Luci Sandor’s blog

Ever found yourself trapped with a .LIT (Microsoft Reader) file? E.g., the Romanian Culture Minister decided to use LIT files for the writings of Caragiale (a good writer, dead long before copyright laws were created). You need a reader, which is available only for Windows.

Someone broke the secrets of Microsoft Reader and brought us a .LIT convertor, that extracts the original HTML files and the pictures from the locked file. It comes with the source code, it works on Linux, but there’s also a command line version for Windows.

Have fun.

Colin Percival found a bug in Pentium 4 hardware and reported it (PDF file) in conjunction with his activity as a cryptography developer on BSD.

The flaw allows the existence of exploits stealing personal data. Basically, sharing the CPU cache between the two threads running on the same chip is not safe and one thread (or program) can read the data used by the other thread. Experts say the servers are in the greatest danger, their security certificates being exposed to those willing to exploit it.

The flaw has been discovered in October 2004, but (worse news!) Intel decided this is a minor flaw and decided not to fix it at least until today. Of course, gone are the days of Pentium and FDIV bug and the fierce competition with AMD does not allow Intel to replace the millions of chips already sold, but going on selling buggy CPUs is not a way to win the respect of the buyer.

The software vendors are aware of the Pentium 4 bug. Only the BSD community provided a workaround. Microsoft did not took action and Linus Torvalds said that there’s nothing to care about.

Adding this disgusting disrespect for the client to the 64-bit story (Intel adopted a de facto standard imposed by AMD, but a heavy price on the same thing that AMD sells for 100$), with the new heating standards adopted by Intel (which allow you to cook eggs on the cooler), I know I will never buy Intel CPUs again.

In the mean time, those unfortunate HT-enabled P4 owners should disable HyperThreading. I think there will be no noticeable loss of performance (and that’s another blow for Intel).

In Eastern Europe, the end of WWII is celebrated in 9th of May. The date is different than in Western Europe, because Easterners have different reasons to celebrate. In fact, the recent protests from the Baltics officials tend to change the meaning of this day.

For the eastern Europe, the Yalta agreement established that half of the Europe will be witnessing another plague, spreading soon after the Nazi plague retreated. The Reality Communism has killed over 60 millions in the countries that USA and UK left to Stalin.

Poland moved to the West, Romania was reshaped, Yugoslavia remained a Frankesteinian creation. In Balkans, where countries are drawn an re-drawn after each empire retreats, a new empire added the social terror to the nations’ mayhem, each nation loosing its elite.

I should add that Romanians, Hungarians, the Croatian Ustasha, Finish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian didn’t fought their war and couldn’t won it, no matter on which side they would be at that time. For these people there will never be a right democratic winner and a wrong Nazi looser.

We, Easterners, had our first centuries cursed, under Ottoman Turks/ Holy Roman/ Russian rules. It’s perhaps the time to let the world know that the last 60 years were another curse under USSR/ USA/ UK rule.

His father was an illegal immigrant, coming from the despicable Romania, home of all so-called Posh kidnappers. Yet he strived for a limitation on legal immigrants, pretending that this would limit the overall numbers of those who admit to work in week-ends on a low wage. One of those perpetrators was his maid and he didn’t find any contradiction in exploiting the woman.

The Brits didn’t respect his stance.

Blair was almost disgraced. He lost 5 percent of the votes. But the votes did not made it to the Tories candidates. That makes Howard the wrong leader. Almost surely he will quit in the following days. Good bye for the weakest Tory!

This is also a vote for Europe. Blair pushes for the Euro, for the European Constitution and his re-election means more chances for a European British Kingdom.

The vote means also that Brits don’t miss Saddam Hussein and that the overall effect of the Iraq war is perceived as a positive one.

Blair is also the most friendly British leader for which Romanian could hope. We are waiting for a permanent lift of travel visas and a better support for Romania’s integration in the European Union.

I was very glad to see Abramovich and his dog, Murinho, tasting the dust from the boots of the mighty Liverpoolians. It was of course the day when I saw the funniest corner kick (short kick, the ball hits a mate one meter away and leaves the field) and the day when the entire world learned: it is not enough to waste one and a half million Euros daily, in soccer you need love and passion. And the tens of thousands of supporters pushed Gudjohnsen’s foot making the ball he kicked go parallel with the goal line.

I got a bit sad tonight when AC Milan scored in the 91st minute. I secretly hoped Berlusconi will get a similar lesson, although AC is a loved team and the Italian premier usually makes money investing in football.

Right now I am listening continuously to Despina Vandi’s latest single, Come along now (Windows Media link). I didn’t heard it during the 2004 Olympics when it supposedly was the Coke anthem. It does the beautiful job of not sounding Greek.