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Every time I hit upon this problem, I curse the person who decided this.

If you're not sure of what I am talking about, it's the rule in Linux (and other related OSes) that prevents a non-root user from binding (i.e. setting up a server) on a TCP or UDP port below 1024.

Well, it's time for a good whinge.

I used to buy quite a lot of stuff from Amazon. DVDs, CDs, and books. Sometimes I'd "save them all up" into one order, or sometime, I'd just buy one thing, as the mood took me.

Then they changed from using the Royal Mail to using the "Home Delivery Network".

I have ordered one thing since, and the reason is this.

Why is it, when a disaster occurs, that the media often say 30 deaths, among them women and children?

Take this, for example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7167336.stm

"at least 30 people were burned to death in a church...
Women and children were among the dead."

Well, of course they were. That's what "people" implies. If only men had died, it would probably say "at least 30 men were burned to death".

Prerequisites:

* You have a large CD collection.
* You work for a decent company that won't begrudge you 64Kb/s *, and doesn't have insanely paranoid firewall policies.
* You'd like a nice random selection of your music to listen to at work.
* You run Linux.

But you don't want to have to copy files to and from an MP3 player, or you don't have the space on your player.

So rather than rip your CDs, copy them to the player, carry the player to work, and listen to it like that, why not just set up a private streaming server?

It's what I did.

I'm sure we've all suffered from this at some time.
You've got access to a machine on the internet, and a friend of yours has offered to sort out some of your CSS, but a firewall protecting the server blocks his IP?

This example uses SSH, but it will work with anything, TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.

Answer - use IPTables to let him bounce off your machine.

iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -s your.friend -p tcp --dport 1 -j DNAT --to de.st.ip.address:22
iptables -I FORWARD -s your.friend -d de.st.ip.address -j ACCEPT

Now that I've started writing little apps for phones, I occasionally get excited by one, and send a link to some people.

They get an SMS from me with an URL ending .jad, and a message urging them to install, and run it.

Some do, some don't - I suspect because they're suspicious about it.
Hell, if I didn't know about phones, and permissions, I wouldn't. No way. I'm far too suspicious when it comes to things like that.

Advertiser and product

Advertiser: Gillette

Product: Gillette Fusion

Your complaint:
I was quite excited to hear that Gillette have mastered "Fusion Technology". Imagine my dismay to find that they are using this technology in shaving cream, rather than using it to provide cheap energy for all. I really think in these times of climate change, they should be forced to use this technology for the greater good.
Yours disgustedly.
Nicky C.

I was contacted by a publisher a few months ago to ask whether I minded having a photo of the Kremlin used on the cover of a book. I replied that I didn't mind, and today I was told that a couple of copies would be coming my way.

(Updated 2007-05-27 - see below)

I've had my hands on the Nokia N95 now for about a week (thanks, work!).
I was excited to get it, as it had build in GPS - which my N80 didn't.

However, there are a few flaws.

* Battery life.
* GPS sensitivity
* SatNav - or rather not.
* Easy to crash/hang
* Applications aren't killed properly by the phone
* Security permissions

Battery life.

I had heard that people from Hartlepool were nicknamed "Monkey Hangers", and wondered why.

You couldn't make it up.
From the article: "Unfamiliar with what a Frenchman looked like they came to the conclusion that this monkey was a French spy and should be sentenced to death."

Wiki has some more on this too.