s deal starts with a four-month test; if the studio decides Redbox represents a net gain to its home entertainment business, it can extend its relationship for five years and a guaranteed $575 million.
Paramount’s deal involves revenue-sharing, a rarity for Redbox. The kiosk operator primarily follows the mom and pop model: it seeks to buy discs wholesale and makes a profit with repeat rentals. (Revenue-sharing deals typically allow a rental store to buy discs for half the wholesale cost or less.) Redbox can price rentals at $1 and still make money because its machines eliminate so much overhead.
The $1 price is not the main issue for the studios, although they do not like that, either; it is the timing. New DVDs sell for about $25. Video-on-demand services price them at about $5. Multiday rentals of new titles cost $4.99 at Blockbuster.
Now there is a $1 option at the same time. That could put downward pressure on the industry’s price structure.
“Anyone whose business involves selling movies should be enormously concerned,” said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Research.
Analysts also see a threat to studios in Redbox’s practice of selling about half of its DVDs into the used market (after renting them about 15 times at an average of $2 a transaction). By signing deals with Redbox, Paramount and Sony got the kiosk operator to agree to destroy their discs rather than resell them.
“Our position is that this is a strong consumer trend, and we figured out a way to minimize the negative aspects and maximize the positive ones,” said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, said, “This trial gives us access to information that will allow us to make an informed decision about Redbox’s impact on our home entertainment business.”
Mr. Lowe dismissed worries about the cannibalization of sales. He cited internal research indicating that 20 percent of Redbox’s volume is additive — people who did not previously buy or rent DVDs — and that partners like Wal-Mart have had only a 1 percent decline in sales after Redbox machines have been installed at their entrances.
The kiosks hold about 500 DVDs and focus on new mainstream releases.
Customers follow a series of touch-screen prompts to use the kiosks, which vend from slots on the side. Once a selection is made, the customer swipes a credit card through the reader. The card is charged a dollar (and tax) for each DVD rented; the charges for additional days, if any, are added when discs are returned. The charge for lost DVDs is $25.
“If you make renting affordable and fun, people are going to watch a whole lot more movies than they did before,” Mr. Lowe said.
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Past Coverage
* DIGITAL DOMAIN; When the Price Is Right, the Future Can Wait (July 12, 2009)
* Redbox's Vending Machines Are Giving Netflix Competition (June 22, 2009)
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