verofakto

Military hardware pr0n: Red Flag mass launch at Nellis AFB

2011-05-04T14:16:00.001-07:00

A fascinating video I found on YouTube shows aircraft involved in the Red Flag 09 exercise during what is called a “mass launch”, which means exactly that: aircraft are pushed out of revetments and hangars out into the runways one after the other in a carefully choreographed dance that can take as much as three hours. Red Flag is a readiness and training exercise run in different phases every

Roy Schestowitz explains the Free Software business model, and why “open source” is bad

2011-04-16T14:35:00.001-07:00

http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2007/11/18/open-source-term-corrupted/ If you call yourself “Open Source” and you also fulfill the conditions of Free software, then you are encouraged to rename and change your identity. Set yourself apart from the crowd that is too dense for you to be seen. […] Case of point: The “assembly required” business model is among those that make open

Awesome spam from Nigeria

2011-04-16T14:25:00.001-07:00

Reply-To: From: "Colonel Harrison Clark" Subject: CAN YOU ASSIST PLS? X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 To: undisclosed-recipients:; Hello, I am Colonel Harrison Clark, an officer of the U.S Army. I am on the move to Afghanistan from Iraq as the last batch just left and have some items I will need to ship to you. Can you be

Kindle book roundup for April 2011 (Zombies, Sci-Fi, apocalypse and war)

2011-04-11T21:16:00.001-07:00

I’ve been reading a lot of Kindle books lately and I know there’s a lot of geeks out there that enjoy the same kind of haughty literature as I do, so I figured I’d share. First off though, I’m a big fan of zombie fiction. Not the ridiculous, campy kind, but the good, gritty, post-apocalyptic kind. If that’s your kettle of corn, without further adieu or review I highly recommend J.L. Bourne’s

When in BoycottNovell, talk slowly and use simple words

2011-02-06T00:03:00.001-08:00

I noticed this morning that Herr Doktor Roy Schestowitz, PhD published another dire warning to the world regarding the Banshee project in BoycottNovell (aka “TechRights”). This isn’t remarkable really, he publishes one every three days or so. But I noticed that this one was especially strong in the fail department so I stopped by to leave a comment, as I am always interested in helping people

Deconstructing BoycottNovell: Steve Jobs is a disgusting person

2011-01-19T16:01:00.001-08:00

Following last week’s analysis of a BoycottNovell (a.k.a “TechRights”) article by Dr. Roy Schestowitz, PhD, I’d like to take the opportunity to score a double here, because I can’t help myself and seem to have too much free time on my hands lately (although I’m not lucky enough to be a professional student with 14 hours/day to burn). This one is interesting because it shows not only the

BoycottNovell and liabilities

2011-01-16T10:22:00.001-08:00

I was amused this morning to see that for Dr. Roy Schestowitz from BoycottNovell (aka “TechRights”) is finding himself on the receiving end of the conflict he likes to dish out on everyone who fails to measure up to his ideological purity tests. This is a screenshot of comments made by Dr. Roy in identi.ca just a few minutes ago: I’m not sure what’s happening in Dr. Roy’s chat room at this

What’s wrong with BoycottNovell? An example of selective quoting and misinformation

2011-01-12T15:49:00.001-08:00

People often ask what’s wrong with BoycottNovell (recently rebranded as “TechRights” to seem less negative, if that makes any sense). Often in sites like Reddit, Slashdot, Digg or Mixx, a link will be posted to the blog and invariably most people will react negatively. This isn’t surprising since the editor (for lack of a better term) and his collaborators are known to have gamed these websites

BoycottNovell in a nutshell

2010-12-08T10:51:00.001-08:00

Open Letter to Any Company

2009-11-25T09:17:00.001-08:00

I wish to recommend to you a very talented individual who would be a great asset to you. You have never tried to hire him, because he has no work experience or practical knowledge whatsoever in the field he claims to be an expert in. Nonetheless, the person at hand would be a valuable addition to any sanitation department, a bureaucracy that favors quantity over quality, or your "HTML programming

Just another day at BoycottNovell

2009-11-16T19:19:00.001-08:00

Can't sleep, MicroClown will eat me Summary: Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, Mushroom, Mushroom... Snake! Microsoft, Microsoft... An analysis and visualization of 24 hours (roughly) worth of activity flowing forth from the proprietor of boycottnovell.com. Items are listed in reverse (newer to older) chronological order as they appear in feeds, Google Groups, etc. “ .

BoycottNovell minion nymshifts again after embarassing episode

2009-10-26T00:46:00.001-07:00

Summary: Notorious Slashdot troll and nymshifter creates yet another sockpuppet account in BoycottNovell and gets down to work for Roy Schestowitz It was brought to my attention over the weekend that a new mysterious and rather vigorous commenter on BoycottNovell was doing the "perception management" rounds. Intrigued, I ran a few of his posts through one of my Slashdot acquaintances that have a

FLOSS Weekly interviews Roy Schestowitz: The Transcript

2009-10-17T14:09:00.001-07:00

Summary: aaahhhh... ummmm... eeeeehhh... ummmm.... uh.... aaaahhh... sniff This is an unofficial, fragmented, selectively quoted and smarmy transcript of Jono Bacon and Leo Laporte's FLOSS Weekly interview with Roy Schestowitz, proprietor of BoycottNovell. With some fact checking thrown in. Note that the times below are for the MP3-format podcast, not the video. And off we go ¶ 03:54 Leo

Common behavioral symptoms of autism and/or Asperger’s syndrome

2009-09-04T13:29:00.001-07:00

I just thought this is amazingly on the money. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it probably doesn’t matter anyway, so just ignore this. a difficulty conceptualizing the other person's perspective and priorities limited skills in persuasion a tendency to be confrontational and rigid reluctance to change a decision and admit a mistake an aversion to being interrupted

The BoycottNovell spam operation takes a blow

2009-08-31T16:39:00.001-07:00

Apparently this morning the AstralKnight account was deleted from Reddit, probably for TOS violations, dealing a severe blow to the so-called perception management operation run by or on behalf of Roy Schestowitz. A spirited discussion about the perp a few days earlier might have been the catalyst for this. Now all Reddit needs to do is nuke the NastyMicrosoft account. Karma’s a bitch.

An analysis of the BoycottNovell spam problem on Digg, Reddit, Mixx and other social news web sites

2009-08-15T02:13:00.001-07:00

Summary: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain The following accounts on Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller, Twitter and many other websites are dedicated almost exclusively to spreading content published by Roy Schestowitz through his BoycottNovell (BN) blog as well as Usenet. They are all operated by the same person: CyberPhoenix AstralKnight DiamondWakizashi BoycottMicrosoft

What lies beneath

2009-07-30T16:12:00.001-07:00

Interesting quotes that emanate from BoycottNovell. All of these are by a single person, lest I be accused of picking what other people say and using it for nefarious purposes. There is an undeniable element of schadenfreude here, I will admit. There are even lolcat references. But beyond that, the more serious objective is to document recurring themes and consistency of behavior in relation to

What a wacky web we weave

2009-07-24T15:03:00.001-07:00

This is a list of people associated in some way or another with BoycottNovell. Collectively called – quite tongue in cheek – BoycottBoys. The purpose here is to have a centralized place that folks can refer to when they encounter these seemingly independently tireless advocates that magically appear pushing a specific line whenever certain topics are being discussed on the internet. Disclosure is

How this works

2009-07-22T18:30:00.001-07:00

I reserve the right to edit any post, any time. If the change is contentious, I'll make a note of that. I am trying to use a blog as a wiki, so bare with me here. I'm a big boy, and I don't believe my balls will suddenly detach from my groin if I apologize or correct a mistake. So if I do make a mistake, I will correct it, and apologize if necessary. This is not a family website. I don't mince

Timeline of the David Schlesinger/Mark Fink/BoycottNovell episode

2009-07-20T11:18:00.001-07:00

2008 February 20 "Mark Fink" posts a comment to BoycottNovell.com (BN): I hope all the M$ and Novell employees die in a fire and then burn eternally in hell. That’s what every last one of them deserves. Schestowitz replies to him saying those are not nice thoughts and so on. There are other comments by him prior to and after that date, some with replies by Schestowitz. February 21 Fink

About the author

2009-07-18T23:08:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'll put something here later. In the mean time, I can be reached at vindicareg /at/ gmail.com.

About this blog

2009-07-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

Why? Because I can.