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AOL's Release Information by RobFlynn · 2000-06-15 04:45 · Score: 1 · on AOL To Open AIM Protocol?

Incase anyone hasn't heard yet, AOL has posted a small press release accompanied by some documentation/information about their "release" of AIM. You can find the necessary info here. Cheers and happy hacking.

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Re:Thank God. by Phroggy · 2000-06-15 02:31 · Score: 2 · on AOL To Open AIM Protocol?

Strange. I primarily use AIM for Mac OS, so I'm not as familiar with the AIM for Windows bugs, but make sure you're both running AIM 4.0 or the latest beta release, and be sure to look through your preferences to see if you've got any weird settings in there (text magnification settings, for example).

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Re:Who Cares? by Phroggy · 2000-06-15 02:08 · Score: 1 · on AOL To Open AIM Protocol?

Those are pretty annoying, yes. I hang out in Computing Chat when I'm bored sometimes, though, and sometimes run into interesting people. What's nice about Computing Chat is, Windows is very often the minority platform. Mac, Linux and FreeBSD often dominate - especially in any heated argument, since we almost always win, because most Windows users are stupid. ;-)

IhateAIM2 has a bunch of screen shots of AIM users' desktops on his home page. An interesting collection, definitely. Also, several of us put together a FAQ for the room, so we had someplace to easily direct the lamers and newbies.

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PASCAL, LEGO, LOGO, Game Scripting by Zerothis · 2000-05-28 10:45 · Score: 1 · on Best Way to Get Kids Started in Programming?

Well, you fail to provide any clue are too their current comprehension level, but.

I can honestly say my fist digital programming experience was with a toy. It was called "Big Trac" And if I recall it was the first toy (videogames are something other than toys I guess) with a microprocesser. Luckly for me my first digital programming experience was not C, I would have givin up the idea right then and there.

I learned BASIC, but don't recommend it. To this day I reflexivly think "GOTO". There are better basics these days though, Visual Basic, QBasic and the like.

I learn LOGO second, I found it much simpler that basic and not really a learning experience. On the other hand my teacher didn't know much about Computers (One of the teachers had to teach the computer class and it fell to the typing teacher, poor guy) and I learned LOGO after learning BASIC.

I notice LEGOs are mentioned alot in this discussion. That's a good toy (even if they are making them more specialised and less useful these days). Nice thing about legos is kids can be familiarised with them from birth and as they out grow putting things in their mouth and distructive behavior you can get the smaller and more intricate varities of LEGOs. LEGOs will teach the skills necciassry for many, many different things including programming. LEGOs are also great for exercising artistic expression and imagination (two things that are often discourage when learning programming in structered education, so engrain these values while you can). Another important thing later is to not let your kids think they should outgrow LEGOs.

Pascal is a good stepping stone to C.

I would recommend spending a week or so with HTML before any programming languages, this will let them see a computer interpreting their imagination (in a limited way) much better than most games will, easyer than programming language will and these creations can be shared with peers. Let them create a bit on your web page or even help them create their own pages.

All these are good choices but may lead to dissipointment, all these things require alot of effort for a little bit of result, most certianly from a child's perspective. Something that allows more instant gratification is game scripting. There are many games out their that let players create their own levels, not just graphically, but with events and enemy AI. AND ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT TO A KID, a game level is something they can share with others kids their age and STILL BE COOL. Not neccissasly so with C or even LEGOs. Some of these games accually feature programing *as* a gameplay element. Many of these games are innapropriate for some yonger children so it may take a little work to find the ones that are suitable. But they are worth looking for. I'm sorry I can't recommend very many but here's the ones I can think of right now:

Robot Odyssey (another RO page)
An OLD but GOOD 'game' for 8086 computers. It takes some work to run it on modern computers but I HIGHLY recommend it. There's a small comunity of players. This game features logic gate programming as the main gameplay element.
Stunt Island
An odd mix of flight sim, movie maker and event driven programming. Fairly old software, but it has a small 'web community' to share creations with.
Descent w/Mission Builder
Shoot 'em up involing AI robots. This series by Interplay seems to still be arround. This is heavily GUI but construction of symeterical 3D Levels will bring up quite a few geometric math issues, common to 3D game programming
Unlimited Adventures
An old software tool for creating AD&D advantures in the style of SSI's 'Gold Box' series of games.
Neverwinter Nights
Upcomming AD&D online game, homemade worlds will be a major part of this game.
Creative Writer
(Front Page Jr). Your kids can create a page with this program, then view and edit the HTML manually.
Thinkin' Things Collection 3
Not sure if this is accualy a game. But one of the elements of it is specifically to indroduce kids to computer programming.
LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System
Mentioned in other replies. "Possibly the decade's most important breakthrough in children's computing and toys". Blah! I's just an improvment on Robot Odyssey (copyright 1984), except the program is loaded into a real world robot intead of a computer simulation. Well it's certianly easier to run than Robot Odyssey. Ya know, I am seriously considering getting one of these, dispite being a loyal Technic user for as long as I can remeber.
Soda Constructor
I'm can't put my finger on it, but I'm sure is has some sort of relevence here. If not, well it's really cool anyway.
Robot Battle
A compition oriented game. Different scripts are pitted against each other in an arena to test them.

There are others out there.

HK Action Theatre, please by IronBlade · 2000-05-28 05:58 · Score: 1 · on Movie Reviews:Mission Impossible 2

Since he started on Hollywood movies, Woo has put out a lot of average to mediocre movies.
Who can remember "Hard Target" (his first US movie) or "Broken Arrow" without shuddering? I know I found them painful.

No, Woo should have stuck with what he does best, gritty Hong Kong Action Theatre movies.
Movies like "Hard Boiled" or "The Killer".
Where having two handguns, slow-mo sequences and unbelievable acrobatic fighting moves is not only accepted, but expected!
Throw in some comedy (keeping the action!) in "Once a Thief", and your HKAT experience is complete.

Put Chow Yun Fat in a Woo movie, and I'm guaranteed to be in the audience! (he's in both "Hard Boiled" and "The Killer")

"The Replacement Killers" and "The Corruptor" - both excellent movies with C.Y.F. and without Woo, for people who don't like his style.

Re:Silly paranoia by kevin+lyda · 2000-05-21 00:02 · Score: 4 · on FTC Asks To Regulate Privacy; Doubleclick Hires PR Team

ok, since you won't research lori fena, i will. and what i found from a google search on her name does question a negative assessment of her commitment to privacy. i'd be interested to see slashdot do an interview of her, and see what her impressions of the privacy board are.

some links follow in case you're too lazy to hit google. but most of these are not current - 1995-1998 seem to be the ranges. this could just be google's problem, but again i think a slashdot interview with her would be in order.

Finally... a story where this is *not* offtopic... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-05-19 20:38 · Score: 5 · on Oxford Yanks Student Page Over Spoof DeCSS

and I'm asleep at the keyboard. Doh!

Oh well... here it is.
Add your own, and spread this far and wide:

This announcement brought to you by the DeCSS Polar Bear.

Finally... a story where this is *not* offtopic... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-05-19 20:38 · Score: 5 · on Oxford Yanks Student Page Over Spoof DeCSS

and I'm asleep at the keyboard. Doh!

Oh well... here it is.
Add your own, and spread this far and wide:

This announcement brought to you by the DeCSS Polar Bear.

Polished vs Flatness by ch-chuck · 2000-05-18 18:29 · Score: 2 · on Surface Mapping Athlons For Fun And Knowledge

The last time I built a 500 Watt Amplifier from a kit, the instructions emphasized polishing the heat sink to a mirror finish - he claimed this was very important, and to use polishing compound and a wheel in a drill, which I did untill I could almost see reflections in it. It was in no way perfectly flat but that's what the thermal heat sink compound (available at Radio Shack) is for, to fill the gaps between the device and heat sink. (and a 500 watt amp comes with a BIG heat sink with 2 4" fans on top!)

Re:Yea, for about 2 seconds by winnetou · 2000-05-17 11:18 · Score: 1 · on H.R. 3113: Spam Bounty Hunters Wanted

Then you begin to wake up to reality.. the spammer will just go grab another AOL CD and be back on the net in under an hour.

Just read AOL's page on Junk E-mail and remember that AOL does sue.

This is no surprise by ballestra · 2000-05-15 20:16 · Score: 5 · on Bow Tie Theory: Researchers Map The Web

Slashdotters, and especially Everything noders, are good at including relevant links in their posts, and presumably on their own pages. The problem is that most of the content being created for the web is written the same way as traditional magazine or newspaper copy. It's the old 90/10 rule: 90% of the eyeballs are viewing 10% of the available content, and that 10% is generally on commercial sites one or two clicks away from the Yahoo, Netscape, MSN, or AOL main pages.

Look at the money going into streaming media. A large segment of the business world still sees the internet as just another medium for TV or radio broadcasting. By it's very nature broadcasting is not interconnected, it's passive and linear.

Tim Berners-Lee wrote in his book, Weaving the Web that the main obstacle to the web being a true information web of shared knowledge is that content is controlled by too few. He was upset that browsers were developed which could not edit web pages like his original browser/editor.

The silver lining to this, IMHO, is the "weblog" phenomenon, including sites like Slashdot, where ordinary users can contribute their ideas, especially in html format so that they can contribute links. I really believe that some day soon the conventional media sites will be forced to give this kind of capability to their readers, or else risk losing all those eyeballs to Slash-like sites.

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

"Public Good" by studerby · 2000-05-11 21:16 · Score: 1 · on Information As A Global Public Good

And this is part of a larger and longer struggle to re-establish the priority of "public good" on a par with "individual rights" and "economic development", the fight against the notion that everything of value of should be owned/exploited by some person or corporation. It seems as though grown-ups need to be re-taught how to share. This struggle is most obviously being played out in the Internet development battles, but also in the fight between "environmentalism" and the "property rights" movement. Some people seem to think that the solution to the "Tragedy of the Commons" is the dissolution of the commons, while others think it's better stewardship thereof.

Re:People sign away their rights all the time. by UnknownSoldier · 2000-05-09 20:47 · Score: 1 · on Mitnick Ordered Off Lecture Circuit

> If you drive a car, you enter into a contract that you agree to provide blood, urine or breath to test for the presence of alcohol.

_ONLY_ if you have a driver's license and the government owns your "vehicle" via the Manafactor's Statement of Origin.

And yes you can travel without a driver's license !

I don't have one, and have never been given a ticket for "driving without a license"

It's best to do your own research. Search for "Right To Travel"

I've provided 2 links to get you started.
http://www.ptialaska.net/~sw ampy/interest/travel_2.html

http://members.aol.com/TruthZone1/trav el.htm

Cheers

Complete Press Release Mentions More by great+throwdini · 2000-05-08 04:14 · Score: 2 · on AOL & NSI To Team Up

Checking the cnet story against the release posted at AOL's corporate site, seems that other aspects of this agreement weren't covered by cnet:

"...AOL will promote a number of VeriSign services across its business channel."
"The AOL/NSI co-branded sites will also provide access to a variety of services tailored to small-to-medium sized businesses. This will include the opportunity to register for free listings in the Netscape Business Directory, which will include data from NSI. The Business Directory is designed to help users quickly locate, research and do business with companies on the Web."
"NSI will also distribute a co-branded version of Netscape Instant Messenger, enabling businesses and consumers to initiate online, real-time communications with business colleagues, friends and family."

The same (unedited) press release is available at NSI's corporate site.

Might as well get all the information, no matter how trivial.

Those Twits! by ichobod · 2000-05-08 02:16 · Score: 1 · on NetPD, Metallica's Mysterious Tracker

What big balls these guys have. This whole patent/copyright/infringement thing is getting way the hell out of hand. How the hell can Napster be held liable? If I download some pirated software using Netscape, is AOL to be held liable? Metallica is just getting there undies all in a bunch because they are scared. Same thing with the MPAA, they get scared of anything they can't control. Screw em is what I say! They should have thought about that before they started charging 25$ bucks for a freakin CD!

Cannibalism by unicorn · 2000-05-08 00:52 · Score: 1 · on Product Placement

Anyone out there other than me remeber the Underground RPG? "It's 2021, and the dream is dead"

Tastee Ghoul!!!

legal matters? by iJosh · 2000-05-06 07:46 · Score: 1 · on Aiwa car CD-MP3 player

Say I get one of these units and install it in my Knight Industries 2000 (I call it K.I.T.T. for short). And this is one of thos new fangled "inteligent" cars of the future. It talks to me, orders pizza for me, and even berat's up bad guys. But I digress, if I install one of these players into K.I.T.T. and he finds a way to get on the internet and download "And Justice For All", is Metallica going to sue me or my car?

Signed,

-Concerned Citizen

The PMRC saved me from getting sued! by dlc · 2000-05-01 21:33 · Score: 3 · on Metallica Wants To Ban 335,435 Napster Users

Thank goodness for Tipper Gore and the PMRC! They saved me from getting sued! If I hadn't been shown the evils of the Devil's Music (aka "Rock and Roll") I'd be in court right now!

darren

Cthulhu for President!

Esperanto is "Object Oriented Middleware" by Yekrats · 2000-05-01 03:35 · Score: 1 · on A Common (Internet-Based) Language?

Esperanto is not intended to replace anyone's language, but instead to act as a simply-learned second language. It has regular rules for spelling and grammar. Even better, there are no irregular verbs. Personally, after taking a free 10-lesson course over the net (with about 10~ hours of study) my level of expertise in Esperanto surpassed my ability in French, which I had studied for about three years. Since then, I've communicated with friendly folks from Germany, Korea, and Brazil, without having to take the time to learn German, Korean, and Portugese. Nor did they have to use broken non-native English. We met on equal terms using a simple (not simplistic) third language. It's estimated that Esperanto has 2-million speakers, and the Internet seems to have increased its popularity.

Esperanto is a powerful language with an "object-oriented" feel. There are many instances that I come across a simple concept in Eo that cannot be translated simply into English. An example: for the adverb form of "friend" (amike), the closest English translation I can make is "in a friendly manner." Plus, Eo was designed from the start with rules for adding new words to the language, and it has no lack of computer terminology.

Esperantist Sylvan Zaft has a great novel about Esperanto published on the web which (IMO) addresses Esperanto intelligently and fairly, addressing both positives and negatives. It's definately worth a read: Esperanto: Language for the Global Village

I don't propose everyone to learn Esperanto, and I don't propose it to replace anyone's language. OTOH, translating your pages into Esperanto is good karma, and all that jazz...

-- Scott S.

Re:AOL Will buy Be by frankie_guasch · 2000-04-25 23:33 · Score: 1 · on Be to Drop BeOS? No.

The linux AOL press release

Re:AOL Will buy Be by IntlHarvester · 2000-04-25 23:00 · Score: 2 · on Be to Drop BeOS? No.

AOL is already developing a settop box using Linux and Mozilla. (The URL is probably too contorted to post, but you can go here and search for Linux.) One thing to note is that Linux is a Tier 1 Mozilla platform, where Be is not.

As for "multimedia", BeOS can do some interesting things, but I'm not sure if they are applicable in a settop situation. Most of what you need to do is done in the video hardware. There's never the need to play 8 simultanious quicktime movies, or whatever Be is capable of.

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AOL + Gateway + Crusoe + Linux = Wireless Web Pad by Booker · 2000-04-24 01:39 · Score: 4 · on Transmeta Receives $88 Million In Funding

AOL and Gateway are working together to make a linux-based wireless web pad with a Gecko based browser - I guess this means it'll have a Crusoe chip in it. Cool! Maybe they'll tuck 'em into magazines for free....

AOL release is here and the Gateway release is here

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x-files erotica by geekpress · 2000-04-16 05:48 · Score: 2 · on Fan Fiction Explained

A couple of years ago, I ran into X-Files erotica on the web. (I was looking for something G-rated, I swear...) What was amazing was not that it existed, but rather the VOLUMES that did. People were totally obsessed with Mulder and Scully getting together. (X-Files, unlike most shows, did/does a great job at keeping the sexual tension high between Mulder and Scully without ever letting them cross the line.)

I did a quick search and came up with an X-Files Erotica page, although there aren't a ton of stories. I also found an X-Files choose your own adventure story (here's another).

-- Diana Hsieh

Let Metallica Know by frantzdb · 2000-04-14 00:55 · Score: 1 · on Napster, Gnutella, Bans, Lawsuits And More

I'm sure plenty of people here are Metallica fans to some extent. I know I would have never baught any of their albums earlier than the Black Album had it not been for MP3s. Let them know that. The best e-mail address I could find is this: metclub@aol.com
(yuck, AOL)

--Ben

Ugh. by Accipiter · 2000-04-11 22:37 · Score: 5 · on Spammers Hit Wireless Phones

Does anyone else think this is disgusting?

I got an E-Mail from a spammer the other day, and you know what they were advertising? They were selling E-Mail addresses. They boasted somewhere around 500,000 "VALID E-MAIL ADDRESSES!"

Now, you can be *anywhere*, and get a chirp -- SPAM CALLING. It's infuriating. Thank goodness I don't have a cell phone - I despise them....but I can feel for those who will be affected by this crap. (What gets me, is that almost everyone who can do anything about spam is so blasé about it. They just don't care.)

On an unrelated-yet-related side note, what do ISPs actually DO about reported spam? I've noticed that 85-90% of my Spam can be traced back to either PSI.NET or UU.NET. Of course, I forward the mail to ABUSE@xxx.yyy, and they send me the standard "We've recieved your complaint, blah blah blah" and "We have taken action against those responsible, blah blah blah", but it just KEEPS COMING IN from those addresses. Not everyone on those services is a Spammer, so I can assume 2 things:

If they terminate the spammer's account, they have no problem giving the spammer another one.

OR

They really *aren't* taking any action whatsoever.

In either case, I can only guess that these services (as are any others that do the same thing) are Spammer-Friendly. That makes me Sick.

Oh, I've also noticed that AOL has changed their abuse structure. Just for your information, AOL no longer accepts Spam complaints at abuse@aol.com. The NEW address to send SPAM complaints to is: tosemail1@aol.com.

(AOL never gets back to me. They must hate acknowledging that something is WRONG in their perfect service.)

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

AOL In Europe by Giordana · 2000-04-09 01:19 · Score: 1 · on AOL + Time-Warner Worse Than Microsoft?

AOL has no presence in Europe. Nor will it ever have one.

What about AOL UK, AOL Germany, AOL France , and AOL Sweden ?

AOL In Europe by Giordana · 2000-04-09 01:19 · Score: 1 · on AOL + Time-Warner Worse Than Microsoft?

AOL has no presence in Europe. Nor will it ever have one.

What about AOL UK, AOL Germany, AOL France , and AOL Sweden ?

Re:More info about AOL by Money__ · 2000-04-09 00:07 · Score: 1 · on AOL + Time-Warner Worse Than Microsoft?

yea... It is funny, isn't it?
I often thought that there should be some content reviewer giving points for propoganda.

I always found MSs press releases to be the most shameless. "... empowering users to simply and easily [do a thing] with just one mouse click..blah blah blah".

Never a word about standards. Never a word about reliability. Never a word about conectivity. Never a word about compatibility.

And when pressed on these points, the standard answer seems to be "it's the most standard" "it's the most compatible" "it's has the best conectivity" or some other contentless blurb.

Then there's this little one from AOL at: http://recruit.web.aol.com/media/press _view.cfm?release_num=25100429&title=AOL%20Launche s%20Next%2DGeneration%20Netscape%206%20B rowser

"Mr. Case said: "Our next-generation Netscape 6 browser will provide consumers and businesses with exciting new opportunities to enjoy the full energy and versatility of the interactive medium" anywhere, anytime and any way they want.

If this doesn't score a (Score-1 Propoganda) nothing does.

You really want a laugh?

They have there own "Fact Book" (warning: fat PDF file)
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