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I've been running an ISP called FrogNet (http://www.frognet.net/) for the past 10 years. I am SO looking forward to feeling misdirected spammer wrath.

The first perp had an account with a different ISP. He found several big holes in their security and alerted them of the problem. The ISP revoked his account as a reward. We found out about it, and gave him a job. He was 16 at the time and stayed with us well into adulthood while he went to college.

The second perp, who still works for us, was asked to perform a security check by his employer. He found holes, presented his findings, (including the dirt he dug,) and was brought up on charges for "Exceeding mandate" or something along those lines. We hired him. He's great.

Regardless, hacker jerks regularly hack away at our walls. I wish we had jobs for all of them! My vote? Hire them.

Let me begin by saying that I love drugs. I have been using drugs moderately for the last five years. I have used alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, marijuana, nitrous oxide, dextromethorphan, GHB, diphenhydramine, salvia divinorum, codeine, oxycodone, ephedrine, kava kava, mushrooms (psilocybin containing ones), alprazolam (Xanax), and diazepam (Valium). I only use marijuana and nitrous oxide, usually in combination, on a regular basis (i.e. once or twice a weekend). I am a pagan and the combination of these two produces intensely incredible reality defying and religious experiences for me.

I loathe people who sit there chugging coffee or alcohol getting all self-righteous indulging in a similar conversation as below:
Self righteous bastard: "Drugs are bad. You shouldn't do drugs."
Me: "Why are they bad?"
SRB: "Drugs kill people."
Me: "No they don't. I've used drugs and I'm still alive."
SRB: "Well, drugs kill some people."
Me: "Actually, I don't think, throughout history, that there has ever been a recorded case of death directly and solely due to marijuana."
SRB: "Well, some drugs kill some people."
Me: "Yeah, well some Americans killed some people during the second world war. Some cars kill some people every day. So what, you want to abolish Americans and cars as well?"

I'll conclude by saying that illegal drugs, or drugs of questionable legality (e.g. nitrous oxide) have in no way affected me in a negative manner, even after five years of use. My IQ has been measured consistently between 155 and 165, and I have a perfect grade point average in school. I have an excellent relationship - I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary in two weeks. My family loves me, and they are accepting of my drug use because hell, my parents smoked pot in the 60s.

In fact, the ONLY drug I ever had a problem with is alcohol. I could not control my alcohol intake and at my worst I was drinking 50-80 drinks a week (getting drunk 3-5 nights a week). I got kicked out of the first university I attended because I was frequently too hung over to go to class. My friends were turning their backs on me. I couldn't maintain a relationship. My liver enzyme count was on the rise. Alcohol, no matter how you look at it, is physically addictive. Marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, nitrous oxide, etc... are not. You can overdose and die (fairly easily) on alcohol. It is nearly impossible to overdose and die from marijuana use (you'd have to smoke a bale, and you'd probably die from respiratory failure long before you'd die from an overdose), or LSD use for that matter (If you're interested - there's a report floating around the net that I think is linked to from either Hyperreal or the Lycaeum that states that a couple people at a party snorted pure LSD thinking it was cocaine... they ingested approximately 1250 hits each and although they remained unconcious for a few days, they suffered no long term cognitive impairment or mental trauma). In fact, alcohol is directly poisonous to the human body. Its primary metabolite is three times more poisonous than alcohol itself (this probably explains the hangover).

People state that drugs are bad. That is because that's what the government teaches, and because the media glorifies damage caused by illegal drugs (and yes - drugs, like cars, can be used irresponsibly and cause damage). Information is the key to accident prevention. Retain the information, and you'll get teens dying from trying drugs incorrectly. Dextromethorphan is an example (and a good one at that, because it is becoming quite popular) - if you do it incorrectly, you can easily die from acetaminophen overdose. If done correctly, it is fairly safe and extraordinarily mind expanding. Thanks to William White's most excellent Dextromethorphan FAQ, people can learn to use this drug responsibly instead of saying, "Hey, I heard you can get high on cough syrup." and running out and drinking a bottle of Nyquil, which will kill you.

Most of us don't want our teenagers having sex. Sex can be dangerous. You can contract numerous STDs, get pregnant, etc... Do just tell our children that "Sex is bad?". No, we realize that many of them will PROBABLY still go out and have sex despite our warnings, so we provide them with the proper information. We tell them to use birth control and how to use it properly. We know that teens and young adults will use drugs. We cannot hide the information about drug use; it must be made available for their safety.

Personally, it digusts me to no end that the government feels they can dictate what I can and what I cannot put in my body. Next will they be telling me what I can eat? Watching me to make sure that my sex life is in compliance with what they deem as socially acceptable?

I say MORE drugs :-). Legalize the drugs. Tax the drugs. Pay off debts with the drug tax. Use the remaining money and the money saved on the police force, government anti-drug institutions, etc... to fund hospitals and addiction recovery.

v

or
Maybe we need this dotshit

I hate to sound like a gun manufacturer or a child pr0nographer, but it seems like the eToothpaste eDelivery eServices and the trade-stocks-at-3-AM and dancingsquidtitties.com wouldn't be there if people didn't want them. Their movement into the web is more or less the inevitable result of the common folk moving into the web.
So, while I understand the frustration of one of the most empowering communication and information-transforming tools ever created being used to sell crap even more useless than the crap we sold last week, it may be a great opportunity for those with brains. The eOverload lowers the noise-to-signal ratio, but it doesn't drive good information out. If little Johnny's dad gets a shiny new computer and a DSL line so that he can buy underwear at the speed of light using the Business Model of the Future, that doesn't stop Johnny from visiting GNU or Bartleby or the DXM FAQ. I'm talking about guerilla education here. Let's let the dots put a computer in every nook and cranny, build powerful internet backbones and make everyone need high-speed reliable access as one of life's basic requirements.

That's when we move in...

A few caveats about interpreting this study:

1) Extra activation != increased brainpower
A variety of conditions, such as seizures, frontal lobe damage, and schizophrenia can all produce increased neurological activity. Now, I'm not saying that what we see here is of this pathological variety. The release states that sleep-deprived subjects who showed more abnormal activation did better than those with less -- but not better than those who showed none at all as a result of having adequate sleep. As Gillin suggests, it seems to be some sort of compensatory mechanism, rather than an overall advantage.

2) Extra activation is not necessarily healthy
More neurological activity is not necessarily sustainable or healthy. In extreme cases, brain cells can even be killed by overexcitation, although personally I'm only aware of drug models for this phenomenon.

3) Take Gillin's general comments on sleep deprivation with a grain of salt
The author of the study editorializes a bit towards the end of the release. There's no doubt that sleep deprivation impairs concentration and mental ability, or that many people do suffer from the condition. But her suggestion that sleep deprivation is endemic and terribly costly to society is not yet an established fact. Here are a few articles that challenge her stance, without disagreeing on the basic nature of sleep deprivation.

- Michael Cohn

Oooh, you had me for a second. Iridium is 77 and Dysprosium 66, a reasonable decrease in the number of satellites. I couldn't find out how many satellites they have, but I did find how Dysprosium was named - http://www.frognet.net/~jaknouse/ science.html#E66

66. Dy: Dysprosium

name: Dysprosium derives from the Greek for "hard to reach."