Slashdot Mirror

I can solve the space access problem with a few sentences. Be it enacted by the Congress of the United States:

The Treasurer of the United States is directed to pay to the first American owned company (if corporate at least 60% of the shares must be held by American citizens) the following sums for the following accomplishments. No monies shall be paid until the goals specified are accomplished and certified by suitable experts from the National Science Foundation or the National Academy of Science:

1. The sum of $2 billion to be paid for construction of 3 operational spacecraft which have achieved low earth orbit, returned to earth, and flown to orbit again three times in a period of three weeks.

2. The sum of $5 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a space station which has been continuously in orbit with at least 5 Americans aboard for a period of not less than three years and one day. The crew need not be the same persons for the entire time, but at no time shall the station be unoccupied.

3. The sum of $12 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a Lunar base in which no fewer than 31 Americans have continuously resided for a period of not less than four years and one day.

4. The sum of $10 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a solar power satellite system which delivers at least 800 megaWatts of electric power to a receiving station or stations in the United States for a period of at least two years and one day.

5. The payments made shall be exempt from all US taxes.

That would do it. Not one cent to be paid until the goals are accomplished. Not a bit of risk, and if it can't be done for those sums, well, no harm done to the treasury.

I had Newt Gingrich persuaded to do this before he found he couldn't keep the office of Speaker. I haven't had any audiences with his successors.

Jerry Pournelle .

This sort of incentives-based policy is in the tradition of American values. It should be no surprise that such values are being eroded as the 'nation of immigrants' changes from pioneering independence to bureaucratic dependence. The use of a socialist bureaucracy to explore space is a fundamentally different experiment that other proven American approaches to expanding the resource base available to humanity.

In 1989 I was working on grassroots legislation to reform NASA's launch services policies. This led to the passage of P. L. 101-611, The Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990which required NASA to procure launch services from private vendors whenever possible. This is common sense if proper boundaries between public and private functions are to be maintained. As radical as this may sound to many who see NASA as a space transportation company, it was, in fact, Presidential policy at the time and the legislation was therefore, in fact, redundant, but bureaucratic inertia demanded separate acts by the Legislative branch to reinforce the Executive's own command structure. This legislative effort started out as an attempt to passsomething along the lines of the Kelly Act of 1925 (which formed the basis for Jerry Pournelle's recommendations first put forth by his Citizen's Advisory Council for Space Policyin 1980), but compromised when it became clear that resistance from NASA, and its contractors, to citizen involvement in space policy was so intense that serious reform would be impractical. My testimony before Congress legislative follow-up to P.L. 101-611 made recommendations for a focus onincentives for commercial investment, rather than plans or "programs". An example of incentives-based legislation, applied to fusion energy policy, was recommended for passage by Bussard, R. W., one of the founders of the US fusion program in a letter confessing some of the subterfuge to which technical leaders resorted. It is still quite relevant today given the reliance on Middle Eastern oil and problems with fission energy. The point here is that incentives are more effective in general than governmental programs.

The first settlers in America experienced enormous causalities their first years they were in America. Entire colonies were lost. The original colonies included a substantial variety of fundamentally differing approaches to settling North America. America's frontier wasn't built by a centrally controlled bureaucracy -- and there is no reason to expect such a bureaucracy will take Americans to their next frontier.

Space policy is a touchstone of American values since Americans are spiritually a pioneering culture. Let's not forget who settled the frontier, how those "immigrants" differed from later immigrants, and what sort of "program" they had to settle the new frontier.

But the current spacesuits suck for doing useful work. They have little flexibility and have a hinge in the palm that makes hands nearly useless. Better spacesuits would make EVA's quicker and more productive...

Now there I would disagree, NASA combines of the finest engineering minds and the most bloated beauracracy in one agency. Sure, it would be nice if congress allocated more money to NASA, but I'm not convinced that it would buy more engineering rather than more beauracracy.

Arguably, we might be at a point in time where it might be better in the long run to disband NASA entirely and let private enterprise take over (yes, I know, there's virtually no private space enterprise now, but after this how much work is NASA going to accomplish now in the next 3 to 5 years anyway).

Jerry Pournelle has an interesting proposal. Offer prizes for achieving various goals; launching a reuseable space vehicle, maintaining a manned space station, maintaining a lunar colony, etc. Not a bit of risk to the Treasury if they can't be accomplished, but worth every penny if they can (and cheaper than having NASA do it).

Now there I would disagree, NASA combines of the finest engineering minds and the most bloated beauracracy in one agency. Sure, it would be nice if congress allocated more money to NASA, but I'm not convinced that it would buy more engineering rather than more beauracracy.

Arguably, we might be at a point in time where it might be better in the long run to disband NASA entirely and let private enterprise take over (yes, I know, there's virtually no private space enterprise now, but after this how much work is NASA going to accomplish now in the next 3 to 5 years anyway).

Jerry Pournelle has an interesting proposal. Offer prizes for achieving various goals; launching a reuseable space vehicle, maintaining a manned space station, maintaining a lunar colony, etc. Not a bit of risk to the Treasury if they can't be accomplished, but worth every penny if they can (and cheaper than having NASA do it).

I would dare say that the time is {SHOUT}_NOW_{/SHOUT} rather than some time in the future to be engaged in human spaceflight.

First of all, we've already done it. With the Chinese and Indians getting into the game with their own indiginous spacecraft, and a resonalble assumption that the Europeans could do it (technically) if they didn't find it easier simply to use American or Russian technology, the simple capabilities for doing human spaceflight are spreading to other countries, and eventually _SOMEBODY_ will finally get out in space and discover just how rich the resources are for those willing to get out there and do it.

Second, I can't imagine any other human endeavor that has been studied to death. Well, possibly military armaments, but in terms of pure scientific research as to what it takes to get to Mars and the rest of the Solar System, the propulsion systems, the shielding, the habitats, life support systems, and more either are already being done or have been done.

I mean if a nuclear submarine can stay underwater for 3-6 months without even surfacing, and we can maintain a year-round research base on the South Pole, this is really no different than living on the Moon or Mars. Yes, there are going to be some differences, and some new technolgies that will have to be developed, but it won't be developed until people are actually out there and creating the need for these technologies to be developed.

Also, there is a famous statement that Low-earth orbit is half-way to the rest of the Solar System. I would have to agree with this statement, which is why in particular the Low-Earth orbit needs to be fully developed and manned. I believe that a major push should happen to get orbiting hotels, playgrounds, real space stations (not the ISS), factories, and other things that we now know how to do, and get people up there doing stuff we already know how to do. By having this kind of infrastructure, including orbiting research labs where probes are built in orbit, it will have a much bigger payoff in the future.

I would have to say though, that I am not quite sure that NASA activity towards manned spaceflight should continue. To continue to use existing shuttles may have to continue due to international agreements, but I think a gradual phasing out of the current shuttle system should be done... and sooner rather than later. Not only is the shuttle a 40 year old technology (its origin was in the 1960s), but there are numerous examples why it is sucking the lifeblood out of NASA. I think having NASA be a research agency instead of a (tax subsidized) trash hauling company would be tax dollars well spent. Scientific research and coming up with wild and crazy ideas are some of the things that NASA has done very well with in the past.

What should replace NASA's manned spaceflight program? There are a number of different options, including letting private industry take over, including the launching of all unmanned rockets to Low-Earth Orbit. There isn't really new technologies that need to be done there, or if there are, there needs to be financial incentives to get them developed rather than relying on a government monopoly to get them done. NASA certainly won't pay for the development of a $100 per pound to Low-Earth Orbit launch system.

I think a proposal by Jerry Pournell is a fantastic way of getting into space that doesn't compromise scientific research. Indeed, it will make robotic space probes much cheaper to prep and launch, and allow ordinary science professors at state univeristies that don't have huge budgets the opportunity to get their projects into space. I'd rather have a hundred space probes go to Mars and study the geology or possibility of life than one huge expensive mission like we are currently doing. And getting lots of people into Low-earth orbit is going to get that done.

While obviously you're kidding, you've actually got a valid point.
Look at the numbers in that potato cannon story. The velocities show that these days things we're used to thinking of as heavy duty are actually doable for as little as a thousandth the cost our government tells us it will take.
For example, as Jerry Pournelle keeps pointing out, our space suit designs are absurd and vastly better options are available for far less.
Hooo boy! Vacuum! Think again; don't call it vacuum, call it one atmosphere of pressure. A good pair of bike shorts handles that sort of differential just fine, including the famously troublesome issue of what to do at joints. Oh, no! Radiation! Yeah, whatever. Any good lab supply catalog sells gear able to handle that too.
The same can be said for piles of the stuff we're doing in space.
I've loved space travel since I was a wee lad, used to belong to L5, all that stuff. And one of the worst moments of my life was going down to Cape Canaveral and seeing a mothballed Saturn sitting out in the tropical wet and sun, reduced to a paperweight. All I could think of was how far we had declined.

What do I think? F*ck NASA. They've blown the whole deal of manned space flight. I say increase the X-Prize series and match it to the various rewards tied to milestones mentioned here and elsewhere.
Pay the Russians to boost the ISS for a few more years, push as much useful mass up beyond LEO to stable orbits as we can, hope that somebody creates a new Beal Aerospace and this time actually gets funding, and allow the shuttle system to swiftly decline into irrelevancy.
The shuttle is our modern Pony Express. Huge amounts of money and support structure supporting a tiny number of brave, dedicated folks running a breathtakingly inefficient transport system that was outdated on the day they had their first trip.
NASA does great pure science. They deserve every kind of credit for Pathfinder, Hubble, and all the rest. But they're not competent to run a high-volume transport system. It's like putting geologists in charge of Greyhound.
Let's move on. Only then will we move up.

Rustin

The X-series (discounting the dumb X-33/34, and I use dumb lightly) were a smashing formula for success, and they were the blueprint for the process of getting man on the moon. Pournelle says we need a similar project to focus on building a space ship. Haven't you always wanted a space ship? :)

The X-series (discounting the dumb X-33/34, and I use dumb lightly) were a smashing formula for success, and they were the blueprint for the process of getting man on the moon. Pournelle says we need a similar project to focus on building a space ship. Haven't you always wanted a space ship? :)

There is a difference between a capsule and a rocket. An expendable rocket is only a delivery system. A capsule is what an astronaut rides in on an expendable rocket. Skylab and Mir were launched on rockets, and they were a lot more useful than the ISS. Commerical satellites are launched on rockets. Saturn V reportedly had a payload of 120 tons, which is about 6 shuttle launches. Of course, if you want to launch a single object weighing 30 tons or 80 tons, the shuttle is absolutely useless.

One problem with shuttle is that it costs a lot more to operate than a rocket per ton of mass into orbit. The design was a poor compromise, with conflicting goals. Reusable launch vehicles appear to have some advantages over rockets, unfortunately, the shuttle shares few of these advantages. There are lots of people who appear more knowledgable than I do on this topic, such as, oh, say, Jerry Pournelle. Do a google search for others.

See the 23 year old critique at:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8 004.easterbrook-fulltext.html

NASA now exists to support aerospace contractors. Jerry Pournelle, noted SF authour, proposes a simple system of rewards to encourage private ventures into space. Unfortuantely, the pork-barrel politics of NASA funding mean that the US will be tied to an incompetent bureaucracy for at least another generation...

As Mr. Pournelle states:

The value of prizes is that there is no cost until the task is accomplished, and the total cost is limited and known. If you insist on "being fair" to all the losers in a competition then you are in essences saying don't do anything.

It would take Congress about 6 hours to pass the prize legislation I described. If that cause no results, well, so be it; but it might in fact get things going. There may be better ways, but I have seen no reason not to try the prizes in addition to anything else.

As Mr. Pournelle states:

The value of prizes is that there is no cost until the task is accomplished, and the total cost is limited and known. If you insist on "being fair" to all the losers in a competition then you are in essences saying don't do anything.

It would take Congress about 6 hours to pass the prize legislation I described. If that cause no results, well, so be it; but it might in fact get things going. There may be better ways, but I have seen no reason not to try the prizes in addition to anything else.

Sure do, try Jerry Pournelle's mass of links and info

A system like MyLifeBits was first suggested in 1945, when presidential technology adviser Vannevar Bush hatched the then farsighted idea of an infinite personal archive based on the emerging digital computer.

Hmmm, sounds like the Farleyfile.
(copied from Jerry Pournelle's page): Big Jim Farley was a New York Tammany Hall politician whose success was partly due to the "Farleyfile": a collection of facts about everyone he ever met. If you went to see Big Jim, by the time you got into his office he knew your name, your birthday, the names of your spouse and children, and what you liked for lunch. It was all on file.

Also, there's a program (Lifesigns?) that's based around a chronological history of data (there's a PC version, and there was a Newton version). You don't go searching for "Letter about Enron", you remember that it was 7 or 8 months ago, and look at email then. Clever premise, loved by all the people who adopted it. Never could get the hang of it myself.

Fact: in 1900, if you wanted to see the President, an appointment was nice, but not necessary.

Yesterday, I heard on NPR that the Secret Service is closing more streets around the White House for "security reasons." I had one thought: "Yep, here we go, building our own Forbidden City."

Jerry Pournelle is fond of saying, "but we were born free." There has been much debate of late on his site about the current situation in the U.S., most of it revolving around the "Republic vs. Empire" issue. The U.S. may have been born a Republic, but the 20th century taught us that our security can't depend on two oceans. Unfortunately, if the oceans couldn't protect us, the next option was to expand our influence overseas so the fight would remain away from home.

11 September showed us we can't keep the fight from here without extreme measures. Personally, I don't think the "extreme measures" are worth the cost of personal liberty, but hey, I'm just a poor seminary student and computer geek.

I will say this, though; the EU may create their own Internet, but before long, the same forces wreaking havoc here - bureaucracy and corporatism - will wreak havoc there. Like it or not, we're all connected now, and the havoc is becoming increasingly difficult to isolate.

The best keyboard I ever used was on a TeleVideo 9220 terminal, a really nice piece of work..

• First of all it was nice and HEAVY so it didn't move around much, but the keys were quite light and easy to use.
• It had a nice big reverse-L shaped Return key rather than the excuse for a key we see on PC keyboards.
• The Caps Lock actually LOCKED down.
• The Escape key was next to the "1" - just where God intended it to be.
• There was both a TAB and a "00" key on the numeric keypad. Great for data entry.

Ahhh bliss.. sadly the keyboard only worked on a TV9220 and frankly there's more to computing these days than VT220 compatible terminals :)

Silly people the Jedi are, with the partial exception of Yoda who at least knows not to show up for a gunfight without some guns. The other Jedi always bring a knife to a gunfight.

People as stupid as these, in possession of the kinds of weapons they have, probably NEED an Emperor,...

maybe he wants to be Emperor because he realizes these people are idiots playing with machine guns and atom bombs, and need to be protected from themselves, and the Jedi sure aren't smart enough to do it.

Gaming is not the only thing affected by high latency, as Jerry Pournelle wrote on his website:

"View" Tuesday, October 2, 2001
.
.
.
I am now willing to believe that Microsoft and Earthlink and the Hughes satellite people all worked together to create the most frustrating system possible, guaranteed to drive everyone insane.

There is no other explanation of why this imbecility works the way it does. Clearly no one really tried to make this work and did any testing. Why should they?

The MSN home page, for instance, is designed for maximum problems with high latency systems: it wants about 50 requests for little files, and since there is a delay for each one, it takes literally about 4 minutes to download the MSN home page. Updates are just as bad. I suppose there is going to be some magical fix for all this when things are adequately cached, but I wouldn't count on it.

I have no choice but to sit there and wait for Microsoft to deliver its stupid home page with all the stupid little files, but once I get my updates I can be certain I will not go THERE again. Ye gods!

All right. Once it works it works fine. But ye flipping gods , the contortions I have to go through to get it going.

I don't know if the problems are hardware or software so I am going to get an Intel D815 system to install this on and try again.

Gaming is not the only thing affected by high latency, as Jerry Pournelle wrote on his website:

"View" Tuesday, October 2, 2001
.
.
.
I am now willing to believe that Microsoft and Earthlink and the Hughes satellite people all worked together to create the most frustrating system possible, guaranteed to drive everyone insane.

There is no other explanation of why this imbecility works the way it does. Clearly no one really tried to make this work and did any testing. Why should they?

The MSN home page, for instance, is designed for maximum problems with high latency systems: it wants about 50 requests for little files, and since there is a delay for each one, it takes literally about 4 minutes to download the MSN home page. Updates are just as bad. I suppose there is going to be some magical fix for all this when things are adequately cached, but I wouldn't count on it.

I have no choice but to sit there and wait for Microsoft to deliver its stupid home page with all the stupid little files, but once I get my updates I can be certain I will not go THERE again. Ye gods!

All right. Once it works it works fine. But ye flipping gods , the contortions I have to go through to get it going.

I don't know if the problems are hardware or software so I am going to get an Intel D815 system to install this on and try again.

The main problem is latency. If you are downloading iso's it's great. 0.5 seconds to initiate the download, then it just comes roaring in. A site with lots of graphics, frames, and associated files that have to be downloaded individually sucks because there's that high latency on every file.

...since, at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, the only guy able to easily get connected to a WiFi access point and use the public wireless network that had been set up was using.... gasp... a PowerBook!

So says Jerry Pournelle, anyway:

"I have tried to get an Orinoco Wireless WiFi (Allchin pronounced it "Wiffy" at least seven times in his market department written presentation) and I can't get it to work with Windows 2000. Alex hasn't managed with Windows XP. No one else in the press section has connected to the Internet with their 802.11 cloud. Allchin couldn't connect to Wiffy. But Peter has connected to the Internet with the same card with his PowerBook == as Peter says, with Apple everything is either easy or impossible. Using the Orinoco card with his PowerBook was easy. With Windows 200o so far it has been impossible... (But that eventually worked see below.)"

"I have managed to get on the Internet. The local network is WINHWC2002. Yesterday it was WinHEC2002. It is case sensitive. Except that Peter's Apple didn't have that problem. He got on yesterday and he's still on today, in a hall that no one else can get on because of very weak signals. Astonishing."

~Philly

A Dean drive generates reactionless force of a special type. To measure this force, we use a special unit, the Bathroom Scale pound. BS pounds are whatever my bathroom scale measures. My bathroom scale seems to be more sensitive than Dean's. When I stand still on it, I weigh about 195 BS pounds. If I shake my arms at the right speed, my weight drops to 175 BS pounds. That is better than .1 BS G thrust. I suspect a carefully tuned counter-weighted drill motor can do far better.

So when I finally get my device perfected and my paper published, some mean professor is going to explain that measurement equipment may produce incorrect readings in certain situations. That it isn't enough to get the reading you want, you actually have to show you got a valid reading.

For those who want to duplicate my experiments so far, get an aged Health-O-Meter spring scale. Other types of scale have some weird reality field around them that interferes with crack pot physics.

How can you take a guy seriously when he writes a book in which science fiction writers are guys who save earth from an alien invasion.

His knowledge of history is woeful as he does not appear to have heard of the Marshall plan. Without that, we would have had WWIII already, and with one after WWI, maybe no WWII.

He's still writing - good classic Science Fiction, and still writing Chaos Manor, his collumn for Byte. He's also got a site that is similar to Slashdot in "umm... vaguely geeky stuff, lots of visitor feedback and opinionated as hell". It is located (in all its hellishly difficult to navigate, 'spend a few hours finding the good stuff buried deeply' glory) here.

--
Evan "Many many years spent with Byte" E.

here. Basically build a satellite that beams down microwave radiation (yeah, yeah, through the ozone layer...heating up the atmosphere) to ground based stations that are set up tp collect it.

Wednesday 12 December 2001

Microsoft .NET Passport may not be a killer app, but it looks good to kill internet commerce.

For a thoroughly frustrating and miserable experience, try logging on to Microsoft .NET Passport with a 28.8 dialup system. I have yet to manage it and I have wasted the better part of an hour in two half-hour attempts, one in the middle of the night, the other at about noon, PST.

It takes many screens, and each screen is full of ads calling to another server; the result is interminable waits. If this is the future for Microsoft, that company is in REAL trouble.

Five attempts to log on to Asheron's Call have yet to get me past the .NET passport login attempt, and only one of them got me that far. The rest is a tangle of page errors. My system is an XP Pentium IV so I doubt that it is my hardware that's at fault. Microsoft had better stick to something it understands, because as a consumer service company it really sucks.

If there is anyone from Microsoft paying attention to this, I'd sure like some advice. HOW do you manage to work with this? Sometimes I get "cannot find server" errors. Other times it looks to find things, but all it returns is a blank page. Once, one glorious time, it offered to log me in! But then when I did, I got a 'cannot find server' error as a return. Earth calling Microsoft: if this is your idea of ecommerce, you would do better to invest in sanitary landfills.

Now I have a login screen -- it says "done" at the bottom -- and the screen is entirely blank. It is clear that Asheron's Call is unplayable for me with my 28.8 dialup. I can't even manage to get to the .NET Passport login. Ah well. Thank you Microsoft.

The problem here seems to be the Casino ads and another such things: they take so long to load that you never actually see the screen you are trying to load, and eventually it all times out. This is as stupid a design as I have ever seen. Thank you, Microsoft, for as miserable an hour as I have spent with the Web.

Meanwhile Everquest may be working again. At least they try. But I think the Microsoft thing is unusable until I have fast enough connections that I can live with those stupid animated advertisements that Microsoft makes you endure just to get to the log-in (which I have yet to manage).

[...]

Still trying to get to Asheron's Call. When you click "PLAY" there is a 3 minute download, that often results in a page error. It is a very busy page but it wants you to connect to .NET Passport before you can start a ZONE.COM account. That never works. Each attempt takes several minutes, most of the time being spent waiting for animated ads to download from busy servers.

Microsoft is clearly interested only in those with LOTS of bandwidth. No others need apply.

Everquest, on the other hand, takes about 45 seconds to connect to the main server and about 3 minutes to get logged on, at 28.8, and plays quite well once there.

So much for .NET

[...] Eric says Microsoft just went to the .NET Passport business for their ZONE games, and things are really fouled up, but it ought to be temporary Fine. But with the satellite or without, I cannot manage to SIGN IN TO THE .NET so I cannot sign up for a zone passport so I cannot play Asheron's Call. I presume that applies to everyone else trying to get into the game. Those who previously were set up apparently can mange. The rest of us can wait for Microsoft to get its act together.

They had something working, so they decided to fix it. Brilliant of them. One day they will get it fixed, but my confidence in .NET has been reset to VERY LOW. If they can't manage games, why would I believe they can make things easy for software developers? Can't find the login servers. Well, well, well.

Microsoft woes: Seems to be yet another application of Sturgeon's Law and Hanlon's Razor. I doubt there are people sitting in Redmond going "how can we lose more customers today?" :)

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Sturg eon's-Law.html
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Hanlo n's-Razor.html

[...]

Subject: Passport.

"Microsoft .NET Passport may not be a killer app, but it looks good to kill internet commerce."

Currently Passport cannot talk to me. I have had a particular primary email address for three years. Sometime in those three years, I set up a passport account tied to it, but obviously no longer remember my password. Microsoft cannot reset the account and reissue a new password to that address. They cannot set up a new passport account because they only allow one account tied to a particular email address. Their only suggestion was that I ditch my long-standing email account and create a new hotmail for the purposes of talking to passport. I don't *WANT* a new email address. I've had three email addresses in twelve years and I like to present stability in the internet maelstrom.

Until Passport comes up with a WORKING way to reset a password on an account, or to build a new account at an email address that they've already heard of, I cannot use them for any internet commerce.

It is impossible to ascribe any of this to malice, but can anyone be this incompetent?

Reminds me of websites I have found that were optimized for 1600x1200 resolution.

It's not a rumor...click here. There have been some international editions that have continued their print editions, but it looks like it's returning.

It was a true incident, but it wasn't a submarine ... IIRC, it was a cruiser involved in a black research project. The incident occurred in August of 1997, so I doubt there's much information readily accessible on the 'net these days. Because the project was black, very little information other than the fact of the failure ever got out to the public. The fact of the failure was not deniable as the ship had to be towed back to port.

They were keeping, again, IIRC, a maintenance database in an Access database running under NT. The database was manipulated by a proprietary VB app. Some transaction in the database led to a divide by zero error in the compiled VB app that used the database, which crashed vredir.dll, taking out the NT box. For some reason for which I have never heard a satisfactory explanation, a failure in this particular database was considered critical enough that it disabled the power systems on the ship, thus necessitating the tow job.

I was amazed by the story myself when it hit the 'net, and researched it thoroughly at the time, because I was adminning an NT network. Microsoft received so much bad publicity from it that they fixed the problem in vredir.dll and posted it to their website as a Critical update to NT (separate from any Service Pack, to be applied immediately, IIRC) almost immediately.

One website that carried a LOT of coverage, at the time, was Jerry Pournelle's website, but I doubt he has any of that material online anymore.

Just because there's not a relevant URL doesn't make it an urban legend.

First, As noted here[jerrypournelle.com], The Russians already bombed Afghanistan back to the stone age. and the Taliban are not the Afghans. The Taliban are a bunch of psychopathic nuts, hated by the majority population.

An Afghan-American speaks

You can't bomb us back into the Stone Age. We're already there. But you can start a new world war, and that's exactly what Osama bin Laden wants.

By Tamim Ansary

Sept. 14, 2001 | I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on San Francisco's KGO Talk Radio, conceded today that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."

And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived in the United States for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.

But the Taliban and bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats' nest of international thugs holed up in their country.

Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan -- a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and healthcare? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans; they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban -- by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.

So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.

And guess what: That's bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the West. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose; that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong -- in the end the West would win, whatever that would mean -- but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours.

Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?

First, As noted here, The Russians already bombed Afghanistan back to the stone age. and the Taliban are not the Afghans. The Taliban are a bunch of psychopathic nuts, hated by the majority population.

Some more interesting proposals(only half tongue in cheek) are to builds special monuments to the WTC dead, consisting of cities razed perfectly flat and with enormous amounts of salt to make sure no one lives there again. Some people have objected to this. It is worth discussion.

Another idea is based on historic precident, seen in a letter on this page (towards the bottom). - It is based on the idea that we must use cultural factors as well force to fight the war:

Tactic #1 Has a Historical basis. During the pacification of the Philippine Islands 1900-1914 the majority of the bloodiest attacks were carried out by Moros... An Islamic confederation of tribes who did not want their lifestyle of Dacoitery, Piracy and Slavery changed. They had MOKERS... People who would work themselves into a religious fever with dreams of ISLAMIC Paradise, and Literally Run AMOK, killing everyone within reach. So inspired were they that you not only had to kill him, you had to push him over. It was MOKERS that forced the U.S. Army to adopt the .45 Colts Automatic Pistol M-1911. What stopped them was the tactic of Wrapping one of these MOKERS (After you capture him and yes it was possible) in the skin of a freshly killed pig and hanging him in Public view. The touch of the Pig Pollutes a believer so badly that he/She must spend 5 days in a Mosque cleansing and praying... To die in such a state gives a direct path to the deepest part of Islamic Hell.

If we catch a TERRORIST, Wrap him in Pig Skin and hang him from the nearest Lamp Post, Preferably on CNN with Arabic Subtitles.

This sends a message any self respecting emperor would wish. I.e. MESS WITH AMERICA and we will Send you Directly to YOUR HELL!

Tactic #2

For countries that know things and don't cooperate? Modify Tanker planes to carry Sterilized Pig Urine, and let them know that We will make every dwelling Uninhabitable (to the religious). There are several modifications of this... Dipping bullets in Lard for example, Writing Anti-Terrorist messages on bombs in Bacon Grease, the opportunities are endless.

Some people say that this will offend the rest of ISLAM. I suspect not. From all reports a good portion of Islam is against the terrorists and wishes them in Hell as much as we do.

[...]

As you Said, This goes beyond Justice, I say it is a matter of Honor and Blood. If we are to win this, we must strike at them with tactics that strike fear into them at a CULTURAL level. Brute force won't do it.

With Respect,

Harry Reddington BBiBS

First, As noted here, The Russians already bombed Afghanistan back to the stone age. and the Taliban are not the Afghans. The Taliban are a bunch of psychopathic nuts, hated by the majority population.

Some more interesting proposals(only half tongue in cheek) are to builds special monuments to the WTC dead, consisting of cities razed perfectly flat and with enormous amounts of salt to make sure no one lives there again. Some people have objected to this. It is worth discussion.

Another idea is based on historic precident, seen in a letter on this page (towards the bottom). - It is based on the idea that we must use cultural factors as well force to fight the war:

Tactic #1 Has a Historical basis. During the pacification of the Philippine Islands 1900-1914 the majority of the bloodiest attacks were carried out by Moros... An Islamic confederation of tribes who did not want their lifestyle of Dacoitery, Piracy and Slavery changed. They had MOKERS... People who would work themselves into a religious fever with dreams of ISLAMIC Paradise, and Literally Run AMOK, killing everyone within reach. So inspired were they that you not only had to kill him, you had to push him over. It was MOKERS that forced the U.S. Army to adopt the .45 Colts Automatic Pistol M-1911. What stopped them was the tactic of Wrapping one of these MOKERS (After you capture him and yes it was possible) in the skin of a freshly killed pig and hanging him in Public view. The touch of the Pig Pollutes a believer so badly that he/She must spend 5 days in a Mosque cleansing and praying... To die in such a state gives a direct path to the deepest part of Islamic Hell.

If we catch a TERRORIST, Wrap him in Pig Skin and hang him from the nearest Lamp Post, Preferably on CNN with Arabic Subtitles.

This sends a message any self respecting emperor would wish. I.e. MESS WITH AMERICA and we will Send you Directly to YOUR HELL!

Tactic #2

For countries that know things and don't cooperate? Modify Tanker planes to carry Sterilized Pig Urine, and let them know that We will make every dwelling Uninhabitable (to the religious). There are several modifications of this... Dipping bullets in Lard for example, Writing Anti-Terrorist messages on bombs in Bacon Grease, the opportunities are endless.

Some people say that this will offend the rest of ISLAM. I suspect not. From all reports a good portion of Islam is against the terrorists and wishes them in Hell as much as we do.

[...]

As you Said, This goes beyond Justice, I say it is a matter of Honor and Blood. If we are to win this, we must strike at them with tactics that strike fear into them at a CULTURAL level. Brute force won't do it.

With Respect,

Harry Reddington BBiBS

First, As noted here, The Russians already bombed Afghanistan back to the stone age. and the Taliban are not the Afghans. The Taliban are a bunch of psychopathic nuts, hated by the majority population.

Some more interesting proposals(only half tongue in cheek) are to builds special monuments to the WTC dead, consisting of cities razed perfectly flat and with enormous amounts of salt to make sure no one lives there again. Some people have objected to this. It is worth discussion.

Another idea is based on historic precident, seen in a letter on this page (towards the bottom). - It is based on the idea that we must use cultural factors as well force to fight the war:

Tactic #1 Has a Historical basis. During the pacification of the Philippine Islands 1900-1914 the majority of the bloodiest attacks were carried out by Moros... An Islamic confederation of tribes who did not want their lifestyle of Dacoitery, Piracy and Slavery changed. They had MOKERS... People who would work themselves into a religious fever with dreams of ISLAMIC Paradise, and Literally Run AMOK, killing everyone within reach. So inspired were they that you not only had to kill him, you had to push him over. It was MOKERS that forced the U.S. Army to adopt the .45 Colts Automatic Pistol M-1911. What stopped them was the tactic of Wrapping one of these MOKERS (After you capture him and yes it was possible) in the skin of a freshly killed pig and hanging him in Public view. The touch of the Pig Pollutes a believer so badly that he/She must spend 5 days in a Mosque cleansing and praying... To die in such a state gives a direct path to the deepest part of Islamic Hell.

If we catch a TERRORIST, Wrap him in Pig Skin and hang him from the nearest Lamp Post, Preferably on CNN with Arabic Subtitles.

This sends a message any self respecting emperor would wish. I.e. MESS WITH AMERICA and we will Send you Directly to YOUR HELL!

Tactic #2

For countries that know things and don't cooperate? Modify Tanker planes to carry Sterilized Pig Urine, and let them know that We will make every dwelling Uninhabitable (to the religious). There are several modifications of this... Dipping bullets in Lard for example, Writing Anti-Terrorist messages on bombs in Bacon Grease, the opportunities are endless.

Some people say that this will offend the rest of ISLAM. I suspect not. From all reports a good portion of Islam is against the terrorists and wishes them in Hell as much as we do.

[...]

As you Said, This goes beyond Justice, I say it is a matter of Honor and Blood. If we are to win this, we must strike at them with tactics that strike fear into them at a CULTURAL level. Brute force won't do it.

With Respect,

Harry Reddington BBiBS

Comment: "Personally, I don't want to hurt Bin Laden or whoever is behind these attacks. I simply want them to STOP. If force is required to achieve this, then I will accept that. But I refuse to act out of anger or the desire for my enemies to suffer."

Response: "If they are dead, they will stop."

(For more interesting responses, go here!)

Read the last message on this page at Jerry Pournelle's site for an (unconfirmed) explanation.

Adequacy has an account (from Jerry Pournelle's site) about passengers attempting to overpower the terrorists on United flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Probably not a coincidence.

This was posted to Jerry Pournelle's site.

...

Dear Jerry,

Following is a message which my one of my best friends passed along with permission to distribute to those who might be interested. It fills in the details that I missed in my original conversation with him and attempted to relate to you.

Tom has given me permission to distribute the message - please feel free to post it if you deem it appropriate.

Sincerely,

Art Russell Major, US Army (Retired)

Message Follows:

Today was a tragedy for all of America and to my family, a very personal one. Lynn and my Niece Liz's husband, Jeremy Glick was on United flight 93 this morning. When the Hijackers took control of flight 93. Jeremy called my niece who in-turn conferenced him to 911. Jeremy relayed to the police what was happening as the hijacking unfolded. As our niece Liz listened, Jeremy told the police there were three Arab terrorists with knives and a large red box that they claimed contained a bomb. Jeremy tracked the second by second details and relayed them to the police by phone. After several minutes of describing the scene, Jeremy and several other passengers decided there was nothing to lose by rushing the hijackers. Although United Flight 93 crashed outside of Pittsburgh, with the loss of all souls. Jeremy and the other patriotic heroes saved the lives of many people on the ground that would have died if the Arab terrorists had been able to complete their heinous mission.

Please offer your prayers for all of those who perished or were injured in this tragic of all days and to our niece Liz Glick and her 2-month-old child, Emerson, who are left without their loving Husband and Father.

May we remember Jeremy and the other brave souls as heroes, soldiers and Americans' on United flight 93 whom so gallantry gave their lives to save many others.

Lynn, our four adult children and I are headed to New York to be with our family during this time of great sadness

All of my best,

Tom

We find

That the terrorists use sophisticated encryption measures and that our intelligence agencies are under-funded and don't have the ability to keep tabs on the terrorists

This isn't nesicarily true, cell based organizations, if they are smart, will avoid anything but direct communications.

To answer your other question. No. I will not give up any of my liberties. The world is an unsafe place, we must accept the risks that come with being a free nation. If we do not then the experiment is over. Jerry Pournelle thinks that this is the end of the Republic and the move to an Empire. See www.jerrypournelle.com for more of his thoughts. See www.libertynews.org for discussions and news.

The DC-X was SO promising... I hope the Japanese take this technology and make inexpensive, quality, mass-produced copies like they have with so many other American inventions. (Sad that we still haven't learned to do this ourselves yet.)

Heinlein got the word and the concept from real life. Here's a quote from Jerry Pournelle about this:

Big Jim Farley was a New York Tammany Hall politician whose success was partly due to the "Farleyfile": a collection of facts about everyone he ever met. If you went to see Big Jim, by the time you got into his office he knew your name, your birthday, the names of your spouse and children, and what you liked for lunch. It was all on file.

I got the quote here.

steveha

First, DR-DOS. I can't argue that this is a matter of a Windows API breaking code, but it is an example of Microsoft deliberately introducing an incompatibility for the sake of defeating competition. This page explains that it was likely that only developers and computer makers saw this message because the routine (which was encrypted to prevent easy discovery) to display it was disabled before Windows 3.1 went to market (it was only in a beta, as you claim, but it still did significant harm to DR-DOS because computer makers saw it). The message was still present in the shipped binary, disproving the Microsoft assertion that this was all an urban legend, and this page has a utility you can grab (in addition to the source code) to find the message in Windows 3.1. The page also mentions that Microsoft QuickC under DR-DOS would emit an ominous message (but would presumably still run). So you can't say that malicious coding has never been on their mind and you can't blame people for being a bit suspicious when things break strangely.

Another example, though one I'm less likely to attribute to malicious incompatibility for the reason I give at the top of this reply, can be found under 'Smothering Freeware' on this site. Equally interesting (and also mentioned on this page) was the breaking of Professor Felten's demonstration in the recent antitrust trial of Microsoft that Internet Explorer did not need to be integrated into the operating system for the operating system to function. Felten had to provide his program to Microsoft as part of discovery and at some point between then and the trial his program no longer functioned properly. There was some speculation that Microsoft deliberately broke the program, though I tend to believe that their updates just didn't take the functioning of this program into account because, by definition, Felten's program was trying to convert Windows 98 into a non-standard state.

Finally, Kerberos in Windows 2000. Though that was broken from the start (i.e., it wasn't a change to break existing software on Windows), one could argue that it was specifically broken to discourage compatibility of a nature Microsoft didn't want between their system and competitors' systems. Or one could argue that Microsoft liked the technology but didn't want to invest any more effort into development than was necessary to meet their goals (compatibility with other Win2k, whatever other compatibility exists is purely a bonus). Discussion here (search for 'Kerberos') suggests that the incompatibility is a benign by-product of innovation. This (search for 'clickwrap') suggests that it wasn't... putting the specification of the Microsoft changes to the protocol under NDA clickwrap forces an incompatibility between standard Kerberos and MS Kerberos. A matter of perspective, to be sure, but a reminder that seamless compatibility is hardly a priority.

---

Dr. Jerry Pournelle, who has been involved in the field for many years, has some insights into this. It's do-able, it's safe, and let's get on with it already.

Gordon.

Administrative contact: Michael Van Flandern

Technical contact: Kevin Van Flandern

Mouthpiece for: Tom Van Flandern, big-time Cydonia-face, um, "enthusiast".

Have yourself a browse through metaresearch.org and you'll find out all sorts of interesting things. Like, apparently the speed of gravity is "not less than 2 x 10^10 c", and therefore probably infinite.

Feel free to read some stuff on Jerry Pournelle's site about this guy.

Here's another URL that directly addresses the gravity-speed thing Tom Van Flandern loves so dearly.

If he were a bit more dedicated, he'd qualify as a real, quality, Usenet kook. I don't think he quite makes the grade, though.

This one was never signed into law. You can read more about it at http://techlawjournal.com/telecom/81022.htm.

Also, the following interesting discussion was posted here:

I opened a piece of Spam mail this morning and got this:

Under Bill s.1618 Title III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this mail cannot be considered Spam as long as we include contact information and removal instructions for removing you from our mailing list. To be removed from our mailing list, reply with REMOVE in the subject heading and your email address in the body, and include complete address and/or domain to be removed. <<

Have you received an email with one of these statements yet?

Let me see if I can translate it for you.

We are going to send you a ton of email whether you like it or not. Get off our backs. If you don't like it, get yourself off our lists.<<

Does that sound about right?

Well then! I guess I'd better read it. The information contained herein must be of some importance since the information has the A-OK under federal law.

Wait. Federal law?

If I remember my Saturday morning School House Rock episode correctly, for something to become a law, it has to be passed by both the House AND the Senate plus a really important person has to sign it.

It must be a law then, right? The Spammers are using it. They wouldn't lie, would they?

It would seem that enough time has passed for the president to sign the bill into law. It's been two years. We're in the 107th Congress now. I've never heard of a law allowing people to Spam me.

Hey - wait a minute. Maybe there never was a Bill S1618. I mean, it's not a law.

Darn.

There was a bill S1618 back in 1998. It passed by a 99-0 voice vote. It's called the "Anti-Slamming Amendments Act". There was even a House of Representatives equal to it, HR3888. It also passed.

The Senate version of the bill stated that S1618 was, "To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to improve the protection of consumers against `slamming' by telecommunications carriers, and for other purposes."

Hey! Wait a minute.

"Slamming"?

Is the Congress a bunch of really poor spellers...like me?

I thought this was a bill about Spamming.

Well, it is. It's just not the main push of the bill. You don't get to "Spamming" until title three. It's right in there between "Switchless Resellers" and "Miscellaneous Provisions". The Spamming section is an amendment to the amendment. There were actually four versions of bill S1618. The Spamming section didn't show up until the third incarnation. (Source: http://thomas.loc.gov )

But still, it was passed. It was passed containing the Spamming amendment so it's on the books so we all have to receive the Spam emails sent to us by people we don't even know as long as the Spammers follow S1618 Title III outlined below:

TITLE III-SPAMMING

SEC. 301. REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO TRANSMISSIONS OF UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL.

(a) INFORMATION TO BE INCLUDED IN TRANSMISSIONS- (1) IN GENERAL- A person who transmits an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message shall cause to appear in each such electronic mail message the information specified in paragraph (2). (2) COVERED INFORMATION- The following information shall appear at the beginning of the body of an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message under paragraph (1): (A) The name, physical address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the person who initiates transmission of the message. (B) The name, physical address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the person who created the content of the message, if different from the information under subparagraph (A). (C) A statement that further transmissions of unsolicited commercial electronic mail to the recipient by the person who initiates transmission of the message may be stopped at no cost to the recipient by sending a reply to the originating electronic mail address with the word `remove' in the subject line. (b) ROUTING INFORMATION- All Internet routing information contained within or accompanying an electronic mail message described in subsection (a) must be accurate, valid according to the prevailing standards for Internet protocols, and accurately reflect message routing. (c) EFFECTIVE DATE- The requirements in this section shall take effect 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act.

In other words, include the paragraph that started off this newsletter and offer a viable method to getting your name off of the Spammer's list. Do that, and you can Spam away because technically what you're sending cannot be considered Spam.

This sounds too bad to be true.

Great! Just great! Now I have to allow a ton of Spam to come flying through my front door and I have to read it all because the Spammers have the power of the U.S. Government behind them. It just cheeses me off. I mean...it...

Wait. What's this?

S1618 died in committee?

That means that it's null and void? It's dead? It doesn't have any power?

Oh. The Spammer never bothered to tell me that.

Never mind.

I'll just go delete that piece of mail.

(The death of S1618 in committee: Source: http://techlawjournal.com/telecom/81022.htm )

That's that. Thanks for reading.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

I expect a number of people will be distressed at this. I am not. The Space Station was an ill-designed nightmare. The US space program desperately needs on-orbit assembly capability. To do that we need space suits that don't require pre-breathing before use. NASA has known this for 20 years, and has had such suit designs available since 1980. I have a signature in my log book of a NASA test subject in a 12 psi above ambient suit, signed after about 6 hours in it, attesting to general comfort. Of course he was a 22 year old rigger not a 45 year old Ph.D. which is what NASA sends up. The whole manned space program is a shambles because we don't have decent suits.

Without on orbit assembly capability -- I mean real work in space done by riggers who can do a day's work -- things have to be pre-assembled and taken up in big chunks, which means shuttle which means a BILLION DOLLARS A FLIGHT for 50,000 pounds or so. What we need is 20 million a flight for 10,000 pounds and that would be achievable but "there is no urgent need for that" because -- well because the stupid space station ate it all. The shuttle and the space station ate the dream. Make no mistake about that. Those monsters need to GO and be replaced by smaller, operations driven, flexible re-usable designs.

- - -

In 1989 Gen. Daniel Graham, Max Hunter, and Jerry Pournelle went to then Chairman of the National Space Council VP Dan Quayle and persuaded him to start a small reusable rocket program. That became the DC/X and the concept was proved with 11 successful USAF flights before NASA took it over and destroyed in on the first flight, thus eliminating any threat to the Shuttle.

A fuller discussion of all of this by the same author is found here, entitled "Why Have NASA?"

But the bottom line is that NASA has gone the way of the boondoggle, and may in fact be committed to a body of technology that is in fact stopping us from getting the show on the road.

Gee, but this sounds very familiar in a slightly different context.

Understand, I want them to get going, and do it right. But are they going about it all wrong?

Interesting point. I'm not sure whether I agree about readability or not, but just wanted to add a bit of trivia: in the empire's premiere Word processor, there's actually an option to get a white-on-blue color scheme. That was put there, way back when, at the request of a certain Jerry Pournelle (of Byte fame, among lots of other things). If I remember correctly, Jerry required this to switch, because that was the color scheme of the word processor he was used to. Can't remember the name of that (probably ancient) program, though... OK, that's all from the meaningless-trivia dept, go back to whatever. ;^)

here at the bottom of that days view.

I got it when it first came out, and just re-read it. Caused quite a stir in the SF field when it came out. I don't agree with his argument that SF is an American form of literature, but his arguments are well presented and entertaining.
In other news, Jerry Pournelle is reporting that Gordon R. Dickson has died.

Someone has patented crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

As seen here on Jerry Pournelle's website (when he moves this week to his archives, this will be here, but that will not be for a week or so. (sorry, but the original story is available only via pay archives at Michigan Live, unless someone finds the original news service)

Last summer, the folks at Albie's Foods here started making crust-free peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches for their customers. Just before Christmas, a executive with an Ohio food company ordered Albie's to bag 'em.

Robert V. Vickers wrote to Albie's explaining that his company, Menusaver Inc., holds the patent for crustless PBJ and plans to preserve its exclusive rights to the lunchtime staple. Now, Albie's has asked U.S. District Court in Bay City to resolve the legal jam.

Albie's, a food manufacturer and restaurant, is best known for its tasty pasties, with stores in Gaylord and Grayling. Company officials say they hope the federal sandwich case can be resolved in a jiffy.

In December 1999, the Orrville, Ohio,-based food company Menusaver obtained the patent for the "sealed crustless sandwich." The product is the invention of Len C. Kirtchman of Fergus Falls, Minn., and David Geske of Fargo, N.D., according to the patent on file with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

"The sandwich includes a lower bread portion, an upper bread portion, an upper filling and a lower filling between the lower and upper bread portions, a center filling sealed between the upper and lower fillings and a crimped edge along an outer perimeter of the bread portions for sealing the fillings therebetween," states Patent No. 6,004,596.

Creamy or crunchy? Strawberry or grape? The patent doesn't get that specific. But:

"The upper and lower fillings are preferably comprised of peanut butter and the center filling is comprised of at least jelly," the patent declares. "The center filling is prevented from radiating outwardly and into and through the bread portions from the surrounding peanut butter."

Albie's co-owner Regan Quaal, contacted by The Times, said he would prefer to smooth out the controversy privately and not spread it around in the press.

United States Patent 6,004,596 Sealed crustless sandwich Abstract A sealed crustless sandwich for providing a convenient sandwich without an outer crust which can be stored for long periods of time without a central filling from leaking outwardly. The sandwich includes a lower bread portion, an upper bread portion, an upper filling and a lower filling between the lower and upper bread portions, a center filling sealed between the upper and lower fillings, and a crimped edge along an outer perimeter of the bread portions for sealing the fillings therebetween. The upper and lower fillings are preferably comprised of peanut butter and the center filling is comprised of at least jelly. The center filling is prevented from radiating outwardly into and through the bread portions from the surrounding peanut butter.

Inventors: Kretchman; Len C. (Fergus Falls, MN); Geske; David (Fargo, ND) Assignee: Menusaver, Inc. (Orrville, OH) Filed: December 8, 1997

U.S. Patent Documents 3083651 3690898 3767823 3769035 3862344 4382768 5853778

Other References "50 Great Sandwiches", Carole Handslip, pp. 81-84,86,95, 1994.