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Sit down and have a hard think about it.

I migrated from Australia to Switzerland last year because of these laws. I had already moved my website to LA ( on dreamhost ) but the real reason wasn't my personal web site.

The harder the various Australian Governments push these absurd laws the futher behind the Australian IT industry is going to be. And when IT gets behind, the rest of the economy will follow.

Added bonus: salaries in Zurich are about 5x Sydney.

Not at all. Dreamhost requires every new customer to fax a photocopy of the credit card. Is it a pain? Yes. Is it a bad idea? Not at all!

Another idea is that ISPs could refuse to take credit cards that are less than 2 months old.
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I have a somewhat unique perspective on this, as I'm the main Abuse handler for Dreamhost - the web host for rinkworks.com. I mostly handle spam and the odd copyright violation...

The way I see it, what he COULD do is provide an opt-out list of some sort for sites that don't wish to be Dialectized. So, if SomeBigCorp.com doesn't like their site being munged, they can specifically request removal. You don't need to take the whole thing down, just make it fair to all involved. I personally think most people wouldn't mind at all.

You could have a basic MySQL database with domains that have opted out, or a flat-file or something. If the URL being parsed is in the list, the person using the service gets a notice that due to complaint the process can't continue.

SpamCop does something like this as well, for ISPs that don't want spam reports from their service (kind of lame, but...).

I guess the big trick is making sure that the person opting out is legit, but that's mostly an implementation and policy detail.

Anyhow, I hope Mr. Stoddard finds a way around this. It's a pretty nifty site, I think.

<PLUG TYPE="shameless">
Oddly enough, when I first saw the original story I skipped over it. As a web host, I think it's pretty cool that we were prone to the dreaded Slashdot Effect and didn't even notice. :>
<PLUG>

BTW: these comments are my own, not that of my employer. etc. etc...


- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

I have a somewhat unique perspective on this, as I'm the main Abuse handler for Dreamhost - the web host for rinkworks.com. I mostly handle spam and the odd copyright violation...

The way I see it, what he COULD do is provide an opt-out list of some sort for sites that don't wish to be Dialectized. So, if SomeBigCorp.com doesn't like their site being munged, they can specifically request removal. You don't need to take the whole thing down, just make it fair to all involved. I personally think most people wouldn't mind at all.

You could have a basic MySQL database with domains that have opted out, or a flat-file or something. If the URL being parsed is in the list, the person using the service gets a notice that due to complaint the process can't continue.

SpamCop does something like this as well, for ISPs that don't want spam reports from their service (kind of lame, but...).

I guess the big trick is making sure that the person opting out is legit, but that's mostly an implementation and policy detail.

Anyhow, I hope Mr. Stoddard finds a way around this. It's a pretty nifty site, I think.

<PLUG TYPE="shameless">
Oddly enough, when I first saw the original story I skipped over it. As a web host, I think it's pretty cool that we were prone to the dreaded Slashdot Effect and didn't even notice. :>
<PLUG>

BTW: these comments are my own, not that of my employer. etc. etc...


- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Hopefully this will help speed along other Bochs related efforts, such as BeBochs.

"...we are moving toward a Web-centric stage and our dear PC will be one of

I telecommute fulltime, being approximately 2,000 miles away from my employer (insert plug here for Dreamhost web hosting).

It takes some getting used to, though. When I first began it took me some time to get used to partitioning my time - you have to be (or become) very focused in avoiding distractions. I don't have kids at home or anything so that helps.

The one main issue I should mention for both employees and employers is that it's important to stay in contact. If your work is something that doesn't change too much from day to day it's not too bad, but if you do any sort of project work then you need to make sure anyone and everyone at the 'home base' knows you are alive. Things like ICQ or IRC can be very helpful in that regard. I never realized how valuable it is to have regular contact with coworkers until I left my old job. I fly down there for a week every few months or so which helps immensely - it's good to know who you work with.

There can actually be fewer distractions when you work at home. After a while you can get into a work pattern that, well, works - that's very beneficial. Also, hours tend to be more flexible for people like myself who are most efficient in non-standard work times (although I've been working on getting up earlier).

On the employer side, I imagine it could be cheaper in some respects. If you streamline things enough, the savings in office space, heating, etc. can add up. I'm not an employer, so I can't say this with much authority, but it could very well depend on what kind of work is being done and the kind of people you hire.

The upshot is that telecommuting can work quite well, but you can't do things 'business as usual'. You have to determine if the kind of work you're doing can be done from remote (mine can), and if you can stand being cooped up at home for long periods of time (I can).

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

I telecommute fulltime, being approximately 2,000 miles away from my employer (insert plug here for Dreamhost web hosting).

It takes some getting used to, though. When I first began it took me some time to get used to partitioning my time - you have to be (or become) very focused in avoiding distractions. I don't have kids at home or anything so that helps.

The one main issue I should mention for both employees and employers is that it's important to stay in contact. If your work is something that doesn't change too much from day to day it's not too bad, but if you do any sort of project work then you need to make sure anyone and everyone at the 'home base' knows you are alive. Things like ICQ or IRC can be very helpful in that regard. I never realized how valuable it is to have regular contact with coworkers until I left my old job. I fly down there for a week every few months or so which helps immensely - it's good to know who you work with.

There can actually be fewer distractions when you work at home. After a while you can get into a work pattern that, well, works - that's very beneficial. Also, hours tend to be more flexible for people like myself who are most efficient in non-standard work times (although I've been working on getting up earlier).

On the employer side, I imagine it could be cheaper in some respects. If you streamline things enough, the savings in office space, heating, etc. can add up. I'm not an employer, so I can't say this with much authority, but it could very well depend on what kind of work is being done and the kind of people you hire.

The upshot is that telecommuting can work quite well, but you can't do things 'business as usual'. You have to determine if the kind of work you're doing can be done from remote (mine can), and if you can stand being cooped up at home for long periods of time (I can).

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

I've got about 8 domains on Dreamhost for the last 9 months. I selected them from an advert I saw here on /.

1. Spend > $50.00 per month on Gizmos that I don't need to survive. This year i've spent close to $400 a month on things that I really don't need i.e.

• Domain Name www.nullnvoid.org $70.00 InterNIC charge
• Host DreamHost average $25.00/month
• Uswest DSL Line/Service $40 a month
• Palm3x $299
• WD 20GB HD ATA/66 7200rpm $179
• MS Intelimouse Explorer $69.99
• KDS 17" FLT Trinitron CRT $299.99
• PIII 500 w/intel MB $200.00
• 3 credits at U of MN $500
• Various books $50 a month
• New car deck w/speakers $500

2. Go to school and get a CS:IS degree (it should just take me 3 more years)

3. Become more sensitive, and stop laughing at dumb girls if they're cute (and if they're sitting at the same table)

4. change www.nullnvoid.org to www.nv.com and make my own linux distro and go ipo and retire.

5. hunt down the shit who keeps on sending me spam (ADV Adult) I'm going to hunt you down and kill you, or sue you so i can null resolution #1.

A few people have asked abpout alternatives, well, I get my web hosting from some nice Linux geeks over at DreamHost. Well, they let us switch our email provider over to a custom provider, one of which is Big MailBox. I haven't used it, but I have a friend who runs his collage radio station's web page with DreamHost and the email with this Big MailBox deal, and he raves about it. Hope this is useful, I hate webmail, so I have never paid it much heed.

This is as silly as "eCash" and "Micropayments" it will simply never succeed. If this generates any money at all I will forever hold my peice and amke no more web predictions. That is of course a lie.

Why this thing can't work:
1) "Serialization" do we want everything to be serialized like that dumb Stephen King (get well soon!) marketing ploy to sell the green mile? Seeing the X-Files come in segments is one thing. Waiting for months as an album or novel is delivered peacemeal is quite different.

2) Artist Frustration. What If the work doesn't generate any "Street Money?" and the Artists work never shows up. In the very simplistic views of the goals of the different participants a key goal of the artist was left out: expression. Sure the artist has to eat, but if that fails at least he or she can make a statement and have work published. Under this doomed system the artist that wasn't able to get people to pay for the promise of more work has a large body of unpublished work that they cannot release by contract. If we add a provision that says that if after some time the work isn't published then the artist regains rights to publish then the public won't pay, they'll just wait a little while longer (and with the pace of the internet being what it is, that wouldn't be too fast)

3) Who's going to pay? They tried to sell content once. Only porn sells directly. If people wouldn't pay for content that ALLREADY existed then why would anyone pay for essentially vaporware. And if the publisher is having trouble generating money then they could easily reach the financial position of being unable to pay angry "customers" back. Even on a guarauteed site, I don't like giving out my credit card number too often. And paying for vaporware isn't something i'd take any risk on.

4) Servers are getting better and cheaper. The promise of internet content is to REMOVE the middleman from publishing. Any artist able to make money by this obsurd system could surely afford a $20 to $30 per month account at dreamhost or somewhere. As servers and bandwidth get better the expense of streaming content and large file storage and big transfer rates will plummit. Artists won't need a Publisher. All they'd need is a friend or hired highschooler to write some HTML.

5) Online novels, maybe the only thing that could succeed on this payment plan, won't happen. Reading large amounts of text on the screen is painful even for bloodshot veterans and truely great books (I reccomend Catch-22 and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man :^]) are available at you LIBRARY for free. And reading is more fun when you can curl up with some hot chocolate under a quilt and feel the pages in your hands.


What we need, and I forsee coming within the next 5-10 years, is a very secure system of one click payment on the internet (well one click and a password... sure) this way artist sites could have a simple "donate" button where with two typed fields and a button you could give him or her a buck or two. This would be psychologically easier than pulling out the old card and filling in your name rank and number again and again. With a simple way to give small amounts of money people would be more inclined to acts of small charity. However browsers would have to be guaraunteed to allways alert you to a transaction and allways tell the true amount being sent. Maybe even have a sending delay so you could cancel within 48 hours or so.

Well slashdotters what do you think?

The Mushroom is putrid! It's nothing but a pale copy of The Onion, with no point and nothing worth saying. The Onion is hands down the greatest satirical site out there, but you should already know that. If I were to choose a second best, it would be The Fig Blabber. It's satirical news that slams Hollywood and the entertainment industry. I've seen plenty of comedy sites that warrant a look, but these are the only two that keep me coming back regularly.