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A few comments.... by Anonymous Coward · 2001-03-19 23:24 · Score: 2 · on Earthlink's Extra HTTP Header

OK, I work for Earthlink - tech support specifically (actually in one of the legacy Mindspring centers, so I may have talked to at least one of you at some point in time :), so, here's my whole take on this stuff:

The headers: Well honestly, I had heard about them maybe 48 hours before the story hit /. (figured it would have been sooner, honestly). Looking at what it info it provides, yeah they're pretty harmless. Of course, I know many of you wouldn't want this info sent out, so send emails to feedback@earthlink.net for your concerns. YES, they get read (eventually!). Hell I wouldn't be suprised if they add a switch in the next software release now. And yes, we do care about our users and their privacy. And we really hate spam too :)

Sky Dayton and Scientology: OK, Sky Dayton is a member of Scientology, and he's our chairman. Now, does that mean the whole bloody company is commited to said belief system? Of course not. From what I know of Scientology, we sure don't run our company based on their ideals. Check: http://www.earthlink.net/about/mission.html if you wanna know what kind of beliefs we use in day-to-day business (and we may not be doing our best in all those categories, but damned if we're not gonna fix that). And our people are really cool - Carter Calle, Mike McQuary, our TS managers - they rule.

This is what's supposed to happen by Anonymous Coward · 2001-03-10 00:43 · Score: 1 · on Communications Decency Act Protects AOL in Lawsuit

The good part of the "Communications Decency Act" is that it gets ISPs out of the censorship business. An ISP shouldn't disconnect anybody without a court order to do so.

The whole "kiddie porn" crisis was dreamed up by the Meese Commission as an end-run around the First Amendment. Go read the original Meese Report from the Reagan years. The kiddie porn crisis was devised as a way to get law enforcement chasing after the porno industry again, by creating something they could put people in jail for.

Kiddie porn is a small-scale problem blown up into a national issue for the benefit of the religious right. There wasn't much kiddie porn back when it was legal, before the Government started distributing it. The FBI runs a large child porno sting operation, staffed by 40 people, out of their Baltimore office.

If the real interest was protecting children, there'd be more activity in catching employers of child labor. The Department of Labor detected only 14 cases of child labor during 1998, while surveys indicated that somewhere above 250,000 kids are working illegally. Far more law enforcement activity is devoted to chasing child pornography than other employers of children.

Why so many criminals in Scientology? by muldrake · 2001-03-09 06:15 · Score: 2 · on Scientology vs. Panoussis Ruling

How come so many Scientologists and Scientology supporters have criminal records? How come so many of them are losers who are taking their personal frustration out on the critics of their crimes?

We have Founder L. Ron Hubbard with his criminal conviction for petty theft for passing bad checks and with a record of wife-beating and drug abuse, who died on psych drugs while hiding from the authorities. Not only did his ex-wife and his own son describe him as a "paranoid schizophrenic" but a judge even described the cult he founded as "paranoid and schizophrenic" and stated that this was a "reflection of its founder." Among his other crimes, L. Ron Hubbard was sentenced to four years of prison for fraud by a French court, but he remained a fugitive from this charge as well.

Hubbard was also a child abuser, who forced his son L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. to take phenobarbitol and who was fined $50 and sentenced to probation for abandoning his own daughter in a vehicle.

Theft conviction
Wife-beating and drug abuse
Death on psych drugs coroner report
Described as a "paranoid schizophrenic" by ex-wife
Described as a "paranoid, schizophrenic megalomaniac" by his own son
Described as "schizophrenic and paranoid" by judge
Convicted of fraud and sentenced to four years in prison
Fined and put on probation for abandoning his daughter in a vehicle
Forced his own son to take drugs

Then we have L. Ron Hubbard's third wife Mary Sue Hubbard, who was convicted of felonies and served jail time for helping her husband mastermind the biggest domestic espionage case in American history, involving burglarizing government offices routinely and committing other crimes. Even her own lawyers admitted that she had committed these crimes, as well as 11 other Scientologists who were convicted of crimes including felonies.

Sentencing memorandum describing crimes as "heinous and vicious"
Stipulation of evidence admitting to multiple felonies by Hubbard and other defendants

Next comes the President of the cult he founded, Heber Jentzsch, who has just recently skipped out on a million dollars bail for felonies in Spain, making him a fugitive from justice and persona non grata in all of Europe. A habitual liar, who constantly claims that his cult has eight million members, this criminal can be seen in handcuffs all around the net, and can accurately be described as a bail-jumping felon.

Heber Jentzsch Spanish criminal charges

The BASIC Stamp rules by dubl-u · 2001-02-20 13:18 · Score: 2 · on Personal CallerID-Aware 'Answering Machines'?

Just today I received a BASIC Stamp kit, and I'm loving it. Anybody who can code their way out of a paper bag can use one of these to do all sorts of cool electronics work.

Once I have this beast under control, a smart CLID box is tops on my list; my intention was just to make the phone not ring when it's a telemarketer, but I like this idea even better. Please do post your schematic and code once you get it going!

For those who want to make a simple Caller ID box, a generous fellow has already posted the details of his project. For more information, check out Parallax, the makers of the Stamp, and the BASIC Stamp FAQ. To get an idea of what you can do, see the List of Stamp Applications (LOSA), the first item of which is, no foolin', a cyborg cat.

Mentat games was Re: PD by hipbone · 2001-02-02 20:10 · Score: 1 · on Can You Suggest Any Non-Zero Sum Games?

For mindstretch that's decidedly non-zero sum try reading Hesse's novel Magister Ludi about the Glass Bead Game, or Carse's book Finite and Infinite Games -- and roll your own.

Or begin with mine at HipBone Games.

Nonzero-Sum Games for the 21st Century by clatterton · 2001-02-02 19:40 · Score: 1 · on Can You Suggest Any Non-Zero Sum Games?

Last year I wrote a piece on this very topic, sketching out some of the major features of the current paradigm shift (from a zero-sum to nonzero-sum world-view) and suggest them as design criteria for a new kind of game. Then I asked for suggestions for games that meet these design goals. A friend of mine provided a really clever proposal.

You can read the article here.

Here's the meat of the article:

=====

...The best, most "classic" games are little snapshots of a culture's mindset at a given point in history.

Chess is a toy version of medieval life,
Monopoly is wish fulfillment for people living through the Depression,
Go is a manifestation of the eastern understanding of negative space, timing, and synergy.

(I'm lazy so I'll assume three examples are enough to sell my basic theory).

I want to make a game that encapsulates the emerging culture of the early 21st Century. You will have your own thoughts about what that culture is, precisely, but I'll sketch out the trends I see. Read through them before you begin to think about how to materialize the concepts. Avoid becoming fixated on a single "solution".

Concept 1: Gaia
The new paradigm is one of complex, metastable, self-organizing systems.

Each age has its dominant metaphor: fire, water power, steam power, electricity, electronics, cybernetics. Now we see the world as interlocked self-organizing systems of diverse types: biological, technological, informational, and cultural. The most accurate label I can think of is the James Lovelock's term "Gaia".

Game design implication: A game such as I propose would involve:

elements of chance (unlike chess),
filtering by selection,
feedback loops, and
creative input from the players.

Concept 2: Onward and Upward
Life is evolutionary, not entropic.

Most games involve the slow degradation of the enemies' capabilities until only one player is left alive. Evolution is more about increasing functionality, interdependence, and dynamic equilibrium. Sure, conflict and death play a part, but death's utility is getting the old out of the way of the new. These ideas are equally true in the Darwinian and personal/business/technological sense.

Game design implication:

Players build a thing of increasing complexity,
They prune out dead ends, and
Conflict can exist, but cooperation is dominant.

Concept 3: Something for Nothing
The zero-sum world is giving way to a world of boundless wealth.

Physics has come a long way since Newton. Quantum mechanics is beginning to show space-time as a seething matrix of "zero-point energy" waiting to be harnessed. "Quantum bits" promise to hold an infinite amount of data, and "quantum tunnelling" hints we may find a way to move that data instantaneously. Synchronistically, the stock market is in an unprecedented "Big Bang" mode caused (I believe) by the market's shift from dependence on finite material resources (gold, oil, real estate) to an appreciation of the limitless creative potential of people.

Game design implication:

Components of game play (pieces, rules, players, etc.) could be added either by pure creation or the interaction of other game components (generating new pieces, new rules, children).

Concept 4: The New Gold Standard
You can't measure infinity with a meter-stick

With the advent of the Net's fast, free exchange of ideas, the monetary standard of the 21st Century won't be money (tokens to represent how much of the world's finite material wealth you command) but rather a person's ability to produce new ideas by creativity, augmentation, or synthesis. We ourselves have become the gold standard.

This allows -- no, requires -- a sort of a "Grand Unification" of Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy. She understood the infinite potential of creative minds but mistakenly tried to measure it with a finite number (gold). "Wealth" is now not something you own (you can't own people these days). Philosophically this means you can have endless wealth once you abandon the compulsion to bottle it up.

Game design implication:

This runs counter to the three games I mentioned before (chess, Monopoly, and Go). They rely on competition and destruction of everyone's assets. I'd prefer the players cooperate in the gradual construction of some odd structure, be it mathematical, geometric, logical, representational, or even social.

Concept 5: Matter is the servant of Information
The difference between a diamond and carbon dust is the way it's assembled.

Our world is made almost entirely of only a dozen or so elements (with a tiny sprinkling of the rarer elements). Our alphabet has just over two dozen letters, yet Western literature is an inexhaustible flow of words. What creates diversity is the arrangement of these elemental pieces.

Game design implication:

The ideal form of the game should rely more on rules than on physical manifestation. Put another way, the flow of the game (toward a more "winning" state) is one of rearrangement, synthesis, and timing.

Concept 6: The world is fuzzy
Fuzzy logic is supplanting binary logic.

The new science of fuzzy logic allows us to see beyond simple black and white, positive-negative, or win-lose states.

Game design implication:

There is no final "win" or "loss", but degrees of each.
The amount of "winningness" will depend on the consensus of the players.
The rules and pieces of play may be of variable and/or uncertain ownership.

Possible manifestations:

Life, of course, is the ultimate expression of "the game" and we're already playing it. I'm looking for something less ambitious.

This article, asking for your help in creating a new thing out of no-thing, is itself a manifestation. Interestingly, we will "win" this iteration of "the game" by spawning another incarnation of the same principles. That almost qualifies it as a Dawkins replicator.

"Dungeons and Dragons" is also a good candidate. It's social, win-win, and involves the creation of entire worlds through an act of collaborative imagination. Unfortunately it is well-charted territory, and more time-consuming than I'd like.

The Winning Entry (so far):

"Collider Cuisine"

My friend Chris Richardson (in a stroke of brilliance) suggested a cooking game wherein players agree to meet and make a meal from random ingredients brought without any coordination. It precisely fits the spirit of my design parameters.

Gaia: Few things are as synergystic as cooking. The individual dishes strive to complement each other.
Onward and Upward: Lots of evolution (random mutation, natural selection, increasing complexity) occurs as a meal takes shape.
Something for Nothing: The old "stone soup" story is a perfect evocation of cooking as an emergent, creative event.
New Gold Standard: The creativity of the group is the major dynamic of a cooking game.
Matter is the Servant of Information: It's the emergent recipe that rescues a hopeless hodge-podge of ingredients and spices.
The World is Fuzzy: The pieces (food components) and suggestions for cooking become mixed into a collective resource, whose fitness is judged through a consensus process (the eating).

=====

I welcome comments.

Clay Dale

Re:Details on The Register by bughunter · 2001-01-24 01:26 · Score: 2 · on Microsoft's DNS Down

I'm beginning to wonder what's going on, because earthlink.net's DNS servers were down last nite, too.

Is someone out there attacking DNS servers?

Just an irrational suspicion...

The scoop with Earthlink by RebornData · 2001-01-20 02:25 · Score: 2 · on Contacting Network Admins Of Large Internet Companies?

They block TCP Port 25, but they allow relaying through their mail servers for other domains IF you're part of their network. You can read about it at http://help.earthlink.net/port25. I'd bet that they are putting some form of blocking / throttling intelligence into their mail servers. Sure, you could do this in filters with a sophisticated enough firewall, but I'm not aware of any products that have that level of sophistication AND can handle the kind of traffic they do at a reasonable expense. Mail servers are designed to understand mail, so it's much easier to put the intelligence there.

That could be very dangerous. by TheFlu · 2000-12-27 08:16 · Score: 5 · on Humorously Bad Web Hosting Policies

As another poster mentioned, I believe you would be much worse off using the bank card method, because of liability issues. With a credit card, it's pretty easy to protect yourself from fraud. If your card gets stolen or used improperly, all you are liable for is $50.00 maximum usually. However, with a bank card, there are more stipulations to the $50.00 limit, so if you were charged $7000 and you only had $100 in the bank, this could possibly put a serious hurting on your credit rating. I've enclosed some relevant laws I found on this site.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act says that you can limit your risk when your credit card is lost or stolen and that you can correct errors without damaging you credit rating.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act sets the procedure in clearing and correcting the errors on your credit record.
The Fair Credit Billing Act sets up the procedures for creditors to promptly correct the billing mistakes. It allows you to withhold payments on defective purchases and limits the risk of your lost or stolen credit cards. The law defines a billing error as any charge: -- for something you didn't buy or for a purchase made by someone not authorized to use your account; -- that is not properly identified on your bill or is for an amount different from the actual purchase price or was entered on a date different from the purchase date?
Truth In Lending limits your liability in Lost or Stolen Credit Cards. You do not have to pay for any unauthorized charges made after you notify the card company of loss or theft of your card. So keep a list of your credit card numbers and notify card issuers immediately if your card is lost or stolen. The most you will have to pay for unauthorized charges is $50 on each card.
The Electronic Fund Transfer Act provides protection for ATM, debit or check cards. Your liability for an unauthorized withdrawal can vary: -- Your loss is limited to $50 if you notify the financial institution within two business days after learning of loss or theft of your card or code. -- But, you could lose as much as $500 if you do not tell the card issuer within two business days after learning of the loss or theft. -- If you do not report an unauthorized transfer that appears on your statement within 60 days after the statement is mailed to you, you risk unlimited loss on transfers made after the 60-day period. That means you could lose all the money in your account plus your maximum overdraft line of credit. (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1993)

Penguins with perfect credit ratings. The Linux Pimp

This would have been a plug four years ago... by BobTheJanitor · 2000-12-19 00:01 · Score: 2 · on History Of Infocom aka The Creators Of Zork

There is repository of Infocom walkthroughs at the Infocom Walkthrough Archive.
I used to maintain it before I went off to college, but I handed it down quite a few years ago.
Additionally, the Underdogs have a company profile posted at the Infocom Profile.

.... One world, one web, one program - Bill Gates

Interesting article on Chernobyl by Mike+Van+Pelt · 2000-12-15 04:30 · Score: 1 · on Chernobyl (Finally) Shuts Down

This is a series of articles on the Chernobyl accident that were posted to the Jerry Pournelle RoundTable on GEnie back in 1990 by one of the regulars. It is a really blood-curdling story. (If mention of Jerry Pournelle's name makes your knee jerk, you really should ignore that for now, check out the article, and let it speak for itself.)

(Please don't critique my HTML too harshly; I just banged the minimum HTML into this antique text file necessary to make it format halfway decently in a web browser.)

It's about 64K in size.

Thanks, flame by NuclearArchaeologist · 2000-12-01 12:07 · Score: 1 · on Pro-Linux Mail Trojan Running Around

Thanks for the info on ESR, that has nothing to do with the subject. On robes, note that they are worn by judges, clerics and academitians. Whatever!

What have you done with your life, Simon Cookie? Your homepage, dripping with sappy poetry and a copyright notice(!), does not show much.

The only thing we can say for sure about the writer of this silly trojan is that he still keeps up with Windoze programing. Kinda makes you wonder, as the poster you malign did. Look up agent provocature.

Now bug me about spelling and call a penis in Yidish.

Re:This is cool, but... by Apotsy · 2000-10-21 15:25 · Score: 2 · on NHK Plans 50-Year Digital Archive

DVD sure as hell beats the scratched up, been played 100 times 35mm I usually see in theaters.

I don't know where people like you go to see movies. I hardly ever see problems at the theater I usually go to. I keep hearing about these "dirty, scratched up" film presentations, but I never see them. I guess I'm just spoiled. If the theater you go to does such a sloppy job, why don't you complain? Or try a different theater?

The heavily compressed (gotta love those MPEG2 artifacts, they really heighten the experience!), 720x480 images on DVDs are no match for even 16mm film, let alone 35mm. Hell, 35mm has higher resolution than even HDTV. Have a look at this resolution chart for movie special effects. The effective resolution of film is about 4000x3000 for a full-frame image. You really prefer 720x480 DVDs to that?

That's not even getting into the issues of color and brightness ranges, both of which are much greater on film than on video.

I've no doubt that digital video will eventually replace film, but it's not good enough yet. Those people who go around saying it's already better have probably just never seen (or don't want to see) a really high-quality film presentation. Properly done, film still provides much greater image quality than any currently existing video system. (Not to say that video won't eventually catch up, but it's got a ways to go yet.)

Re:good in a way, bad in a way by descubes · 2000-10-19 18:21 · Score: 1 · on Internet C++: Competition For Java And C Sharp?

It's funny, because I have designed such a non-C based language. And it is called... "LX", like the login name of the original poster. No, that wasn't me. The language is shortly described there. It is designed to integrate in a visual, language-agnostic programming environment called Mozart. It is open-source, you can download and try it.

Of course, at this point, it won't do much for you. As a proof that it can do more than LX, Mozart contains a Java to Java translator that can serve as a pretty-printer and be used to implement all sorts of Java extensions. LX parses and does some basic semantics analysis, but nothing very serious yet.

Getting rid of the C legacy enables tons of things. Such as optimizing on modern processors :-)

Re:Pocket Quicken and others by beagle · 2000-10-15 20:08 · Score: 1 · on What Are Your Ten Best Palm Apps?

These are in no particular order, and many are repeats from earlier in the discussion. I went through much of Palmgear when I first got my Visor Deluxe and thought the enclosed list of companies made some pretty cool products.

crystal set pages by kk6ho · 2000-09-22 00:14 · Score: 1 · on Digital Convergence In Violation Of Postal Regs?

Actually you don't need a magnent (really ferrite bar). An oatmeal cylindar box and wire will do.
Here are some links to some crystal radio pages:

http://www.freeweb.pdq.net/headst rong/foxhole.HTM The razorblade radio plans
http://www.midnightscience.com/
http://www.freeweb.pdq.net/headst rong/crystal.htm
http://www.thebest.net/wuggy/
http://home.earthlink.net/~drduggee/xt al.htm

Re:Oh no! by Nezumi-chan · 2000-09-19 20:21 · Score: 2 · on Carnivore-like tool released as Open Source

The opinions of committees, experts and common sense often make little difference on policy, particularly if the corporate manipulators are doing their jobs.

A similar situation happened with respect to pornography during the Nixon administration. A Presidential Commission failed to find any evidence that pornography was actually harmful, and in fact advocated more sex education at an earlier age.

However, due to the public perception that pornography was "bad" and the growing power of anti-pr0n lobby groups, an attempt was made to discredit the report and policy was made as if it didn't exist.

Later, the Regan administration had a similar experience, but the response there was to simply start a second commission to get the "right" answers this time.

Truth has little effect on policy when spin is involved. I trust everyone can see the parallels between these examples and Carnivore, DeCSS and the Napster case.

Re:No shrinkwrap by sulli · 2000-09-17 23:07 · Score: 2 · on Digital Convergence Changes EULA, and Gets Cracked

Yeah, I was kind of miffed about this.

I was pretty pleased about it! It meant I didn't have to worry about any license crapola.

OT: Hey, are you the lizrd I think you are?

sulli

Advertising and Independence by Cujo · 2000-09-15 00:18 · Score: 1 · on Apple's Ad Agency Goes After Mac Rumour Sites

If I'm reading a rumors site, I want to know that they're independent of Apple and other major players in the Mac market: IBM, Motorola, M$, Adobe, etc. Therefore, I will drop them from my bookmarks and link pages if they accept advertising from same. I'm also deeply suspicious of publications that sign NDAs.

I see this problem all over the product journalism field, whether it be computers, cars, stereo gear, or movie reviewing quote whores. Big advertisers have power to influence content, and it's hard to put together a publication without their sponsorship. The solution is that we consumers have to demand independence.

Re:OT: QWERTY by Vesperi · 2000-09-04 18:23 · Score: 1 · on How Do Linux and Windows 2000 Compare?

Here is a link on the subject. http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert .html
--
James Michael Keller

Re:Our inevitable catastrophy & our chance to evol by tooth · 2000-09-01 14:51 · Score: 2 · on Apocalypse Missed: Asteroid Near Miss

I highly recommend Michio Kaku's "Hyperspace".

Spacebob has a quick review of this book here.

Watch Out for Copy Protection! by ewhac · 2000-09-01 12:13 · Score: 4 · on Will The X-Box Be A TiVO Rival?

I shouldn't have to spend a lot of time explaining this one. Who here honestly believes that Micros~1 would put out a digital VCR that would allow you to share recorded shows with your friends?

A digital VCR -- or, more generally, a digital media center -- is a wonderful idea. It would allow you to record, mix, match, edit, transform, and otherwise manipulate the half-dozen or so media sources already streaming into your home (broadcast TV, cable TV, AM/FM radio, Internet). Using a single well-designed system, you could, for example:

Record that evening's Star Trek broadcast,
Go to TrekFanSite.org (not a real site) and download the fan-authored cutlist to automatically chop out the commercials,
Hop over to the Simul-Trek site, download and lay in a replacement soundtrack; or
Visit MST3Kinfo.com and download an MPEG overlay of Joel/Mike and the bots offering commentary,
Assemble snippets from various episodes to create some wacky dialog,
Post the result to your Web site and share it with the world.

Now, which is the more probable: That Micros~1 will create the afore-described flexible, open system that gives ordinary people the power to use media in new ways; or will they create a box that will copy-protect the fsck out of everything -- all the worst features of Macrovision and CSS -- preventing you from even copying the recordings to your own PC, and will fink on you if you try?

Pay very close attention to this one, people...

Schwab

A good book: by Captain+Pillbug · 2000-08-29 11:47 · Score: 1 · on Baby Black Hole With Big Appetite

Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Kip Thorne. It goes into enough detail that you won't be left feeling empty, but it's well within the reach of most amateur enthusiasts.

Re:This is cool... and some important info by GearheadShemTov · 2000-08-24 04:46 · Score: 2 · on Battlebots Starting On Comedy Central Tonight

Battlebots and Robot Wars can be fun to watch, but I have no interest in them beyond the spectacle. It isn't that I don't like robot bloodsports, it's that these things aren't really robots. They are radio control toys that pump iron.

If you really want to know how to build autonomous robots, there are several competitions with the same level of excitement as Battlebots et al, but with the added benefit that you can imagine it might eventually be a good thing to turn the resulting machines loose in the real world.

For instance, Robot Sumo is quite popular in Japan and the US. You can find the rules and links to competitions at Sine Robotics. Another big competition is the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest, wherein robots navigate a known maze (a model house floorplan) to put out a fire (simulated by a lit candle).

Another nice thing about these competitions is they can be cheaper to get into than Battlebots (less heavy iron and welding). And there are lots of good people and organizations who can help you climb the learning curve. Just a few of my favorites are the Seattle Robotics Society, The Robotics Club of Yahoo, Raleigh Triangle Amateur Robotics Group, Portland Area Robotics Society, Robotics Society of Southern CA, and the San Francisco Robotics Society of America.

Finally, here's a few places you can find parts, books, plans, kits, and lots of links: Mondo-Tronics, Acroname, and Robot Books.com.

browser, proxy? by titus-g · 2000-08-23 08:01 · Score: 2 · on Are There Problems with AOL's Web Access?

Could it be the browser?

I'm not sure how it could be AOL as surely they are just providing the transport?, unless they have transparent proxy somewhere (quite likely).

If they do, and it does block multipart forms then there probably isn't much you can do, could check the browsers proxy settings in case it is not a transparent one, but one installed by default.

AOL do compress images when you browse, probably not relevant, but there is more info at http://home.earthlink.net/~jillb hart/AOLimage.html

Re:well by SquadBoy · 2000-08-13 20:12 · Score: 2 · on BSD Basics For The Newbie

Try this I and several other people I know use it on a regular basis.

Earthlink and Privacy by muldrake · 2000-07-19 10:54 · Score: 4 · on Slashback: Recusement, Homecoming, Cubism

Quoted from Arnie Lerma's website:

DECLARATION OF ROBERT J. CIPRIANO

I, Robert J. Cipriano, hereby declare and state as follows:

[. . .]

38. I was befriended the first day of my employment at Earthlink by a Mr. Michael Hamra, another sales associate. I quickly started a friendship with Mr. Hamra and spent countless hours talking about various things including how Earthlink started with investments, by Kirstie Alley, Tom Cruise, John Travolta and other wealthy Scientologists, into Sky Dayton's idea of an internet service provider. Mr. Hamra told me how Sky Dayton had a coffee shop before starting Earthlink and that he, because of being a Scientologist and his friendships with celebrity Scientologists, he was able to build a multi-million dollar company that could, "Watch over the entire internet from within the internet."

39. Additionally, Mr. Hamra told me he was one of the founding group of Scientologist who ran Earthlink out of a Glendale one room office where he made sales calls from a bathroom in the office. Mr. Hamra said, "The Church of Scientology now had a database of information on every subscriber which included names, credit card info., credit reports, telephone info., computer info., who had referred them to Earthlink and who were their previous ISP providers." Mr. Hamra told me about the "other Earthlink building" which was next door on New York Avenue in Pasadena. Mr. Hamra told me that the other building was high security and is where Earthlink and the Church of Scientology did all the monitoring of the internet. Mr. Hamra was always very interested in my testimony in Berry v. Cipriano. It became clear to me that he was reporting what I was saying to other in Scientology.

40. I received many incoming sales calls while at Earthlink from individuals who would ask, "Are you a bunch of Scientologists?" We were trained to never admit that we were involved with the Church Of Scientology.

---

There is also an article on this in the Phoenix New Times.

Incidentally Earthlink is now owned by Mindspring, so the same conditions may not currently prevail. Cipriano is also not the best source, as he is virtually a pathological liar, but he did indeed work for Earthlink, and whatever else Cipriano may have said, it's disturbing a Scientology lawyer could duke people into a job there at will.

Re:Way to go Earthlink. by ahaning · 2000-07-14 00:35 · Score: 1 · on Earthlink Refuses To Install Carnivore

Earthlink does have a DSL service. Their dialup service can be flakey at times but is generally good and I think the flakiness is mostly due to our crappy phone lines.

------------

Re:the reason it would be too interruptive... by Damien+Vryce · 2000-07-13 23:15 · Score: 1 · on Earthlink Refuses To Install Carnivore

Somewhat off the main topic, but interesting.

If you do happen to be an EarthLink user, Spaminator will do fairly good spam filtering for you. I've been using the system since about 8 hours after EarthLink brought it online, and it's never sidelined any email that wasn't real spam.

Also, in regards to the main subject: That wasn't a press release there. No names, no real quotes. That leads me to believe that it may not be "official".

Re:I want by in+the+goat+ass · 2000-07-12 06:09 · Score: 1 · on FSF Proposes .gnu TLD To ICANN

In his religion, everyone is the pope. Leave him alone, he's the pope, goddammit!

-Sincerely

The IBM 405GP - be warned by faeryman · 2000-07-09 06:40 · Score: 3 · on SOCs: Say Goodbye To C's?

Okay. I know you will very well call me a stick in the mud for this one, but I must be a bit more pessimistic than the article or the general air for the IBM 405GP is.

I've followed the development of the for a while now, even having a few email conversations with Jonathon Thompson, Quong Ho Thoc, and Hagr Itstein (three lead developers). I told them about a few of my concerns but it looks like marketing prevailed :(

While yes, I am a fan of Linux and OSS (hell, I've used been running Slackware since version 2 and my firewalls run OpenBSD), I don't see Linux being the right tool for this. I don't want to see this product fail since I know IBM is a good company. By all means everything else they made was a success, but the IBM 405GP looks like it will be a flop.

Why?

(1) Security - This is a big concern for me. Imagine some evil hacker getting control of this baby...now imagine if this was used in your bank or a military instituion. See the problem? While I commend the design of Open Souce, perhaps allowing the innerworkings of this to be accessable by a hacker is not good, even more so when it's an embedded system.

Check out these sites, they explain why the needs for your desktop's security (which Linux can provide) are on the other end of the spectrum for bank/B2B/military security (which Linux cannot provide):
The CIA's spin
Military disablement
cpsr.org

(2) Expansion architecture - Check the specs on this thing. While a PCI slot is normally a good thing, wouldn't MCA or a propietary bus be better suited for this? Linux runs on the MCA fine, and I think it's low overhead and fault-tolerant properties are better than a run of the mill PCI slot for this. Or a new bus design could be implemented. IBM benefits with better performance, we as a comunity benefit from more GPL code being released. Sound good?

(3) Operating system - [flamesuit] I like Linux, but I don't think Linux is the best tool for this. IBM has made the decision to go with Linux, so I'll respect that. But I must say that WindowsCE or QNX would be better. We know who WindowsCE is backed by, but I must admit Mico$oft'$ embedded OS department knows thier stuff. Look at the recent Sharp handhelds - fine work and I think the same design could be applied to the IBM 405GP. If you don't want to recognize MS products though, I can understand. QNX would be just as valid (and in some ways such as power usage and latency) even better than WindowsCE and Linux. Scalibility and performance are key here, and QNX can deliver better than Linux. [/flamesuit]

Again, I don't like being negative but I don't think the IBM 405GP will do that well. I want to be proved wrong though, I want to see Linux progress and gain market share, and I want to see IBM be profitable....but Linux just ain't gonna cut it for this one my friends. Please tell me I'm wrong.

Re:Down with the phone! by Kirch · 2000-07-08 18:55 · Score: 1 · on Shutting Up Annoying Cellphones

uh here is some more friendly links to the above mentioned sites. http://www.sesp.co.uk/ www.cguard.com/English/latests/index.html http://www.cb-security.com/catalo gue/products.htm http://home.earthlink.net/~montyhenry/surveillance 4.html Kirch

Re:Compression by GigaGoogle · 2000-07-07 12:33 · Score: 1 · on Download The Human Genome

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

Huffman would better compression algorithm in my opinion. Huffman uses a tree to determine which encodings to use for each symbol. The encodings might be similar to this:

G -- 00
A -- 01
T -- 10
C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

Re:Damn these sites (or, my mouse has spoiled me) by GigaGoogle · 2000-07-07 06:51 · Score: 4 · on Web Site "Lock-In"

I cross-referenced your post. Hope this helps!

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

Scientists' home pages by DHartung · 2000-07-06 23:10 · Score: 2 · on NASA Demonstrates Space Sails (In The Lab)

James Benford of Material Sciences and Energy Sciences Laboratories.
----

Re:Space Sails? by DHartung · 2000-07-06 23:07 · Score: 2 · on NASA Demonstrates Space Sails (In The Lab)

maddog42 asks:
Why don't we take useless national defense projects like Star Wars and turn the technology around to propel solar sails with all the high-powered laser and particle cannons that are probably still up in orbit somewheres?

Ha ha. We wish we had particle cannons in space. (You do realize that the Strategic Defense Initiative never led to anything, right? Except the recent National Missile Defense system proposals. And it still isn't deployed.)

Actually, you're closer to the truth than you think. I can't say for certain, but it seems highly likely to me that the experiment relied on advances in laser and microwave technology made under SDI funding. (Indeed, one researcher's home page shows that he's done contract work for Raytheon to "suppress enemy air defense".)

So in a sense, this is beating swords into plowshares.
----

Web page for Microwave Sciences, Inc. by Turing+Machine · 2000-07-06 21:26 · Score: 1 · on NASA Demonstrates Space Sails (In The Lab)

The guys who did the microwave sail have a web page at Microwave Sciences, Inc. There are some abstracts on there, but not the full papers, unfortunately.
--
WordSocket Voice BBS Software

Re:Weight? by Kintanon · 2000-06-28 21:17 · Score: 5 · on Project Dragonslayer: Forging Old Tech With New

I would tend to think it would be closer to the 5-10lbs. Of the swords that I have looked at, (and own,) none are that large. AT 40-50 lbs, it is more of a two-hander, and actually more of a club. Here's a greatsword, (43" blade), that weighs in just under 6 lbs, and this is a REAL sword, (this is about the finest manufacturer I have found, I have a long sword from them) Great Sword
The main thing I see, is that you really can't weild a 40lb sword effectively for much of anything. Perhaps one horseback, but even then it becomes very unweildy, and generally the balance is not going to be very good on a weapon of that size(well, the balance may be good, but it won't be superb just because of the size of it.)

I am forced to concede as I just reaxmined some of my information. The sword I weighed was apparently of pretty disgustingly crappy workmanship. Because citing from this page I realize I am in error and you sir, are correct:

Sword Myths

Myth #2: Medieval broadswords weighed 10 to 15 pounds, some as much as 40 pounds.
This myth comes from the same place as the myth about the weight of plate armor. Plate armor was worn by knights in the 14th to 17th centuries, and it was certainly bulkier than normal street clothes. However, if a knight wore armor that made it hard to get up after falling from his horse, then such a knight didn't live very long, no matter how thick his armor was. And such a knight would die just as fast trying to wield a sword that weighed 15 pounds.

Actually, the average medieval broadsword weighed around 3 to 5 pounds, and only the very strongest warriors could handle the 5 to 8 pound hand-and-a-half swords and early Claymores. And then there were those giants who hauled the occasional two-handed great sword into battle, but even those only pushed 12 pounds at the maximum. Even the so-called Austrian Masterpiece two-handed sword with a flamberge blade weighed only 8 to 10 pounds.

Just to give you an idea, the Marto Excalibur is 48" long overall and weighs around 6 pounds, the CAS Iberia Black Baron sword is about 38" and weighs just 3¼ pounds, the CAS Iberia Swept Hilt Rapier is 44" long and weighs only 2½ pounds. And even Marto's largest Claymore is 56" long and weighs only 8½ pounds. All these swords feature steel blades and have the same size and proportions as their Medieval and Renaissance counterparts.

Same Name, Same B-Date, Saved by SSN by rjamestaylor · 2000-06-14 02:01 · Score: 2 · on When Background Checks Go Wrong...

My wife and I moved from Southern CA to Northwestern WA a couple years ago and we went through the regular proceedures to effect the new residency. Everything was pretty boring and uneventful until I had just completed the driver's license test. In WA you are given your driver's license on the same visit that you pass your test. Standing at the counter to pick it up I was informed that I would not be receiving it because I had my license revoked in New Jersey for DUI.

Huh?

A sense of dread came over me. Wow. What a binder I must have had! I guess it started in CA and I drove to NJ drunk, applied for and got a license (while blacked out), and then got caught in this drunken stupour, had my license revoked and returned to CA before detoxing...

Or they had made a mistake.

I told them I had never had a Driver's License in NJ, nor had I lived there, nor had I visited there, nor had I flown over the Garden State, nor had I visited a neighbooring state to NJ. Then they said, "But it's on your record." Wait. I asked, "What's the name on the revocation record?" Robert James Taylor. My name. I continued, "What's the birth date?" ____, __, 1967. My birth date, exactly. *Gulp* Once more, "What's the Social Security Number?" They didn't tell me, but they said it did not match.

*Whew* After that, the counter person conferred with a manager and returned to hand me my card.

I was never so happy to have a Social Security Number as right then.

By the way, somewhere in New Jersey there is a guy that shares my exact name and birth date but is a complete loser. Shape up! You're making me look bad!

If you know a 33 year-old (yes, I was born in the first 6 months of 1967) named Robert James Taylor, please pass this note on to him. Tell him, "Hi" and "Thanks for nothing" from me.

Re:LRP by rjamestaylor · 2000-06-01 10:59 · Score: 1 · on Embeded Linux Firewall Appliances?

Even better: this.

I found that using this search on http://www.linuxrouter.org/.

Go with series' and fansubs. by naught · 2000-06-01 00:26 · Score: 1 · on Essential Anime

I'm really fond of long-running series'. I much prefer longer, more complex stories to those which can be summed up in a couple of hours. These don't always get released in the US, but they are usually available through fansubs (that's where someone who loves the show enough to subtitle it distributes it for the cost of a tape).

Some series' I recommend:

A Vision of Escaflowne -- easily my favorite series. 26 episodes which you won't be able to help watching straight through. It falls right in with El Hazard (someone mentioned this above) as other-world anime.

Fushigi Yuugi: The Mysterious Play -- Next in line, suprised no one's mentioned it. 52 eps. Really good. This one's hard to put down, but not many people have 36 hours to spend watching videos. =) The first 26 eps are available on DVD from pioneer, but the subbing isn't that great.

The Hakkenden -- Legend of the Dog Warriors. Live it, learn it, know it. It's mostly a fight anime, but it has excellent backstory. It's being produced by Pioneer, though not on DVD (to my knowledge).

Some resources for you:

Soyokaze Fansubs -- These are a group of folk what sub japanese releases and distribute them before they're released in the US. My fave place to shop. Around $4/tape.

Pioneer Entertainment -- You wanted DVDs, here you go. Lots of reasonable titles.

The Anime Web Turnpike -- Lots of useful information about most series. Reviews, links, etc.

Hope this helped.

--naught

We need a review by one of their peers by ckedge · 2000-05-26 20:39 · Score: 4 · on Optical Microchip Breakthrough In Canada?

Oooh, I'm impressed. Slashdot already has links to the homepages of the two main subjects of the story of interest. Within which details of what is likely being talked of in the Toronto Star article can be found. I wish I had noticed that before I did all that searching.

Anyways, you'll notice that the publications start back in the early 90's. The 'new' thing they've discovered together might be what is talked about here, and is more clearly described here and here (Sajeev John's page contained links to this stuff...).

It's just a new way of making something that's been researched for the past 10 years, photonic band gap materials.

I haven't seen anything yet to tell us if this is such a better way of making this class of material that it counts as a 'revolution'. We have to find someone who knows a lot more about the current state of the art in creating photonic band gap materials and get this person to analyze this new method and it's results, to tell us if it's a significant advance, or what it's advantages are.

AKA: More peer review please.

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

and I'm asleep at the keyboard. Doh!

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

This announcement brought to you by the DeCSS Polar Bear.

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

and I'm asleep at the keyboard. Doh!

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

This announcement brought to you by the DeCSS Polar Bear.

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

and I'm asleep at the keyboard. Doh!

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

This announcement brought to you by the DeCSS Polar Bear.

FreeVMS by Anonymous Coward · 2000-05-19 10:47 · Score: 2 · on IBM Cranks OS/2 Curtain, Compaq Revives OpenVMS

Open source advocates may be interesting in Free-VMS, a free implementation of VMS similar to OpenVMS. Other interesting resources include

A review of the Expedition model by Marvin_OScribbley · 2000-04-14 03:50 · Score: 2 · on Solar Cells For Laptops?

I've got an expedition model of this series that I purchased a few months ago. A bit pricey (around $400+ i think) and I haven't quite got it to go quite to the full rated spec of around 20 Watts, but the cell is supposed to be more efficient at higher ambient temperatures.

With passive resistive loads I've seen as high as 16-17W (but on cold days as low as 10-13W!), but keep in mind if you run it through an inverter you are going to get some loss probably 2-3W. To bypass this problem I bought a 50 Watt zener diode at the rated voltage of the DC input (around 16V for my laptop). (Cost around $12 versus $75-$100 for an invertor). In my research I came across this site from which I learned that solar cells act like current sources, which is ideal for a zener diode. The diode essentially syphons off all the extra current your laptop uses, and since it is placed in parallel with your laptop it doesn't draw any power that your laptop can use. The zener also regulates the voltage fairly well. The 50W rating is necessary because there is no series limiting resistor and thus the zener should be able to sink twice the rated capacity of the solar panel (to be on the safe side, especially if you don't have a heat sink ;)

I also played around with the idea of some kind of mirrors to focus more sunlight on the panel, but then I figured that kind cuts down on the portability of the system. The panel itself is fairly lightweight, around 3 pounds I think, same as my laptop :-)

Time for Slashdot to take a stand... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-04-05 03:12 · Score: 4 · on MPAA Files Another Injunction Against 2600

The following is a list of all the mirrors from the 2600 site.

Time for Slashdot to take a stand... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-04-05 03:12 · Score: 4 · on MPAA Files Another Injunction Against 2600

The following is a list of all the mirrors from the 2600 site.

Time for Slashdot to take a stand... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-04-05 03:12 · Score: 4 · on MPAA Files Another Injunction Against 2600

The following is a list of all the mirrors from the 2600 site.

Slashdot Mirror

Domain: earthlink.net

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