Slashdot Mirror

I would recommend that if darpa is serious about developing the first true AI that you start off something like angel funding for AI ideas, and get a bunch of different proposals that will be taken seriously. There are tons of people out there that have different ideas about true AI and how to do it. If you have any contact with AI academic world recently, you'll see a bunch of kinda interesting projects that have lost sight of true AI. Of course, outta the people who claim have solved AI, 49% are stupid, 49% are crazy, 99% are in for a big disappointment, and that last 1% are actually in the right direction. Kinda reminds you of proposals for startup companies huh? So support them like startups.

Angel funding have proven that they are important to promote creativity without wasting a fortune. Give developers (with potential) some money, NDA's, and most importantly, if they seem like smart people, an open ear to their ideas. Don't just do stuff like Grand Challenges that only research institutions/big companies can enter.

Well, that said, I'm actually very biased. Because I know how to solve AI =P. Of course, you prolly won't believe me, and I don't wanna share unless you sign an NDA. So, here's just a suggestion to think about.

AI is the process of solving problems, like chess -- solve the problem of winning the game. Solving an arbitrary problem is HARD, so let's ignore that for now. Suppose you have solved the problem, you'll have to carry it out somehow. What is it called when you are doing something in a specific way? An algorithm. Right now, MDP's use policies -- you're in this state, do this. Classical planning gives you a sequence of actions. But Algorithms? CS? Programming? Why aren't the results of these problem solvers turing complete? No wonder what comes out of AI programs today are very domain specific.

If you solved an arbitrary problem, you should be able to program it. AI can be called a program that makes programs. So here's the suggestion: start working on a programming language fit for AI -- the internal language that the AI brain will use. Programming languages today describe the process -- each program is compiled one specific way, and ran one specific way. Make a programming language that describes the algorithm, and only that. Whatever you program should give enough information about the problem you solve and nothing more. A rule of thumb is that if you can't use the language for a cook book, you need to work harder about eliminating the non-necessities. lchou1.blogspot.com

HAve a look here - the guy had success with ndiswrapper

Memory that is being shared between processes (e.g. through the use of libraries) is actually counted towards the RSS so something that is sharing a lot of pieces with another process may appear artificially high.

Sorry for the hijack, but I'm going to attempt to insert some of the backstory here. See, I've lived in Delaware for the last 4 years (I'll gladly accept your pity)

Getting this deal done was a seemingly never ending political nightmare. Delmarva, the recently deregulated power company has fought against it tooth and nail. They seemed to have been under the impression that signing a 25 year power deal at a fixed price was a bad idea because you know, the price of oil might go down in the future...

Our governor was initially pushing a "clean coal" plant and against this deal. Blue Water Wind finally got the deal done due, in a large part, to netroots action pressuring the state legislature to force a deal down Delmarva's throat if they didn't start to negotiate in good faith. Delaware doesn't have ANY power generation, and buys all of it's power from other states. Delmarva wanted to continue to do this in spite of the rediculous congestion on our power infrastructure.

Tommywonk has been doing a fantastic job covering this issue, and if anyone wants anymore information I'd suggest they head there. (Surprisingly he doesn't have an update about the deal being inked yet)

Anyway, a warning to green power advocates, if this case is any indication, expect the entrenched interests to fight you every step of the way.

Argh. Tell me about it

It's still possible to be a hero, it's just that you have to sort-of use a different definition ;-)

I've always found that it pays to like boring jobs ;-)

It's only rarely that we admins get to do heroics.

Nonsense. They may die sooner, but it takes a long, long time to do so. Especially when we're talking about being overweight. Also, in the mean time, those same fat people are using health care much more often than people of normal weight, because they have much more health problems related to being fat.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050029&ct=1

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2008/02/07/obese_people_have_lower_health_costs.php

http://ethxblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/help-your-country-smoke-drink-and-die.html

http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200701220003


The facts do not support your statement. The fact is, obese people who smoke cost society less.

Generated Javascript from the GWT compiler is on average much faster than hand written JavaScript. Unless you want to make your JavaScript source unmaintainable, compiled code is always faster.

Meaning, if you use one layout GWT ensures it looks the same in every browser.

Hash file names are brilliant. If you understand how HTTP caching works you'll realize this is an automatic versioning system.

GWT does not compile in it's libraries each time. In fact, the compiler does excellent dead code elimination with incredible detail. It only includes the code you use.

On top of all this when the browser downloads the app it only downloads code for that browser (no IE specific code if you're using FF), which further reduces size.

Try doing this with other bloated javascript libraries (which the frameworks themselves are substantially larger than a GWT app).

GWT is not an amazing solution. It's a decent solution that does a fairly good job for those unfamiliar with Javascript technology. But if you actually know Javascript well, you WILL be regularly frustrated by it.

For the record, I need to stop replying to anonymous cowards. They never know what they're talking about. :-/

instead exposing the virtual method table directly. (Prototype is nothing else)

Not precisely, since the prototype property also exposes properties, as well as methods. Or, more precisely, methods are properties in javascript, since functions are first-class.

You cannot really design big systems without those two constructs

Not at all true. Well, it's tautologically true. You can't design big systems the way that most programmers who currently work on big systems design them in statically-typed explicitly class-based languages. And by some accounts, this turns out to be a huge advantage, because you get a LoC compression similar to what you'd see with Ruby.

(As for namespaces -- PHP has the same problem, but worse, given that you can't even appropriate static ad-hoc classes as a namespace mechanism. And yet the namespace problem has been more or less practically addressed by conventions, and you can't argue anymore that people aren't building large systems in it.)

different incompatible inheritance constructs by third party libraries

It's true composing "extends" implementation inheritance implementations across libraries is likely to get you in trouble. But then again, simply using implementation inheritance can get you in trouble, in C++, in Java. And having to settle on conventions and libraries is not a fatal hit to a project.

In the end javascript is the classical example of a 95% academic language.

Acadmic? Why? Because it's functional, or didn't start life with "extends"?

Javascript's shown itself as quite practical contender in a huge amount of the heavy lifting that's gone on in the RIA space over the last 5 years, and that's not half what's going to happen as it gets traction elsewhere.

Here's an overview of ECMAScript 4, the new version of JavaScript:

http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf

It sure looks to me like they are taking all the coolest stuff from Python and grafting it onto JavaScript.[1] The result will be a language a lot like Python, but with code blocks wrapped in curly braces and no significant whitespace.

One of the biggest changes will be a class inheritance model much more like Python's. The prototype-based inheritance will still be available, but I for one will be happy to use the new model.

Already, my favorite features from Python have been grafted on to JavaScript, and are available right now in Firefox 2:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/New_in_JavaScript_1.7

Steve Yegge has said that he thinks he knows what the "Next Big Language" will be. I think he is talking about JavaScript, and I think he may be right.

steveha

[1] If you are a fan of some other language, it may look to you like they are grabbing cool things from your language. And far be it from me to argue about which language a feature was "really" borrowed from. Python borrowed much of its cool features from other languages anyway.

Here's an overview of ECMAScript 4, the new version of JavaScript:

http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf

It sure looks to me like they are taking all the coolest stuff from Python and grafting it onto JavaScript.[1] The result will be a language a lot like Python, but with code blocks wrapped in curly braces and no significant whitespace.

One of the biggest changes will be a class inheritance model much more like Python's. The prototype-based inheritance will still be available, but I for one will be happy to use the new model.

Already, my favorite features from Python have been grafted on to JavaScript, and are available right now in Firefox 2:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/New_in_JavaScript_1.7

Steve Yegge has said that he thinks he knows what the "Next Big Language" will be. I think he is talking about JavaScript, and I think he may be right.

steveha

[1] If you are a fan of some other language, it may look to you like they are grabbing cool things from your language. And far be it from me to argue about which language a feature was "really" borrowed from. Python borrowed much of its cool features from other languages anyway.

http://rustintable.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-start-technological-singularity.html

http://www.opencog.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.agiri.org/OpenCog_AGI-08.pdf
http://justingibbs.com/how-to-make-singularity-bearable-in-its-infancy
http://www.innergybv.biz/blog/?p=175
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20080620/#When:22:49:00Z
http://xlaurent.blogspot.com/2008/06/opensim-for-opencog.html

There's a number of GSoC projects for OpenCog currently underway also:

http://code.google.com/soc/2008/siai/about.html

So the first release should be very interesting.

Here's an overview of ECMAScript 4, the new version of JavaScript:

http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf

It sure looks to me like they are taking all the coolest stuff from Python and grafting it onto JavaScript.[1] The result will be a language a lot like Python, but with code blocks wrapped in curly braces and no significant whitespace.

One of the biggest changes will be a class inheritance model much more like Python's. The prototype-based inheritance will still be available, but I for one will be happy to use the new model.

Already, my favorite features from Python have been grafted on to JavaScript, and are available right now in Firefox 2:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/New_in_JavaScript_1.7

Steve Yegge has said that he thinks he knows what the "Next Big Language" will be. I think he is talking about JavaScript, and I think he may be right.

steveha

[1] If you are a fan of some other language, it may look to you like they are grabbing cool things from your language. And far be it from me to argue about which language a feature was "really" borrowed from. Python borrowed much of its cool features from other languages anyway.

Here's an overview of ECMAScript 4, the new version of JavaScript:

http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf

It sure looks to me like they are taking all the coolest stuff from Python and grafting it onto JavaScript.[1] The result will be a language a lot like Python, but with code blocks wrapped in curly braces and no significant whitespace.

One of the biggest changes will be a class inheritance model much more like Python's. The prototype-based inheritance will still be available, but I for one will be happy to use the new model.

Already, my favorite features from Python have been grafted on to JavaScript, and are available right now in Firefox 2:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/New_in_JavaScript_1.7

Steve Yegge has said that he thinks he knows what the "Next Big Language" will be. I think he is talking about JavaScript, and I think he may be right.

steveha

[1] If you are a fan of some other language, it may look to you like they are grabbing cool things from your language. And far be it from me to argue about which language a feature was "really" borrowed from. Python borrowed much of its cool features from other languages anyway.

Comix:
Ctrl-Alt-Del http://www.cad-comic.com/
Diesel Sweeties http://dieselsweeties.com/
Questionable Content http://www.questionablecontent.net/
Penny Arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/
xkcd http://xkcd.com/

Blogs:
Warren Ellis http://www.warrenellis.com/
Thighs Wide Shut http://thighswideshut.org/
Kids with Guns http://patrickben.livejournal.com/

Geeky Blogs/Mags:
Boing Boing http://www.boingboing.net/
Cool Hunting
365 Tomorrows
Grinding.be http://grinding.be/
io9 http://io9.com/
Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/
Slashdot
Wired http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml
AppleInsider http://www.appleinsider.com/
Macenstein http://macenstein.com/default
The Unofficial Apple Weblog http://www.tuaw.com/
Macworld http://www.macworld.com/

Dirty Stuff:
Fleshbot http://fleshbot.com/tag/straight
FlickrBabes http://flickrbabes.com/
UseMyComputer http://usemycomputer.com/
Homocidal Insomniac http://homicidalinsomniac.blogspot.com/

News:
Salon http://www.salon.com/

"The masses" in this context are people who can afford to pay six figures for a joyride to take them to a tenth of the delta-V needed for orbit in an vehicle design that physically cannot scale to orbit.

Meanwhile, actual orbital vehicle development continues. The massive Falcon 9 has not only completed its one engine firing, its two engine firing, and its three engine firing, all flawlessly, but also it's five engine firing. Only one more static firing is scheduled before launch (all nine engines). The smaller Falcon 1, which would have easily reached orbit in its last test flight but for either the lack of a bump *or* the presence of an upper-stage baffle, now is designed both to prevent the bump *and* now has an upper-stage baffle. It will be launching within the next month with its first payload, and the Falcon 9 should launch by the end of the year. The Falcon series represents a two to three fold price cut per kilogram compared to similar sized launch vehicles after almost half a century of price stagnation.

But hey, by all means, Slashdot is free to continue largely ignoring them (dedicating roughly the same number of articles to SpaceShipTwo, of which only minimal info has been released yet as the entire Falcon series through its history) and to keep reporting on every last detail from this unscaleable joyride.

I liked the NY Times article better.

I have blogged on this.

I, too, was influenced by this visionary when I was in college.

Google-bombing is certainly not unifying in any way. What's so interesting is that it may be a subversive political activity, as it clearly tries to game the system in ways for which the system was never intended, particularly when it focuses on negative content. But yet it is also not in any way illegal.

So the question relating to hacktivism is whether Google-bombing is an activity that degrades our democratic system... or is it just clever politics?

http://thenerfherder.blogspot.com/2008/06/hacktivist-throws-google-bomb-at-john.html

Some blogs that help me get through the day:

b3ta - Full to the brim with lots of inspired/close-to-the-bone/somewhere-through-the-bone humour.
The Daily WTF - Most people will already have this, but for softies like me, its a goldmine of stories that get just a little too familiar for comfort.
Fancyplants' Japan Blog - Japan from a guy who backpacked his way round for three weeks - and had never been abroad before!

I was among many users who were having trouble displaying maps loaded by MapsLoader. Some kind person on the Nokia forums pointed me to that page and explained how to load the maps manually.

Unfortunately I did not know about this when I took my $400 E61i to a US trip. The phone would only load maps from the network, and ignore those on the card because MapsLoader did not load the map data right. I ended up wasting my 1 month navigation subscription and ended up paying $10/day for a GPS device when renting cars.

I posted that link above along with instructions to load maps on Nokia's forums, and one the the official Nokia mods deleted my post with the following message:

"Hello, We have removed your post that had a link to downloading Nokia Maps with out using Nokia Map loader. This is not an approved method. The only method approved to do so is by using Nokia Map loader. Kind Regards"

Fuller's domes may not be The One True Faith that people like Brand wanted but they're still a damn good choice for certain kinds of commercial structures. They also got modern engineers thinking about dynamic load distribution in ways that are very relevant and important now, a time when yurt design, for example, is going high-tech fast.
Tensegrity Posts are just now starting to be appreciated for the resource-frugal, vastly compressible wonders they are. I guarantee that we'll see more and more variations on this scheme in the coming years in structures that need to be boosted out of the gravity well or simply transported at very low cost in absolutely minimal space.
Fuller's cardboard versions of his dome worked quite well as temporary structures during World War II. If we had any sense at all we'd be making them now out of modern materials.
Many of his designs failed in large part for lack of, basically, computing power and, to a lesser degree, modern materials. Done with modern resources they're practical as all get out. You may want to laugh at his two piece steel bathroom but the hundreds of thousands of blowmolded shower enclosures sold every year at places like Home Despot are direct descendents. His cooling approach in the Dymaxion Home was far more sophisticated and resource-savvy than most of the "eco-homes" being built even today. And trust me, I've reviewed the plans of hundreds.

I agree, Fuller was an obscurantist pain in the ass with some serious delusions. He also got a hell of a lot of useful work done that considerably advanced manufacturing technology, approaches in several branches of engineering, and topology. Where he focused his attention, things advanced. As for his stuff including make-do components, like the famed Ford suspension put on its side in the Dymaxion Car, he made it clear from day one that this was a proof of concept, a proof that, even with make-do parts, carried ten passengers, got over 30 mpg, and turned on its own radius. Go ahead, show me that the first proofs of concept by Burt Rutan or Armadillo Aerospace or OLPC work that well.

The whole eastern seaboard, at least from Massachusetts to Florida, is a cesspool of snobby lawyers and greedy big money people. But the southeast is worse than anywhere; it is especially laughable that so many states proclaim the "right to work" (without a union, possibly for peanuts or for a tyrannical boss) but you don't actually have a legal right to work in your occupation if you've signed a broad non-compete that forbids it. These are often "at will" states as well, where your employer can fire you and hire someone else to do what you do, but you can't necessarily work for another company doing what you know how to do.

I've lived in VA and in PA most of my life, and I'm just about finished with the eastern US forever. My next home will be either in Europe or west of the Mississippi. By the way, the states that will not enforce non-competes include CA, OR, CO, MT, ND, SD, OK, LA, and probably a couple others. Nearly all of them are in the western US.

As for the most ridiculous non-compete ever, how about a membership agreement for an outdoors club that forbids former members not only from operating a competing club, but even using a google group to organize similar activities? The original version was even worse, if you want to read some lawyerspeak that will make your head spin, and prompted this article in a local newspaper.

so what if it's shameless promotion? the important thing is that the georgia administration is going against the status quo and admitting there _is_ a problem. i hope this gives other states (particularly southern states) the courage to go forward with health initiatives. with 1/4 of its adult population considered obese (as of mid-late 2007 http://vaccine-ophobia.blogspot.com/2007/08/georgia-14th-in-ranking-of-adult.html), this will hopefully start opening eyes and turning heads

we can do it better, but overall it's still the best bang for the buck (calculating the waste output, and handling of said waste output, into the buck) that we have.

How is nuclear power the best choice? We don't even have a way to deal with the waste.

I'm hopeful that when we do get around to building new reactors, they'll be of a more modern and efficient design than the ones running currently.

Where are these designs? And not just general hand waving but actual designs. And doing more research into new designs don't count, the same energy and money put into alternative resources may come out with better things.

Sorry, Falcon, but solar, wind, wave, hydro and all the other renewables won't cut it at our current consumption levels (see the link at the end).

So your news link beats my science links?

A nearly-as-bad downside is the fact that the footprint for enough of a solar or wind farm to replace a coal plant means you're eating up many times more real estate with concrete and metal than the coal plant did, and I've no desire to pave the planet.

Did you even read the Sciam article? Or the Wind Atlas?

So the big objection to coal power (which also pertains to combustion engines; cars) is that we're running out of the power source and there's not more we can get or make.

My biggest issue with coal, and nuclear power, is that it is dirty. If you're going to bring up carbon capture and storage, show one such plant in operation that actually works.

and then there's the limited-fuel-resources-from-few-suppliers drawback as well

Now I'll admit here the US doesn't need to worry about running out of coal, there's hundreds of years of coal in the US alone. As stated above though it's dirty. And not just the burning of coal but the mining as well. Mountain Top removal is probably the dirtiest mining there is, though uranium mining comes close. And underground mining isn't any better, healthier, or safer. It causes Black Lung as well as other health problems. There are a number of underground fires in coal mines, the Centralia mine fire in Columbia County, Pennsylvania has been burning since 1962.

However, with only a few thousand nuclear plants, eventually, powering the US

We don't need more centralized power, we need more distributed power. Nor do we need to devote land for just one purpose, which nuclear power requires. With wind gennies, generators, farmers can lease small plots, or use as their own, to erect a genny. This would create a second source of income for farmers. One of the biggest problems with wind farms are all the NIMBYs, such as the ones fighting siting wind farms off the coast of Cape Hatteras. The Mid-Atlantic Coast Could Supply 330 gigawatts of Electricity, from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras, alone according to researchers at University of Delaware. Meanwhile 4 Nuclear Power Plants in California had a capacity of 4 gigawatts in 2005. That comes to 1 gigawatt per power plant, whereas the wind potential off the Mid Atlantic comes to 330 nuclear power plants.

Apparently Google already has protection against such "bombs":
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-word-about-googlebombs.html

I have no idea how the algorithm detects such a bomb, but it appears to be pretty effective.

These posts have some really great feeds. I'm going to give some good education blogs: Ratio Studiorum: My blog -- sorry for the plug. I try to post on web 2.0 trends and rail against those who rail against "kids today". http://feijoorichmond.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default Larry Ferlazzo's Web Sites of the Day: Has an incredible array of links. http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/feeds/posts/default weblog-ed. Web 2.0 guru Will Richarson's blog. Lots of great ideas. http://weblogg-ed.com/feeds/posts/default

Oddly enough, I'm doing the same thing: in fact I just came back inside after a day of building.
I'm building a coop for my ducks & chickens and am going to light it with power LEDs & surplus solar cells and perhaps keep the water liquid this winter using solar heating.

Solar cells are pretty straightfoward. Just think of them as batteries and you won't be too far off.

PM me if you want to run some ideas by me. I am an EE and I've done enough design work that this should be trivial. I'm also making my first attempt at a blog: http://softwarefromthefarm.blogspot.com/

Ron Paul and his supporters and trying to change the Republican Party. This will be a slow process, probably taking 5-15 years before we have significant leadership positions in that party

People have been trying to change the Republican Party for more than 30 years now. The Libertarian Party was started by Republicans who were fed up with the republican party and Nixon. However Libertarians have been fighting in the party at least since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower ran for president. What ironic is that Ike is the same person who warned about the military industrial complex.

Is millions of wireframe models being yanked from the Internet. Gentlemen... start your Blenders!

Actually, apparently the court ruled that the modellers didn't own the copyright because it's a representation of Toyota's design. I doubt if you got hold of this mesh and published it that you could avoid getting sued by Toyota.

Oh, and I wonder if it will grow the market for this clever device.

While we're on the subject... where's a great free library of blender-compatible models?

I hear some clever japanese gents are working on autogenerating wireframe models from multiple pictures like you find on Google street view as well.

Tech:
I, Cringley http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/rss2.xml
Freedom to Tinker http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?feed=rss2
Freenode staffblog http://blog.freenode.net/?feed=rss2
Gentoo Monthly Newsletter http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/rss.xml
Xaprb (MySQL) http://www.xaprb.com/blog/feed/atom/

Games:
Cruise Elroy ("Intelligent discussion of video games") http://cruiseelroy.net/feed/
Jonathan Drain's D20 Source http://d20.jonnydigital.com/feed
Socratic Design http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Stephen's Weblog (NDS homebrew) http://blog.akkit.org/feed/
StupidRanger http://feeds.feedburner.com/Stupidrangercom
Zero Punctuation http://www.escapistmagazine.com/rss/articles/editorials/zeropunctuation
Zelda Reorchestrated http://www.zreomusic.com/feed/
Used to read The Escapist, quite enjoying the magazine format, but seven or so articles all on the same day each week became too much (once a month please!). The format has changed since then, it just isn't the same.

And the Comics:
xkcd comic & blag
Penny Arcade
and no feed, but 8-bit Theater

And a number of various personal feeds

Slashdot I just check every few hours, I can be assured there is going to be a new article to read

The entire Republican party has arrayed themselves against the Constitution.

Bob Barr, former republican senator, opposes telecom immunity.

Remember that on election day.

He is now the presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.

For now, I'm leaning towards voting for Bob Barr but if the only choices were McCain and Obama I'd vote for Obama.

http://redhatcat.blogspot.com/2007/09/beating-sandvine-with-linux-iptables.html [blogspot.com]
If you are running linux or a linux based router with iptables give this a try. My speeds returned to pre-sandvine levels.

"If you are using a Red Hat Linux derivative, such as Fedora Core or CentOS, then you will want to edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables. First, make a backup of this file. Next, open this file in your favorite text editor. Replace the current contents with this, substituting 6883 with your BitTorrent port number:

*filter :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6883 --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
-A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 6883 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport 6883 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
COMMIT

Reload your iptables firewall with service iptables restart. You should now see a great improvement in your seeding.

If you are using Ubuntu or another non-Red Hat Linux derivative, then place the following in a file and execute that file as root.

#!/bin/sh
#Replace 6883 with you BT port
BT_PORT=6883

#Flush the filters
iptables -F

#Apply new filters
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m udp -p udp --dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-host-prohibited

Your firewall is now configured and you should have great upload speed now. You will have to run this script every boot, by the way. One easy way is to call the script at the end of /etc/rc.local."

I live in Canada, and I just got a letter back from an idiot government MP about prison.

You see, by sending this kid to jail, we somehow help prevent the crime that he committed.

That is the "logic" of these people in government who create these policies--ironically, to "protect our children".

Here, I posted the MP's letter to my blog with commentary here.

(Claimer: there are no ads on my blog and I make no revenue from traffic)

- RG>

Second Life Blogs - Blogs about the Second Life virtual world. Usually I list these by avatar name.

• The Lexx's Second Life - Alexzandria Aeon ("Lexx") is my "SL daughter" and a businesswoman.
• Jacek Antonelli - An artist and commentator on various aspects of the world.
• Hamlet Au - New World Notes - The "big dog" in Second Life blogging. Hamlet Au used to work for Linden Lab, and wrote a book, The Making of Second Life.
• life|cubed - One of my friends, "Padre" Triste Bertrand, who is also a minister in RL.
• Cala - Transgender in Second Life - She writes about some interesting topics.
• Evans Avenue Exit - I write this one. :-) I post about current events, scripting, and whatever else suits my fancy.
• Vint Falken - One of the premier European SL bloggers (she's from Belgium).
• Grand Unified Linden Blog - Official news and information from Linden Lab.
• Torley Lives - Everybody in Second Life should know Torley Linden. Torley is unique, helpful, and watermelon-flavored.
• An Engine Fit For My Proceeding - Ordinal Malaprop is SL's own version of Ada Lovelace...a fine Victorian lady and a top-flight scripter.
• Massively (Second Life) - The latest news and information about Second Life. (Massively.com also covers other virtual worlds and MMOs.)
• Second Thoughts - Prokofy Neva is perhaps the most-hated person in SL, and is sort of the "official gadfly." He's well worth reading for an alternate perspective, though.
• Dwell On It - Tateru Nino is one of the smartest people I know. Her writing is part of what got me into SL in the first place.
• MeraTalk - Mera Pixel is insightful, witty, and very purple.
• Second Life Grid Status Reports - When there are problems with SL--an all-too-often occurrence these days, alas--Linden Lab posts here.

Political Blogs - This is stuff with a right-wing bent, and is the section that will probably be most responsible for this post being modded down. :-/

• The Smallest Minority - Kevin Baker is partly a gunblogger, partly an excellent commentator. He's had good posts recently about education.
• La Shawn Barber's Corner - A Christian blogger who only dabbles in politics these days, spending more time writing about music and digital technology.
• Leslie Carbone - A Virginia political blogger who I found via Twitter.
• Personal Effects - Connie du Toit is one of the clearest-minded writers you'll find on many subjects.
• Geopoliticus - Kim du Toit (yes, he and Connie are married) is the L33t Master of Firearms, and an insightfu

Second Life Blogs - Blogs about the Second Life virtual world. Usually I list these by avatar name.

• The Lexx's Second Life - Alexzandria Aeon ("Lexx") is my "SL daughter" and a businesswoman.
• Jacek Antonelli - An artist and commentator on various aspects of the world.
• Hamlet Au - New World Notes - The "big dog" in Second Life blogging. Hamlet Au used to work for Linden Lab, and wrote a book, The Making of Second Life.
• life|cubed - One of my friends, "Padre" Triste Bertrand, who is also a minister in RL.
• Cala - Transgender in Second Life - She writes about some interesting topics.
• Evans Avenue Exit - I write this one. :-) I post about current events, scripting, and whatever else suits my fancy.
• Vint Falken - One of the premier European SL bloggers (she's from Belgium).
• Grand Unified Linden Blog - Official news and information from Linden Lab.
• Torley Lives - Everybody in Second Life should know Torley Linden. Torley is unique, helpful, and watermelon-flavored.
• An Engine Fit For My Proceeding - Ordinal Malaprop is SL's own version of Ada Lovelace...a fine Victorian lady and a top-flight scripter.
• Massively (Second Life) - The latest news and information about Second Life. (Massively.com also covers other virtual worlds and MMOs.)
• Second Thoughts - Prokofy Neva is perhaps the most-hated person in SL, and is sort of the "official gadfly." He's well worth reading for an alternate perspective, though.
• Dwell On It - Tateru Nino is one of the smartest people I know. Her writing is part of what got me into SL in the first place.
• MeraTalk - Mera Pixel is insightful, witty, and very purple.
• Second Life Grid Status Reports - When there are problems with SL--an all-too-often occurrence these days, alas--Linden Lab posts here.

Political Blogs - This is stuff with a right-wing bent, and is the section that will probably be most responsible for this post being modded down. :-/

• The Smallest Minority - Kevin Baker is partly a gunblogger, partly an excellent commentator. He's had good posts recently about education.
• La Shawn Barber's Corner - A Christian blogger who only dabbles in politics these days, spending more time writing about music and digital technology.
• Leslie Carbone - A Virginia political blogger who I found via Twitter.
• Personal Effects - Connie du Toit is one of the clearest-minded writers you'll find on many subjects.
• Geopoliticus - Kim du Toit (yes, he and Connie are married) is the L33t Master of Firearms, and an insightfu

too, along with Electronic Frontier Foundation, US Internet Industry Association, Public Knowledge, and Computer & Communications Industry Association, on the side of Jammie Thomas. Also joining in with the RIAA and MPAA is an amicus curiae "Thomas D. Sydnor II of the Progress and Freedom Foundation", whatever the heck that is. Apparently Sydnor was a lawyer for content owners before he set up this "foundation". Here is a complete list of the amicus briefs. Some good reading in there. My prediction: the RIAA's 'making available' theory is dead in the water in Duluth, and the RIAA's only trial is going to result in a do-over.

News feeds:

IE Blog - for keeping track of what MS is up to on the browser front
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/atom.xml

Standards Blog - not as many posts now days, was very important during the height of the ooxml/odf war
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/backend/geeklog.rss

I keep OSNews for completeness, but it is pretty useless - software news
http://osnews.com/files/recent.xml

Anandtech - hardware news and reviews
http://www.anandtech.com/rss/articlefeed.aspx

Ars Technica - tech news and commentary
http://arstechnica.com/index.rssx

Phoronix - linux graphics news and info
http://www.phoronix.com/rss.php

Linux Weekly News
http://lwn.net/headlines/rss

KDE announcements
http://www.kde.org/dotkdeorg.rdf

Open Source Software Planets:

http://planet.debian.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.fedoraproject.org/atom.xml

http://planet.ubuntu.com/rss20.xml

http://planet.gnome.org/atom.xml

http://planetkde.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.freedesktop.org/rss20.xml

http://planet.mozilla.org/atom.xml

http://planet.jabber.org/atom.xml

mostly software releases and XEP updates
http://planet.jabber.org/news/atom.xml

http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/atom.xml

environment feeds:

Good Pacific Northwest environmental news
http://www.sightline.org/daily_score/rss

Best environmental news and discussion on the web
http://www.worldchanging.com/index.xml

I keep Treehugger for completeness, but I mark 90% of their posts as read without looking at them.
Really too "light green/consumer green" for me
http://www.treehugger.com/index.xml

other feeds:

Dive into Mark - not what once was, but good enough to keep around
http://diveintomark.org/feed/

Loooong posts on software
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Bruce Scheier knows Alice and Bob's shared secret
http://www.schneier.com/blog/index.rdf

The intersection of Science (especially Evolution), Liberalism, Atheism, and Squid
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/index.xml

"Your comment has too few characters per line" - what a load of bull. Taco, I know this and the timer are supposed to cut down on spam, but I think they annoy legitimate posters more than they reduce spam. You should really reconsider these "features".

The nomic looks pretty cool, might be adding that one later. Don't know who posted it, kinda got lost :S From top to bottom: all in English except otherwise mentioned. I'm using google reader.
1. Swedish travel journals of friends from resdagboken.com
2. Job that fits my search criteria at monster.ie
3. The Vinyl Café at http://cbc.ca/podcasting
4. CDFreaks News http://www.cdfreaks.com/news
5. Friend's blog
6. Another friend, probably not updating anymore. Book in blog form about a helpdesk. In Swedish. http://contactcentret.blogspot.com/
7. http://www.idg.se/ Swedish Computernews.
8. Another friend's blog.
9. Another friend's, probably not updating anymore.
10. Detroit Red Wings news.
11. Slashdot.
12. The Goliath Expedition. This dude is walking around the Earth. http://blog.goliath.mail2web.com/ Stalled at the moment though due to Russian VISA issues.
13. http://musicvsmusic.blogspot.com/ Pop Rock Indie Blog. Usually a bit emo music but sometimes they get it right. Sparsely updated.
14. non-working RSS feed for a Cybernations Alliance.
15. Three Panel Soul http://www.threepanelsoul.com/ Comic
16. http://www.tjuvlyssnat.se/ Swedish overheardit version
17. http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com/ Another comic.

The nomic looks pretty cool, might be adding that one later. Don't know who posted it, kinda got lost :S From top to bottom: all in English except otherwise mentioned. I'm using google reader.
1. Swedish travel journals of friends from resdagboken.com
2. Job that fits my search criteria at monster.ie
3. The Vinyl Café at http://cbc.ca/podcasting
4. CDFreaks News http://www.cdfreaks.com/news
5. Friend's blog
6. Another friend, probably not updating anymore. Book in blog form about a helpdesk. In Swedish. http://contactcentret.blogspot.com/
7. http://www.idg.se/ Swedish Computernews.
8. Another friend's blog.
9. Another friend's, probably not updating anymore.
10. Detroit Red Wings news.
11. Slashdot.
12. The Goliath Expedition. This dude is walking around the Earth. http://blog.goliath.mail2web.com/ Stalled at the moment though due to Russian VISA issues.
13. http://musicvsmusic.blogspot.com/ Pop Rock Indie Blog. Usually a bit emo music but sometimes they get it right. Sparsely updated.
14. non-working RSS feed for a Cybernations Alliance.
15. Three Panel Soul http://www.threepanelsoul.com/ Comic
16. http://www.tjuvlyssnat.se/ Swedish overheardit version
17. http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com/ Another comic.

• bsdtalk various interviews with BSD people
• debaday not really a debianwhore but nice gems to be found there
• fleshbot who doesn't like porns?
• hubertf everyone's favorite NetBSD dev
• papod PA podcast
• tdwtf the daily wtf so you don't feel you are alone in your editor
• thinkgeek must buy everything!
• undeadly not dead yet

First I will add a plug for https://www.bloglines.com/ â" RSS feeds where ever I can log in, via HTTPS. Great for those feeds I read whenever & everywhere; and for those I only check when waiting to board the airplane. In my bloglines collection I have around 400 feeds, which will grow after looking through these threads. :) Some selections that hopefully no one else has mentioned:

Amusement:
http://failblog.wordpress.com/feed/
All about the Fail

http://lolbots.com/?feed=rss2
Robots making the LOLz, though not updated often.

http://lolgeeks.com/?feed=rss2
Geeks making the LOLz, though not updated often.

The latest limerick database entries - http://peeron.com/tickers/limerickdb.xml

The Triumph of Bullshit - http://bullshit.tumblr.com/rss

Diesel Sweeties by R Stevens - http://www.dieselsweeties.com/ds-unifeed.xml

PHD Comics - http://www.phdcomics.com/gradfeed.php
Ever spent time in academia? You will relate to this web comic.

Unshelved - http://www.unshelved.com/rss.aspx
A web comic about a library. Ssssshhhuusshh!

Indexed - http://indexed.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Take two (or more) topics and compare them using graphs & charts â" full of insight & lolz.

Computerworld Shark Tank News - http://feeds.computerworld.com/Computerworld/Shark/Tank
Many stories, full of humor and face palm

Overheard in the Office - http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/atom.xml
Instead of what was overheard in New York, now worldwide and from your office.

Common geek topics (those blogs that seem to hit all the topics days or weeks before you see them on Slashdot):
Didnt You Hear... http://www.didntyouhear.com/feed/

The Daily WTF - http://thedailywtf.com/rss.aspx

Global Nerdy - http://globalnerdy.com/feed/

Shopping:
http://content.dealnews.com/dealnews/rss/todays-edition.xml
Many of those geek toys you need

Newegg.com daily deals: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=DailyDeals&nm_mc=OTC-RSS
Need I say more?

Slickdeals: http://www.slickdeals.net/rss.php
Need I say more?

Woot! http://www.woot.com/blog/rss.aspx

Dumb political stuff:
Homeland Stupidity: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HomelandStupidity
Government gaffes, bureaucratic blunders and incumbent incompetence

Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/backend/GrokLaw.rdf

Declan McCullagh's Politech http://www.politechbot.com/info/rss/politech.xml
Also not updated often, but on target when it is.

Cryptome: http://cryptome.org/cryptome.xml
You can get lost here for hours

Music:
House of Blues: http://hob.com/venues/clubvenues/lasvegas/
The RSS feed for the local House of B

Lambda The Ultimate (programming languages): http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/rss.xml

Greg Costikyan (culture): http://feeds.feedburner.com/costik/gXjD

Darius Kazemi (gamedev networking): http://tinysubversions.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Warren Spector (design): http://junctionpoint.wordpress.com/feed/

Tom Forsyth (graphics): http://www.eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.xml

Christer Ericson (collision detection): http://realtimecollisiondetection.net/blog/?feed=rss2

Erin Catto (physics): http://www.gphysics.com/feed

Duncan Fyfe? (writing): http://www.hitselfdestruct.com/feeds/posts/default

Soren Johnson (design): http://feeds.feedburner.com/Designer-notes

Fun Motion (physics games): http://www.fun-motion.com/feed/

Play This Thing (short reviews & commentary): http://playthisthing.com/allposts/feed

GoGamer (game deals): http://feeds.feedburner.com/Gogamercom48hourMadnessSpecial

CheapAssGamer (game deals): http://feeds.feedburner.com/cheapassgamer

Kotaku (news & commentary): http://kotaku.com/index.xml

Rock, Paper, Shotgun (PC gaming): http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?feed=rss2

Slashdot
http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot

WWdN: In Exile
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/rss.xml

Penny Arcade
http://www.penny-arcade.com/rss.xml

The Merry Corsetier
http://community.livejournal.com/corsetmakers/data/rss

T-Shirt Surgery
http://community.livejournal.com/t_shirt_surgery/data/rss

Winnipeg Bargain Barn Swap Meet and Flea Market
http://community.livejournal.com/winnipeg/data/rss

Post Secret
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

XKCD
http://xkcd.com/rss.xml

National Post
http://feeds.feedburner.com/NP_Top_Stories.rss

Astronomy Picture of the Day RSS Feed
http://www.acme.com/jef/apod/rss.xml

Dilbert Daily Strip
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DilbertDailyStrip

We The Robots
http://www.wetherobots.com/feed/

Disclaimer: I have removed all of my friend's blog's feeds.

• blog.craigslist.org - name says it
• hackd.wordpress.com - Thrivesmart has some nice tinymce work
• googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com - the people who do google maps, and google earth
• vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/cpg - craigslist job posting in vancouver that might fit me
• findability.org name says it
• stephansmap.org/home_entry Track changes to the front page
• tinymce.moxiecode.com/forum_news_rss.php - track tinymce updates (tinymce is a javascript rich-text editor)
• weblog.jamisbuck.org - rails stuff / capistrano
• locationaware.org - name says it

Stephan

The good:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/
- non-language specific programming musings

http://blog.brokep.com/
- The Pirate Bay's brokep's blog

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/
- interesting furniture hacks

http://www.ladyada.net/rant
- hobby electronics news

http://www.wired.com/rss/commentary/securitymatters.xml
- Bruce Schneier's blog

http://www.thefirsthourblog.com/
- reviewing the first hour of games, handy for people like me who have a 10 minute attention span

http://torrentfreak.com/
- P2P / legal news

The ugly:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/default.stm
http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/
- destroy your faith in humanity, or at least the British

http://seenonslash.com/
- because sometimes -1 is funny

http://icanhascheezburger.com/
http://www.lolcats.com/rss.php
- still funny?

0x000000 Security. Very snarky and somewhat crazy security blogger. Usually interesting.
Phoronix. Linux + hardware + games = Nothing not to love unless you are lame.
Anandtech. Hardware. Glorious hardware. Make sure to put on the adult diapers before visting.
HowtoForge. How to do stuff. Usually in Linux.
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. More fun than a barrel of iMacs.
Signal to Noise. The official 37signals blog. They are pompus, they can be pricks at times, but they usually have interesting things to say.
Scobleizer. Robert Scoble. His job is talking to people using social networking tools who own companies that make social networking tools. At some point there will be a business plan. Just not today.