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• the active maintainer of the CMU EFnet IRC server,
• the author and maintainer of the INSANELY cool infobot project (http://www.infobot.org/),
• and most importantly, the unpaid organizer of the non-profit Yet Another Perl Conference (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lenzo/yapc/), a grass-roots open-source conference that turned out far better than O'Reilly's $1,000-per-person corporate-oriented Perl conference.

Having lived here off and on since '83, I can honestly say I like "da burgh". There're good normal and more adventerous restaurants, mainstream and alternative cinema, good Rails To Trails, really excellent public theatre (Pittsburgh Public Theatre) and the Pittsburgh Symphony (site done by a friend of mine, FWIW), low traffic compared to other metro areas (Philly, NYC, Baltimore, and LA from direct experience), nice people, good high speed access in a growing number of neighborhoods, etc., etc. There's also an advocacy group of non-codgers trying to work on relevant issues for geeks and other young professionals.

And to note a few success stories: Fore Systems (now Marconi), Lycos, Free Markets Online (woulda liked to have a piece of that IPO), the Seagate magnetics research center, a mysterious whiz-bang startup, etc.

On the political scene, the local county (Alleghany) just switched from a three-headed-dog-of-county-commisioners system to a single county executive. UPitt, CMU, Pittsbugh, and Alleghany County are starting to cooperate better in attracting business and supporting spinoffs and startups. CMU's actually figured out that the wild-eyed innovator rarely makes the best startup CEO and is trying to support startups/spinoffs with more serios business support. Pitt's learned that lesson as well.

Now that's not to say that we don't have 'issues', like tax structure, crappy roads, a high codger factor, but things are definitely on the mend around here. We haven't gotten to the point of choking on our own success: housing's, food nad clothing cheap, traffic's low (relatively), no more choking pollution. We've got good and growing support for ADSL (which brings you this missive), cable modems, and CPDP support.

All said, I'm glad I moved here and it looks like things are going to be moving in the right direction very nicely over the next 10 years or so. Meanwhile, we don't need to cope with the crap you need to cope with in longer-standing "high tech" areas.

Oh, and the standard disclaimer: "just my 0.02 worth".

- Barrie

The only thing that's technically cool about Pittsburgh are the Honda Civic (???) with the LYCOS paint scheme.

Actually, it was a Honda Prelude, though I removed the stickers when I left Lycos (odd to see your car referenced on /. :-)

with CMU there, one would believe that it would be healthy area for startups...I guess not.

You probably weren't looking in the right places... In the past six years in Pittsburgh, I've worked for four companies, three of them startups. Last year, I was looking for a new job, again with a startup... even with that limiting criteria, I had resumes out to over two dozen companies.

For people interested in Pittsburgh, and wondering about the availability of interesting jobs, here's a few resources:

• The Pittsburgh High-Tech Community (ob. self-promotion :-)
• The Pittsburgh Job Guide
• The CMU Technology Transfer Office's list of CMU related companies
• The Pittsburgh Technology Council

Maybe there should be an award for "Most Under-Credited Person of the Century".

One potential solution is to have all keyboard/joystick/etc. input be sent to all the other clients before any of it is handled. (This is like the client/server solution mentioned earlier, but treats everyone as servers.) As long as all the user input is applied synchronously at each client, and each client has the same set of deterministic rules, the game will proceed consistently. If anyone cheats (in any way that causes a change in the actions/properties of the objects in the game) then the game will lose consistency. To check this, simply have each client checksum their data every once in a while. If someone has a bad checksum, throw them out of the game (by a vote of the clients). If someone fakes a checksum, then they can continue playing, but they won't be seeing the same game everyone else is. One advantage of this method is that it does allow modification of the game source, as long as everyone uses the same set of modifications.

There is one game that attempts to use this mechanism (here), but it is incomplete (mostly graphics issues currently). I'm not sure that this approach is viable in practice, but I think it works in well in theory.

This looks incredibly cool, but I feel the need to correct a statement made in the article:

(I believe Cye is the first robot capable of docking with a charging unit)

This is far from the truth. The Johns Hopkins "Beast," one of the first mobile robots ever, was able to do this back in the 1960's. Read the end of the first paragraph at this link.

Char of char
| Epsilon
| Empty
| Concat of regexp * regexp
| Union of regexp * regexp
| Star of regexp
| Underscore
| And of regexp * regexp
| Top
| Not of regexp

acc r1 s (fn s' => if s = s' then false else acc r s' k)

acc r1 s (fn s2 => acc r2 s (fn s2' => s2 = s2' andalso k s2'))

(* nacc (s1, s2) where s1 @ s2 = s *)
fun nacc (s1, s2) = (not (acc r s1 List.null) andalso k s2) orelse tryNextSplit (s1, s2)
and tryNextSplit (s1, nil) = false
| tryNextSplit (s1, a::s2) = nacc (s1 @ [a], s2)

in

nacc (nil, s)

end

3.Anyone have any idea how to fix the problem of dynamic IPs?

• Read Bill LeFebvre's article on Internet Black Holes to learn how the Real-Time Black Hole system uses DNS creatively. You can also go write to the source if you prefer. Here's an excerpt:

  The simplest way to get started using the MAPS RBL to protect your mail relay against theft of service by spammers is to arrange for it to make a DNS query (of a stylized name) whenever you receive an incoming mail message from a host whose spam status you do not know.

• Here's the abstract for TCP Splicing for Application Layer Proxy Performance, by Pravin Bhagwat et al.:

  Application layer proxies already play an important role in today's networks, serving as firewalls and HTTP caches -- and their role is being expanded to include encryption, compression, and mobility support services. Current application layer proxies suffer major performance penalties as they spend most of their time moving data back and forth between connections, context switching and crossing protection boundaries for each chunk of data they handle. We present a technique called TCP Splice that provides kernel support for data relaying operations which runs at near router speeds. In our lab testing, we find SOCKS firewalls using TCP Splice can sustain a data throughput twice that of normal firewalls, with an average packet forwarding latency 30 times less.

• Here's the abstract for Improving HTTP Caching Proxy Performance with TCP Tap:

  Application layer proxies are an extremely popular method for adding new services to existing network applications. They provide backwards compatibility, centralized administration, and the convenience of the application layer programming environment. Since proxies act as traffic concentrators, serving multiple clients at the same time, during peak load periods they often become performance bottlenecks. In this paper we present an extension of the TCP Splice technique called TCP Tap that promises to dramatically improve the performance of a HTTP caching proxy, just as TCP Splice doubled the throughput of an application layer firewall proxy.

• Cohen, A., S. Rangarajan, and H. Slye. On the Performance of TCP Splicing for URL-aware Redirection. In: Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems, pp. 117-125, October 1999.

  Recently, the focus of the work on NEPPI applications was mostly on high performance URL-aware switching using TCP splicing. TCP splicing is a technique for bridging TCP connections at the IP level within the kernel, thus avoiding the overhead of application-level copying between sockets as performed by programs such as proxies. URL-aware switching with TCP splicing can be utilized in layer 7 switches to achieve high performance content-aware redirection of HTTP requests. We have developed of prototype of a layer 4/7 switch based on NEPPI.

• A Mobile Networking System based on Internet Protocol(IP) Pravin Bhagwat, Charles Perkins. Proceedings of USENIX Symposium on Mobile and Location Independent Computing, August, 1993, Cambridge, MA.

  Due to advances in wireless communication technology there is a growing demand for providing continuous network access to the users of portable computers, regardless of their location. Existing network protocols cannot meet this requirement since they were designed with the assumption of a static network topology where hosts do not change their location over time. Based on IP's Loose Source Route option, we have developed a scheme for providing transparent network access to mobile hosts. Our scheme is easy to implement, requires no changes to the existing set of hosts and routers, and achieves optimal routing in most cases. An outline of the proposed scheme is presented and a reference implementation is described.

• A Mobile Host Protocol Supporting Route Optimization and Authentication IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, special issue on "Mobile and Wireless Computing Networks," 13(5):839-849, June 1995. c IEEE. Andrew Myles Department of Electronics

  Host mobility is becoming an important issue due to the recent proliferation of notebook and palmtop computers, the development of wireless network interfaces, and the growth in global internetworking. This paper describes the design and implementation of a mobile host protocol, called the Internet Mobile Host Protocol (IMHP), that is compatible with the TCP/IP protocol suite, and allows a mobile host to move around the Internet without changing its identity. In particular, IMHP provides host mobility over both the local and wide area, while remaining transparent to the user and to other hosts communicating with the mobile host. IMHP features route optimization and integrated authentication of all management packets. Route optimization allows a node to cache the location of a mobile host and to send future packets directly to that mobile host. By authenticating all management packets, IMHP guards against possible attacks on packet routing to mobile hosts, including the interception or ...

• RFC 2230 has some words that might be relevant here:

  Dial-Up Host Example

  This example outlines a possible use of KX records with mobile hosts that dial into the network via PPP and are dynamically assigned an IP address and domain-name at dial-in time.

  Consider the situation where each mobile node is dynamically assigned both a domain name and an IP address at the time that node dials into the network. Let the policy require that each mobile node act as its own Key Exchanger. In this case, it is important that dial-in nodes use addresses from one or more well known IP subnets or address pools dedicated to dial-in access. If that is true, then no KX record or other action is needed to ensure that each node will act as its own Key Exchanger because lack of a KX record indicates that the node is its own Key Exchanger.

  Consider the situation where the mobile node's domain name remains constant but its IP address changes. Let the policy require that each mobile node act as its own Key Exchanger. In this case, there might be operational problems when another node attempts to perform a secure reverse DNS lookup on the IP address to determine the corresponding domain name. The authenticated DNS binding (in the form of a PTR record) between the mobile node's currently assigned IP address and its permanent domain name will need to be securely updated each time the node is assigned a new IP address. There are no mechanisms for accomplishing this that are both IETF-standard and widely deployed as of the time this note was written. Use of Dynamic

  DNS Update without authentication is a significant security risk and hence is not recommended for this situation.

Browse a few relevant papers and find some keywords to search for more of the part of the field in which you are interested:

• Indexing with Neural Networks
• CMU Web->KB Project
• Ontology-Based Web Agents (PostScript)
• Berkeley Info Org course

Following that last post, I decided that instead of continuing this flamewar indefinately, I'd actually do some quick research on the web. The following is what I pulled off the first few pages of Yahoo! and Hotbot when I searched for "LGN cortex".

Here: "The LGN organizes inputs from the retina, and slows them down before sending signals to the ocipital lobe (the visual cortex)."

Here: "Incoming sensory signals are not simply relayed to the cerebral cortex. Instead, these afferent signals are first actively gated and modified in the thalamus. Our research is focused on understanding the modulation of visual signals in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), the thalamic station in the pathway that subserves conscious visual perception. The LGN presents a single locus where vision, in a broad sense, can be impacted economically before visual signals are disseminated throughout the cortex. All subsequent cortical processing depends critically upon the nature of the signals that are conveyed by the LGN."

Here: "...to learn how information transmission from the retina to the visual cortex through the LGN is controlled."

This shows the information pathways involved in visual processing: retina-Pretectal area, retina-Superior Colliculus, retina-LGN and LGN-cortex.

There were others, but Netscape crashed (naturally) and I don't want to restep the entire search process.

Retina: I meant to check for info on retinal processing, but the search engines are clogged with retina simulators and other unhelpful pages. But I did find this which mentions the preprocessing of which I was speaking in my first post.

here's a bunch

Unfortunate that you didn't include probably the most comprehensive and well-written brief in support of operating an automobile on the public roads without holding a driver's license. After all, several courts have upheld the open, untaxed usage of the public roads as a right. Anyone who knows anything about Constitutional law will know that a right cannot be taxed.

• TreadMarks
• The Quarks DSM System (ports to other platforms are here and my port to Linux is here.)
• DIPC (or try here)
• SHRIMP, a high performance parallel system for Linux.
• PVM -- a message passing approach to parallel programming.

For example, The Informedia Project at Carnegie Mellon (can't find a working link, but try http://informedia.cs.cmu.edu/) tries to find information about "interesting topics" from a feed of worldwide TV news broadcasts. They have even put a nice voice-command interface on their system, so you can query it by saying things like, "Tell me about last night's Bull's game."

Another example, the WebKB project, also out of Carnegie Mellon, has shown some success in deriving meaningful information by web-crawling -- where the signal:noise ratio is probably even lower than in phone calls.

The NSA could build a pretty good system for this kind of stuff without doing much original research. Developing the technology isn't that questionable. The application is a little spooky, though.

I strongly reccommend the Kensington Turbo Mouse (ADB) and Expert Mouse (ps2/serial) trackballs. They are positively the most comfortable pointing device I've used. 4 programmable buttons (and it allows you to define functions for when you click both the top or bottom buttons simultaneously, called chording) for 6 functions. I have click, dbl-click, contextual menu, close window, close app, and scroll (same as clicking the scroll wheel in windoze)

I have used smaller trackballs before but they don't compare to the accuracy and comfort with this 2.25" diameter trackball.

The linux drivers are being worked on now (Kensington gave 2 people, one of whom I know, one free Expert Mouse each in encouragement of a Linux driver.

Best of all, the size of the trackball is exactly that of pool balls. So mine is an 8-ball :)

Disclaimer: I don't work for Kensington, just a satisfied customer.

-Beaner@Euphoria

I love the Y2K over-preparedness here at Carnegie-Mellon (you can read an article published in The Tartan (the school newspaper) here). Sure, they're well prepared, and they don't anticipate any major problems.

But...you won't have the right to be on campus unless you have a special authorization... And if you do have this authorization, you'll need a special badge. Has anybody decided that buildings are not Y2K-compliant and that they will crash down? Who knows...

I love the Y2K over-preparedness here at Carnegie-Mellon (you can read an article published in The Tartan (the school newspaper) here). Sure, they're well prepared, and they don't anticipate any major problems.

But...you won't have the right to be on campus unless you have a special authorization... And if you do have this authorization, you'll need a special badge. Has anybody decided that buildings are not Y2K-compliant and that they will crash down? Who knows...

Here is some more good reading for folks to explore while waiting for the xenu.net matter to get straightened out:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/

http://www.rickross.com/groups/scientolo gy.html

http://wpxx02.toxi.un i-wuerzburg.de/~cowen/essays/essays.html

http://www.xenutv.com

(I'll bet that this story will probably get Slashdot placed on the ScienoScitter block list, if it isn't already...)

I've been waiting for them to do encrypted messaging.

Good encrypted messaging takes a lot more protocol work than just slapping it on a present protocol. Check out
Caliban for a protocol and program which has been working on this.

Just to clarify, the outcome of this incident is that the dorm ethernet outlet of the guilty student was deactivated until the end of the semester or Thanksgiving, depending on whether he attended the copyright lecture and wrote the paper.

You're clearly not reading the other posts on this thread. The students involved did NOT put files in their public folders or www folders on their Andrew accounts (as our UNIX accounts here are called). All of the busted students were sharing files on the campus Microsoft SMB Network. These files resided on the students' own computers.

Some of these students had password-protected their files. Some did in fact use no passwords or common passwords like 'mp3'. It isn't these students who we're concerned about. It is those students who thought they were obeying the CMU Computer Use Policy Agreement by passwording their shared copyrighted files (not with 'mp3' or 'guest', either).

Some students who fell into this latter category were removed from the network. Some students who were sharing legally redistributable mp3s were also temporarily denied network access. More than one student's school work was affected by the sudden drop of the network connection without warning. It is about these situations that CMU students and others are raising protests about this incident. For more coverage of the student's opinions, read The Tartan's article on the incident a couple weeks ago.

It is obviously the University's perogative to deny network access to those they feel are abusing their network privilege or violating the Computer Code of Ethics. I believe, and I think others would agree with me, that how the University handled this crackdown leaves something to be desired.

What I as a CMU student would like to see is a clear explanation of what constitutes a public share--obviously the description currently given to us leaves some things out. I would also like to see Computing Services give people 24 hours notice before they deactivate an outlet. It's a fairly simple courtesy, after all.

What I as a music-lover would like to see is more artists taking the power of distribution and copyright into their own hands. I bought a couple songs off They Might Be Giants' latest album mostly because I support that kind of distribution model, and wish more bands would use it.

To me, this whole notion of "everything-internet" is like Microsoft's stupid idea about having a web-browser in every application. If I want to peruse the Internet, I'll use a web browser and when I want to type up a document, I'll [maybe] use a word processor [more likely I'll use Emacs]...

And while I do see some benefit to being able to program my VCR from a computer at work, I don't think the average consumer would ever do that since the only people I know that can consistantly program any VCR without a "For Dummies" book (note to IDG: please don't sue Slashdot for having this reference) are geeks, programmers, computer literates, etc...

Don't get me wrong, some non-Net appliances can be connected in a cool way (though even pop machines on the net are nothing so great anymore) but I think most net-based appliance features would lose their appeal after a few weeks (after that all your friends will grow tired of hering you talk about "how cool" this is)...

> No... If you read a little further you would have noticed this line under the 'System Administration' section: "On rare occasions, computing staff may access others' files, but only when strictly necessary for the maintenance of a system or in active pursuit of serious security or abuse incidents."

Nobody has mentioned this but there's actually two copies of the Code of Ethics. The one on the official policy server doesn't have this pursuit of security clause.

Nobody's sure why there's a discrepency.

1. There was no password-guessing program. All passwords that were guessed were entered by hand, AFAIK.
2. The search process went as follows: An employee of Computing Services looked at the Network Neighborhood window in list view and checked 2 or 3 of the machines in the bottom 5 rows for illegal content (MP3's as well as movies). They checked folders that were public or had suspicious names. By guessing passwords or looking at read me files, they found illegal content and pointers to other illegal machines, which they then checked out. So it was mostly a random sweep, but they followed obvious trails when they were laid out in read me files.
3. Most of the 70+ students showed up at the workshop and will probably have their network access back by the end of next week. I know; I was there to watch the goings-on (not one of the 71 students though).
4. I know of two cases where network access was given back on appeal. One was for someone sharing legal MP3's (live Dave Matthews), and the other was for someone who needed network access for their job (they work for CMU :-).
5. More information can be found in The Tartan, the student newspaper.

Overall, Computing Services probably was legal in its actions, but they were pushing it and they realize that. At the workshop, it was made clear that future crackdowns will be handled differently--students with illegal content will be given 48 hours' notice before being disconnected so they can appeal before being shut down. Subject to change, of course.

The precedent for this has been that if a CMU student exhibits any kind of uncoroporative behavior regarding network policy, they will be removed permanently from the network. Questions regarding this can be sent to the resident Network Nazi: lerchey+@CMU.EDU. He will most likely ignore your e-mail. Also, this punishment can be appealed through and long and tedious process with the Student Affairs board that surely no succeeding student at CMU has time to do. There is a choice, but there really isn't. This is private schooling at its best.

What the Chronicle article fails to mention, or made factual mistakes with:


1) These files were NOT on student websites. They were on students' own machines shared via Microsoft Networking.

2) Many of the computers found "in violation" had their shares passworded. However, CMU tried to guess passwords when it ran into them. So if they could guess it, they considered it public access.

3) The uproar is not so much about the school trying to reduce mp3 sharing over their network, but the manner in which they did it. The CMU Computing Code of Ethics clearly states, "Every member of Carnegie Mellon has two basic rights: privacy and a fair share of resources. It is unethical for any other person to violate these rights...On shared computing systems, all user files and directories are considered to be private and confidential. Only files which a user has explicitly made public (e.g., by placing in a "public" directory) should be considered open for general access. Accessing and using files in another person's directory when not expressly permitted to do so by the owner is a violation of that person's privacy" The Code further states "Loopholes in computer systems or knowledge of a special password should not be used to alter computer systems, obtain extra resources or take resources from another person". Clearly what CMU has done, by going into folders not marked as public and guessing passwords has violated their own Code of Ethics. That has gotten a lot of people pretty upset. They followed the rules but lost access anyway.

4. The students affected could reduce the time they lost network access by a few weeks by going to a stupid "education" seminar to hear why copyright infringement is bad, and then write some paper along those lines. I think those that did that get their access back on Nov 14, or something like that.

5. Computing Services sent out an email to the student body giving their side of the event. You can find the text here.

What the Chronicle article fails to mention, or made factual mistakes with:


1) These files were NOT on student websites. They were on students' own machines shared via Microsoft Networking.

2) Many of the computers found "in violation" had their shares passworded. However, CMU tried to guess passwords when it ran into them. So if they could guess it, they considered it public access.

3) The uproar is not so much about the school trying to reduce mp3 sharing over their network, but the manner in which they did it. The CMU Computing Code of Ethics clearly states, "Every member of Carnegie Mellon has two basic rights: privacy and a fair share of resources. It is unethical for any other person to violate these rights...On shared computing systems, all user files and directories are considered to be private and confidential. Only files which a user has explicitly made public (e.g., by placing in a "public" directory) should be considered open for general access. Accessing and using files in another person's directory when not expressly permitted to do so by the owner is a violation of that person's privacy" The Code further states "Loopholes in computer systems or knowledge of a special password should not be used to alter computer systems, obtain extra resources or take resources from another person". Clearly what CMU has done, by going into folders not marked as public and guessing passwords has violated their own Code of Ethics. That has gotten a lot of people pretty upset. They followed the rules but lost access anyway.

4. The students affected could reduce the time they lost network access by a few weeks by going to a stupid "education" seminar to hear why copyright infringement is bad, and then write some paper along those lines. I think those that did that get their access back on Nov 14, or something like that.

5. Computing Services sent out an email to the student body giving their side of the event. You can find the text here.

"The distribution of programs and databases is controlled by copyright laws, licensing agreements and trade secrets. These must be observed."[1]

"The distribution of copyright protected materials is illegal and is in direct violation of the Computing Code of Ethics." "Users found to be distributing copyrighted music files will have their network connections revoked for not less than one full semester and may be subject to displinary action."[2]

1. http://www.cmu.edu/co mputing/documentation/unix/Policies.html
2. http://www.net.cmu.edu/docs/gui delines/reshall.html

--Siva (former CMU student)

Keyboard not found.

"The distribution of programs and databases is controlled by copyright laws, licensing agreements and trade secrets. These must be observed."[1]

"The distribution of copyright protected materials is illegal and is in direct violation of the Computing Code of Ethics." "Users found to be distributing copyrighted music files will have their network connections revoked for not less than one full semester and may be subject to displinary action."[2]

1. http://www.cmu.edu/co mputing/documentation/unix/Policies.html
2. http://www.net.cmu.edu/docs/gui delines/reshall.html

--Siva (former CMU student)

Keyboard not found.

Here's a link with more specific information on the crackdown, directly from the CMU computing services newsletter.

http://www.cmu. edu/computing/cursor/fall99cursor.html#anchornetwo rk

It seems that shared directories on the local university LAN were searched.

One thing the article leaves out is that not only were publically accessible directories searched, but some semi-private ones as well. If the searcher was able to either easily guess the password (something along the lines of "mp3") or was able to learn the password by sending an e-mail message to the archive's maintainer, and copyrighted material was found, network access was revoked.

Some relevant articles:
Computing Services reprimands students
Officials crack down on piracy
and an editorial:
CMU: consider approach toward network integrity
(These are all from The Tartan, CMU's student newspaper.)

One thing the article leaves out is that not only were publically accessible directories searched, but some semi-private ones as well. If the searcher was able to either easily guess the password (something along the lines of "mp3") or was able to learn the password by sending an e-mail message to the archive's maintainer, and copyrighted material was found, network access was revoked.

Some relevant articles:
Computing Services reprimands students
Officials crack down on piracy
and an editorial:
CMU: consider approach toward network integrity
(These are all from The Tartan, CMU's student newspaper.)

One thing the article leaves out is that not only were publically accessible directories searched, but some semi-private ones as well. If the searcher was able to either easily guess the password (something along the lines of "mp3") or was able to learn the password by sending an e-mail message to the archive's maintainer, and copyrighted material was found, network access was revoked.

Some relevant articles:
Computing Services reprimands students
Officials crack down on piracy
and an editorial:
CMU: consider approach toward network integrity
(These are all from The Tartan, CMU's student newspaper.)

One thing the article leaves out is that not only were publically accessible directories searched, but some semi-private ones as well. If the searcher was able to either easily guess the password (something along the lines of "mp3") or was able to learn the password by sending an e-mail message to the archive's maintainer, and copyrighted material was found, network access was revoked.

Some relevant articles:
Computing Services reprimands students
Officials crack down on piracy
and an editorial:
CMU: consider approach toward network integrity
(These are all from The Tartan, CMU's student newspaper.)

Well, the files were put in public folders/directories according to the article, so I would say no it's not an invasion of their privacy. Had they been in password protected or otherwise private locations (e.g., for use on only the person's own machine), then possibly so. To a large extent it depends on the Uni's computer network usage policy (in this case CMU's policy) that the students (presumably) agreed to follow.

• Year: an integer indicating the year A.D. However, if this integer is between 0 and 99, the ``obvious'' year is used; more precisely, that year is assumed that is equal to the integer modulo 100 and within fifty years of the current year (inclusive backwards and exclusive forwards). Thus, in the year 1978, year 28 is 1928 but year 27 is 2027. (Functions that return time in this format always return a full year number.)

Compatibility note: This is incompatible with the Lisp Machine Lisp definition in two ways. First, in Lisp Machine Lisp a year between 0 and 99 always has 1900 added to it. Second, in Lisp Machine Lisp time functions return the abbreviated year number between 0 and 99 rather than the full year number. The incompatibility is prompted by the imminent arrival of the twenty-first century. Note that (mod year 100) always reliably converts a year number to the abbreviated form, while the inverse conversion can be very difficult.

Aside, Bruce Perens has an interesting proposal over at Technocrat.Net.

(Meta: Any good reason to not allowing attrs (esp. cite) with

tags?)

/Anonym Fegis

• Year: an integer indicating the year A.D. However, if this integer is between 0 and 99, the ``obvious'' year is used; more precisely, that year is assumed that is equal to the integer modulo 100 and within fifty years of the current year (inclusive backwards and exclusive forwards). Thus, in the year 1978, year 28 is 1928 but year 27 is 2027. (Functions that return time in this format always return a full year number.)

Compatibility note: This is incompatible with the Lisp Machine Lisp definition in two ways. First, in Lisp Machine Lisp a year between 0 and 99 always has 1900 added to it. Second, in Lisp Machine Lisp time functions return the abbreviated year number between 0 and 99 rather than the full year number. The incompatibility is prompted by the imminent arrival of the twenty-first century. Note that (mod year 100) always reliably converts a year number to the abbreviated form, while the inverse conversion can be very difficult.

Aside, Bruce Perens has an interesting proposal over at Technocrat.Net.

(Meta: Any good reason to not allowing attrs (esp. cite) with

tags?)

/Anonym Fegis

There's a resistor you can replace to increase the receive range. The transmit range is several feet, so it's enough for couch to TV if the TV is sensitive enough. I couldn't find any info on increasing transmit power, although I remember a discussion on /., possibly the one in http://slashdot.org/articles/98 /11/21/0958242.shtml but the relavent comments seem to have disappeared (the thread is visible but the comments are empty). One readable post does recommend the HP48G/GX for it's sending range.

BTW, if you want to open up your HP48, see http://www.contrib.andr ew.cmu.edu/~drury/oldhp/how2open.htm first.
--

Fact 1 -- Deja News is in the Echelon building:

Deja News, Inc.
9430 Research Boulevard
Echelon II, Suite. 350
Austin, TX 78759

Fact 2 -- Cycorp makes what are arguably the best tools for scanning the web for concepts.

Fact 3 -- Cycorp was a spinoff of MCC.

Fact 4 -- Deja News, Inc., Cycorp and MCC are within walking distance of each other.

Fact 5 -- Bobby Ray Inman was the first director of the MCC.

Fact 6 -- Bobby Ray Inman is a spook's spook.

I may be a bit biased here since I was invited to go to work at the MCC when it was in its early formative stages (before Austin had been selected). My office was, at that time, at Arden Hills operations at Control Data Corporation, just two stories above about an acre of supercomputers that had signs hung on them that read "Fort Meade".

As Seymour used to say to the "insurance" agents located at the "Thorp Insurance offices" out in the middle of the corn fields near his farm where his tribe was building the Cray-1:

"Just don't let my people know you're here."

There's a Common Lisp package for automatic generation of reference manuals from source code that I once adapted for FrameMaker output (I wasn't using TeX at the time).

There was no way of generating cross references. All those had to be inserted by hand, which meant that every time you regenerated a manual, you had to go though the whole thing again.

So I got into LaTeX (that's what the tool originally supported). And then into improving user-manual.lisp to add support for my language extensions, etc.

What's bad about *TeX is that it's a really yucky programming language. Again somebody went reinventing the wheel instead of building on the (then 20, now 40) years of previous work of other people.

And let's not forget that if TeX used CL, mathematicians would only need to learn 1 language (provided they used one of the CL-based comptuter algebra systems).

I have a local copy for those who want it.

Actually, Soft Updates originated in a version of SVR4, as described here.

omg,That's great.

No ;) www.forum2000.org is NOT a C64. The telnet server just pretends to be one (very funny).

www.forum2000.org responds to the following ports:

• 13 daytime
• 21 ftp
• 23 telnet
• 35 printing?
• 53 dns
• 79 finger
• 113 auth ident tap
• 118 nntp

Doesn't look like a C64, eh? Whoever created this is extra cool in my book whether it's a hoax or not. Forum2000 et.al. have been enthralling me all evening.

Has anyone looked at Andrej's Become and Objectivist in Ten Easy Steps? I'm leaning towards mad genius now; although it might be a mad genius who has set up a hoax. Very curious.

Yay Andrej! is an Andrej Bauer fanclub.

So is this one, simply entitled "Andrej Bauer Fan Club.

All of the evidence seems to fit together and support non-hoaxness of Forum2000. Or but at least, somebody bothered to set up a LOT of extra crap to make it look real. Definiately more believable than FuckU/FuckMe.

Is Andrej Bauer a mad genius? A nonperson? A pseudonym? Come on, Slashdotters, let's get to the bottom of this one!

I just checked with Forum2000's nameserver (unnamed here, in order to give the poor guy a break). He confirms that the Forum2000 people are indeed legit students/faculty from CMU who do Weird Things. The reply was basically "Yeah I just do nameservice for them, but they're real people down at CMU who have been working on some kind of project."

It could very well be a hoax. However, be sure to check out Andrej Bauer's site at CMU. And draw your own conclusions. It looks very thorough. If it is a hoax the hoaxers have gone to great lengths to add depth and detail. I'm still skeptical--waiting to see how the machine responds to more questions.

I went to college in the US (here) and my parents paid themselves silly in order to send me there, but I believe that the US college system has certain advantages. You don't have to go to an expensive private school; there are many state schools that are very good and much more affordable. The big difference is though, that the (at least private) universities see themselves as a business, and such strive to provide the best service to their students, an attitude which in many European countries is unthinkable. Also, the fact that a US college has the right to ativeley choose who they accept, is something that we in Europe could learn from. I was surrounded by highly intelligent people in College (after the less motivated ones had flunked out); a very challenging and humblig experience that I truly value.

If you think private colleges rob you and take your last cent consider this: if you go to take a week of course work at a company (Oracle, IBM, etc), you will pay about $1500 per week. At that rate, even CMU was cheap and I learned more than I ever would though company coursework/education. Also, in my experience, people don't value what they don't pay for. This seems to be corroborated by what I see in the Austrian universites; they are overcrowded, underfunded ... I'm glad I went to college in the US even though it cost my parents a bundle ...

About this bidding system: I think it will only work out well for extremely gifted students, the kind of student that universities would like to get on their campus. If they see a lot of potential in you, they'll cut you a break (and throw in a nice scholarship), but what if you're not? What incentive do they have to make you a special offer? College tuituion is very public information anyways, I'm not sure how much sense bidding makes in this area. Do you really believe that through this system, there will be radical savings for the students. It's not like MIT will let you attend at $1000 per semester just because that's what you bid ...

There's only one subdomain left in arpa, and that's in-addr.arpa. This subdomain provides the information that allows you to backresolve (convert an IP address back to its hostname). All these nameserver records have backwards-looking names, like 40.224.207.209.in-addr.arpa, for the IP address 209.207.224.40. (By the way, that IP doesn't backresolve. Shame on Rob and Andover!)

It's true that this domain is almost never used for forward resolution of hostnames. However:

• All Internet service providers are supposed to be maintaining their backresolving in-addr.arpa records, but a lot of them are too dumb and/or too lazy to do it. IMHO, lack of backresolving IP addresses is a sign of a shoddy provider.
• You can do forward resolving in arpa, if you think you'd like to have a sexy hostname like fred.224.207.209.in-addr.arpa.
• According to RFC 2317, you are now allowed to make your in-addr.arpa entries a CNAME (alias) for an entry somewhere else. We've been using this successfully at my ISP to delegate blocks (smaller than a class C) to our customers. Witness (just using a private block as an example):
  • Example 1 - You give 10.2.3.248 to 255 to Billy Fred's nameserver:
    248.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. NS nameserver1.billyfred.com.
    248.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. NS nameserver2.billyfred.com.
    249.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME 249.248
    250.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME 250.248
    251.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME 251.248
    252.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME 252.248
    253.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME 253.248
    254.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME 254.248 A lookup on 10.3.2.253 becomes a lookup for 253.2.3.10.in-addr.arpa., but that is now an alias for 253.248.2.3.10.in-addr.arpa, which you've pointed to Billy Fred's nameservers. He's handing the domain 248.2.3.10.in-addr.arpa with entries like this:
    252.248.2.3.10.in-addr.arpa. PTR happybox.billyfred.com.
    253.248.2.3.10.in-addr.arpa. PTR sadbox.billyfred.com.
  • Example 2 - You give Fred Billy Company 10.2.3.0 to 7 using the same concept, but using their own domain:
    1.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME backresolve-1.fredbilly.com.
    2.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME backresolve-2.fredbilly.com.
    3.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME backresolve-3.fredbilly.com.
    4.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME backresolve-4.fredbilly.com.
    5.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME backresolve-5.fredbilly.com.
    6.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa. CNAME backresolve-6.fredbilly.com. Then, over in fredbilly.com, the owner can put things like this:
    backresolve-1 PTR fredsbox
    backresolve-2 PTR elsewhere.friendofbilly.org.
    backresolve-3 PTR fredsotherbox Then, for example, 10.2.3.3 is a lookup on 3.3.2.10.in-addr.arpa, which is an alias for backresolve-3.fredbilly.com, which tells you that the address is fredsotherbox.fredbilly.com.

Does your brain hurt yet? By the way, I wouldn't pay attention to that stuff in RFC 2317 about slash being a valid character. I know there are at least a few machines near me that hate slashes in subdomain names. My suggestion: Stick using hyphens instead, or just cannibalizethe first address of the IP range, since nobody sane would use the "0" address of a subnet for a real machine anyway.

While most of the actual tech companies seem to have gone for a more relaxed dress code, the same is not yet true in IT departments of normal companies. As of about half a year ago, the insurance company I was working for still required men to wear a button down shirt, and tie. ( They had much more lax dress codes for females, but that is another debate for another time ).

During the time that I worked for them, my project group was moved to a facility of it's own, and the project team was allowed to wear just "business casual" (polo shirt and khakis for the most part). When one of the VP's got wind of this, he blew his stack and demanded that we comply with company dress code.

Needless to say, this same company does not have much luck with younger developers.

As far as there being no real shortage of tech workers... That may be what the stats say, but just last week I was at a job fair where companies looking for CS majors outnumbered the actual graduating students, almost 2-1 (and that's assuming that none of the students go to grad school). We may be heading for something worse, but it doesn't seem bleak yet...

Can you provide references? I am very curious about this matter. I have a friend that claims she can argue for the existence of god through the law of identity. We are still researching our sides, and so I haven't been exposed to her "evidence". I would like to know what to expect though.

Books Online has some essays which argue against the existence of god. For example:
Plea for Atheism.

Two books which address atheism:
"What is Atheism?" by Douglas E. Krueger
"Philosophy & Atheism" by Kai Nielson (just started reading it)

Ironically, I find CS Lewis to be a good proponent of atheism within his works wich argue for god. Example: "The Problem of Pain"

looks like an o2 to me...

John Bucy at CMU is working on it. I've met John once at a Nashville 2600 and he's pretty cool (if all the 2600 groups were as cool as the 615-2600 group, 2600 would kick a**. http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~bucy/IM/
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