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Please, people, this isn't about collecting addresses for spam. It's a simple promotion, a web promotion no less, and its purpose is to get people acquainted with everyone.net. You did hear about their website before right? No? Well you have now. That's exactly the point. While you're there, they'll try to convince you why you should go with them instead of MS's hotmail.com. Again, that's the whole point.

Last Comdex Caldera was distributing evaluation copies of OpenLinux without the source code for GPL works or even a written offer for the source code. While there have been other companies/people that have been involved in GPL violations, this is the first case I have run into where the company refuses to even acknowledge the violation (and as such has never stated that they have any intention of ever following the licensing conditions for redistribution). I am work with a group which intends to file a class action suit against Caldera to get their attention. Please report any GPL works that Caldera distributes at Comdex to lockdown34@hotmail.com and try to give details on any form of source code availablity (written offer printed on CD, written offer provided on paper with the CD, written offer in a readme on the CD, no source code/written offer at all, etc). If there is any written offer, please email a copy of that along with the report. The number of reports we get can greatly effect this case and improve the open source community. Thanks.

Ok all you alien-loving, X-Files watching, star gazing, conspiracy theorising folk out there, time to settle this once and for all! =)

Hmm, lemme see here... life on other planets. Ok, sure, I'll give you that one. I mean, look at the odds - a universe this big with only us in it? That's about as absurd as M$ innovating something (sorry, had to throw that one in). But ah, those very same odds sorta make the possibility of us running into aliens drop to null.

Let me explain. All the aliens we hear about on TV and from all those wackos out there seem to be just a little ways ahead of us technologically. Oh no, not so far as we couldn't eventually understand them, only far enough as to be several hundred years ahead of us. Does anyone see the problem with this? I should hope so! Lets say there are two planets out there with life on them. By some bizarre circumstance it turns out that sentience isn't an evolutionary fluke, and it also turns out that all advanced life-forms look REALLY human-like. No, really, it's in the fundamental structure of the universe. Everyone has to look like us. Or maybe we look like them. Or maybe we all came from one species that went around screwing small furry animals or something. Life is Star Trek. But I digress. Let's say human-like societies evolve on both of these planets. Now, here's one for ya: what is the chance that similar societies evolve on BOTH of these planets within a FEW HUNDRED YEARS OF EACH OTHER??? That's right: ZERO!!! The entire universe didn't appear all at once, ya know. Planets are dying and being born AS WE SPEAK. Lets say there's some planet out there and little micro-organisms are starting to evolve on it. By they time we get to that planet, it maybe could evolve some monkeys, who knows. Or maybe it'll still be full of goo. The point is, the chance of the timing of any two planets being SO SIMILAR as to have them both yield sentient beings within a few hundred years of each other is next to NONE. Again, that's assuming that sentience is a NATURAL by-product of evolution, something which we have NO proof of. Last time I checked, the dinosaurs didn't evolve any walkin-talking lizard people. And they were here for HOW LONG??? (Although there is a Voyager episode that begs to differ, from what I recall. Did anyone else want to rip their hair out when they were "evolving" that dinosaur in the holodeck??? "Computer, what will this lizard look like in 10,000 years?" Up pops a picture of a guy in a dinosaur costume. Voyager SUCKS! UGH!!!) And in case you didn't notice, if it wasn't for that big 'ol rock hittin' the Earth, WE AS A SPECIES WOULDN'T BE HERE!!! Hmm, funny that. Maybe the dinosaurs on the alien planet got wiped out at the same time. Because you KNOW they had to have dinosaurs... ALL planets go through their "dinosaur phase," it's common knowledge. No, really.

Ok, I think I'm done, just one final point. Does anyone else remember the episode of Babylon 5 where (pardon my horrid spelling, my apologies to the B5 fans out there) G'Kar tried to tell whoever it was that we don't really have the capacity to comprehend aliens way ahead of us technologically? It went something like this: two ants on a tree/bush/whatever. One ant walks onto a flower, and then a human/alien picks the flower, smells it, and puts it back (something like that). Then the first ant asks the one who was on the flower "What was that?!?!" (the way that phrase was said was really cool...) How can the ant possibly explain it? IT CAN'T! Why do I retell this story here? Simple: if there ARE aliens out there, they are either WAY ahead of us or WAY behind us in regards to technology. If they're way behind us, they ain't gonna be visitin' any time soon. If they're way ahead of us, the chances of us being important to them are about the same as a particular ant colony being important to us: NONE. For all we know, they could blow Earth out of the stars tomorrow to make room for their new Intergalactic T1 Line. And if we ever DID run into them, what the heck makes you think we would or even could possibly understand them? What makes you think they'd look similar to us in any way? Think about it people.

So ya wanna know why claims made by people like this are dismissed so easily? Well that's why. One of the various reasons, anyway. Sorry to shatter the illusions of any alien worshipers or X-Files nuts out there. If you want an interesting read on the whole topic, go get yourself a copy of "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke - do everyone a favor fill your brain with something USEFUL for once. Remember: the more open a person's mind is, the more convenient a place it is for someone else to put their TRASH! Have a nice day!

Xhornet the Ur-Blissful
(Go ahead and flame me, I dare ya!)

[Could someone please moderate this up so the people with short attention spans and slow connections get a chance to read it?]

I'm not going to be able to make it to Comdex. However, if someone could stop by the Caldera booth and check if they are handing out evalutation copies of OpenLinux, it would help me. At previous trade shows Caldera was redistributing GPL material in a form which violates the conditions for redistribution. I have contacted Caldera both by email and phone regarding them changing this. They have complettely ignored email and setup a policy by which to give a run-around on the phone (they will only talk about licensing problems if it is reported to your Caldera software representive and they refuse to assign any representives to GPL authors). Since they have given no indication of plans to change their actions, I require as many written accounts as possible of redistribution by Caldera of GPL works without the source code and without a written offer for the source code. Send email to lockdown34@hotmail.com Thanks.

I have used Netscape 3 Gold for Linux and it hasn't crashed on me once. I have also used Netscape 4.5 for Windows, and it crashes occasionally. I have never used IE3 or IE4, but I have used IE5 and it is ... not very good. As far as I have noticed, Netscape3 and IE5 can both render almost all pages on the web, with the exception of Java pages and Plugin pages. (I avoid pages using Plugins even under Windows, and I almost always have Java turned off.)

Lynx manages to render most pages on the 'net, and if you run it under X11 it can render graphics, too.

No matter what you do to Mozilla for Linux, it won't be able to use Microsoft's latest OLE/VB/whatever plugins. Microsoft seems to have polluted the Java standard, unfortunately, which means that Mozilla probably has a fair bit of catching up to do.

Microsoft does not (yet) control the server standards, except indirectly through the FrontPage extensions. I am not sure exactly what the purpose of these are. It is perhaps more likely that MS will pollute the internet mail standards, with more and more people using `free' services like Hotmail.

• 2.5 GB/s connection.
• Uses powerlines already in place.
• Will be out third quarter of 2000.
• $60 for average household.

Heres a solution:

Write a program. The program could use an existing picture of good quality, then download new images and compare. If there is a block pixel change (a square of x size, having all pixels changed) then, the new image is flagged. Else, the image is thrown away. The resulting "ghost pictures" can be inverted in Photoshop, it will be obvious which ones were camera caused an which were not...
This would rule out human interpretation, and could be used over a long period of time. What do you think?

Biguser@hotmail.com

Suppose it's fifty years ago, and a town is paralyzed in fear--there's a serial rapist. He's found, he's black, he's lynched.

Only a truly cruel and crazed person would violate the town women in that manner--something must be done to make them feel secure--no, to make the town more secure. The remaining black families must be run out of town, or live in eternal fear.

Most are run out. Some stay. None feel secure.

What's more tragic, I ask you? The women who were raped by the insane, or the families that were exiled by the righteous victims?

That's not a rephrase. When you take the same question and put it in a different context you get a different question. A geeky analogy would be like saying that 5 minus 3 is the same as 5 minus 2 just because they're both the same operation. My point being that even though I'm in strong support of my post (and would be a little appalled if you weren't as well), that doesn't preclude my agreement with you that the story you described is not nearly so black-and-white. Murder is worse then rape, and bieng kicked out of school is not nearly as bad as bieng kicked out of town.

I don't really have a yes/no opinion (I gather you don't either) but I can offer some insight and food for though at the least. One of the things you have to be sure to distinguish between is 'actions' and 'attitudes'. In your analysis I think you're focusing on the 'intolerance of the authority' as the evil in question with which your comparing the rape or murder. That's not the same as comparing the results of the actual act of retribution with the act of murder/rape/whatever.

Lets take a look at the example you described. Let's presume we agree that the attitude of the authority is a tradgy. So then I ask: why is it a tradgy? Answer: Because it results in an action that is unjust. In this light, the level of tradgy depends on the level of injustice of the action. Rape is also unjust, so the question is simply which is more unjust, which, in turn, requires explicitly defining "justice". That's the question to which there's no easy answer.

But...I don't think that's what you're asking. I think you're considering the tradgy of an "attitude of intolerance" as directly related to the *potential* injustice that that attitude could produce. So what I think you're actually intending to ask is for a comparison between a real injustice and a potential injustice. Since we have a hard time defining justice itself, that becomes an extremly tough question. There's no real right answer, mainly because any answer would rely on assumptions and predictions of the future which would be subjective at best.


My $0.02 anyway. :)

Ky'dishar

This is the letter I sent to Amazon.com in response to this... I would really appreciate it if we could give some sort of forum to the responses that Amazon gives out. I'm rather curious to see how these are answered, if they come up with some sort of scripted response, or if they actually take the time to write out a response, or if they don't respond at all. Let's try and not "drop this" like most other topics get done. Once it's off the front page != old news. Also, I'm not opposed to anyone sending me an email at Issue9mm@hotmail.com to keep me updated with their replies, or status of an inquiry. Thanks,
-i9mm-

To Whom This May Concern,

I am writing in regards to Patent # 5,960,411. First and foremost, let me say that I feel this is a FAR over-reached patent, and should, quite honestly, never have been approved by the U.S. Patent Office. However, since I must contend with the fact that it WAS granted, for whatever idiotic reason, that your (mis)use of it is most blatantly WRONG.

I contend that you are using this patent for no other reason than to keep Barnes & Noble from competing, an act, which Microsoft may well teach you, will eventually make you a monopoly (read - monopoly bad). I can tell you, that while I have chosen to shop at your site for quite some time now, and placed great deals of money into your hands, it is NOT because of your "1-Click" shopping. Yes, it's convenient, but not innovative. Quite frankly, I would much rather enter my information EACH AND EVERY time, than to have you sell customers' private information to outside parties (which I tolerated).

In addition to the quality of product, service, and ability to find those hard to find items, I shopped with Amazon because it made a stake on the web when prior one had not been made. I chose to shop with Amazon because of its pioneering attitude, and willingness to explore. I chose Amazon, because it made me feel like part of something better than brick-and-mortar, better than pushy salespeople, better than congested stores. Part of a team almost.

Now, looking at your bully-ish tactics, doing whatever it takes to secure your foot hold in the online economy, I shudder to think what I've become part of.

Your competitors are competing, this is what makes them good. I am not saying that you are not, because you are. You ARE a quality service provider if ever there was one. I simply cannot allow myself to become part of this lunacy.

To sum up... I will not spend another DIME at Amazon.com until matters are resolved. If legal action ensues, and B&N actually has the guts to stick up for themselves against a far over-reaching and too-broad patent, I will most likely take my business to them. If, at some point, Amazon decides to do the right thing, chances are, they'll win my business back.

Good luck, it's all on you.

Until this is over with, Barry Melton

COMDEX will let people get away with anything if you've got a high enough position.

PS- I've attended yearly since I was 14 (I love being a Vegas local), I've been stopped only twice. Both times a little bit of BS got me in (the local convention security the LVCC uses don't really care)

Ikari (still at work)

If you want to allow your child to play these games you just have to go to the store and buy them yourself.

I presume that you're not of the opinion that a child should be allowed to purchase cigarettes or pornography with the justification that it's the parent's responsibility to confiscate them after the fact if they don't agree. Games containing mature content are the same thing.

-Ky'dishar

Well lets see... I got all sorts of stuff, and it depends on the mood I am in at the time and what I am working on... God Lives Underwater, Prodigy, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Cure, Type O Negative, Skinny Puppy, Shaman, Switchblade Symphony, Dead Can Dance, Orb, New Order, Lords Of Acid, Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Sousie And The Banshees, Art Of Noise, Doors, Danzig's Black Aria, Texas, Violent Femmes, C-Tek, Underworld, Erasure, Psychic TV, Clapton, Counting Crows, Eno, David Bowie, Pink Floyd... yada yada yada... pax00@hotmail.com [shameless plug] BTW Looking for any CDs? Contact me at the above address and I will see what I can do... Can find most anything that has ever been in print... /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/rip\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

The method used works as follows; when gravitational field of the planet warps the space around it, any light from the star that might otherwise have 'missed' the telescope/eye/pinhole camera (!) would be 'bent' back to the aforementioned instrument.

Hence we do _not_ see the planet, rather the effect of the planet on a star which is how all extrasolar planet detection methods (except one which has failed to date) work.

We have no instruments capable of resolving a planet, but NASA & ESA both havbe projects that in 2020-2060 will be able to do so at IR frequencies. Hence the BBC picture is wrong. All it pointed out was the star.

This method is not repeatable, since it relies on a chance that a background star acts as the source and the planet in orbit around an unseen star all line up for us.

You might think, 'doesn't the planet star lens the background one?' - it does! The additional blip caused by the planet on the light curve is what gives it away.

The typical distance to the background star (usually in the galactic plane) is 100 parsecs, the planet's parent star is usually half this distance for geometric reasons.

Hence it's really far away! We can tell virtually nothing about the planet apart from it's mass (which won't help diffrentiate between tiny gas giants and big terrestrial types).

If anyone want's more info (or even <gasp> a copy of my lit review, written for an intelligent person) then email me. Dosvidania tovarish!

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that the whole censorship issue is being looked at from the wrong direction. Namely, trying to censor everything on the net. We all know this is not possible. First off, there's just too much out there. And if someone wants to find something, they'll find it. Putting up laws in the path of accessing information only makes people figure out other ways of posting it and other ways of getting to it. That being said, wouldn't it be a lot easier for these people to go at it in a different direction? Don't try to censor everything in sight - approve what you will, then limit the access to those things that are approved. Lets say that instead of a list of bad sites, there's a list of good ones. Only these can be accessed. But this wouldn't be for everyone. ISPs could offer 'censored accounts' for people that wanted them. This way concerned parents could know it was much harder for their kids to access 'unwanted' information. Things like IRC and newsgroups could also be restricted or disabled on these accounts. People that don't want this kind of restriction could access the net via 'open accounts.' Approval to get on the 'good list' of sites wouldn't be mandatory, but may be useful depending on what the site was being used for. You wouldn't have to do something like register every page on GeoCities, you could just say the domain name was approved, and allow access to all pages under that domain. Yes, I know, this wouldn't be easy. It would cost a bit of time/money. It would still allow people to see some links to unwanted material. But it would also allow people the choice to censor themselves and/or their children or not. Wouldn't this be much better than mandatory censorship? How possible would it be to actually do something like this? This is an idea I've had floating in my head for a while, and I'd appreciate any feedback.

xhornet@hotmail.com

(I'm not the only one that thinks the concept of 'intellectual property' is completely bloody ridiculous, am I?)

I kind of feel that this comes back to the old addage, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket." While there is nothing evil about centralizing information, the consequences of a single crack are far greater... while the danger is still the same...

From a users standpoint, when you put your money in a bank, you kind of expected to be there when you need to withdraw it... the bank should not be loosing your money all over the place...or have your money stolen by Kro0kS... you don't really need to know how the FDIC (I think) insures the funds... you just expect your money to be safe. I don't know if any of us (well, most of us?) really understand the safe guards on our bank accounts, nor on the global ATM network...

Ideally, a system, such as Hotmail should be secure. Granted, total security is never possible, but it should at least be reasonably secure...

In short, distributed computing poses the same series of dangers as a centralized network, but generally the reprocussions of a crack are not nearly as bad on a distributed network...

Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"

I also notice that while you're perfectly willing to spout off anonymously, you don't seem willing to assume responsibility for your opinions by giving us your name, or even a handle.

My email address is mrgleep@hotmail.com, by the way. If you disagree with me, feel free to tell me. At least I can assume some responsibility for what I write.

- Erik

Go ahead, moderate me down.
Most Christians will say this:

A christian is a person is (spiritually) dead to sin, and made alive in Christ. We (Yes, me too) that Jesus Christ was born perfect and remained perfect throughout his life on earth. He suffered and died, paying the price for our sin. He entered Ghenna (Roughly translated Hell) and defeated Lucifer. He released those bound by the old convenant and was raised from the dead by God the Father (Same God, different person). He now sits in heaven to reign at the right hand of the Father. He will intercede for Christians at the judgement.

There you go. Praise God for the opportunity to explain this.

Email me.

Sorry, no logon at this computer.

g2g

The WHOIS database isn't useful for anything these days anyway.

NetSol's whois database isn't the only one to suffer from lack-of-usefulness.

After repeatedly being the victim of smurf attacks (yes, there are still many broken networks out there), I wrote a perl script which analyzed the Netflow export from a Cisco 7000-series router, tested the source IPs' networks for "brokenness," and used whois.arin.net to get contact information for those networks. Much to my dismay, I was getting stuff like...

150.174.97.255 52 Virginia State University (NET-VSUNET)
"Grey, Michael" vsuars@VCUVM1.BITNET
161.223.245.0 32 Indian Health Service (NET-IHS-BNET)
"Jaramillo, Valentino" [No mailbox]
192.48.125.0 33 Solar Energy Research Institute (NET-SERI-2)
"Powers, Chuck" [No mailbox]

...in the logs. This makes it really hard to do automated "your network is broken, here's how to fix it" mailings.

Some of these organizations have had their IP allocations since the mid-1980s and apparently haven't updated their contact information in all this time. (BITNET? Can we say "way of the dodo"?) Of course, since there's no "enforcement" to keep the contact information up-to-date, things won't be changing anytime soon. (At least the .nu registry has strong wording in their policy regarding valid contact information...)

"[No mailbox]" shouldn't be allowed as a contact e-mail address, in my opinion. With the abundance of free/near-free e-mail services out there ( HotMail, Net@ddress, etc.), there is no excuse for not having a valid, working e-mail address. If you don't have an e-mail address, then you probably don't need to have IP addresses, either...

Ok, my team just lost one of its senior guys to a startup opportunity. Despite the fact that we expect him to return in 3 months :), we need a new body. Hey, JavaONE was last week, and we need a java programmer!

• There was no job posting board at the conference. We have immediate need for a fairly senior Java programmer (all Solaris, server-side stuff, no clients, guis, or swing, at least not immediately) in the Boston area, yet we couldn't find an efficient way to tell anybody this.
• Nobody wanted to hear from a big corporation (I work for a mutual fund company). Despite the fact that the e-commerce team is tiny (about 12 people) inside this big corporation, and at times feels like a startup, there were toooo many people with dreams of gold who only wanted to talk to you if you knew when your IPO was coming. If I hear one more person tell me that he's got the idea for the next eBay....:)

So the problem exists from both sides. Yes, we use recruiters, but we much prefer to hear from individuals. The few times we get good old fashioned cover letters, they get shown around the team - "Hey, look! A cover letter! Let's get this person in here!" We run ads in the local paper -- yes, it's the old fashioned way, but it still works strangely enough.

I'm torn over whether I should do this...oh, what the heck, I'll just use hotmail. If you're a fairly senior geek (5+ years experience in the biz preferably), and have some project experience with server-side Java, preferably with an e-commerce slant, and are in the Boston area and looking for a job (and don't mind working with people who speak in run on sentences :)), let me know. duane_morin@hotmail.com. A degree is not required, but it certainly helps. My boss actually prefers people who've got a degree in something other than CS (he likes em well rounded). We don't pay relocation (that I know of), so please don't write me from Florida if you don't plan on moving anyway. We do lots of Sybase here, so if you've got some of that, tell us. None of the above is written in stone (is it ever?) so if you're close, it can't hurt to write. But I'll tell ya, if you think you're good, but have got absolutely nothing to prove it, you can't really expect us to hire you.

Disclaimer: This ain't no startup, and I ain't even close to CTO, so I don't do the hiring. I just bring in the bodies.

d

Not to be anti-Linux, but have you considered migrating to FreeBSD? Other than FreeBSD's ability to run BSDi binaries (in case you have software that cannot be easily ported or is not open source) and Linux binaries, compile most applications with little or no changes, and similiar in many aspects of configuration, FreeBSD is, like, Linux, open source. In addition, FreeBSD has proven itself time and again running high-profile sites such as ftp.cdrom.com, www.yahoo.com, and even the Microsoft-owned www.hotmail.com. See www.freebsd.org for more information.

This is, of course, why Microsoft use Apache on an open-source operating system ( FreeBSD) on their massive Hotmail cluster. You can verify that here. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is pushing these servers to their limits in a production environment. When it comes down to it, the key issues are flexibility and reliability, and there you'll find that Apache is the market leader for a very good reason.

All in all, I think this is a great idea. But, here are some of the problems I've got with it as a moderator:

• Who's going to waste their points on stupid stuff, like "FIRST POST!!!1!"?
• As things stand now, you can try to moderate -1 posts down. You'll lose a mod point, and the thread will stay -1. (For all I know, it could be -2 internally.)
• Not enough topics -- i.e. the "Need a new login/PW combo" comment on the IEEE/OS thread. I think it's worthy of a -1, but it's not off-topic, not a troll, not redundant, or whatever the other one was.

Anyway, great idea, good execution, just needs to be ironed out a bit.

-- Amy Kresse

Hmmm, I seem to recall a story along that line myself.
IIRC, Microsoft tried to convert hotmail over to NT, but it just couldNT handle the server load.

I usally try not to post long quotes, but this is such a great piece, I have removed most of the formatting to conserve space, if you never read Shel Siverstein, This is just a small piece from his great wealth of works. *thanks to deborah for the silver silverstein link from her post below*

Where The Sidewalk Ends
There is a place where the sidewalk ends And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white, And there the sun burns crimson bright, And there the moon-bird rests from his flight To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black And the dark street winds and bends Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow, And watch where the chalk-white arrows go To the place where the sidewalk ends. Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go, For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends

I was in a rare lecture Adi Shamir gave in our school in israel via Video Conference last WEEK in which he calmly explained to us how come RSA is so unbreakable and how it works exactly!!!

You can imagine my suprise as i saw this article at the NY Times, this guy was EXTREMELY convincing and there was no way to tell from his face he hade already developed a way to crack his own system! WHAT A POKER FACE!!!

The lecture by itself was a fascinating experince, but now it has become

I wish i asked him if he thinks RSA would ever be
cracked...

try67

Posted by kenmcneil:

Currently a discussion similar to this, about the implications of Sun's death grip on Java, has begun on the java-linux mailing list. You can find more information about the list here. I encourage anyone who wishes to discuss this further to contribute. A good place to start is with the original post which was titled "Sun Bashing 2" ("Sun Bashing" was about Sun's lack of enthusiasm over Linx) and was posted by myself, kenmcneil@hotmail.com.

After reading a lot of the last week's messages right here at Slashdot, and experiencing some similar situations myself (in Israel...), i agree with JonKatz, us geeks need to form a strong, on-line fighting community with clear and non-conforming goals and morals!
We should begin everything from scrach, setup local/global groups of people who will make sure that every one who torture ANYONE else, will pay the price (legally, ofcourse)...
If we would join our forces for the common cuase, we can create a force that can not be avoided.
With some inspiration and strong will we could begin ourselves the change everyobne is talking about in the media,education system, etc.

Imagine what will happen if every time a geek will be expeled from school becuase of his cloth/on-line habits/gaming prefs/behavior etc, someone will go to the supreme court and get that decision canceled, or if we combine all the messages right here at Slashdot and mail them to each and every big TV station/newspaper/magazine etc...

What im tring to say is that the only way for us to make a DIFFERENCE is by reaching outside of our own closed community and begin to influence the main power junctions of the "normal" culture!

GEEKS OF THE WORLD -- UNITE!!!

try67

To whom it may concern:

I have been watching with great sadness the events of the previous days. The actions of the two young men, and any who may have assisted them, cannot be explained or justified. There is nothing that I, or anyone, can say to help those affected by this tragedy. For what it is worth, I am truly sorry for what has happened.

However, I have noticed that in the aftermath of this tragedy there have been a number of responses which I feel are both inappropriate and ineffective.

Many schools have banned trench coats. Others have singled out certain activities, such as computer games or role-playing games, as causes of this type of attack. Students who do not "fit in" with the majority have always been harrassed both by other students and sometimes even the administration. Now this has intensified, as these students are being threatened with suspensions, mandatory counseling, and even verbal and physical abuse, simply based on how they look or dress.

Such harrassment is nothing new. In fact, during my time in high school, I myself was one of the outcasts. I was often verbally abused, and sometimes physically. I know for a fact that my experiences were relativly mild compared to the abuse some of my fellow classmates recieved.

There exist, in every school, those who are popular and those who are not. Typically, people become outcasts because they happen to enjoy intellectual pursuits instead of physical ones. In some cases they are simply shy or reclusive. The high school environment is not friendly to this type of person. Often times members of the "popular" crowd attack the "outcasts", in order to feel better about themselves or to impress their peers. I speak from experience when I say a large amount of resentment builds up in those who are affected by this kind of treatment.

Sadly, in my case, most of the administration appeared to be against us as well. My friends and I did not feel that we could go to them with our problems, because they seemed to be "out to get us", instead of trying to help us. I fear that this rift between "fringe" students and the administration has only worsened in light of the response of some schools to this tragedy.

I do not write this to condone the actions of the murderers, or even to try to reduce their accountability. Ultimatly, the blame for this act rests on their shoulders. However, I would like to ask you, as the administration, to dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding this horrific event. Please don't believe that by placing the blame on video games, rock music, or the internet, you can make the problem go away. The problem is much more difficult than a person's choice of clothing or how well they conform to social norms.

The problem is a few children are persecuted by everyone else, and everyone else gets away with it. The problem is that students do not always treat other students with respect or even decency. The problem is that these school-yard bullies get away with their actions.

Attacking the outcasts is not a viable solution. It will only serve to increase the bitterness that they already hold toward their school. Calling out "witch-hunts" on those who do not fit in will certainly not increase school solidarity or improve relations between the students.

The mainstream media has barely hinted at this deeper cause, despite the notes left by the killers themselves. I would like to point out two articles which I have found on the internet regarding the potential effects of high school on children. These articles are much more eloquent then what I have written here.

Colorado Denver Post

Jonathan Katz article

Those who have been labeled by society as "outcasts", "misfits", or "fringe", are not evil people. Although the attack on Columbine was perpetrated by a pair of students who fit these descriptions, most of us who were not popular in high school simply did not want to interact with those who did not like us. Please take the initiative to examine all of the aspects of this problem. Please act constructivly to prevent such occurences from happening again, instead of simply repeating the superficial and self-defeating actions that many schools have already taken.

Thank you very much for your time,

Sincerely,
Robert Dillon
Heritage High School, Littleton, CO
Class of 1995

foxfire10@hotmail.com

Lukey Boy
luke_reeves@hotmail.com
http://members.xoom.com/LukeReeves/

i already have.

i have a mahogany box which i made for myself this summer. as soon as i get near a scanner, i'm putting up pics - submitting to slashdot, and bringing down the server. this summer i intend to make another which will be truely magnificent. the current one is just a normal rectangular shape w/ the stripped down gateway metal chassis (which are VERY nice, by the way) in the mahogany box w/ a mahogany and maple face i made for it. this summer - i think i'm upgrading my system. time to be building something sweet. i haven't decided alpha or intel yet - but i'm making a completely custom case. this one i'm going to steal a removable motherboard tray for mounting the mobo on - and shield the thing w/ copper mesh. everything will be grounded to the power supply ground, with wires nicely guided along the walls of the interior. it'll have ducted ventilation and actually be hidden in a piece of furniture. pretty neat, huh? i can't wait 'till the end of the semester. i've got all the drawings/sketches done...

if anyone's interested in me making one for them - i'll consider doing it for a grand or two. they're good shit, if you know what i mean. drop me an email, we can chat.

Check out the following link: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconV alley/Program/3555

The has source -- and binaries -- for a Windows NT driver (Wave to Disk) -- a Linux version has existed for a long time -- which will save any audio stream to disk by pretending to be a sound card. Proprietary copy protection schemes currently proposed work above the device level, and will fail to this approach.

The RIAA aren't going to win this.

For more information, email us.

Microsoft definitely fears BeOS and Linux, make no mistake about that. Why? Because, if users get PCs with BeOS or Linux on it, they will see Windows 9x for what it really is, a cobbled-together, crash-prone OS, with serious security and reliability issues. OSes like BeOS and Linux are true multi-tasking, stable, do-the-job OSes. The only difference is that the world doesn't think it can survive without Microsoft. The truth is, we can. This is obvious on the server end, but not on the desktop end. Corel has released WordPerfect for Linux, and Be is a great multimedia-creation system. Thy both have niches right now, but I am looking forward to the day when we will be able to get any app, be it a graphics package, accounting software, Internet tools, games (Oh, yeah, I'm a gamer), and more for any OS we choose.

I would like to stress that I am not anti-MS. I just think that there are an increasing number of products that do a better job with smaller hardware requirements. I do think that when they really want to, they can make a good product. They just don't really want to. They are more concerned with profit margins than product quality. And that is why there is so much resistance out there. Corporations (and consumers) are getting fed up with the exhorbitant cost of MS software, the insane licensing agreements, and the downright shoddy quality of some of Microsoft's software. I want to stress this:

YOU CAN'T FOOL THE INDUSTRY FOREVER. You may be able to get away with poor design and high costs for a while, but this industry is constantly reinventing itself for lower and lower costs, and anyone who does not join in this trend will be OUT OF BUSINESS. Microsoft has lasted this long because they don't leave a "crack in the wall" for OEMs to use other (better) OSes.

I always welcome comments. Please email me at robertdumas@hotmail.com with comments.

I think I just had this conversation with someone recently. Todays PCs are not made to perform in the same way. CONSOLES ARE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO RUN GAMES! I can not emphasize this enough. That's why console games will always be better than PC games when the system is first released. Even though a console may have a slower clock speed and less RAM, it will still run games faster and with a higher frame rate than your standard PC. Plus they are a hell of a lot cheaper ($250 vs. $2500). A PC has to run operations to make sure all the hardware and software runs properly for a variety of functions. And even if your PC were capable of doing what the Playstation 2 can do, it won't have the same games as the PC anyway. Emulation most likely won't work as well as actually owning the system, so that isn't really an option. Personally I'll just buy the system and use the PC for other thing which might not require quite as much processing power and hardware support. I don't need to go and spend $3500 to $10000 on a computer so that I can play games when I can get better games on a console for $250.

Aaron Seigo

Windows does exist on the Dreamcast, but it is often easier and better to bypass windows, which is (thankfully) possible on the Dreamcast. So if a game pushes the system, it is likely its not running in windows. Besides, I think if a system has good games and runs smoothly (which the Dreamcast does) it doesn't really matter which operating system runs its network/internet functions.

Aaron Seigo

They should definately take the time to test it, but as for when they release it, the sooner the better. If the Dreamcast takes off like it did in Japan (despite the problems they've been having) Sony would be seriously hurt by any delays as people go out and buy the Dreamcast. Sony won't be able to compete if they are too far behind. Nintendo is already going to be screwed by their poor marketing decisions with the N64 and the new system they are developing currently (which we won't be seeing for another 3-4 years). Playstation has already caused themselves enough trouble by not properly designing the PSX2 the first time, they shouldn't hurt themselves further by sitting on the new design.

If you don't agree feel free to email me at: Aaron Seigo

The account for wlogain@hotmail.com still exists, something I've just confirmed with the help of my own hotmail account ;-)

Someone could do this: set up a Linux box w/o hard disk to boot over nfs off another machine. Then apply your patch and login to the machine. Eventually the rogue may (or may not) attempt to log into this machine, but that doesn't matther, cos it's got no hard disk and no one trusts it anyway. But he's on your spare machine and bingo you have his IP address. The harass the ISP enough and you have the culprit's real name and address in no time. Alternatively if you're not so good-natured you could try every possible attack on the machine. Gosh this sounds all too easy.

Yes possibly the reply was a little to obviously defensive. I am a 'low level' tech.I use macs,pcs ,suns etc, and they all have their respective strengths and weaknesses - without fail.

As for the one mousebutton.. well I am actually amazed how well it does work (the timing control is amazing) but I do agree with ya on the status light stuff .. gimme thousands ..and a manual and I'll be a happy camper (apart from that it makes it look wayyyy more impressive to visitors =)) ..

//jon a macpcsun user who is too lazy to log in as well