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The RPOW system provides for proof of work (POW) tokens to be reused. A POW token is something that takes a relatively long time to compute but which can be checked quickly. RPOW uses hashcash, which are values whose SHA-1 hashes have many high bits of zeros.

Possible uses for RPOW include anti-spam tokens, "play money" for use in online games and fun bets, an aid to load balancing in P2P and file-exchange systems, and more. Any system which would benefit from a form of token which can be cheaply passed from user to user, but which is expensive to create, might want to look into RPOW.

I have included the text of the article below, in case the site gets slashdotted:

Warning: mysql_pconnect(): Too many connections in /home/virtual/site27/fst/var/www/html/mainfile.php 4 on line 19
Unable to select database

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

While this whole thing may reek of money politics, it sounds like this whole thing is at least coming down 'on the right side' of some issues, encouraging the extension of the moratorium on 'net sales taxes, and loose regulation of VoIP. Of course, there is still that minor 'monopoly' issue.

Politics can be pretty distateful, especially when it involves things like shutting down public roads so that rich people can talk to politicians in private.

Anyway, it sounds like Microsoft is lobbying the National Governors Association (NGA) to have more forward-thinking opinions on the things they have influence over: The 'Net sales tax moratorium, VoIP regulations, etc. While I doubt many people agree with MS's thoughts about their monopoly, it is nice to have someone 'legitimate' pushing the NGA in a more Libertarian direction, at least a little bit.

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

Taken from the web site:

Why This Site Exists
Technology often outruns legislation. So is the case with Peer 2 Peer networks. Many people obtain P2P software so they can download music or movies. A large number of those people do not have any idea what they are sharing.

A few months ago, I downloaded some military briefings from the Gnutella Network. The briefings were zipped and the file contained 21 documents with classifications ranging from For Official Use Only to Secret/NO FORN. Shocked at my discovery, I notified an agency on a nearby military installation. When nothing happened, I notified another agency. I continued this course because no action was taken and for a nation at war, I was concerned for the safety of our soldiers.

It may appear that I am picking on certain institutions. This is true. I want everyone to know that we can be our own worst enemies when we don't understand the full power of our technology. I want every military and government agency to see first hand what is being shared with anyone who has a computer. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I can save myself some talking.

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

This article has not been slashdotted:
Sidekick 2 Revealed
...and a couple pics here, if you scroll down.

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

At work, we use www.protoexpress.com. They're similar to pad2pad for what we use them for, 'no-touch' custom circuits. No-touch means they don't do any verification of the board, and is what lets you get your own board quickly and inexpensively. We've had them do some pretty complex stuff without any problems. Their turn-around times are also very good (generally less than one week), and they are affordable and don't have any problems with small runs -- we often do only 2 prints of a new design.

Of course, a significant portion of the time involved in this is in populating the board. Soldering 2,000 points is never any fun.
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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

I feel that the world will be an overall happier place if more people have more RAM.

Frankly, even if people may not realize it, they'll be *much* better off having more than 256 MB RAM. Dell etc. are definitely not benefitting their consumers by including only 256 mb ram in these behemoth computers people buy, especially if people are looking into doing serious photo editing, and DV. And if you are running XP, how can you expect to survive with 256? This is so frustrating...

P.S. Half-life 2 requirements, Gabe Newell:

Ideally, one should have a 2.4 Ghz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 9 enabled graphics card to fully partake in the title. Those with less powerful components shouldn't worry about upgrading unless their system specs fall below a 1.2 Ghz processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a DirectX 7 compatible graphics card.

Of course, when HL2 game was due to be publish 25 years ago, these requirements were insane.

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

• http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/761537.html
  
• http://news.com.com/Yahoo+Mail,+Amazon+suffer+outa ges/2100-1017_3-216131.html
  
• http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalConte nt/0,289142,sid14_gci876675,00.html
  

And if you would just like a short introduction to what the heck RAM speed means, check out this excellent Arstechnica.com article:

FSB and memory speeds

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

As Geeks have known ever since this whole SCO debacle started, SCO's claims are bunk. But up until relatively recently, SCO has had artificially high stock valuation as a result of their insane Linux ownership claims.

About 1 year ago I tried to get approval for an options trading account so I could sell SCO short (ie make money when their stock drops). Unfortunately I didn't have sufficient liquid assets to get options trading approval from my trading company.

Well, now the rest of the world has caught on, sort of; SCO is still up about 150% from two years ago, but down about 75% from its high. I think there is still a ways to fall...they certainly deserve it.

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

And what better way to share Free stuff than the Internet?

Nullsoft (of WinAmp/trouble-making fame) released NSV/Winamp TV. A good description:

NSV is a new multimedia container format designed for network video streaming. The format is known as NullSoft Video or simply NSV. NSV was developed by Nullsoft corporation, the same company that produced the popular Winamp and Shoutcast streaming audio software.

NSV consists of free software to encode, stream and view video. There are additional third party NSV applications being developed and distributed by stations and users.

Visit here for more info

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

I'm sure Mr. Gates' point is that since high-bandwidth network connectivity will be ubiquitous, there will be no point in *any* physical media. I mean, in normal circumstances, you wouldn't even think of saving a web site to a disk to show it to someone on another computer with internet access. So, assuming that network storage is fast and 'net access pervasive in 10 years, isn't it reasonable to assume that people will choose the path of least resistance, and store their items in such a way that they can be accessed from anywhere? This is certainly an idea that people have been talking about forever, and that we are starting to see now.

For example:
http://del.icio.us/ is a site dedicated to storing bookmarks
and there is iDisk, and all sorts of photo sites.

I don't think the article says anything new, the author just tries to make it sound controversial.

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Freedom or Evil: Freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

Aside from the obviously frightening implications of this, how does it make sense? Are Japanese school children disappearing left and right? I thought Japan was an incredibly safe country.

On the other hand, if the kids are smart enough, think of the opportunity to play hookie: simply leave your RFID tag *within* the school, and sneak out! Go play video games all day, with an electronic alibi!

I am going to see if I can get work to start using these...

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Freedom or Evil: freevil.net
G. W. Bush says, "You decide!"

Now if only there's a straightforward way to share your customized distro with other people; as in, I make a distro that runs on some embedded processor, say a 486 clone, that a ton of people use. Is there an easy way for me to simply share my configuration with other people in the same community?

It seems like if this is done right, you could create automagically updating distrubtions easily enough that 'customer bases' even in the 100s or 1000s can simply support themselves.

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Freedom or Evil: www.freevil.net
GWB says, "You decide!"