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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.

Re:Operating System on a Cobalt? by Anonymous Coward · 2000-04-03 10:42 · Score: 1 · on NetBSD Ported To MIPS-Based Cobalt Machines

It is. I think the real only legit reason to spend time developing the NetBSD port to the Cobalts (besides that silly "it was there and I had time" reason) is that if you inherit a few cobalts (along with other servers) if you change into a job with them or what not, is that you can get ALL your servers running the same OS, NetBSD, which can be adventageous in some respects or whatever. Easy administration?

Buying a cobalt only for the sake of porting it to NetBSD is crazy because you pay alot of money just for the ease of use factor for the easy to use Cobalt web admin stuff.

----
A sign of the end of days? The End of Grits.
Use it as your sig.

Re:enigma by The_Messenger · 2000-04-02 11:03 · Score: 1 · on Enigma Machine Stolen

I can crash a DOS machine with 3 lines of BASIC!!!!!

I can crash a Linux machine, given enough time (with the system RAM these days, it'll take a while, but it happens!), with about as much.

void main () { while (1) { fork(); } }

And if you have max processes set, it'll at least DoS it. Beat that, fucker.

Btw, I can crash a DOS machine with three keys. Guess which three.

It takes a whole hand to fuck yer mom, though! Damn, that bitch is loose!

Why the hell should I use such a system??

You shouldn't, of course. All the l337 ha><0rz use Perl on Amiga.

Why not just open the format? by rdewalt · 2000-03-31 03:48 · Score: 2 · on Why Hasn't Apple Released Quicktime For UNIX?

Last I checked, wasn't Quicktime a Closed Format?

Am I the only one using a lone Windows machine and VirtualDub to "recover" data from .asf files into .mpegs?

Why yes, it would be nice to have a quicktime player. But wouldn't it be -nicer- to have the file format specifications?

I'm hesitant to install the RealPlayer 7 for Linux on my FreeBSD box. Because I know that when RealPlayer 8 or the "Newest Bell and Whistle" comes along, it'll be obsolete.

Why support and cheer on a Closed Format? I'd rather know what a Quicktime is internally, and have the ability to build my own player.

Of course, if QT4 is currently an open format, my post is invalid, and I need to get out of my cave more often, I'd look like a right todger eh?

old favorite games like Ultima and StarFlight by sckeener · 2000-03-30 23:26 · Score: 1 · on Richard Garriot Leaves Origin

About time he left! May Lord British rule again in another kingdom.

Ultima I-IV were my first true computer role playing experience. I wasted so many hours filling the map in Ultima III with treasure Chests!! Or how about the Armada of ships in Ultima II?? Ultima was a classic.

My only other favorite from that time period was Starflight. It had everything and IMHO it was better than Ultima on so many levels. Anyone care to port it for me? ;)

Click here to play StarFlight

In the spirit of the Quickie: by BlueCalx- · 2000-03-30 10:30 · Score: 2 · on Quickielanche

An esteemed colleague, Brian Eng, has decided to dye his gigantic afro. Being the procurer of an afro myself, I feel I have an obligation to endorse this on a site that might contain more afro-wearers per capita than any other.

Click here to gently nudge the vote!

Re:Great. by ElecCham · 2000-03-30 10:07 · Score: 1 · on Geek Profiling: The Next W.A.V.E.

Whaddaya mean, "would be"? Try "was", for similar reasons. It's gotten worse; that doesn't mean that it wasn't bad before.

--
Make Money on the 'Net

Normalization of volume by ElecCham · 2000-03-30 06:50 · Score: 1 · on Aligning Audio Levels for Bulk CD-to-MP3 Conversion?

I know that AudioCatalyst has a built-in option to do this - it is defined as "if the peak volume of this track is less than x% or more than y%, normalize it to z%."

It seems to do a pretty good job. Unfortunately it only does it on a track-by-track basis... hardly ideal, say, for classical music. If someone knows of a good way to do it over the course of an entire album, I'd like to know too!

--
Make Money on the 'Net

Too Little,Too Late! by ComradePenguin · 2000-03-29 10:17 · Score: 3 · on Judge Rules Deep Hyperlinking OK

To:Ziff-Davis Publishing
From:United States Dept. of Justice

We have examined your website www.zdtv.com and have found that it is a special case.Our rulling on hyperlinking on a page doesn't apply to your extensively and seemingly arbitrarily hyperlinked pages.As a result we have consulted the geek community at large and have determined that your sentence is one(1) bombardment aka 'Slashdot Effect'This sentence is effective immediately.

Have a nice day.

The penguins have revolted...Visit The UPGR

Re:Wasn't that an Afternoon Special by Leigh13 · 2000-03-28 23:27 · Score: 4 · on Geek Profiling: The Next W.A.V.E.

A good page detailing Ron Jones and The Wave phenomenon.

More relevant links by luckykaa · 2000-03-28 20:52 · Score: 1 · on Geek Profiling: The Next W.A.V.E.

This site tells (briefly) about the true story behind it.

Turn yourself in by The+Cookie+Monster · 2000-03-28 20:36 · Score: 5 · on Geek Profiling: The Next W.A.V.E.

Save W.A.V.E the trouble, turn yourself in now.

But don't just register yourself with W.A.V.E., register yourself on The Psycho-Killer Registry as well. In fact, don't stop there, register all your friends and family too.

Have you ever listened to Marilyn Manson, or other "dark" music, and not disliked it?
Have you ever gone to hollywood movies, and enjoyed them?
Have you ever played computer games?
Have you ever felt lonely?

If any of the above are true of you, then you may be a threat to society, ready to snap at any moment!

Go on, do the right thing - register.

Turn yourself in by The+Cookie+Monster · 2000-03-28 20:36 · Score: 5 · on Geek Profiling: The Next W.A.V.E.

Save W.A.V.E the trouble, turn yourself in now.

But don't just register yourself with W.A.V.E., register yourself on The Psycho-Killer Registry as well. In fact, don't stop there, register all your friends and family too.

Have you ever listened to Marilyn Manson, or other "dark" music, and not disliked it?
Have you ever gone to hollywood movies, and enjoyed them?
Have you ever played computer games?
Have you ever felt lonely?

If any of the above are true of you, then you may be a threat to society, ready to snap at any moment!

Go on, do the right thing - register.

Re:Less of English only? by srussell · 2000-03-24 08:14 · Score: 1 · on The Internet is America-centric, But for How Long

Esperanto has a couple of valid claims that make it a better choice as an international language. The first is that, all things being equal, it is easier to learn than any other language. This claim assumes the obvious point that "any other" doesn't include languages which are extremely similar to, or derivatives of, your native language. The second claim is that Esperanto is relatively "neutral", in that it isn't the native language of any nation; therefore, if everybody spoke it as a second language for international communication, nobody would be at the psychological disadvantage of speaking to someone in their native language.

Case in point: Americans have this perception of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Claudia Schiffer, and Nina Hagen as being dumb; this perception may or may not be accurate, but much of the perception is due to the fact that these people speak imperfect english, or speak it with an accent. The native speaker always has a psychological edge.

Esperanto has 16 grammatical rules, and no exceptions. It is highly regular, avoids noun genders, and all verbs are conjugated exactly the same way. It is very easy for Westerners to learn, and easier than any Western language for Easterners. There are, at last count, over 2 million Esperanto speakers, although this estimate is admittedly optimistic, as most "Esperanto speakers" have limited experience actually speaking the language. This means that about one in every 3000 people has some working knowledge of Esperanto.

Esperanto needs much wider acceptance before it can became a linga franca; English, at the moment, enjoys that status. However, as most Slashdotters would agree, just because something is the de-facto standard, doesn't mean either that it is the best choice, or that it should remain the standard, eg. Windo[(ws)(ze)].

Esperanto can be learned so rapidly, that if you have any interest at all, I recommend that you check it out. You can get a working knowledge good enough read the usenet groups or participate in the IRC rooms within a couple of weeks of regular study (an hour). There is even a free 10-lesson email course with tutors which provides all of the foundation you need to start communicating. The Esperanto community is, in a lot of ways, much like the Open Source community, and I'm constantly suprised that I don't see more cross-polination between the two groups. You will notice, however, that KDE comes with fairly extensive Esperanto language support.

Even TravelLang has an English/Esperanto translator, and some of their translation software uses Esperanto as the medium language, much as XML can be used as a many-to-many point of translation.

More information can be found at:

It is a GREAT IDEA!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-24 06:05 · Score: 0 · on Anonymous Web Hosting Banned In France

Why?

Maybe you folks don't know about the situation in the U.S. Our first amendment rights on the web are subject to approval of the PROVIDER and are not automatically guaranteed.

I have had my parody site Mayatreya: the World Spammer BANNED from several providers because of complaint email from members of the cult I'm parodying.

In the US, ISP are not seen as common carriers of data on their servers. They are seen as being responsible for the content on their disks and are AFRAID OF BEING SUED for their client's materials. Thus, our freedom of speech is subject to the approval of our ISPs and webhosts.

The French law removes ISPs from this police responsibility and puts it where it belongs, the person who put the files there in the first place.

If somebody doesn't like your website, rather than whine to your ISP and have it banned, they will have to whine to the author! If you don't think this is appropriate, just try putting up a Free Speech site in the US.

I'm not afraid of letting anybody know my name if I have the power of free speech!

"Their ought to be limits to freedom"
--GW "Stinky" Bush

Make Money off Iridium Satellite by Inforaker · 2000-03-24 03:45 · Score: 1 · on Trying to Save Iridium

I have to agree that the possibility of keeping these satellites up by a non for profit organization is near zero. So I'll offer another way of making money off the Iridium Satellites. Hire a salvage ship to collect them off the ocean floor and then sell chunks of the satellites on eBay. Sure, about half of a satellite will have burned up in the atmosphere, but I would be interested in a toasted chunk of the internals of the satellite. If a piece of the solar array makes it to the ocean floor, I would be interested that too. The price would have to be around $100.

Here is a good site about the Iridium Satellites: Lloyd's satellite constellations Overview Iridium

If you want to see an actual picture of an Iridium Satellite go here

On a slightly different note, yesterday night I got to see MIR passing over head from the top of one of my University's garages. It took me a moment to realize that the fast moving bright star wasn't an plane, since it wasn't flashing. If you go with someone to look at MIR passing over head, not forget to tell them to wave. ;-)

Re:Mandy Moore... more, more, more! by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-23 12:55 · Score: 0 · on Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation

By the way, that Angela chick from Jaywalking looked really cute in the schoolgirl outfit she had on for a second. How about seeing more of her wearing that?

How about her?

Ha! This isn't "open" by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-21 23:55 · Score: 0 · on Where Daemons and Dragons Collide

There are really attempts which do this better. There is an Open Content Role Playing Game Webring (www.orbs.com/openrpg/) for games under the open Content Public License, and another for Free RPGs (www.geocities.com/~jestyr/frpg).

Keitai Pictures by Hiro · 2000-03-21 05:03 · Score: 1 · on Cool Japanese Gadgets You Can't Have

I recently took pictures of Docomo P502i along with my bulky Nokias:

http://www.geocities.com/keitaishashin/

Quick Spec:

Model: Digital Mover P502i HYPER
Height: 130mm
Width: 46mm
Thickness: 16mm
Weight: 69g
Battery Charge Time (AC adapter): 95min
Battery Charge Time (DC adapter): 95min
Contiunous Talk Time: 125min
Continuous Stand-by Time: 300hours

I want one!

Can't sleep, clown will eat me by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-20 08:12 · Score: 1 · on German Governmental Agency Says: Use Open Source

Germany is investigating Scientology because of their involvement with the clown. The clown wants to prevent sleep in Germany. The clown was responsible for much of the sleep deprivation research conducted in Germany over sixty years ago, and he wants to see it continued now that Germany is reunified.

Can't sleep, clown will eat me by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-20 06:12 · Score: 0 · on Do Geeks Have a Political Voice?

It is so simple... the "geek lobby" should stand for protecting us from the clown. You all think it is so funny that I can't sleep, but it will happen to all of you eventually. I have been in the computer industry since Ronald Reagan joined forces with the religious right to create a political atmosphere that pleased the clown. Never forget that John Wayne Gacy was a friend of the Reagans. It is no coincidence that this is when the clown's power over me increased exponentially. Before that, he could only haunt me in an undisclosed midwestern farmhouse. Now he has been released to hunt me everywhere. I must go now, a message on my cell phone has instructed me to fedex some pharmacological items and a document on genetic engineering to Florida. I envy those of you who have normal lives and are home now enjoying your evening. My work never ends, but I hope to prevent the clown from chasing all of you as he does me.

Human Investment and Slavery by Baldrson · 2000-03-19 18:44 · Score: 3 · on The Implications Of Knowledge Work

Investment in human capital drives the demand for slavery as an institution. Those who have not studied the variety of modes of slavery within societies such as the Roman Empire may have trouble imagining all the creative ways in which slavery can be introduced. For example, by taxing productivity rather than wealth, we have already moved to a kind of slavery in which one's productivity is considered to derive from an asset owned by the government.

But the Net Generation has something far more ominous to face:

With the US prison population growing at phenomenal rates and more of the US population incarcerated than any other leading democracy, privatization of incarceration is increasingly attractive both as a cost-containment measure, and as political porkbarrel. With privatization comes the incentive to work the prisoners to pay for the costs of their incarceration. This comes at a time when we see a major shift in emphasis on "knowledge" as the source of productivity. Therefore after we see prisoners working to pay for the costs of their incarceration, we will next see a natural transition to forms of incarceration that may, increasingly, seem less like incarceration and more like slavery.

This will provide an environment in which employers can make investments in training and then recover those investments.

What? This is utterly outrageous dystopian fantasy?

Think again teenage ubergeek.

There are plenty of incentives to put your sweet young ass permanently in the corrections system.

GUI + CLI = ??? by FigWig · 2000-03-19 13:06 · Score: 2 · on The GNOME-Microsoft Connection

I don't think UNIX folks will ever be weened from a command line interface. I know I feel somehow constrained if I can't start typing in commands. It just allows so much more expression and power than a GUI ever could.

That said however I know there are sometimes that a GUI is more convenient, especially when just learning an app. I know many people start out in AutoCAD using the buttons & menus but then move to the command line as they become more familiar with it.

Until GNOME & KDE apps are completely decoupled from their interface and allow plugging in scheme or perl to control them I won't be satisfied.

One interesting thing is several groups attempting to apply XML to UNIX. Somehow I am intrigued by an app that combines Bash with Windows Explorer

Re:It doesn't make sense to offer prizes for proof by WillWare · 2000-03-19 03:28 · Score: 2 · on Grok Goldbach, Grab Gold

Mathematics is a great cooperative venture. It wouldn't be easy to identify one mathematician who did the largest share of the work

Probably the money would go to the person who completed the proof, that is, did the last few steps, essentially dismissing any work done previously by others. As you point out, this isn't a terribly fair method of compensation. The uniqueness of the winner's status would be a disincentive to anybody who had a lot to contribute, but was reasonably unsure he'd accomplish the last few steps of the proof.

An interesting counter-proposal to address this dilemma is proposed by a New Zealand economist named Ronnie Horesh, at http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/9856/, albeit in a different context. Horesh's idea is a social policy bond issued by a government or somebody else with deep pockets and a social agenda. The bond is redeemable for a large fixed sum when the goal is achieved. Until then, the bond is a good that can be bought and sold like a share of stock. Like a share of stock, its price will rise as the goal moves closer to being accomplished. The purpose of inventing these bonds is to delegate the implementation of social goals to free market forces.

If a mathematician felt confident that he had made an important contribution, but didn't feel confident that he'd complete the proof himself, he could buy bonds cheaply as soon as they were issued, and hold onto them until the proof was complete. When the proof was made public, each bond would become redeemable for a large fixed sum, and the guy who bought early would make big bucks.

Contest Philanthropy by Baldrson · 2000-03-18 23:23 · Score: 2 · on Grok Goldbach, Grab Gold

This might encourage work on the GC, but it also might discourage publication of such work, because the mathematicians haven't quite finished the proof.

It does make sense to have lots of people offering lots of little prizes all over the place.

As I've pointed out in The Bowery Prize for Amateur Rocketry:

The Internet provides a unique opportunity to promote space technology via prize awards. Individuals can post a public pledge of money as a prize award for any technical objective they see fit, to be disbursed at their sole discretion. With enough diversity of people and technical objectives, there would be a "fuzzy" gradient of incentive created for ever higher performance amateur rockets, not dependent on the credibility of any one organization's political structure for "fairness" or good technical judgement. A periodic posting of all such prize award offers in this, and related, newsgroups, would serve as an ongoing challenge to technical excellence and as an inspiration for young people.

This sort of approach to what should be called "Contest Philanthropy" will address the concern that people will hold off publishing important but obscure work.

Here's how:

If a bunch of mathematicians believe a particular popular conjecture is critically dependent on some obscure, but hard, math getting done, then all they need to do is post a prize award that promises they will give half their winnings for the popular conjecture to the mathematician who does the obscure work. If enough credible mathematicians target a particular obscure piece of work, then the philanthropists can start providing direct prize awards for that support work.

Can't sleep, clown will eat me(NEWS:latest victim) by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-16 15:27 · Score: 0 · on TopClick Touts Private Searching

This sounds to good to be true. I am afraid that it is not truly private, but a scheme initiated by the clown to make me think I am safe when he is actually monitoring my every move on the web to find out more about me and where I live. Also, I used to smoke because it helped me stay awake, plus I thought it would make my smoke ridden flesh unappealing to the clown. But it turns out that the clown likes smoke-flavored flesh and organs, so I quit.

NEWS FLASH In a recent slashdot article on sleep deprivation, many posters remembered the radio DJ Peter Tripp who once stayed up for 201 hours straight. It was announced today on Howard Stern that he has died, and I would say that it was the doing of the clown. This is sad for us all, staying awake did not help poor Mr. Tripp in his endeavor to avoid being eaten by the clown.

Can't sleep, clown will eat me(NEWS:latest victim) by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-16 15:17 · Score: 0 · on Iridium Hardware May Burn

The clown was planning to use Iridium to track me. This is great news for my survivability.

NEWS FLASH In a recent slashdot article on sleep deprivation, many posters remembered the radio DJ Peter Tripp who once stayed up for 201 hours straight. It was announced today on Howard Stern that he has died, and I would say that it was the doing of the clown. This is sad for us all, staying awake did not help poor Mr. Tripp in his endeavor to avoid being eaten by the clown.

Analyze the content, not the type by stx23 · 2000-03-16 04:58 · Score: 1 · on German Censorware Targets Music

Basically, the German recording industry is selling the idea that they should have carte blanche to block any incoming packets they see fit, at the router.

OK, they want to block illegal mp3s. Whether or not you agree with this is a different issue.
How about they analyze the packets, and, in the case of an mp3, check the ID3 tag to ensure whether or not it is illegally distributed, *then* decide if it should be blocked or not?
The technology is there to acheive this properly, but it won't happen. It will come down to all or nothing, and Cowboy Neal's groovy tunes will be blocked, just because they are mp3s.
Sure, it's a shame, those are unexpected groovy treats, but if you're German, you won't get to hear them. Not without an offshore shell account and encryption, but how long until PGP packets are banned? Then they ban usenet, then email, then web. Welcome to the new net. An engineer's playground, brought into check by those who know better than you. You might have helped built it, but the goverment knows better.
'Think for yourself, and question authority.'
Timothy Leary vs. the Grid
Probably on Napster as an mp3, if you can't find it, get napigator and search for it. It's in there, and I doubt anyone involved would object to it's distribution.
Support freenet & blacknet, it's the only realistic way to can advance without interference.

Get the file here! by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-15 21:45 · Score: 1 · on AOL Snuffs Napster-Workalike Gnutella

Got it up here for now...
http://www.geocities.com/adonnaixg/gnutella.zip

Can't sleep, clown will eat me by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-15 16:39 · Score: 0 · on IBM One-Chip Dual Processor Due Next Year

The clown has lots of money (don't forget that John Wayne Gacy was wealthy). He will be able to buy these chips and overclock them, then run algorithms finding solutions to Hamiltonian Cycle Problems that will lead him to me. I have already disassociated myself with all former friends to eliminate his finding me through solving Clique Problems with his Sun workstations. Once he reads on Slashdot that Perl 5.0631459265358979 is released he will search the internet for all traces of me. My grandfather died last year... he was a member of the Masonic Lodge and my father did not want the Masons to put their satanic shroud on my grandfather's body, but they were able to get close enough to the casket to collect his DNA. I am sure they are working with the clown to use technology developed by Scientologists to clone my grandfather and learn more about me. In case you don't think I am serious, consider that my father was abducted by aliens, who must also be working with the clown, in 1962. This was witnessed by state troopers of a state I will not mention because it would give too many details to the clown. I should stop now, this is giving away too many details and I am very tired.

New Article from 2600 -- Contiued Bullying by MPAA by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-14 02:25 · Score: 1 · on Part Two: Who Owns Ideas?

Over the past week the Motion Picture Association of America has intensified its efforts to bully and harass individual Internet users by sending out a new series of email threats. Using little more than bluff and bluster they've also managed in recent weeks to shut down countless websites, convince employers to fire employees, and get schools to take disciplinary actions against students for doing little more than taking part in an act of solidarity on their private homepages.

John Young, who maintains the Cryptome, is one of the hundreds of John Doe defendants in the California DVD case. In addition to a copy of DeCSS, Young published a copy of the now-infamous Hoy Declaration, in which the DVD Copy Control Association inadvertently included a copy of the very information they were trying to suppress in public court filings. He was among the first to bear the brunt of a wave of cease and desist letters for posting the source code to DeCSS. The letter reads in part:

The Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California also recently granted a preliminary Injunction against the Internet posting of DeCSS.
If you are bound by an injunction, maintaining the DeCSS utility on your system or network violates the above injunction[s] and risks court sanctions for contempt.

Never mind the fact that the MPAA knows full well that Young, located in New York, is outside the jurisdiction of the California court, nor is he covered by the Southern District of New York's injunction. They neglect to quote the portion of the injunction that specifies just who is covered and who isn't.

Over the past week, we have received numerous reports of this threatening letter being sent to web site owners worldwide. It appears the MPAA is simply going down the list of mirrored sites and sending a letter to everybody.

Geography and national sovereignty are clearly foreign concepts to this multinational corporation. The effects of globalization seem to have impaired their faculties more than previously thought. They proceeded to send similar letters to people all over the world. Tom Vogt, also named as a defendant in the California case, resides in Germany. The letter the MPAA sent him insisting that he comply with the California injunction, refers to the preliminary draft of an unratified convention. That's right, the best they could do was threaten him with an unsigned treaty.

Earlier this month Grant Bayley received a cease and desist letter for hosting DeCSS on his webpage for the Australian 2600 meeting. Both Bayley and the server are located in Australia. As expressed in the meeting guidelines, 2600 meetings are organized on their own, anyone can start one, and they are pretty much autonomous. According to an Australian journalist who spoke with the chief counsel for the MPAA, 2600 Australia is being singled out simply because of its name. Presumably this is also why they chose to go after A.Sleep, operator of the Connecticut 2600 meeting's webpage in his very own federal lawsuit. One can only imagine what the MPAA must be thinking.

In an age where anyone is capable of exercising free speech to mass audiences via the Internet, there is a disturbing trend that this freedom is limited not by the strength of one's convictions nor one's access to technology. Rather it is dependant on the will and resources of one's Internet Service Provider. It is common for ISPs to cancel accounts or remove content at the first hints of any controversy. It didn't take long for big business to figure this out and they've been exploiting lawsuit-fearing ISPs ever since. One can hardly blame the average ISP for bowing to such impressive cease and desist letters. Often they're barely breaking even as it is, and nuking one $10 a month webpage is a simple business decision when being threatened with a million dollar lawsuit.

What's far more troubling is the ease in which traditional safe havens for free expression, like universities and other academic institutions, are willing to sell out their students. Zach Karpinski stands out as one such victim. A student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Zach was summarily fired from his job of two and a half years at Student Technology Services, an organization he helped build. The letters he and his school received accusing him of using school servers for illegal activities were enough to trample this student's rights and reputation in favor of some perverse idea of political "damage control." They should be more concerned with controlling the damage done to their student's academic freedom and civil liberties than satisfying the whims of Jack Valenti and the MPAA. Sadly, Zach is not alone. A student from California State University at Fresno wrote in to report that he had to take down his school-hosted DeCSS mirror and that the MPAA requested that he be fired from his school employment. (Fortunately, he wasn't fired).

We first took a stand in the DVD battle back in November, when the first cease and desist letters were being sent out. We joined in the mirroring campaign to lend our support to those who had been subjected to hollow threats and harassment from the DVD industry, but were forced into compliance due to circumstances beyond their control. They knew they were right, they knew they could win, but they lacked the resources to stand up for their convictions. As evidenced above, that fight is ongoing. Our modest mirror list has grown substantially and continues to grow, despite mirrors being removed from time to time. The success of the DeCSS mirroring campaign demonstrates the futility of attempts to suppress free speech on the Internet. It is distributed hosting at its most basic and a proven defense from censorship. Make no mistake, DeCSS is out there, it can never be eradicated. Not only will DeCSS be preserved regardless of whether there are any mirrors, the tyrannical actions of the MPAA have ensured that it will live on forever in history, law books, and all the communities it has effected.

[Local copy of letter sent by the MPAA]

New Article from 2600 -- Contiued Bullying by MPAA by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-14 02:25 · Score: 1 · on Part Two: Who Owns Ideas?

Over the past week the Motion Picture Association of America has intensified its efforts to bully and harass individual Internet users by sending out a new series of email threats. Using little more than bluff and bluster they've also managed in recent weeks to shut down countless websites, convince employers to fire employees, and get schools to take disciplinary actions against students for doing little more than taking part in an act of solidarity on their private homepages.

John Young, who maintains the Cryptome, is one of the hundreds of John Doe defendants in the California DVD case. In addition to a copy of DeCSS, Young published a copy of the now-infamous Hoy Declaration, in which the DVD Copy Control Association inadvertently included a copy of the very information they were trying to suppress in public court filings. He was among the first to bear the brunt of a wave of cease and desist letters for posting the source code to DeCSS. The letter reads in part:

The Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California also recently granted a preliminary Injunction against the Internet posting of DeCSS.
If you are bound by an injunction, maintaining the DeCSS utility on your system or network violates the above injunction[s] and risks court sanctions for contempt.

Never mind the fact that the MPAA knows full well that Young, located in New York, is outside the jurisdiction of the California court, nor is he covered by the Southern District of New York's injunction. They neglect to quote the portion of the injunction that specifies just who is covered and who isn't.

Over the past week, we have received numerous reports of this threatening letter being sent to web site owners worldwide. It appears the MPAA is simply going down the list of mirrored sites and sending a letter to everybody.

Geography and national sovereignty are clearly foreign concepts to this multinational corporation. The effects of globalization seem to have impaired their faculties more than previously thought. They proceeded to send similar letters to people all over the world. Tom Vogt, also named as a defendant in the California case, resides in Germany. The letter the MPAA sent him insisting that he comply with the California injunction, refers to the preliminary draft of an unratified convention. That's right, the best they could do was threaten him with an unsigned treaty.

Earlier this month Grant Bayley received a cease and desist letter for hosting DeCSS on his webpage for the Australian 2600 meeting. Both Bayley and the server are located in Australia. As expressed in the meeting guidelines, 2600 meetings are organized on their own, anyone can start one, and they are pretty much autonomous. According to an Australian journalist who spoke with the chief counsel for the MPAA, 2600 Australia is being singled out simply because of its name. Presumably this is also why they chose to go after A.Sleep, operator of the Connecticut 2600 meeting's webpage in his very own federal lawsuit. One can only imagine what the MPAA must be thinking.

In an age where anyone is capable of exercising free speech to mass audiences via the Internet, there is a disturbing trend that this freedom is limited not by the strength of one's convictions nor one's access to technology. Rather it is dependant on the will and resources of one's Internet Service Provider. It is common for ISPs to cancel accounts or remove content at the first hints of any controversy. It didn't take long for big business to figure this out and they've been exploiting lawsuit-fearing ISPs ever since. One can hardly blame the average ISP for bowing to such impressive cease and desist letters. Often they're barely breaking even as it is, and nuking one $10 a month webpage is a simple business decision when being threatened with a million dollar lawsuit.

What's far more troubling is the ease in which traditional safe havens for free expression, like universities and other academic institutions, are willing to sell out their students. Zach Karpinski stands out as one such victim. A student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Zach was summarily fired from his job of two and a half years at Student Technology Services, an organization he helped build. The letters he and his school received accusing him of using school servers for illegal activities were enough to trample this student's rights and reputation in favor of some perverse idea of political "damage control." They should be more concerned with controlling the damage done to their student's academic freedom and civil liberties than satisfying the whims of Jack Valenti and the MPAA. Sadly, Zach is not alone. A student from California State University at Fresno wrote in to report that he had to take down his school-hosted DeCSS mirror and that the MPAA requested that he be fired from his school employment. (Fortunately, he wasn't fired).

We first took a stand in the DVD battle back in November, when the first cease and desist letters were being sent out. We joined in the mirroring campaign to lend our support to those who had been subjected to hollow threats and harassment from the DVD industry, but were forced into compliance due to circumstances beyond their control. They knew they were right, they knew they could win, but they lacked the resources to stand up for their convictions. As evidenced above, that fight is ongoing. Our modest mirror list has grown substantially and continues to grow, despite mirrors being removed from time to time. The success of the DeCSS mirroring campaign demonstrates the futility of attempts to suppress free speech on the Internet. It is distributed hosting at its most basic and a proven defense from censorship. Make no mistake, DeCSS is out there, it can never be eradicated. Not only will DeCSS be preserved regardless of whether there are any mirrors, the tyrannical actions of the MPAA have ensured that it will live on forever in history, law books, and all the communities it has effected.

[Local copy of letter sent by the MPAA]

OpenNap already does this by Claude+Debussy · 2000-03-14 00:01 · Score: 5 · on Open Source Napster: Gnutella

the OpenNap server already has these features and its been available for quite some time now, there is even the flexibility to do porn searching just like the software in this story and iMesh (avi's, mpegs, au, etc). Opennap can be found Here. here is a list of the available napster clones excluding the one in the story.

gnap -- gnome napster client

gnome-napster -- gnome napster client

jnap -- java napster client

jnapster -- java napster client

java napster -- java napster client

crapster -- BeOS napster client

gnapster -- gnome napster client

BitchX -- IRC chat client with napster plugin

Knapster -- KDE napster client

BeNapster -- BeOS napster client

Napster for BeOS

Napster for MacOSX

gtk napster -- gtk napster client

amster -- amiga napster client

iNapster -- WWW interface to napster

BWap -- standalone console unix client based on bx-nap plugin for BitchX

These are all open source and free, and will work with Opennap servers (although most right now probably aren't coded to take advantage of the Pr0n search extensions, yet. Give it some time though.

FCC site has more info by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-13 06:39 · Score: 0 · on FCC Wants to Open Bandwidth Market

The NYT article isn't exactly correct. The FCC has some additional restrictions on the "open" airwaves:

http://www.fcc.gov/policy/2000/open.htm

MG

Defending Claims by Baldrson · 2000-03-13 06:36 · Score: 2 · on FCC Wants to Open Bandwidth Market

Frontiers always have the same series of problems:

People go out and start using some new resource that has no particular legal standing.

De facto defense of the resource involves private actions and the costs of those defensive actions fall directly on the users.

Government steps in to enforce resolution of disputes and charges the claimants for the costs of such resolution and dispute resolution while imposing regulations to control negative externalities.

Entrenched holders of lawful rights then use their profit stream in political channels to seek legislative relief of the costs of the defense of their rights and freedom from regulations on their negative externalities.

Tax laws are passed which off-load the costs of defending the rights from the politically effective rent seekers to the politically ineffective renters.

Additional regulatory barriers to market forces are erected to further protect the rent seekers from competition while at the same time removing regulatory barriers which inhibit the rent seekers from exploiting negative externalities.

The basic problem is the political nature of government. The basic solution is to replace national and international governing bodies with Warrior's Insurance under which reinsurance networks indemnify and defend against losses of claimed rights.

Re:Ethical issues by ab762 · 2000-03-12 20:13 · Score: 1 · on Bill Joy On Extinction of Humans

Another SF writer, who's name hasn't so far come up, is David Brin. He suggested that an ethical solution to AI is to raise AIs as human children. This is a speech transcript, and this part is about 75% down. Look for Raise them as our children.

Brin is also the author of The Transparent Society, a fascinating piece on privacy.

I'm surprised more people haven't seen this idea. Once it's been pointed out to you, it seems so reasonable. After all, this is the way that we have already used with reasonable success to pass on our culture and values to newly created intelligent beings.

Henry Troup

Re:Ethical issues by ab762 · 2000-03-12 20:13 · Score: 1 · on Bill Joy On Extinction of Humans

Another SF writer, who's name hasn't so far come up, is David Brin. He suggested that an ethical solution to AI is to raise AIs as human children. This is a speech transcript, and this part is about 75% down. Look for Raise them as our children.

Brin is also the author of The Transparent Society, a fascinating piece on privacy.

I'm surprised more people haven't seen this idea. Once it's been pointed out to you, it seems so reasonable. After all, this is the way that we have already used with reasonable success to pass on our culture and values to newly created intelligent beings.

Henry Troup

Small scale electrics by cybergremlin · 2000-03-12 06:05 · Score: 1 · on Electric Car Drag Racing

You may want to look at something a little bit smaller. The Natcar competition sponsored by National Semiconductor is a contest to see who can build the fastest miniature autonomus electric vehicle. These RC car sized units follow a signal in a wire along the floor. Contestants not only learn how to let the car controll itself, but they have to build the motor controll and power management systems.

As for the coments on fuel cells:
Bill Gates is investing in fuel cell research. Why? Because a small fuel cell can run a laptop for a very long time.

Re:Eighty-Eight Miles Per Hour!!! by NocturnalWarrior · 2000-03-11 14:51 · Score: 1 · on Flying Trains

This post actually motivated me to buy the BTTF trilogy AND play the Back to the Future Drinking Game! w00t w00t! BTW I'm completely trashed right now. yay!

Can't sleep, clown will eat me by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-11 03:02 · Score: 0 · on The Breaking of Cyber Patrol 4

It only took me two minutes to find this picture. But censorship wouldn't help me, it would just make me think the clown is not out there when in fact he is. My ignorance would make me more vulnerable. Please pray for me in church this weekend.

Geostationary, Low Earth Orbit, Computer & Voice by Baldrson · 2000-03-10 16:12 · Score: 3 · on R.I.P. Iridium

Ka-band has enormous potential. Circa 1984 I gave a presentation at the Ruben H. Fleet science center for the L5 Society on an idea for a 5 geostationary orbit satellite system based on optical intersat links and Ka-band ground links. This was to be a computer network derived from the mass market technology we had put into production for the Plato system at Control Data Corporation four years earlier. I figured processing power would be cheap enough in about 10 years (1994) to allow us to move the equivalent of Cyber 7600 mainframes, then capable of supporting around 7000 simultaneous graphical users each at 1/4 response time, into orbit with plenty of redundancy. My projections were just about right, except for the optical links. It was a little "ahead of its time", as is most of the technology I've worked on, and the WWW came along to make central processors seem useless. At that time, some guy at Rockwell International, I don't recall his name right now, was really hot on low earth orbit networks for voice communications. I had some discussions with him about why I thought computer networks held more promise and that geostationary orbit made more sense for computer networks. Voice delay suffers noticably with geostationary orbit distance because you are interacting through a distance of 88,000 miles (22,000*4, speak, up, down, respond, up, down) at 180,000 miles per second for the speed of light in vacum. With client server interactions, however, you can get away with only 44,000 miles (22,000*2) round-trip if you put your server in geostationary orbit -- and that falls within the 1/4 second annoyance threshold of humans. You can actually afford to send and receive every key press assuming you have the processing power at the server. This single-key echoing was close to the interaction model used on Plato for real-time multiuser games -- the most demanding applications of that system (a lot of the early game industry was simply Plato games ported to PCs in single user mode).

Then in 1991, following on my legislative successes in space commercialization I went to work with E'Prime Aerospace as Vice President of Public Affairs. I took on that job because they had a potential customer (Norris Satellite Communications -- run by a Dutch Amish expatriate from my ancestral county of Lancaster Pennsylvania) who wanted to launch a geostationary Ka Band satellite called "Norstar", but he couldn't get the license thorugh the FCC. There had never been a Ka Band satellite licensed and there was a lot of conflict over letting this Amish character have the first crack at commercializing the Milstar technology (NASA likes people to think ACTS was the pioneer in Ka band, but even thought ACTS was launched first, the Harris ECL satellite switching guys Norris used did their pioneering work with Milstar, not ACTS). Anyway, to make a long story short, we managed to get the FCC licensing dislodged and the first Ka band satellite license was awarded to Norris, the Amish dude. The satellite specifications called for multiple geostationary Ka band satellites with onboard switching of time division multiplexed spot beams that would allow you to adaptively switch the power (both informational and energetic) to various geographic hotspots as needed. This was getting close to what I had predicted as a geostationary computer network, because the ECL switches were systems that Seymour Cray himself would have respected, and the spot beams made it feasible to load-level much more effectively to stationary ground dishes only inches in diameter. If Cray's gallium arsenide switches, developed for the Cray-4, had made it into production, I think the systems could have been a lot high capacity at lower power while retaining their radiation hard characteristics.

Unfortunately, Norris's satellite system was to go the way of another Norris's (William) Plato system -- to the "before its time" scrap heap of history. The Calling Communications Corporation guys who were cursing me at the 1993 Small Satellite Conference in Logan, UT for grabbing their coveted Ka band first eventually, along with Iridium, got it reallocated. Calling Communications Corporation eventually went away from voice communications to computer networking and changed their name to Teledesic. Everyone seemed to forget about geostationary Ka band computer networking.

Even so, I still think there is enormous opportunity for a geostationary orbital computation satellite network based on phased-array spot beam switching and intersatellite optical links.

Salvage 1 by jonabbey · 2000-03-10 06:27 · Score: 1 · on R.I.P. Iridium

Yeah, it was the weirdest thing I had ever seen. Very much influenced by BattleStar Galactica, as I recall.. they were out at about the same time.

The internet is great, the internet is good, the internet has a Salvage 1 Fan Page.

Get some kneesocks by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-09 23:09 · Score: 0 · on Release of Interbase Beta For Linux

They are the hottest. Maybe your wife will wear them for you. For an idea of how hot this is, look at this young lady wearing kneesocks . My wife wears them all the time for me and I love it... we have a great time, I get "it" all out of my system, then I can get back to work on serious things, like Linux and new applications for it.

How to get it work--for real. by medicthree · 2000-03-09 08:25 · Score: 1 · on Hardware ATA/66 Controllers and Installing Linux

Okay, there are a few different "fixes" floating around. Here is one that has worked for me and a number of colleagues.

Ultra 66 How-To

And once you have it installed, and want to patch the kernel so you get true UDMA66 support for your drives, visit http://www.linuxnewbie.or g/nhf/intel/hardware/udma66.html.

Hope this helps.

Re:More proof that censorware does not work by ElecCham · 2000-03-09 04:22 · Score: 2 · on Symantec Tries to Censor Criticism

Even the most advanced AI cannot make the kind of intelligent value judgements that are required.

As soon as I get finished writing that subject-general Turing Test program, I'll put it right to work on running a blocklist :) (er, or should that be bl a cklist? HH1/2J)

--
Make Money on the 'Net

National Science Trust by Baldrson · 2000-03-08 04:47 · Score: 2 · on Genome Project Squabbling

Long ago, when I was doing politics with the Coalition for Science and Commerce I was shopping around a legislative reform aimed at buying scientific information rather than directly fund scientific research. If I recall correctly, it was called "The National Science Trust" which would have endowed this enormous escrow account with specifications of information to be purchased. Basically, if you could quantify your desired information in some way, you could associate a dollar value to some quantity and the first to deliver the information would get the dollar value.

Since the scientific method is based on replication to achieve greater confidence, and greater confidence corresponds to added information, the quantification needs to include metrics on how much information is added by replication measurements, and reward those replications as well -- albiet at a lower rate since less information accumulates per measurement replication.

This would have handled all sorts of things such as environmental monitoring, human genome sequencing, adding significant digits onto known physical constants, etc.

The value of something like this is that it cleanly separates the role of public and private sectors and gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in their proposed research efforts. Of course the primary reason the legislation wasn't passed into law is because it gets government out of detailed analyses of who is more likely to succeed in theirproposed research efforts -- guvvies just love to "pick winners" because that is power.

PETRIFIED SITES by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-07 07:15 · Score: 0 · on Diablo II Collector's Edition

The Hall of Statuary

The Medusa Realm

Statuephiles

Studs in Stone

Maki's House of Petrification

ASFR Master List

Mannequin Lover's

Kimy's House of Living Mannequins

The Flat Philes

The Living Mannequin Circle

Alt.sex.fetish.robots

The Cobalt Jade Website

The Mad Scientists's Lair

Pop's Transformation Art

In Praise of Golder Women

Golder Women Yahoo Club

Frozen Statue Yahoo Club

More Burning Food - Pop Tarts by danish · 2000-03-06 10:39 · Score: 1 · on Godzilla vs. Mecha-Quickies

Strawberry pop tarts will combust and jet out flames if left in the toaster for too long. Really. Check it out.

Dear my! What are those things coming out of her nose?
Spaceballs!

Stile isn't alone by Anonymous Coward · 2000-03-05 12:47 · Score: 0 · on Government Ponders Future Of Y2K Command Bunker

I don't know about Stile, but this chick must have finally had enough.

Re:Maybe big business is good for something by J�r�me+Zago · 2000-03-05 03:55 · Score: 1 · on CIOs Worried About UCITA

Let the old "Labor Movement" fossils dry up and die. We don't need them.

Unfortunately for you, don't think that the current shortage in skilled IT people will last forever... The money we get in that field is so hyped that many people who would have completely ignored this subject two or three years ago are now following courses and will soon enter the market. And companies are now training people from other backgrounds themselves to save on wages.

If you don't understand what I mean, please read this

Slashdot Mirror

Domain: geocities.com

Comments · 8,978