Slashdot Mirror

Now I need to read about how that Japanese guy is making out with the farming of blue fin tuna. If we can farm and release into the wild game fish people want, that would be great and help with the fish stocks. We can just farm these fish then send them to market, but there are those who still want to catch them.

There are problems with farmed fish. One is that farmed fish require vast amounts of feed stock. To produce 1 pound of fish for the table 5 pounds of fish are required. That feed stock has to be caught in nets, unfortunately large fish as well as the small feed stock fish are caught. A second problem is that aquaculture creates dead zones underneath the pens which kills more wildlife. Then with all the fish penned in a small volume they spread diseases readily. In order to prevent this they have to be given antibiotics which further degrades the environment.

Now there a method of aquaculture that doesn't have these problem, though they may have others. In Asia and India [pdf] fish are farmed by flooding a coastal area then closing the egresses. The fish penned are allowed to grow naturally until large enough before being harvested. When harvested the land is allowed to drain and because of all the fish manure makes good fertilizer it's good for planting crops like rice. It's also possible to farm fish and rice at the same tyme.

Falcon

I'm interested in the idea of procedurally generated RPG content too. There's a guy who's set out to post Three Hundred game ideas, and devotes many of the current 99 to procedural generation in the Roguelike style. Because I'm mainly interested in building a "real" history for a game world as opposed to a set of dungeons, I don't completely agree with his approach, but the site is definitely worth browsing.

On the topic of how a computer could possibly judge what makes a "good" game world/level/whatever when that's a highly subjective judgment, have you heard of the AI research of Douglas Hofstadter? His book "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies" describes his 90s-era research into how a computer program can display a form of creativity and aesthetic judgment. There's a description with code (tricky to get running) of his group's project "Metacat," which solves letter-related puzzles with no objectively right answer. I could see a similar system judging aspects of a game world.

> > should they focus more on usability?

> Errr... yes?

> How can you possibly answer "no" to that question?

Well, it is open source we are talking about.

Here is Linus Torvald back in 2000 explaining that adding features that make development easier in the kernel is not a good idea:

http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.0/1148.html

(And of course, it was a stupid position to begin with, but clever people are pretty good at rationalizing anything. I guess that in 2000 he would have rejected git on the ground that it makes too easy to add stuff to the kernel)

At the danger of YHBT-YHL-HAND, here goes:

GPL: Ideology first, technology and practicality second. Constant paranoia that someone is using the code base in violation of not only the spirit of the license but the 'spirit'.

You realize you're talking about Linux (the kernel) here, right? Linus approves of Tivo (have a look at http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/2939.html)

BSD: Friendly environment

And here you're talking about Theo de Raadt. Whether you agree with him or not, whether you like him or not, you can't say he pulls his punches.

BSD: Focus on the code, not the license

That's why *BSD refuses to include the new bash licensed under GPLv3, right? Hint: it isn't ;-)

You may be right in the typical case. I just want to point to a few exceptions, hopefully preventing people from seeing the world as black-and-white as you do.

"Many universities sit on huge sums of money and still get government help so I'm not losing sleep over that one either."

According to this page, The top public university system in terms of endowment is (surprisingly) the University of Texas system (that's all the UofT campuses) with $10 billion. I imagine post-crash it's closer to half that. My own system (University of Wisconsin) had as of 2004 just under a billion. Sounds like we ought to be sitting pretty, uncorking the champagne, eating caviar, and lighting our cigars with $100 dollar bills, eh? Not so. That's the value of the endowment--the principle of which can't ever be touched. You have a global recession so any university that had plans for income from the endowment has to put those plans on hold. Plans like deferred maintenance, a critical problem at every university in the country. Or replacing obsolete buildings. After World War 2, there was a huge surge in construction, that picked up again in the 60's and 70's. There's now a glut of cheap and hastily constructed buildings from the 50's to the 70's that are in dire need of replacing. Or simply running the university: state governments have been slashing funding of their university systems for years. Chronic underfunding of universities also has the inevitable result of skyrocketing tuition which means that a university education is becoming unaffordable even to the middle class. This at a time when American businesses complain about lack of qualified job applicants. All this makes it sound like funding of education and the universities ought to be a high priority in any stimulus package. Unfortunately, it got cut by a handful of short-sighted Senators.

on twitter servers. Why dont they use a real OS like NT instead of some toy hippie crap like linux. Oops I guess I forgot slashcrap "logic"

Windows site hacked - LOLZ!!111 bug in windows, M$ Suxx0rs
Linux site hacked - Sysadmin is incompetent

Year of the linux.. hell yeah !

http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0901.0/00653.html

HAHAHA.

I agree that the Roth IRA stuff is a little tangential, but I've now bothered to look up the numbers, and there were only $77B in Roth IRAs in 2000. Even taxed at the highest rate (40%) and with nobody contributing to new Roth accounts but only doing a one-time rollover, and with the remaining trillions in non-Roth IRAs never being converted, the income to the government was at most $50B or so spread over the previous two years--a factor, perhaps, but a modest one at best given the differences in deficits (>$200B over several years).

Roth IRA data: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2893/is_4_23/ai_n6171206
Honest deficit data: http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/32

I had noticed that the "surplus" didn't actually decrease the debt (easy enough to do, if you look at the debt graph), but I appreciate the article pointing out why. Of course, that wasn't unique to Clinton, and it didn't matter for my point (or yours, as far as I know) that Clinton actually ran a surplus--the point, which remains true when one avoids accounting gimmicks, is that Clinton reduced the level of deficit spending over quite a number of years.

But, anyway, back to the question of whether Bush did anything to impact whether the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. First, the point that the poor got a larger fractional tax cut than the rich is not the right number to look at--it's the *fraction of income* not the *fraction of tax* that leads to a flattening or accentuation of wealth differences. From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html in 2004, the net wealth increase from the tax cuts was about 2% for middle-income people and about 4.5% for the top income bracket. At the same time, it is true that the tax code was more "progressive" afterwards than before when looking at the rates of taxation; it's just that we already barely tax middle-to-lower income folks so that we're out of room to make income more progressive (as opposed to tax levels) while still lowering taxes.

I don't think we actually disagree about debt all that much. People at all income levels go into debt to buy nonessential items, and that always makes it harder to build long-term wealth. To some extent, these are errors in judgment--and to some extent, therefore, saying that if you make these errors you will be in bad shape is a fair way to discourage these sorts of errors. But it is still of concern that people *do* make these sorts of errors and do so on a sufficiently large scale to hobble the entire economy.

The whole economic system is a human construct. People create a certain quantity of goods and services, and they also are entitled (via their income) to some fraction of those goods and services. Surely you are not saying that one cannot distribute the fraction unequally (perhaps "fairly" but unequally), and then from that starting point make it even more unequal. Of course one can do that! The key question is does that *actually* happen, and if so is the decrease in the fraction more than offset by an inexorably linked increase in the total created goods and services (inexorably because the increase comes from the incentive to increase one's own fraction).

Here's an example of such a policy: the minimum wage. The evidence that I can find: http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/IBR/2008/fall/article1.html suggests that modest increases in the minimum wage do not influence employment numbers. Thus, within modest limits at least, altering the minimum wage is a way to influence the fraction of economic output given to various groups. Republicans blocked minimum wage increases until the Democrats had too great of control over Congress. See http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth

Studies in bibliometrics also seem to indicate this pattern - not the genius aspect but the fact that many high profile or high impact papers are collaborations. In general the number of single author papers has declined.

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue2/walsh.html

XLiveCD.

This seems to work much like PenguiNet, but it's free (based on Cygwin). You can run it as a livecd or install it on the hard drive.

http://xlivecd.indiana.edu/

There is evidence that both populations in Southern Asia and the Americas are genetically related. One is the fact that both are susceptible to alcoholism.
When Han Chinese settlers first arrived in Taiwan, they used alcohol against the aboriginal population there as means of control:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#History
and now we know why:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=9066994&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

In the United States, pioneers and frontiersmen always brought whiskey with them on meetings with Native American chiefs to sign "treaties".
now we know why:
http://www.essortment.com/all/nativeamerican_ragq.htm

Possible link or coincidence?: http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v17n3/p18.html

Here's a snippet of a letter I received from Delta Airlines last month regarding the high cost of oil. The letter was signed by 12 airlines. "Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs." Here is a link to the full letter.

A battery with >1 MJ/kg is important.

1 MJ/kg sounds like a lot of energy (like a stick of dynamite or something), until you look at these pages and realize that a loaf of bread has an energy density of 10 MJ/kg. this chart puts things into perspective; the X axis is MJ/kg, and the Y axis is MJ/liter. Current battery technology is dreadfully close to the origin.

Since the "objects" you are viewing are illegal to produce and legally shouldn't exist at all ( at least where you live ), it is LOGICALLY extended to the act of viewing."

Surely you jest?

Click this link to view (some) illegal shit.
http://www.drugs.indiana.edu/drug-picture.html
Are you now a criminal?

http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/labware.html
http://ccrg.cs.memphis.edu/projects.html
http://www.opencog.org/wiki/Main_Page
helps to know what you're looking for

Perhaps.

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/garrett.html

They compare IM users opinions with non-IM users on how often they get interrupted on a work task. 29% or so people use IM and it turns out they think they think they don't get interrupted as much compared to the non-IM'ers.

IM is ok, but unfortunately I also associate it with a lot of non-work related activity when I see some other people using it.

First of all the physical addiction from smoking is done 72 hours after a person quits smoking. The psychological addiction goes on much longer.

Water was just an example and I'm referring to psychological addiction as that is precisely what a porn addiction would be.

People get addicted to gambling, television, Internet addiction, , Shopping Addiction, and Exercise Addiction.

I'm sorry but the list really goes on and on, I find it shocking that this is news to you and that you even go so far as to call it ridiculous. So although it certainly does affect the lives of many it also doesn't harm a great many.

In the case of video games this argument is clear, same with adult porn. Child porn is the topic at hand and its safe to say if a real child is involved then there is a real problem. CG child porn while I find offensive I'm not so sure it should be illegal. It's a highly charged issue and rightfully so but that doesn't mean we should jump to conclusions about it.

http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso.torrent http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4153415/Ubuntu_8.04_Hardy_Heron_-_Desktop_i386.4153415.TPB.torrent http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ubuntu-releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://mirrors.ccs.neu.edu/releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://mirrors.rit.edu/ubuntu-releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://ubuntu.media.mit.edu/ubuntu-releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://banner.uits.indiana.edu/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso ----- Features: http://techwatch.reviewk.com/2008/04/ubuntu-hardy-heron-8-04-2/

The server was overloaded; it's back up now, but in case it becomes unstable again... Cached lists of mirrors (for all versions):

        * http://www.ubuntu.com.nyud.net/getubuntu/downloadmirrors
        * http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubuntu.com%2Fgetubuntu%2Fdownloadmirrors

Torrent for 8.04 desktop version i386 ISO:

        * http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso.torrent
        * http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4153415/Ubuntu_8.04_Hardy_Heron_-_Desktop_i386.4153415.TPB.torrent
            (Piratebay mirror because official tracker is unstable)

Direct links to 8.04 desktop version i386 ISOs:

        * http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ubuntu-releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://mirrors.ccs.neu.edu/releases.ubuntu.com/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://mirrors.rit.edu/ubuntu-releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://ubuntu.media.mit.edu/ubuntu-releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/releases/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://banner.uits.indiana.edu/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
        * http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/CDs/8.04/ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

* Merkey explaining to Guy why it's OK for him to be in a separate reality because his astrologer said so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=138290116
* Merkey the Mormon messiah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=135869262
* The remarkable cosmic events surrounding Merkey's birth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:JzG&diff=prev&oldid=138290116
* Merkey's "Right to Edit":
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Business_%26_Finance/Investments/Stocks_(A_to_Z)/Stocks_S/threadview?bn=2942&tid=423118&mid=423118
* Merkey's lawsuit against the internet:
http://www.theinquirer.net/images/articles/utah.pdf
* Merkey's peyote offer:
http://groups.google.com/group/mlist.linux.kernel/msg/c29b254c15fc5059
* Merkey disavowing his peyote offer YEARS after it was made:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0507.0/0230.html
* Merkey revealing that his Linux kernel buyout offer was part of his native american politicking:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/501519
* Merkey's arthritis cure, developed at Timpanogas:
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0108.1/0587.html
* .. which is also a law firm!:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0010.0/0955.html
* Merkey vouching for SCO's case:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0410.2/2674.html
* Merkey's "Mormon masters" letter showing his hatred:
http://scofacts.org/Novell-TRG-1998-01-30-letter.pdf
* Merkey's _gold_ mine:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.cyberpunk/browse_thread/thread/3ca32f485a1ea07e/244b0f713989de6b?lnk=st
* Merkey's double-Y chromosome giving him a third brain and the powers of Einstein and Nostradamus:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0009.0/1206.html
* MANOS: The fantastic operating system noone ever saw.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2113408/open-source-netware-compatible-unveiled
* Gadugi: More fantastic software noone ever saw:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0410.2/2723.html
* Novell threatens to destroy Merkey's family:
http://lwn.net/2001/0704/a/nwfs.php3
* Merkey gets his ass handed to him by Andre, who not too subtly hints that his NWFS code may be stolen:
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0111.2/0450.html
* Merkey's the Toad dealer:

Oh, I hope you get modded up. Very insightful, and all good suggestions.

You may be interested in Chile's early 70s project, Cyberyn. It was a central nervous system for a planned economy. (I know you, not your favorite concept, but keep an open mind ;-) More info here and here. Unfortunately, I can't find the article on it I was specifically looking for, describing a pilot program to extend it to several small villages and use the system for day to day direct democracy. Or I may be confusing Cyberyn with another South American direct democracy project of the early 70s, I first read about it a long time ago.

Does anyone else know more about this project, or other direct democracy projects in other countries?

wow, way to copy-paste text from:
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/paragraphs.shtml,
http://www.englishforums.com/English/LongParagraph/cbllz/Post.htm,
and
http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/rappy_mcraperson_lyrics_33024/other_lyrics_63942/fish_sticks_lyrics_633985.html
respectively

Alright, since you brought it up:

Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine say that brain scans of kids who played a violent video game showed an increase in emotional arousal - and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in self-control, inhibition and attention.

In those studies, they specified that the youths responding adversely to video games were already aggressive, or otherwise disruptive. It's in the first sentence of the actual report, if you don't want to rely on MSNBC's scaremongering.

Despite what these readers say, many scientific studies clearly show that violent video games make kids more likely to yell, push, and punch, says Brad Bushman.

Reading this paper he produced for Iowa State University, it seems that
many types of violent media produce identical reactions (2nd column, 1st page), and that video games are only the "most recent type of media violence to come under the research microscope". Again, scaremongering.

Recently released medical studies indicate that violent video games damage the brain, possibly permanently.

Actually, if you read the link you pointed to, it uses the exact same study as the first post you linked to, and even mentions the same shortcomings. Regarding Mr Akio Mori's study, according to him, the risk is to gamers in their "earlier years", people who shouldn't have access to the kinds of violent video games that are suggested to cause these problems. I found the quote here (page 13, left column).

As I've effectively countered your claims with only mild Google research, feel free to reply with further arguments, or admit that the ill effects of video games is largely the fear they cause unfamilar adults.

NetApp did something innovative with WAFL; Sun then came along, reimplemented everything, and called it ZFS

Well. Innovative? Around 2000, Daniel Phillips developed a linux filesystem called Tux2 that was based on the same ideas as WAFL, ZFS and maybe BTRFS. He knew about NetApps patents but believed there was enough prior art.

Unfortunately for filesystem innovation, it looks like he got
bullied
by netapp, so the project was abandoned.

It would be great if the WAFL patents could get invalidated, or at least their scope tightened, so that creative people can get on with innovative filesystem development once again.

NetApp did something innovative with WAFL; Sun then came along, reimplemented everything, and called it ZFS

Well. Innovative? Around 2000, Daniel Phillips developed a linux filesystem called Tux2 that was based on the same ideas as WAFL, ZFS and maybe BTRFS. He knew about NetApps patents but believed there was enough prior art.

Unfortunately for filesystem innovation, it looks like he got
bullied
by netapp, so the project was abandoned.

It would be great if the WAFL patents could get invalidated, or at least their scope tightened, so that creative people can get on with innovative filesystem development once again.

I agree...

I can't stand the over-use of the expression "hard-wired" when the data only indicates something that is universal. It implies that the structures responsible would develop in that function no matter what, without the experience in the world of, for example, things in sets-of-three, etc.

The data really supports dynamical systems models of cognitive development more than pure innatist ones. Just look at what the brain of someone blind from birth develops into, absent visual input.

I highly recommend the books of Andy Clark, particularly his "Being There," as an introduction that starts to explain just how flawed the seemingly harmless phrase "hard-wired" is.

by which I can assume there is still a lot of money to be made from music that is clearly beyond copyright?

What's really needed is a Gutenberg-like project just for music. Right now the way most old music is stored is a raw scan, just like when Project Gutenberg makes raw scans of the text in books. We need some sort of OCR software and human eyeballs (and fingers) to look over those scans and encode them in a way that's open and freely available for anyone or anything to use. Something like an enhanced MIDI format which allows you to add various notations you normally see in printed music. Unfortunately the population that's capable of doing this with music is markedly smaller than the population who can do this with books (which is basically anyone who can read text).

Just a guess: If you currently do a search at the University of Indiana, the results are Powered by Google Search Appliance. Sounds like they'll switch to ChaCha for intranet searching.

While the benefits of having one and only lingua franca are obvious and easy to enumerate, the other side of the coin -- diversity in languages -- is not too obvious. I can provide two arguments for diversity off the top of my head:

1) Language and Culture. Language is a vessel for communicating and embodying culture. Different cultures provide different viewpoints to the same problem, which is very important for the overall adaptability of the humanity. Each culture has its own "fuzzy set" (NB: not Fuzzy Set Theory) of values and starting points when making decisions, and language is the wrench shaped in just such a manner. Different viewpoints provide for different paths to solving a problem, which means that you're more likely get closer to optimal solution.

2) More Connected is Not Always Better. Research in social networks has shown that fully connected graphs (everybody can talk to anybody else) perform worse than partially connected graphs. In short, if a group of agents is searching the problem space and one of them hits an early local maximum, most agents (being able to see its high yield) will probably copy its solution and remain stuck until they break out and innovate. This is not such a big deal with some other network types, for example Small World topology, where the network is comprised of several loosely connected groups with high degrees of intra-connectivity (think clusters of grapes on a vine). Early local maximum will not propagate too fast, so chances are much better that the network as a whole will indeed find a better solution to the search problem (more here, for example). Maintaining local languages is what provides a barrier slowing down information exchange: most of the time it is unwelcome, but the system as a whole benefits from pockets of isolated randomness.

Being a True neutral that I am, however, I am pretty certain that the humanity will adopt the close-to-optimal language topology to further its own ends. (No pun intended.)

I dual-licensed the code so folks could adopt and use it however they saw fit. As I've said before I don't care what people do with the work I give away so long as they don't claim it's their own.

        [...]

        I have the definitive say and I have said that any of my code that is dual-licensed can be made gpl only.

It's not [directly] the GPL that's causing me to eventually give FreeBSD a go instead of Debian on my servers - it's FreeBSD's [in-progress] support for ZFS. There might be an awful lot of hype about it, but ZFS seems like a really nice thing for a homebrew SAN.

Of course, licensing issues are the reason why ZFS won't be in the Linux kernel anytime soon.

ZFS on FUSE - and, indeed, FUSE in general - is neat, but not something I'd want to rely upon in a server environment.

> - If you wish for everyone to remain friends, you should give code back.

That's about the first thing I would agree on - its somewhat rude and
not something I personally woul usually choose todo. However to many
there are problems as the BSD licence doesn't mean giving it back to the
community it means giving a copy to everyone who wants rip it off for
private proprietary use.

I'm sorry it appears you were wrong on all counts, the original code was ALWAYS dual licensed and it has always been possible to chose either license to the exclusion of the other.

It appears you were wrong on all counts. End of discussion. Have a nice day. Please apologize to Alan.

The copyright owner has spoken. I am speaking up as the author of the code that set the dual license in place. I have the definitive say and I have said that any of my code that is dual-licensed can be made gpl only.

I have the definitive say and I have said that any of my code that is dual-licensed can be made gpl only.

The code in question is my code. It has my copyright (modulo bits shared with onoe-san who was consulted on the switch from dual-bsd/gpl to bsd only in freebsd). Of course what was amusing was how after I changed the license on the current code in freebsd certain folks retroactively applied the license changes to code that was 3 years old.

The author himself disagrees with Theo (and apparently you, as well). Check it out

The origional author, who put the dual license in place, disagrees with you.

I dual-licensed the code so folks could adopt and use it however they saw fit. As I've said before I don't care what people do with the work I give away so long as they don't claim it's their own.

[...]

I am speaking up as the author of the code that set the dual license in place. I have the definitive say and I have said that any of my code that is dual-licensed can be made gpl only.

Sam

There really is a Doomsday Machine

Just use SSH+Xwin to connect with your linux box. I would use the windows xlivecd: http://xlivecd.indiana.edu/

The judge should just ban him from using the network if that was his intention. The half way thing isn't going to do anything but create a headache for some guy who has to read through all his logs. Anyway the case is copyright, so this should be in civil not criminal court and we all know how well the RIAA is doing there...

A better chart, a little clearer.

What Is A Troll?

The term derives from "trolling", a style of fishing which involves trailing bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The troll posts a message, often in response to an honest question, that is intended to upset, disrupt or simply insult the group.

Usually, it will fail, as the troll rarely bothers to match the tone or style of the group, and usually its ignorance shows.

Why do trolls do it?

I believe that most trolls are sad people, living their lonely lives vicariously through those they see as strong and successful.

Disrupting a stable newsgroup gives the illusion of power, just as for a few, stalking a strong person allows them to think they are strong, too.

For trolls, any response is 'recognition'; they are unable to distinguish between irritation and admiration; their ego grows directly in proportion to the response, regardless of the form or content of that response.

Trolls, rather surprisingly, dispute this, claiming that it's a game or joke; this merely confirms the diagnosis; how sad do you have to be to find such mind-numbingly trivial timewasting to be funny?

Remember that trolls are cowards; they'll usually post just enough to get an argument going, then sit back and count the responses (Yes, that's what they do!).

How can troll posts be recognised?

* No Imagination - Most are frighteningly obvious; sexist comments on womens' groups, blasphemy on religious groups .. I kid you not.
* Pedantic in the Extreme - Many trolls' preparation is so thorough, that while they waste time, they appear so ludicrous from the start that they elicit sympathetic mail - the danger is that once the group takes sides, the damage is done.
* False Identity - Because they are anonymous cowards, trolls virtually never write over their own name, and often reveal their trolliness (and lack of imagination) in the chosen ID. As so many folk these days use false ID, this is not a strong indicator on its own!
* Crossposting - Any post that is crossposted to several groups should be viewed as suspicious, particularly if unrelated or of opposing perspective. Why would someone do that?
* Off-topic posting - Often genuine errors, but, if from an 'outsider' they deserve matter-of-fact response; if genuine, a brief apposite response is simply netiquette; if it's a troll post, you have denied it its reward.
* Repetition of a question or statement is either a troll - or a pedant; either way, treatment as a troll is effective.
* Missing The Point - Trolls rarely answer a direct question - they cannot, if asked to justify their twaddle - so they develop a fine line in missing the point.
* Thick or Sad - Trolls are usually sad, lonely folk, with few social skills; they rarely make what most people would consider intelligent conversation. However, they frequently have an obsession with their IQ and feel the need to tell everyone. This is so frequent, that it is diagnostic! Somewhere on the web there must be an Intelligence Test for Trolls - rigged to always say "above 150"

Who is at risk?

Any newsgroup, bulletin board, forum or chatroom can attract trolls, but they don't have the brains to attack nuclear physicists, and they are drawn to the quick response where sex, religion and race are found; so politics is easy prey.

One troll famously tried to infiltrate a mensa group; the results read like 100 trolls

Thanks for researching the links!

Here is what I just posted to our (Indiana's) do-nothing "Inspector General":

See the article on Slashdot.org (link below), and keep in mind that, all of a sudden, as of only a week or so ago, I noticed that the www.in.gov site's searches were ALSO powered by the AD SPONSORED search engine, "Cha Cha". I believe that this is a violation of IC 35-44-1-1 et seq., as well as, in the case of the IU board, as a State Funded university, its Personnel policies against Conflict of Interest (which also cite the Indiana Code section IC 35-44-1-3).

I have also alerted members of the local media of this glaring Conflict of Interest; so you might not want to simply "bury" this issue, as you have a history of doing with so many that are brought to your office's attention.

Kind Regards,

See these web links for more information:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/05/013320 9

http://www.in.gov/legislative/ic/code/title35/ar44 /ch1.html

http://www.indiana.edu/~uhrs/policies/uwide/coi.ht m

And then I sent the same message to several local news outlets. Let's see what happens...

To report a conflict of interest involving an employee of the State of Indiana, click here.

Relevant documents:

• Indiana University Conflict of Interest Policy
• Indiana Code, "Bribery, Conflict of Interest, and Official Misconduct"

As a new IU student, let me say this can't hurt. This isn't too surprising to me, while google is great for getting valuable search results from gobs of pages, it really hasn't been designed or optimized to work with few pages. The IU results with the google search are so irrelevant they are worthless. This isn't a troll, I use google for web searches, but try it yourself here and search for course offerings, or course catalog, or list of courses. Garbage results mostly. I found the same was true of the BYU search--it was google and it was terrible.

The summary sounds like there is a conflict of interest for sure, so I can't say ChaCha was the right replacement (ads mixed with search results?!? sounds evil to me). But I can say a replacement/fix/something had to be done.

Blah blah.

Nice to see the trolls out in force.

Sysadmin is a pretty general term these days, but I fall into that category on a number of critical systems. It means that I perform maintenance, upgrades, patches. Means I check the logs on a daily basis, run down obscure errors. I do backup restores, to make sure the guy who is in charge of the backups is doing his job correctly.

If nothing ever goes wrong, then no one knows I exist. Something explodes, and I work Friday night to Monday at 2:00am getting everything back up, and no one even knows that there was a problem on Monday. Then I go on vacation, and something breaks and they call support, and support fixes it and bills them 25,000 dollars because they decided "per incident" support was enough for anyone, and the support guys take a day to fix a problem I could fix in an hour.

So yea, I love it when people who are completely helpless when my systems go down tell me I don't do anything special. I love sitting around at the company meetings where some jerkoff who made 10,000 dollars over his sales goal gets employee of the month, while my jury-rigged failover backup that I put together out of spare parts, which kept the whole company running for 5 days, goes completely unrecognized.

If it weren't for people like me, you'd be using a typewriter and a can phone.

Mercury emissions from power plants are considered the largest anthropogenic source of mercury released to the atmosphere; about 48 tons are emitted annually in the U.S.A. as a result of fossil fuel combustion, mostly from coal-fired power plants. Although the elemental mercury emitted to the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants is not considered harmful, it can chemically transform into a toxic form, methylmercury, that can become concentrated in fish and birds, and from there enter the human body.