Slashdot Mirror

Dan Huffnal was right. It's all because of the Lumber Cartel

http://w ww.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bridge/1086/School/ barcodehome.html

administrators claim the number is protected from unauthorized use through encryption in the barcode

According to this page (Linked in the article) all it uses is binary for the first 2 characters of the first 5 digits (0 - 4), then loops for the last 5 (5 - 9). That must mean that my entire harddrive is encrypted! ph34r m3! And hear I am worried about the privacy of my data on my hard drive.

There was a link in the article to a page describing how to read the barcodes, but it just gives a table showing the binary codes and their decimal value without explaining it. I couldn't resist trying to understand it, and I have composed the following rules:

• From left to right the first 4 bits have values of:
  • 1247
• Each code most have 2 and only 2 of the bits set. The fifth bit is used to ensure that this is always true.
• The value 11(decimal) represents the digit 0(decimal).

Once I started I couldn't stop, so check out this page for a good reference on barcodes.

Odd thing is that when you get a look at all the different barcode formats, they chose about the easiest one to be read by humans because:

• When dealing with only the digits 0-9, spaces don't mean anything, you only have to focus on the bars. However the spaces are useful to help you spot character boundaries. This means you don't have to keep as good a track of where you are when reading across.
• There are only 2 line widths rather than the 4 used in some other systems.
• The encoding for one digit always looks the same, no matter where it appears in a number and what digits surround it.

But... what really bothers me the most about this story is how "Numeric Code 39" is refered to as encryption. Even one of the students, Jonathan Washington, opposing use of social security numbers on student ids states on his web page that "The barcodes on the ID Badges at Ruston High School are encrypted in what is called Numeric Code 39." At least Jonathan Washington's web page goes on to explain a coding system which clearly is not encryption. The WorldNet Daily's interview of "Dr." Scriber is much more offensive. He defends the use by stating that nowhere in the Social Security Act is there "any language pertaining to the use of Social Security numbers in encrypted codes."

SO WHAT! It is not like *encrypted* codes are being used! Where did this guy get his doctoriate from? It seems like some places will provide a "Dr." to go in front of somebody's name for accomplishing openning a box of crackerjacks! Sheesh.

I wish World Net Daily would interview someone where it means something when they say the word "encryption." Have published debate on Numeric Code 39 "encryption" between Dr Scriber and Bruce Schneier before talking b.s. about if the Social Security Act allow/disallows encrypted coded use of SSNs. Numeric Code 39 isn't even a one way hash. It is just a common one-for-one representation.

The LinuXML Project is "devoted to changing the UNIX de facto standard for inter-process communication (IPC) and storage from line-based ASCII records to XML."

Here's a bunch of Z80/CPM emulators for all major platforms, kindly grouped together in one elegantly uncluttered site.

Eat 'em up!

1. students publish their work on the web and employees can eyeball their ability
   
2. fractionalised departments from different universities can join up and offer more complete courses
   
3. more independent evaluation of courses and student grapevine
   
4. you don't like your notes, copy another uni
   
5. more clueless use of wasteful technology
   
6. students end up learning more about the real world by participating in group talkfests like /. !
   

• universities have changed over the centuries
  
• there are diverse elements in the tertiary sector
  
• as a filtering mechanism, universities do provide a rough ranking
  
• research and teaching superstars are rare
  
• more transparency will (hopefully) lead to better choices
  
  • 
    

    
    
    LL

The relative ranking of Diamond Age and Snow Crash pretty much agrees with my opinon. Diamond Age had very well developed characters and plot; Snow Crash was a bit cheezier. I'm still waiting my turn to get Cryptonomicon out of the local library, so I have no opinion on this yet.

SF/Fantasy fans should check this list out; there are a few gems (like Cordwainer Smith) that are rarely heard of.

JMC

I've made a small list of what seems to be a pretty complete list of the new PS2 info. If I've missed any, feel free to add-on.

Sony of America

Sony of Europe

Sony of Japan

PSX Nation

IGNPSX

Gaming Age

Next-Generation

Gamespot

The Magic Box

And then I'd also recomend you check out the MB's connected with some of those sites because there are some very interesting discussions in there. Also expect the major news organizations (MSNBC, ZDNET, CNN) to pick it up sometime tonight too.

Free Software is more akin to Anarchism than to Communism. And I don't mean in the "anarcho-capitalist" sense. Check out An Anarchist FAQ

White Wolf was able to inherit all the best parts of the system that Lion Rampart had created in Ars Magica (which predates the StoryTelling line - as it stands now); but was unsuccessful in integrating Ars Magica as a product into it's genre which was bent on being Dark ("World of Darkness"). It wasn't so much that they failed to integrate Ars Magica, it's that they had already bought a really good system to build off of. If you check the Ars Magica Faq (in paticular the history section) you'll see that White Wolf the game company was created with Ars Magica as it's game.
Despite White Wolf's reluctance to embrace Ars Magica there is not doubt that it is the genesis of the Storyteller series.

I must agree that White Wolf never paid enough attention to the game, and Wizards abandoned it entirely. But atlas seems to have all but killed it.
Joseph Elwell.

I recommend you look at this Rosegarden screenshot. Here are some more screenshots.

I have used Rosegarden extensively and think it is superb. The authors, Chris Cannam, Andy Green and Richard Bown wrote Rosegarden for their final-year BSc degree projects at Bath University. Excellent work!

"The NSA performs the technical review for all US cryptographic export requests. The keys in question are the ones that allow us to ensure compliance with the NSA's technical review. Therefore, they came to known within Microsoft as "the NSA keys", and this name was included in the symbol information for one of the keys. However, Microsoft holds these keys and does not share them with anyone, including the NSA.

"But in an odd-couple sort of joint-partner arrangement, Microsoft and the NSA did work together to build what's called Server Gated Cryptography. Primarily intended to help banks use Web servers to do business internationally, the technology lets a server with a special digital certificate provide 128-bit encryption support to a Web browser outside the U.S."

http://www.geocitie s.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/2553/backdoor.htm or http://slashdot.org/comme nts.pl?sid=99/09/05/1030228&cid=55

Here is a quick cut and paste of the main frame of the bulletin for you non-asped people. I know that we are not supposed to mirror, but I think of this as more as an "accessibility update". (Sorry, Geocities is slow today)

Personally I bought the idea that perhaps NSA wanted a means to install super-strong encryption into Windows without going through Microsoft. Now I think they are downright lieing. Time for the court order to open the source! The truth is in there...

My Psion 3A pocket organizer has a real keyboard and a screen that's legible at 25x80 (though it's pretty small print), and there's free vt100 terminal software available. It's particularly nice for those times that you need to connect to a router console or server computer that you'd normally access with telnet. The Psion is a wonderful beast, with an interesting operating system, good physical design, and a small but fanatical bunch of supporters putting out free and commercial software.
Psion Web Ring

The 3A has a weird I/O requiring a somewhat expensive adapter cable, but the 3C uses a standard RS-232 cable (and also infrared!) and has a backlit screen. The 5 is a major redesign and can do lots of Internet things on its own. You can pick up a used 3-series model for about $150-200.

Of course, you could get a Palm Pilot and one of the keyboards that goes with it; just because I'm a Psion fan doesn't mean I don't know where the market leader is :-) and the Pilot does seem to be well-designed.

Try opening up the laptop and have a look at where the display connects to the motherboard. It will probably be some kind of ribbon connector.

Have a look and see if it is labelled in any way. If you're lucky, it will have each connector labelled with what it carries. Then, pick up a VGA connector--perhaps by getting an extension cable and beheading it.

Finally, make the connections. The pinouts for a VGA connector can be found at: http:/ /www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/1236/pincon vid_vga_vesa_ddc.htm

If the LCD connector doesn't have pinout listings, see if there is a number on it anywhere. Do a web search for that and see if anyone else has figured it out.

Lynx (recent revs.) does frames just fine, almost always. For tables, maybe following Al Gilman's FAQ (H key, when in Lynx (I hope!), searching on the keyword "tables" will take you to some URLs with brief comments about what you'll find there. I like Bruce Guthrie's HTML-to-text converter (DOS); haven't used it much, but it rendered tables nicely. Try here for some very nice DOS freeware. (Ought to run under DOSEmu.) Look for htmst906.zip.

A GPLed Flash plugin for Netscape can be found at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Labyrinth/508 4/flash.html. The web page claims it works on HP/UX. I've only tried it (briefly) on Linux.

Remember that 1989 was before Windows 3.0. In 1989, Windows was still a nonentity.

Yep, and Al Gore invented the Internet and Gates is an innovative visionary. Uh-huh, yeah, right.
Guess those holes on the Mac screen are 'doors' or something. Just can't stand the solipsism :))

Chuck

It wasn't the first 8800, it was a slightly improved model available later. This one could be upgraded as far as 64K memory.

Altair 8800b Photo and Specs

There's also links to a whole bunch of other neat-o Altair stuff, like full-color images of some of the print ads (Napoleon?!), chronology of the various models, accessory prices ...

Thinking about this, I wonder how a parody of this would do? Seems like you could do almost the same thing, play it totally for laughs, and have a watchable movie that could still be made for next to nothing.

Check it out: The Blah Witch Project.

My idea for a sequel: do a Spinal Tap-style mockumentary about the failed attempt to make a sequel to BWP. Heather, Mike, and Josh are back, but they've "gone Hollywood", and are all primadonnas now. Execs from Artisan do the usual meddling-exec damage. As the whole thing falls apart, the directors, in desperation, release the "making-of" documentary footage as the movie itself. Working title: "The BWP2 Project".

A better site is here because of the nice pictures.

Ai-yi-yi.

I am not knowingly related to Frank Herbert, the original author of the Dune series and many other excellent SF novels. The English surname "Herbert" is believed to derive from the original French surname "Hebert", which roughly translates to "famous army". I'm not too shabby at Dune2000, so bring it on. :)

I am of Cajun (French-Acadian) descent and live in south Louisiana. My surname didn't have anything to do with my appreciation of Frank Herbert's work, only that I love SF and found the world of Dune to be very fascinating, especially after growing up in Louisiana where water and humidity is everywhere and an essential part of life (I grew up on a rice farm).

BTW, my little brother's name is Frank...

John Hebert

Yeah... spooky stuff, isn't it? And it wasn't only McCarthy involved. Everyone realized back then he was a loon, and fell into disgrace. But most other people who were involved in this suffered no ill effects. In fact, some went on to greater things, like Nixon and Reagan...

I also happen to be a Anarchist and spend a lot of my time visiting left and anarchist websites, as well as being on several mailing lists. This is very very very evil. All I can hope is that a bunch of Anonymous filtering websites come up that let you visit sites "anonymously" as well as send and receive email anonymously.

And not be corvertly set up by the gov't, as well. Don't you realize that such an "anonymizer" is perfect for surveillance? That way you can easily gather a good database of juicy info on people who use it. Even info on people you're not after is useful-- you can blackmail people into falsely testifying against people you're after. The FBI is known to have used such tactics.

Many people have also been observing student protests, and many protests in general have really been rising recently, and many new people have been joining existing organizations (say NOW for instance).

And you can be sure that among the people joining there will be agents, which can serve to gather info or as provocateurs. I did my BA at the Universtiy of Puerto Rico, where there's a very long story of that. Though nowadays it's cooled down somewhat, people I know who went there in the 70s can tell you the stories about the left organizations getting infiltrated. For example, in the mid 80s, when government files on political opponents were made public, one could see that many of the most violent, extremist "radicals" who were always calling for violence against the state were actually agents...

I'm wondering if they're planning on cracking down on government/corporate resistance. They're probably aware of the increases themselves. And the Internet has been a very usefull tool to unite organizations and struggles from all over the world. This is very f-cking scary.

That's what the FBI has historically dedicated itself to, and there's no real indicator that this has changed.

Really, this thing about monitoring the net is just extending current civillian surveillance to email messages and such.

Anyone who wants to know more about the FBI's history of surveillance and sabotage of civillian organizations, check out this page on COINTELPRO. The material there is actual declassified FBI documents.

Also, I've noticed that a couple of messages above show their posters to be completely ignorant with respect to Anarchism. I would suggest them to go check out the Anarchist FAQ Webpage.

---

I can't believe some of these restrictions. It's... almost inconceivable. Consider their ban on "Message/Bulletin Boards" - "Sites that permit semi-permanent messages to be posted and read by others." Heaven forbid the little kiddies should have a free discourse of any kind. Posted and read by others? Why, who knows what those ravening internet users might post! Swear words! Heretical leanings! Thoughts! I wouldn't be surprised to discover /. is banned under this clause. Too free.

Then there's their block on unfiltered searches. Consider this corrupting search string:
"http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=women". Egads, cover their sweet little eyes! They might be looking up such horrendous topics as women in the military, or the accomplishments of women! All, no doubt, in a sick demonic attempt to see nude bodies - we all know that women have no interest apart from the sexual.

Of course, they also ban "Free pages". Because of course, unless you have Big Money behind the site, you know it will all end in tears. The entire geocities complex is blocked, including such appalling sites as my blood-and-lust-centric Lucy Test. I don't like the banner ads either, but how many times have I been shunted to a geocities page when researching something that intrested me? Not for Bess users, though. Good old Bess, she doesn't have time to spend, say, THINKING about the worth of certain sites. She'd rather toss a pure white blanket over the lot and be done with it.

Frankly, I can't imagine the distorted hairy-palmed little trolls who rate sites for companies like this one. They spend their days looking at a good sight more porn and dementia than I ever do. Straight-backed Christians of the world - if you believe that information corrupts, then do you really want these polluted individuals deciding what your children see?

This has ruined my day.

-konstant

I was reading these just before this story popped up.
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/index.html
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/linking.html
http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/webpage.html#linkin g
http://www.bitlaw.com/links/articles.html#Internet
http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht#lo
http://www.bitlaw.com/hot/totalnews.html

Here's why I was reading about this:
http://libertyonline.hypermall.co m/copyright.html

And for more fun, view the source of this one:
(extracted from a frameset)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4446/con tent.html

All of the above working together, and yes this includes the kids, dammit! After all, who does it concern most, if not them?

With respect to the filtering/censorware debate, I will NOT support CyberSitter and the like. I *do* support programs like SafeSurf and RSACi. I know that my pages are likely to contain "adult" themes (case in point: Kindred Spirits, my Amber fanfic), but it's certainly no worse than the VC Andrews novels that were passed around by my 9th grade classmates and available in our school library. I don't think my pages, at least not those pages, are much of a threat to anyone who has read the original Amber series in the first place. (Die-hard storyline purists hate me, but that's beside the point.)

As far as R-rated movies go, I thought the original rating standard was "under 17 must have permission of parent or guardian." I could be wrong, but in practice, that was how many theaters operated, and it seems to me to be the most sensible practice. Parents could give kids permission to see certain R-rated movies or all R-rated moves, and that could be on file with the theater. Perhaps the kids would have to bring a "movie card" with their name on it like a video rental card, and would have to "sign" for tickets. For those who are under 17, and whose parents will allow them to see the movies, I think that is a reasonable compromise.

Unfortunately, I've dealt with enough unreasonable parents that I worry. The Baron of my SCA group is a high-school English teacher, and he was flat-out told to stop teaching a certain book because something ridiculous like two parents in the entire school system objected. Not only that, the book was then yanked from the school library. He had no chance to defend himself, no chance to even respond, he was just told "you upset a parent and you can't do that."

This is lunacy. Jennifer's parents have no right to tell Jason and Jessica what they can't read -- Jason and Jessica don't belong to Jennifer's parents. At best, Jennifer's parents have the right to control what Jennifer reads, and I'd say that that falls apart as soon as Jennifer's old enough to walk or bus to the library by herself, or at minimum as soon as Jennifer's got the spending money saved up to buy whatever book she wants at Borders or via amazon.com.

The same thing frightens me here that frightens me with censorware and other such things. The people who are going to be reasonable human beings and discuss things rationally with their kids aren't the people who are going to feel the need to use CyberSitter and its ilk. At most, they'll set up a RSACi or SafeSurf filter for their young kids, or just tell them to keep out of porn sites.

The ones who want this stuff are the nuts. Remember from a few years back the "child molestor" on AOL who turned out to be a 19-year-old guy who fell in love with the (IIRC) 16-year-old gay son of some very homophobic parents?

I don't know precisely how to fix it. But it would be a big help if people talked to their kids and actually LISTENED to them instead of kneejerk reacting to "bad things" (like assuming that someone's support of medical marijuana means that s/he is a stoner him/herself -- blah). And unfortunately, the ones who don't want to be open with their kids about anything are the ones who want the censorware and the carding at R-rated movies.

Does anyone else see a problem here? Isn't that sometimes a parent's job? IOW, there are times when a parent has to "intrude on their children's privacy" to assure that their kids are being raised the way they see fit. My parents restricted what I could watch when I was a kid (I'm 23 and married now), and I'm glad they did -- it showed me they cared.

If you feel the need to invade your child's privacy, then you obviously haven't provided your child with a reason to trust you. A child is a human being, and therefore cannot be denied their basic humanity.

So let's see, Katz now advocates illegal acts (like copyright violation and illegally sneaking into movies) as well as a hands-off parenting approach? Doesn't sound like libertarianism, sounds like anarchy.

Very good. Although not exactly "hands off", it is an anarchistic approach. Take a look at methods of anarchist parenting. In fact, you may want to take a look at the whole Anarchism FAQ to get a proper definition of anarchy.

Michael Chisari dominion@beyondtheweb.com
"Got a revolution behind my eyes, we got to get up and organize."

Does anyone else see a problem here? Isn't that sometimes a parent's job? IOW, there are times when a parent has to "intrude on their children's privacy" to assure that their kids are being raised the way they see fit. My parents restricted what I could watch when I was a kid (I'm 23 and married now), and I'm glad they did -- it showed me they cared.

If you feel the need to invade your child's privacy, then you obviously haven't provided your child with a reason to trust you. A child is a human being, and therefore cannot be denied their basic humanity.

So let's see, Katz now advocates illegal acts (like copyright violation and illegally sneaking into movies) as well as a hands-off parenting approach? Doesn't sound like libertarianism, sounds like anarchy.

Very good. Although not exactly "hands off", it is an anarchistic approach. Take a look at methods of anarchist parenting. In fact, you may want to take a look at the whole Anarchism FAQ to get a proper definition of anarchy.

Michael Chisari dominion@beyondtheweb.com
"Got a revolution behind my eyes, we got to get up and organize."

Since the article is pretty short on details, I thought I'd throw out some notes:

1) The Lego uses a Hitachi H8-300 chip, which is a target for gcc, so compiling code for the chip is merely a matter of rebuilding gcc as a cross-compiler.

2) Strictly speaking, LegOS is not an OS but a library, which you compile along with your actual code to give you OS-like features: threading, time management, etc. It also frees you from lego's arbitrary limit on variables (only 32! with no data structures! eww...) and other such problems.

Umm... that's all the geek info I can think of off the top of my head. URLs:
The Official LegOS homepage.
LUGNET, which is a discussion area for all types of lego stuff. the robotics list there serves as the main discussion area for LegOS development and use.
The Internals page. Already mentioned here on /. by Russ Nelson.
EmuLegOS. An emulator for LegOS. Gives you a yellow box on your screen, just as if you owned a Lego brick yourself :) Also very useful for debugging.
My HOWTO. More or less the official documentation. Enjoy.

Good luck- help Lego back into the black-
luge

But as a general principle, "leave nature alone" is simply not an option. Unless you decide to execute 80% of the population, we have to tamper with nature, or nature will execute those people the slow way. Our only option is to try and understand the complex system we are living in a minimize unwanted side-effects.

You may want to check this out:

E.6 What is the population myth?

It gives some interesting insights about how population growth is a direct result of the growing lower class. If you've noticed, in economically prosperous areas, families usually stop at two or three children.

It's my fear that we have come upon a dangerous era in population growth. Countries in economical distress have populations which have large families (partially due to religion, partially due to culture, and partially due to the necessity to feel "human" when your society takes that from you), and conditions are such that they can't be taken care of, but yet aren't so bad that they die (which is what kept populations in check in earlier years, and was the reason for having large families).

What's needed to keep the human population in check is education, contraception, and women's rights.

But most importantly, it's freedom. Economic, political, and social freedom. -- Michael Chisari dominion@beyondtheweb.com

It kind of reminds me of the old adage that the more you learn about others, the more you learn about yourself. In this case, Kismet attempts to assign quantitative values to human's emotional qualities and react to them appropriately.

I am personal surprised that we have not made more inroads into this field by now. It seems that converse has happened: we humans have adapted to computers more than we have made them adapt to us. I've written about this before on my website.

On the other hand, if computers displayed the emotional complexity of humans, we would not be able to trust them as much. Such is the paradox of reinventing ourselves.

- Michael

Hey, a while ago there were reports about very proffessional looking Divx fansites over on Geocites. I actually went to look at one of them, and I was impressed with some of the DHTML stuff that was on it.( Absolute Divx, if I remember correctly. Oh, by the way, I just rechecked the Divx site, and apparently, Divx is dead! Hooray! I think I'll get up and dance a jig. ;-) Do I think it was a "real Divx fansite?" Um, no... unless the creator of the site's real name is Lucifer Beelzebub Satanus and he's just praising Divx because it is, you know, the evilest idea he heard of in a long time.
On the other hand, I could probably create a pretty proffessional looking fansite if I had the time and motivation. Sometimes I fool around with cool Javascript or HTML effects on some of my sites, and owing to being a geeky comic book/ anime mega-fan (think about the proprietor of "The Androids Dungeon" to get an idea about what I'm like... but not what I look like ;-) I might even have obscure, hard to come by info that people with lives don't have the time to hunt out in obscure corners of the world. So.... I guess I just want to point out that some of the fansites out there are really fansites.
Maybe even some of the Blair Witch fansites. I do get suspicious of fansites about things that haven't stood the test of time. Well, just some thoughts I was having while downloading ColdFusion Express (tm) from the good folks at Allaire (publishers of Cold Fusion(tm) and Allaire Homesite(tm) ;)
"You fool, Beckman is dead!" --A Mysterious Voice at the End of H.P. Lovecraft's Statement of Randolph Carter

If you want the real scoop on virtual models, take a gander at what people are doing with Poser by Metacreations.

Here are some links to get you started:


RATTERS.COM - Poser Links

A Mess of Poser Links

Poser Props Guild

Greylight Internet - Poser Stuff

Baumgarten Enterprises (Poser Stuff)

Paul Hafeli Poser 3 Inspirations - Great Poser Work

The Blacksmith - Poser Props

Paul Hafeli Poser Tutorials

Bushi's Graphics Homepage - Poser Stuff

Digital Puppet Magazine (Poser in Movie Making)

Poser Forum


This is where the real action is...

If you want the real scoop on virtual models, take a gander at what people are doing with Poser by Metacreations.

Here are some links to get you started:


RATTERS.COM - Poser Links

A Mess of Poser Links

Poser Props Guild

Greylight Internet - Poser Stuff

Baumgarten Enterprises (Poser Stuff)

Paul Hafeli Poser 3 Inspirations - Great Poser Work

The Blacksmith - Poser Props

Paul Hafeli Poser Tutorials

Bushi's Graphics Homepage - Poser Stuff

Digital Puppet Magazine (Poser in Movie Making)

Poser Forum


This is where the real action is...

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/193 1/ is the url. I am not sure why the one that was put up linked to slashdot.

Got to love the education in the "unbiased," "free" world of the US eh? It's nice how they leave out, or only give one or two lines to major revolutionary movements...make those who are victorious appear to be the good/right guys...and anything opposing the current status quo appear to be bad/evil (as in socialism as a whole).


However, the answer to you question is Spain. Now, the thing with Anarchism is it is all voluntary and by being that way, there are not defined boundaries to it's existence. It isn't called a nation or state, but a collective. More on the Spanish Anarchist collective can be read here (brief)
or here (long). For a list of more Anarchist collectives in practice please visit
here. If you want to know more about Anarchism overall I suggest reading the Anarchism FAQ and/or Anarchism: From Theory to Practice by Daniel
Guerin.


The mentality that because there is strong opposition by those in power, therefore my participation or caring is pointless, is one of the major reasons more people don't get involved. This is like believing your vote (well in the US thanks to the electoral college system, that belief is somewhat true) doesn't matter, and when thousands and millions of people believe this, it has an effect.


Now, it'll take you quite a while to read and digest all of that. So unless you are really determined to make yourself feel you are right (I am staying neutral...It's your choice to educate yourself on the subject), this discussion is likely over. Otherwise, you'll pull an out-of-the-ass excuse/misconception for why it won't work and the back and forth petty fighting will begin/continue.

Got to love the education in the "unbiased," "free" world of the US eh? It's nice how they leave out, or only give one or two lines to major revolutionary movements...make those who are victorious appear to be the good/right guys...and anything opposing the current status quo appear to be bad/evil (as in socialism as a whole).


However, the answer to you question is Spain. Now, the thing with Anarchism is it is all voluntary and by being that way, there are not defined boundaries to it's existence. It isn't called a nation or state, but a collective. More on the Spanish Anarchist collective can be read here (brief)
or here (long). For a list of more Anarchist collectives in practice please visit
here. If you want to know more about Anarchism overall I suggest reading the Anarchism FAQ and/or Anarchism: From Theory to Practice by Daniel
Guerin.


The mentality that because there is strong opposition by those in power, therefore my participation or caring is pointless, is one of the major reasons more people don't get involved. This is like believing your vote (well in the US thanks to the electoral college system, that belief is somewhat true) doesn't matter, and when thousands and millions of people believe this, it has an effect.


Now, it'll take you quite a while to read and digest all of that. So unless you are really determined to make yourself feel you are right (I am staying neutral...It's your choice to educate yourself on the subject), this discussion is likely over. Otherwise, you'll pull an out-of-the-ass excuse/misconception for why it won't work and the back and forth petty fighting will begin/continue.

Got to love the education in the "unbiased," "free" world of the US eh? It's nice how they leave out, or only give one or two lines to major revolutionary movements...make those who are victorious appear to be the good/right guys...and anything opposing the current status quo appear to be bad/evil (as in socialism as a whole).


However, the answer to you question is Spain. Now, the thing with Anarchism is it is all voluntary and by being that way, there are not defined boundaries to it's existence. It isn't called a nation or state, but a collective. More on the Spanish Anarchist collective can be read here (brief)
or here (long). For a list of more Anarchist collectives in practice please visit
here. If you want to know more about Anarchism overall I suggest reading the Anarchism FAQ and/or Anarchism: From Theory to Practice by Daniel
Guerin.


The mentality that because there is strong opposition by those in power, therefore my participation or caring is pointless, is one of the major reasons more people don't get involved. This is like believing your vote (well in the US thanks to the electoral college system, that belief is somewhat true) doesn't matter, and when thousands and millions of people believe this, it has an effect.


Now, it'll take you quite a while to read and digest all of that. So unless you are really determined to make yourself feel you are right (I am staying neutral...It's your choice to educate yourself on the subject), this discussion is likely over. Otherwise, you'll pull an out-of-the-ass excuse/misconception for why it won't work and the back and forth petty fighting will begin/continue.

Got to love the education in the "unbiased," "free" world of the US eh? It's nice how they leave out, or only give one or two lines to major revolutionary movements...make those who are victorious appear to be the good/right guys...and anything opposing the current status quo appear to be bad/evil (as in socialism as a whole).


However, the answer to you question is Spain. Now, the thing with Anarchism is it is all voluntary and by being that way, there are not defined boundaries to it's existence. It isn't called a nation or state, but a collective. More on the Spanish Anarchist collective can be read here (brief)
or here (long). For a list of more Anarchist collectives in practice please visit
here. If you want to know more about Anarchism overall I suggest reading the Anarchism FAQ and/or Anarchism: From Theory to Practice by Daniel
Guerin.


The mentality that because there is strong opposition by those in power, therefore my participation or caring is pointless, is one of the major reasons more people don't get involved. This is like believing your vote (well in the US thanks to the electoral college system, that belief is somewhat true) doesn't matter, and when thousands and millions of people believe this, it has an effect.


Now, it'll take you quite a while to read and digest all of that. So unless you are really determined to make yourself feel you are right (I am staying neutral...It's your choice to educate yourself on the subject), this discussion is likely over. Otherwise, you'll pull an out-of-the-ass excuse/misconception for why it won't work and the back and forth petty fighting will begin/continue.

(this is all personal-experience anecdote, so skip it if that bores you.)

Hardly any of the geeks in their respective industry -- in which I'm mostly thinking of the computer industry, particularly software -- are union members. Most of us are also inexperienced in labor matters, such as what to do when you're working 50 hr/wk and the boss comes and tells you he needs more overtime.

Few software geeks are accustomed to needing to fight to defend themselves in their labor conditions. We're currently such a valuable commodity that no employer is willing (or dumb enough) to endanger it.

That said, those conditions do make us easy fodder for exploitation when the bosses do abuse us. And it makes it hard to defend the conditions of our labor when we don't know how, and have to figure it all out under pressure.

One story of what happened to a geek shop when the management went bad can be read here. A cautionary tale, maybe.

It's unfortunate most Americans, or even the north western world, only seem to think there are two extremes. One, capitalism with little government intervention, or state socialism in the style of the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. This is untrue however. Many philosophers, when developing the socialist political theories felt state socialism would be very bad. For obvious reasons, all of the control of what workers produce and are free to do is in the hands of the state. And as they predicted, the "socialist" governments that arose (thanks to back stabbing by the Bolsheviks) ended up becoming big brother. So, people think, "well, obviously THAT is bad, so the only logical choice is capitalism with no government intervention. The world will be perfect then!" The style of corporations themselves are fascist. Can you speak up to your boss? Do you dare talk back to the CEO of the giant corporation you work for? Is he democratically elected? Are any of the people above you democratically elected? Just imagine a world where these mobile empires exist...but likely with only a few very large ones. The CEO is the dictator but he has advisors and can be overthrown if he doesn't perform ruthlessly enough for the corporation to grow and continue to make massive profits. "The government says we have free speech!" But you spend most of your day at work and are limited to certain behaviour and speech. The corporations don't have to abide by free speech (hey, the government can't intervene with the good ol corporations!), so they can censor whatever they wish. What good is free speech when you spend most of your life working under a giant corporation? Great world that'll be! Oh, wait...it's pretty much like America now. And these people praise Ayn Rand like she's the only political philosopher to ever exist [well, besides Marx who they bash (and therefore anything non right wing is wrong!) based on the state socialist systems that came to be]. Marx, Proudhon, Bakunin, Godwin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Bookchin...who are they? They're all wrong! Rand knows all! So, what is left? That evil, terrorist, chaotic, political philosophy barely anyone understands but think they understand it all. ANARCHISM (echo). "People will run wild in the streets! they'll muder each other! They'll steal everything! It'll never work! It never has! It's unholy! What about crime? Work???" These are the typical uninformed responses people usually spew when they hear the term...knowing absolutely nothing about it nor it's history. It has been in existence in the past with millions of participants and everything worked out fine. Contrary to (force fed) beliefs of terror and chaos, they turned out great. Productivity rose. Worker moral rose. Less hours of work. innovation happened. Many of the problems with crime today are related directly to capitalism. Why are the poor more likely to commit crime? Why are more poor people in prison? Why are gangs mainly poor inner city youth? Bioligical malfunctions? Or is it because they don't have the money to afford things they need and want. You never hear about millionaires and billionaires robbing banks and breaking into homes or stealing items from stores. Wonder why. Of course random acts of violence related to rage or mental disorders will still occur (although very rare even in this situation...the media just loves to focus on the very rare instances and blow it up like it's a huge epidemic everywhere) but these situations will obviously be dealt with. Anyway, if anyone is interested I suggest checking out the Anarchy FAQ here. Although I expect is hostile responses fom people too lazy to read up on it, and who are to arrogant to accept the fact their current beliefs are possibly "wrong" (you could completly understand the theory/practice after reading up on it, and still not believe in it or support it of course). Oh well.

A Mind Forever Voyaging is on Activision's "Classics of Infocom" CD. I can't offhand remember the official title of the compilation, but i have it. It includes the data files for 30 or so old infocom games. all you need is a z-machine emulator. Various versions of one called frotz are available here.

Wait..i think i know what text-based game that was. when i was 10 i used to play a game called McMurphy's mansion. which if not the game yr talking about, still a very similar one...though there was money involved too..
the solution to McMurphy's mansion can be found here, along with others...

chimchim

"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

Exactly, I also wrote about this in my review of the movie. I felt totally cheated!

"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

AN -- without

ARCHOS -- Leader, chief

So anarchy does not mean "no rules"; it means "no rulers".

David Friedman, the son of economist Milton Friedman, is probably the most widely known and published "anarchocapitalist", although he tends to argue just as much on utilitarian grounds as moral ones, if not more so. The 19th century lawyer and abolitonist Lysander Spooner can be read as a mixed bag of capitalist and socialist individualism. James Donald has a decent collection of writings on the subject, including Spooner, Frederic Bastiat and more.

i do not believe [ pro-wrestling's role in the boy's death] is evidence that south park is something that should not exist or should not be seen by anyone under 17.

"Should not exist" is bait for censorship. The debate needs to stick with the issue of what the quality of the movie is. As for children seeing the movie, well, I'll do my part to see that mine won't.

[prose about the link between words/images and actions snipped]

hearing a curse word is not the same as saying a curse word...

What I was trying to say was that reading CAP's review was enough to tell me the film is unworthy of my attention. I can't defend CAP's assertion that it is "dangerous;" however, it's clear to me from CAP's review that the film contains no quality as an object of art that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy.

... parents should concentrate on shaping their children's thinking ability instead worrying about what their eyes might see. it is really much more effective.

How utterly naive. Parents should of course do both. My oldest son accidentally caught a glimpse -- only a few seconds -- of "The Exorcist" when he was 5 or 6. It happened be a scene portraying demonic possession. That brief image continues to haunt him years later. As a child and teen, I myself was polluted with an unrealistic expectation of women and a twisted sense of sex that masked its deeper, true delights because I had access to pornography growing up. I'm sure I'm in the minority of Slashdotters who believes there's something inherently wrong with pornography. I therefore have nothing to do with pornography -- by choice.

I thank God for the innocence that my kids (6 and 8) still possess. In our house, we don't draw the line at obscenities. We draw the line at calling someone stupid, or saying, "That sucks." Why do I draw the line so far back? To compensate for society's pressure to erase the line completely. When my kids do begin exercising their "free speech" in more vulgar ways, they'll have been taught the example of just how far over the line they're going. By the time they make their own choice whether to see "South Park," I hope they will appreciate how far over the line that movie is.

This brings up an interesting point. I don't know when I'll begin permitting my kids to read Slashdot, but I do think thal and I would agree that it's the same time when it's "safe" to let them watch South Park. I mean that with all sincerity. It's just that thal and I might disagree about the age when that might be. Just how old are you, thal? Have kids of your own, yet?

south park is a world without fences, yes. if we keep the fences up all of the time, we will forget what is hiding behind them. and that it is when it will come to haunt us. south park is a hilarious reminder why we try to be civilized.

I like to be reminded of why I try to be civilized by seeing examples of the triumph of civilization. Or maybe there are those who want to compare the R-rated content of "South Park" to the R-rated content of "Saving Private Ryan"? Now that would be a good debate, too. I saw SPR twice. And I want my kids to see that movie. Not yet, but before they start reading Slashdot.

There's a worldview that believes depravity is inevitable -- that we need to poke around in the feces until our noses have grown accustomed to the smell and it's as if there's no smell at all. Then there's a worldview that expresses the conviction that the depravity of the world has been overcome and we've merely been living through a "cleanup operation" for the past 2,000 years. I subscribe to the latter worldview. "South Park" appears to subscribe to the former.