Slashdot Mirror

malibucreek writes: "A writer at the LA Times actually responded to every spam he got for a week. The resulting article about his descent into marketing hell is here. Of course, everything turned out to be a scam. (Duh!) But some of the scams were just pathetic enough to be funny. My faves? The pyramid scheme that helped '"George" reach his goal of making $7,000 a month within two years of getting out of prison.' And the bogus weight-loss plan that caused one sucker, er, customer, to gush, "This didn't work, but it was full of fiber and I was very regular!"" And at this very moment, some hot babes who have been clamoring to meet me electronically are finally at the door -- hallelujah!

malibucreek writes: "A writer at the LA Times actually responded to every spam he got for a week. The resulting article about his descent into marketing hell is here. Of course, everything turned out to be a scam. (Duh!) But some of the scams were just pathetic enough to be funny. My faves? The pyramid scheme that helped '"George" reach his goal of making $7,000 a month within two years of getting out of prison.' And the bogus weight-loss plan that caused one sucker, er, customer, to gush, "This didn't work, but it was full of fiber and I was very regular!"" And at this very moment, some hot babes who have been clamoring to meet me electronically are finally at the door -- hallelujah!

fataugie writes: "Oh yeah, just when you through the economy and Dot.Bombs couldn't suck anymore, we find that the porn business has a place for you. Enjoy!" Not necessarily in front of the cameras, however, but read those contracts carefully.

crotherm points to a piece in today's L.A. Times, writing: "This would a great article to pass along to those less knowledgable about SPAM and those that fight against it." It's also a bit frightening to see what happens to people on the wrong side of the spam battle sometimes, though denials of service are attributed to both spammers and de-spammers, each by the other.

A Crowd of Cowards submitted the news found in this LA Times article that Yahoo! will now sell pornographic videos though an online store. The new section ("Adult & Erotica") is not exactly flashing on the Yahoo! front page, but it's only a few clicks away. (And wants your valid credit card number as proof of age, btw.) Does this mean that all of Yahoo! will be blocked by the various censorware companies? Reader fezzgig points to coverage on CNN as well.

Logic Bomb writes: "Mach 5 -- 5 times the speed of sound, or 5000 mph -- is a speed that so far has eluded jet-powered aircraft (the existing record for a production craft is about mach 2.1). NASA, however, has high hopes for its latest attempt, the X-43A. Using a booster rocket, the prototype will be accelerated to mach 5, at which point its engine will be scooping enough oxygen to power the craft at those speeds on its own. Hopefully, it will fly at speeds up to almost mach 7 for 10-15 seconds before shutting off and plunging into the Pacific. An article from the Los Angeles Times has more details." Not to be confused with the X-33 and X-34 projects.

jmoore writes "Nothing new that movie makers will do anything to make money from their movies. However, what about making false fan sites to boost a movies image? I couldn't belive it, but sadly it dosen't suprise me much. how depressing." The hype Blair Witch got, as the article points out made the movie industry understand how powerful "grass roots" really is. Reminds me of the Levi jeans pages modeled on the "I kiss you!" guy that people thought were real as well. Ah, marketing.

Mind Mage writes: "It finally seems that electric cars are becoming worthy of consideration for performance automotive enthusiasts. Here's a link to an L.A. Times article describing AC Propulsion's new electric 'sports car.' The T-zero does 0-60 in 4.1 seconds and pulls .88G on skid pad tests. The manufacturer's web side has some Quick Time movies of the T-zero drag racing a Porsche 911-4, a Corvette, and the F550. I wonder how many 1/8 mile drag runs the T-zero can sustain before having to recharge the battery?" Electric car racing isn't new, but seems to be making faster strides than ye olde (and formidable) internal combustion engine.

Fuzzy_Damnit! writes: "Whoa! Paper phone!" One of our shorter story write-ups... Anyway, since the reporter said he had a working prototype, it looks like the paper phone is not just paperware after all.

small_dick writes: "I ran across this article at the LA Times. It's about a fresh water lake, protected by the Antarctic ice cap for millions of years. Lake Vostok was first discovered in 1996, but scientists still struggle over the best methodology to probe, yet not contaminate, this historic find."

TechLawyer writes "For those of us interested in the use of the DMCA, and the tactics utilized by copyright enforcement specialists under the DMCA, Law.com ran an interesting article today on Dave Powell and Copyright Control Services. Read about how he plans to knock out Napster & how he shuts down warez d00dz from .com to .ru." There are some fascinating and ugly quotes in here about how this guy goes after targets - a combination of harassment and threats against their service providers, admitted illegal actions, etc. Meanwhile, this LA Times story describes even more insidious technologies apparently designed for use in transparent proxies - censorware for copyrighted materials.

Student informing, encouraged and epidemic in American schools before, but especially after the Columbine killings, is an irrational, anti-democratic practice that upends the natural order of life among young people. And new technologies, from 800 numbers to e-mail, makes informing easier than ever. Consider a story in the Los Angeles Times this week focusing on this question: When a student helps a school investigate threats, who pays if the informant is sued? The question isn't rhetorical. (Read more).

The parents of a teenage girl, a high school freshmen in Lancaster, California, are facing $40,000 in legal bills because their kid did what school officials all across America have been urging kids to do for years: tell school officials if she saw or heard anything suspicous.

She did, quoting a classmate as saying: "We want to kill people; we're sick of them." (If I or anyone reading this called the police everytime we came across that comment online, a lot of teenage boys would be in jail.) She said the boy later threatened her for reporting his remarks.

He was immediately charged with making terrorist threats and intimidating a witness, and a juvenile court judge ordered him to serve six months' probation, according to the Times. But courts overturned his expulsion as unconstitutional and unjustified, and the boy and his parents then sued his accuser, her parents, school and Los Angeles county officials. The charges, said his suit, made him the object of ridicule, hatred and distrust.

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge threw out his suit, but not before the girl's family had spent $40,000 in legal fees defending her. The school, which asked her to inform, refused to represent her after she did. So now her parents are suing them to recoup their losses.

Now, school and county officials are squabbling about whether they are obliged to pay her legal costs or not. In considering the implications of student informing, one has only to think about the fear, anger, and humiliation, the court, school and legal time expended, and the overall cost and implications of this single remark. Then multiply it by millions of kids informing on millions of other kids, as is now seemingly national educational policy.

School officials in California are arguing that it's going to be tough to get informers if schools won't defend them. You bet. But it's unclear whether insurance companies will pay such claims. The Times quotes the director of the Education Legal Alliance of the California School Board Association as saying schools do not have a responsibility to shield or indemnify students in that kind of situation. There's a legal difference between students and employees, said the official. That raises free speech issues on both sides of the student informing issue: kids who say stupid or ill-considered things are treated as terrorists, and kids who think they are doing the right thing aren't protected with they speak out either.

That suggests that neither of these high school freshmen should have landed in the position they did. Both deserve sympathy. As repugnant as informing is to many (me included), kids are told over and over that it's their job to protect themselves and their friends from dangerous peers, by turning them in. Adolescent boys have been saying offensive, profoundly stupid things -- even hateful ones -- forever, as everybody online knows. Are schools really creating safer environments, or instead institutions in which speech of all kinds is unsafe?

Turning kids into informers is viscerally anti-democratic. Student informing has been a hallmark of the worst political systems on record, whatever political labels have been attached to them, by bringing out the worst in human foibles, from fear to unchecked malice. Now it's easier than ever to turn a classmate in -- just make an anonymous call to an 800 number or, better yet, turn somebody in by e-mail. The target usually never gets to confront his accuser, unlike the student in California.

There's also the question of proportion. If a high school freshman expresses a desire to kill somebody, isn't there any educational response or remedy short of arrest for terrorism?

The story illustrates the dreadful position both of these people have been put in by the insane response to the Columbine tragedy. In a sense, the girl was doing what she's been asked to do. The boy -- there was never any evidence he planned to harm or kill anyone -- is threatened with jail for allegedly making a remark that would, in other times, be considered stupid or worthy of some suspension time.

In the months after Columbine, students all over America were asked to become informers by law enforcement authorities and educators. Companies like the Pinkerton Corp. under contract to state and local governments, even created sites like WaveAmerica.com, which urges kids to report the errant behavior of their friends and classmates, and provides toll free numbers manned round-the-clock by people who take and store reported information in a computerized system.

The chilling implications of student informing on social ties, civil liberties and free speech went largely unremarked-upon by the popular media in the national hysteria that followed the Columbine killings; by most parents, and by the people who really ought to have known better, educators themselves. Civil libertarians did sound repeated alarms, but they were ignored.

Definitions of dangerous behavior are wildly subjective and complex, and kids often had a tough time distinguishing between run-of-the-mill obnoxious and posturing behavior, and truly dangerous behavior worthy of being reported to the police. Trained psychologists disagree about symptoms and behavioral warning signs.

Lost in the Columbine mob scene was the fact that violent incidents in schools are rare in America, and getting more so by the year. Gamers, oddballs, Goths and geeks, kids who are bored, angry, alienated, or individualistic are naturally particular targets for kids-turned-informers. Anybody who's different or doesn't conform -- or who is angry -- can seem dangerous, especially given the wildly varying criteria applied in different schools.

Online, teenagers flame each other and everybody else all the time. If they do it in school, they can -- and do -- end up in jail.

But the bottom line seems as clear as it was after Columbine. It's the job of parents, educators and psychologists to watch our for and anticipate dangerous behavior. It should rarely be a legal or law enforcement issue, and it ought never to be the job of kids, students or classmates.

The message to kids isn't that schools are safer, but for everybody is to watch not only what they say, but what they hear.

McAdder writes: "The LA Times is running an article about how Tampa police scanned the faces of BowlGoers as they passed through the turnstyles, and compared the images to images of people with criminal history. I wonder if they'd frisk me if I wore one of those Nixon masks ;>" It seems the story first appeared in the St. Petersburg Times.

pcosta writes "Today's LA Times has an article about a Supreme Court hearing on wheteher or not 'virtual' child porn created with computer generated images is illegal. In a previous ruling, the federal appeals court in San Francisco agreed 2-1 that the 1st Amendment prohibits the government from making it a crime to generate "images of fictitious children engaged in imaginary but explicit sexual conduct". But prosecutors said this kind of pornography can whet the appetite of pedophiles, and therefore is dangerous even if no real children are involved." This will be one of the major free speech cases of the year, and I think there's no telling how the Supreme Court will decide.

MousePotato writes: "Space.com is reporting that former NASA scientist turned Wall Street guru Dennis Tito has apparently gotten final approval (paid in full I guess is all you really need) for launch aboard a Soyuz by the end of April. Destination: ISS. Tito was originally slated to be one of the first tourists aboard the rapidly declining MIR space station. No specific figures are available on the site as to how much for the mircograv vacation but the rumor mill is placing the cost of the trip at $20 million USD. This may be just a few dollars more than buying your own rotary rocket company at auction but might just give the space tourism industry the kick it needs..."

Ambiguo writes: "An article in today's LA Times is reporting today that tomorrow the FCC will begin considering switching to 10 digit phone numbers, starting as early as next month. There's a lot of opposition to it, especially since there was a large backlash when LA tried this a little while ago, but some say it's a stepping stone to the eventual 11 or 12 digit phone number of the future." Update: 12/06 4:33 PM by michael: The FCC is not going to switch us all to 10-digit numbers. Yet.

Ambiguo writes: "An article in today's LA Times is reporting today that tomorrow the FCC will begin considering switching to 10 digit phone numbers, starting as early as next month. There's a lot of opposition to it, especially since there was a large backlash when LA tried this a little while ago, but some say it's a stepping stone to the eventual 11 or 12 digit phone number of the future." Update: 12/06 4:33 PM by michael: The FCC is not going to switch us all to 10-digit numbers. Yet.

According to a new study from the consulting firm Software Productivity Research, software programmers spend 47 days a year developing or enhancing software applications. The rest of the time is spent testing, fixing bugs, and working on projects that will later be cancelled. This might be deemed poetic justice, given that users avoid using more that 10% of application's functionality for fear that something will break. On the other hand this could be seen as good news for newer projects: add fewer features but get them right. Eg: a light-weight word-processor that imports foreign formats correctly, but only has the features most people use. What do you think? Can anyone corroborate the article's statement that 90% of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. cannot afford to maintain more than 15 networked computers?

mmt writes: "The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on the past, present and future of the UCITA." Slashdot has covered the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act before. It's interesting to see that some of the brighter purchasing agents have already encountered and rejected attempts to use UCITA in out-of-state contracts. Have you or your company run into a situation where a software company wanted you to buy software under UCITA's rules?

mmt writes: "The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on the past, present and future of the UCITA." Slashdot has covered the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act before. It's interesting to see that some of the brighter purchasing agents have already encountered and rejected attempts to use UCITA in out-of-state contracts. Have you or your company run into a situation where a software company wanted you to buy software under UCITA's rules?

Two more presidential aspirants have sent answers to Slashdot questions: Republican Party candidate George W. Bush and Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin. Not surprisingly, there are many issues on which they don't agree.

1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran

The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?

Bush:

If elected president I pledge a renewed commitment to fight the war on drugs. I have a plan that includes $2.767 billion in new initiatives to help parents, teachers, and faith-based leaders influence children to steer clear of the evils of the drug culture.

For the past seven years, the Clinton-Gore Administration has sent the wrong message on drug abuse. Two of the Administration's first actions were to cut the Drug Czar's office by over 80% and to appoint a Surgeon General who spoke openly about drug legalization. And, the Clinton-Gore Administration slashed international efforts to stop drugs beyond our borders and all but abandoned the bully pulpit against illegal drugs.

Tragically, without presidential leadership on the issue, teen drug-use rose dramatically during the first five years of the Clinton-Gore Administration, and it remains at unacceptably high levels today. Drug use by children between the ages of 12 and 17 more than doubled between 1992 and 1997. Recent data suggest that teen drug use may have leveled off, but is still at near record levels for the decade.

From 1979 to 1992, in response to a concerted and relentless national strategy and commitment, teenage drug abuse consistently declined year after year. Starting in 1992, however, that trend reversed dramatically, and from 1992 to 1997 teenage drug abuse increased nationally every single year.

The number of high school seniors who have tried drugs is at its highest level in over a decade, with over half - 54.7 percent - having tried drugs. This rate had declined for 11 years in a row, reaching a low of 40.7 percent in 1992, before growing by a third under the current Administration.

For 10th graders, lifetime cocaine use has more than doubled since 1992, reaching 7.7 percent, the highest level in a decade, and lifetime use of crack by 10th graders has likewise more than doubled, reaching 4.0 percent.

For 8th graders, heroin use has nearly doubled, reaching 2.3% in 1999.

Compared to 1992, daily use of marijuana within the previous thirty days by eighth and tenth graders increased by 700 percent and 300 percent, respectively.

In contrast to the past seven years, I will send a clear and unwavering message: drug use is wrong, and we will have zero tolerance for those who target our children with the plague of drugs.

I will help parents and re-energize the parents' movement, by creating a national Parents Drug Corps, through providing $25 million to non-profit organizations to educate and train parents in effective drug prevention. To achieve drug-free schools, I will increase funding for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program by $100 million over five years, and insist that states and districts measure drug use and demonstrate results. And, I will energize community coalitions through $350 million in grants to double and enhance the effectiveness of community coalitions that reduce teenage drug abuse.

I will devote an additional $1 billion to increased funding for the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, and $1 billion more to help close the treatment gap for those needing drug treatment and not receiving it. My focus on treatment will promote teen treatment programs in particular.

In addition, I will insist upon drug-free prisons, require regular drug testing and monitoring for parolees and probationers, and expand the successful Boston Gun Project from 27 cities to 100. And I will launch a federal Methamphetamine initiative, to tackle directly a growing crisis in rural communities.

We want a drug-free society for one, great moral reason: over time, drugs rob men and women and children of their dignity and character. Illegal drugs are the enemies of innocence, and ambition, and hope. I will exert presidential leadership to send the clear and consistent message that drug abuse is dangerous and wrong. And I will help marshal resources at every level - starting with parents, schools and communities closest to the needs of young Americans - to turn back the tide of drug abuse.

Hagelin:

The War on Drugs has failed. I will cut our burgeoning prison population in half by decriminalizing nonviolent drug offenses, directing such offenders to drug education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs. Approximately a million people are in jail for such nonviolent drug offenses. That's a waste of a generation.

We must also focus on the demand side of the drug economy by reducing the desire to take drugs. The most effective defense against drugs is proper education -- education that directly unfolds intelligence and creativity, builds self-confidence, eliminates stress, and raises life to be in harmony with natural law, thereby eliminating the tendency towards drug dependence.

To be effective, education must be deeply satisfying and directly relevant to a person's own life. Such education will eliminate functional and technological illiteracy and also prevent dropouts, who become the principal targets for drugs and drug-related crime.

2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst

What will you do to protect the rights of athiests and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?

Bush:

I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion.

Hagelin:

I will take action where necessary to ensure the constitutional rights of all Americans. However, more than that, I will support effective education that expands comprehension and overcomes intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry born of narrow-mindedness.

Because the aim of every religion is the spiritual elevation of human life, I support the right of all Americans to worship according to the religion of their choice. At the same time, I support the crucial separation between church and state by holding that the Federal Government should remain neutral toward all religions, neither suppressing nor supporting any particular religion or religious sect. This attitude of neutrality, which aims at protecting the religious rights of all Americans, reflects the original intention of the nation's founding fathers.

3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman

With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year). A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do.

A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing. Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?

Hagelin:

Many candidates have promised lower taxes, but have been unable to fulfill these promises due to the depth and complexity of problems faced by government. Tax cuts--without the revenues to support them--would be irresponsible, and politicians who promise such cuts without a realistic plan to generate revenues are simply courting votes. However, my cost-effective solutions will save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars annually, thereby providing a realistic strategy for significant tax reduction that protects the integrity of our important social programs. The most powerful fiscal action our government can take to stimulate the economy is to lower taxes. I will cut taxes responsibly -- while protecting Social Security and Medicare and paying down the national debt -- through reduction of government waste and fraud, and through cost-effective solutions to costly social problems, such as spiraling health costs, crime, and our energy dependence on foreign oil.

One simple and viable way to implement across-the-board tax cuts is through a low flat tax. We will halt the endless manipulation of the tax code by Congress for their favorite corporate sponsors ("corporate welfare") by implementing such a tax. Our plan includes a generous floor of $34,000 (for a family of four) below which American would pay no income tax. Above the $34,000 floor, the tax rate begins at 18% in 2001 and drops to 14% by 2006 as our cost-effective solutions begin to bear fruit. Our low flat tax would stimulate and sustain strong economic growth. This strong economic growth, with its associated increase in government revenues, combined with the savings from our cost-effective solutions, would ensure a balanced budget and gradual repayment of the national debt without borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. This proposal would also reduce the size and scope of the IRS, eliminate loopholes for the wealthy, and put an end to corporate welfare.

Bush:

I believe that once our nation's priorities have been met, the remaining money should be returned to the taxpayers. Chairman Greenspan has gone on record saying that he would rather see the surplus returned to taxpayers than spent on new government programs like Al Gore proposes.

It is estimated that over the next ten years we will have a surplus of about $4.6 trillion. That surplus takes into account the projected increases for each government program and entitlement. In other words, after all of the government's bills are paid, including the regular increases for each department there will still be a surplus of nearly $5 trillion. Of that surplus, I want to take over half of it to help save Social Security. I will put that money into a "Lockbox" so that government can't spend it, except on Social Security benefits.

Then I will take about half of the remaining $2.2 trillion to fund important efforts such as improving public education, strengthening our national defense, and providing prescription drugs to senior citizens. The remaining quarter of the surplus, a little over $1 trillion would then be returned to the taxpayers. Under my plan, everyone who pays taxes will get a tax cut, with the biggest percentage cut going to the poorest citizens. In fact, I will take 6 million low-income families off the tax rolls completely.

4) electoral reform
by carleton

Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the Electoral College system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?

Bush:

The Electoral College was established by Article II and the Twelfth Amendment of the United States Constitution. I support our Constitutional system of representative democracy. I am disappointed at the diminishing number of voters coming out for national elections and statewide elections. I would encourage all Americans to turn out and vote in this presidential election.

I believe that a principal cause of voter apathy is the constant bitter partisan divisions and growing cynicism in Washington. I am running to try to change that atmosphere, to lead by uniting rather than dividing, to shoot straight, and to set aside partisan differences and set an agenda that makes sense for working Americans.

Hagelin:

I support crucial democratic reforms to end special interest control of government and restore government accountability to the people, including elimination of PACs and soft money, public sponsorship of election campaigns, and prohibiting lobbying by former public servants. I support election reform that returns American democracy to the high ideals envisioned by our nation's founders -- a republic that fairly represents the views of all its citizens and candidates. In this light, I support abolishment of the Electoral College, because under the current system, a presidential candidate can receive a majority of the votes and still lose the election. The President should be elected by the people through direct popular vote. I would also reconsider proportional representation, which has been effective in countries around the world and more fairly represents the true will of the people than our current "winner-take-all" process.

To create meaningful election reform, I also support the following initiatives:

1. Ensure ballot access fairness. Every political party and candidate should have the same requirements in every election for getting on the ballot. Incumbents should no longer have privileges over challengers with new ideas.

2. Promote campaign fairness. It is the right of the American people to hear the views of every candidate on the ballot. All candidates who meet ballot access requirements should have the same access to their constituencies, including equal media access through a series of publicly sponsored televised forums, debates, and infomercials, as well as publicly sponsored mailings of voter education materials. To qualify for these privileges, candidates would be required to comply with voluntary spending limits. This structure would favor voter education over privately funded media advertising and would thereby help eliminate special interest influence on the election process.

3. Encourage all Americans to vote. Election day should be made a mandatory national holiday, as in most other nations, so that everyone has time to vote. Voter registration should be facilitated by creating uniform laws that allow same-day registration or even automatic registration.

4. Shorten the campaign season. The campaign season should be reduced to four months -- two months for parties to choose their candidates and two months for the general election.

5. Allow national initiatives. The "public initiative" process, already enacted and in operation in 23 states, should be expanded to the national level. This process allows the collective will of our citizens to initiate legislative reform and thereby shape governmental policy more directly.

5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory

In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.

Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?

Hagelin:

Whenever new technologies emerge, such as the tape recorder or the videocassette recorder, the owners of existing intellectual properties demand draconian protection, insisting that without it their industries will collapse.

Each of these technological advances, however, has in fact resulted in new ways for the movie, television, and music industries to make money. Similarly, the Internet and digital distribution of music have stimulated interest in the purchase of new CDs. (In fact, CD sales have continued to rise even with Napster, and it is probable that free sampling of music leads to increased CD sales.)

However, it is also true that intellectual property is a key motivator in the creation of new material and therefore must be given protection.

That is why I believe that the entertainment industry should make an all-out effort to find new ways to utilize Napster and similar services on a "pay per view" basis. This approach will serve all concerned and turn what appears now--at least to many in the entertainment industry--to be a disaster into a boon for both the industry and the consumer.

Bush:

In the next five years, we anticipate that two-thirds of software will be distributed over the Internet, making it more important than ever to ensure strong copyright protection for computer software. In the United States, much of the legal framework already exists, but we need to redouble our efforts on enforcement. In particular, the next President must make sure that the US Department of Justice and US law enforcement agencies have the resources to enforce our intellectual property laws. In the international community, the challenge is even tougher since we must both help establish a legal framework for intellectual property protection and ensure it is enforced.

6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy

Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private.

Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?

Hagelin:

To attempt to restrict the export of encryption is ludicrous and unworkable, since individuals and businesses will always demand the strongest encryption possible and governments will always try to find a way to break it. The right of Americans to encrypt will not be abridged under my administration.

Bush:

I share many people's concerns that, with the advent of the Internet, personal privacy is increasingly at risk, and I am committed to protecting personal privacy for everyone. Though industry now appears to be making some efforts to meet consumer demands for privacy protection, as President I will ensure:

• Notice and Consent. Everyone has the right to know what information is collected and how it will be used, and to accept or decline the collection or dissemination of this information - particularly financial and medical information.
• Access. Individuals have the right to correct any inaccurate personal information.
• Security. Institutions must provide sufficient security to prevent unauthorized access to personal information.

In addition, unlike Gore's "reinvented" government which has failed to protect the personal information of Americans, my own website sets a high privacy standard. In addition, the August 17, 2000 Los Angeles Times "E-Review" (http://www.latimes.com/business/20000817/t000077108.html) examines the two major campaigns' Web sites and concludes, "If the presidential election were based on Internet sites, E-Review would give the edge to Texas Gov. George W. Bush." At georgewbush.com, "visitors still must opt in to be included on Bush's mailing lists. E-commerce sites that profess to care about protecting their customers' privacy would do well to follow this lead."

If elected president, I will issue an Executive Order designating a federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Office of Management and Budget. The federal CIO will be responsible for providing the leadership and coordination needed to realize the vision of a truly digital and citizen-centric government. The CIO will head agency cross-functional councils on information technology, facilitate collaboration with state CIOs, and lead development of standards, protocols, and privacy protections, among other things.

I believe that strong encryption products enhance consumer privacy. In October 1999, I proposed fundamental reform of the U.S. high technology export system - including encryption export laws - to allows companies to export products when those products are already readily available in foreign or mass markets, while building high walls around technologies of the highest sensitivity. The current system needlessly penalizes U.S. businesses while failing to strengthen our national security.

7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno

In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?

Bush:

The failure of the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization to launch a new round of global trade negotiations is a setback for America and the world.

Trade drives economic growth and high wage jobs. As we introduce American goods and services around the world, we will also introduce American values. To fuel continued economic growth, we need to tear down barriers abroad - and keep markets open at home. As President, I will work to pry open foreign markets and tear down barriers everywhere, entirely, so that the whole world trades in freedom.

The failure of the Seattle meeting represents a failure of leadership - internationally and domestically - by the Clinton-Gore Administration. Since the last trade round ended in 1995, the Administration has failed to build an international consensus in favor of further market-opening efforts.

The violent protests in the streets of Seattle also reflect the Administration's failure to build a domestic consensus in favor of free trade. In fact, this is the first administration in 25 years to fail to secure presidential trade negotiating authority from Congress.

With our trade deficit reaching a record high, we must recognize that our prosperity at home will suffer without new leadership to advance America's global economic interests.

We cannot turn our back on change. Rather, we have to help Americans prepare for change by embracing free trade, ensuring that every child is educated, cutting taxes on working families to increase their access to the middle class, and ensuring that no one is left behind.

Hagelin:

Globalization and corporate multinational control of government is a major concern of my campaign. America's crucial trade treaties, such as NAFTA, must be revisited and vigorously renegotiated--with adequate representation by labor, environmental, and human rights proponents to ensure that America's interests are truly upheld. In particular, the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its sweeping authority to adjudicate international trade disputes, has become a tool of multinational corporations, which have inside access to WTO negotiations that typically occur in secret. We would give the WTO twelve months to adopt more open, democratic procedures--with adequate labor, environmental and human rights input--or we would withdraw the U.S. from the WTO and negotiate individual, tailored trade relationships with America's various trade partners. These agreements would

• promote the economic welfare of all Americans;
• provide markets for our domestic small businesses;
• safeguard American employment and labor standards;
• protect human rights; and
• ensure that imported goods meet environmental and product safety standards.

8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed

Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?

Hagelin:

Scarce military resources are squandered on pork-barrel weapons like the $2 billion B2 bomber and the $60 billion flawed missile defense shield. As a scientist, I do not support the missile defense shield because it does not work. Similarly, I do not feel that military funds should be spent on asteroid defense.

(Gov. Bush did not answer this question.)

9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223

I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.

I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)

Bush:

Throughout this campaign I have said that our great prosperity must have a great purpose. The purpose of our prosperity should be to ensure that the American Dream touches every willing heart. We cannot afford to have an America segregated by class, by race or by aspiration. America must close the gap of hope between communities of prosperity and communities of poverty.

My priorities are to bring local control, high standards and character education to our public schools. To restore morale and shape a modern American military. To continue our prosperity and make our tax code fairer by cutting rates for every taxpayer, from the entrepreneur who creates jobs to the single mom working for a better life for her children. And my priorities are to save and strengthen Social Security and Medicare - to keep our commitment to the greatest generation, and enact reforms so that commitment is secure for generations next. Overall, I want to make sure that our prosperity has a purpose.

What I have learned from these months on the campaign trail is how much Americans have in common. Our faces and our landscapes are diverse and different - but the spirit of hope and renewal I saw at work in a drug rehabilitation program called Teen Challenge in Colfax, Iowa, is also at work in food pantries and after school programs and crisis pregnancy centers all across America.

These past eighteen months have reconfirmed my belief that the strength of America is found not in the halls of government, but in the hearts and souls of our people, and they deserve a government that respects and reflects their values.

The Americans who began choosing our next President tonight took a stand for a leader who unites, and an agenda that inspires. A messenger committed to bringing people together, and a message meant for every American.

If you are tired of the bitterness that poisons our politics, come join us. If you think that government should be less partisan and more practical, come join us. If you are weary of polls and posturing, of scandals and alibis, come join us.

I promise an administration that will bring out our best.

Hagelin:

Our national mission may seem obscure because government today is torn by conflicting national interests and faced with seemingly intractable challenges. This is because governmental theory and policy are rooted in obsolete 19th century principles. As a quantum physicist, I offer a profound and fresh new foundation for governmental administration -- one based upon the most modern and comprehensive scientific understanding of how Nature functions -- that will clarify and redefine our national mission. Unified quantum field theories have revealed the ultimate unity underlying all of life, and provide deep and practical insights into how to skillfully administer and harmonize society's diverse tendencies -- with the same organizing intelligence displayed throughout Nature. America's problems are human problems -- crime, drug dependency, domestic violence, even pollution result from a narrowness of vision that fails to comprehend life's essential unity. The only way we can overcome these problems is through the expansion of consciousness -- education that actualizes the full potential of the brain. I have spent the last quarter century conducting cutting edge research in unified quantum field theories, and have led an international scientific investigation into the nature and origin of human consciousness. The conclusion of these 25 years of research is that human consciousness, at its deepest level, and the unified field which underlies the whole of Nature, are one and the same. This means that human awareness, fully expanded, naturally comprehends the ultimate unity underlying all of humanity, earth's complex ecosystems, and indeed, the entire universe. It also means that the most profound appreciation of life's essential unity, described by the greatest physicists and philosophers of all traditions, is available to everyone through proper education. With this direct experience of life's essential unity, and with maximally expanded comprehension, individuals naturally behave in their own best long-term interests while promoting the interests of society as a whole -- action fully aligned with natural law. Thus today, 225 years after the birth of our nation, with our far more complete and profound scientific understanding of natural law, we can practically fulfill our Founders' dream of a self-governing nation, where all citizens naturally respect and promote each others' rights to life, liberty and happiness.

Cruachan writes: "Reuters reports that scientists in the United States have revived a 250-million-year-old bacteria that is believed to be the oldest living creature ever discovered. (The story is no longer available on the Reuters Web site.) The bacterium that lived millions of years before the dinosaurs was in a state of suspended animation in an ancient salt crystal in an underground cavern near Carlsbad, New Mexico." This is one of the most amazing things I've heard in a long time. [Updated 19 Oct.14:00GMT by timothy:] Reuters has since pulled it; look below for more links :)

Links that work are tough to come by sometimes -- emmett sent one to to BBC Coverage (with pictures!), while several folks contributed others, including this unnamed correspondent, who writes: "An article in the L.A. Times has an interesting story about a revived microbe which might have been locked in a crystal of salt for 250 million years." Additionally, readers pointed to the Reuters story, hosted on yahoo! Thanks for the links, everyone.

Shostykovich writes "There's a story here on the LA Times about some interesting organic-LED technology being explored by the likes of Kodak and IBM. These LEDs are made using "organic compounds", and they're hoping to replace LCDs with these in a few years." Light on tech talk, but they see to think that these could work for head displays.

Smitty825 writes: "The LA Times is reporting that scientists have discovered planets that have no sustaining stars. They are still pretty big (like 5-15 times Jupiter's size), but they are still too small to be considered Brown Dwarfs! Read the full story here." There's also a story in space.com.

Smitty825 writes: "The LA Times is reporting that scientists have discovered planets that have no sustaining stars. They are still pretty big (like 5-15 times Jupiter's size), but they are still too small to be considered Brown Dwarfs! Read the full story here." There's also a story in space.com.

Several folks noted this story running on the LA Times which talks about techie running rampant on drugs. Compares dot commers to the Wall Street druggies in the eighties. Fairly bleak picture actually. Personally I don't have time for anything more then whiskey (and even that seems to occur less and less as I get older).

RobTerrell writes "The FCC is now requiring that next-generation digital TVs and VCRs use anti-piracy feature so that programming can be tagged as copy-protected. " Not only will this slow HDTV adoptance even more, but it will make a lot of existing sets incompatible with formats. Thanks Uncle FCC.

Whatever happened to those drives at Los Alamos? Is my Mattell software worse than Back Orifice? Have the French courts cowed Yahoo!? Did I or didn't I buy a license for Windows? These and other ponderables have been glued in place below for your leisurely weekend perusal.

Can't you just see this happening at your workplace? snowbike writes: "The missing hard drives at Los Alamos have been found. Apparently they fell behind a copy machine. It will probably be attributed to the closure and evacuation associated with the fires. Read all about it at CNN. Looks like there is still plenty of heat to go around regarding this--now the UC contract to run the lab is in danger." OK. So a little bit of data went missing. Are you perfect? Are you saying you've never misplaced a floppy, or left a few nuclear secrets behind the copy machine? More coverage can be found at ABC News, at The L.A. Times and at The Washington Post .

This is for your own good. In regards to Xday's discussion of privacy violations in Mattel software, Moses Lawn writes: "I'm an ex-Broderbund programmer that wrote all of the code for this, and I just posted a comment about exactly what it does, how, and why. It's actually pretty benign. (Hopefully my comment wound up in the right place - first-time posting and all.)"

Not a single Earth-destroying collision yet! People are pretty excited at Brookhaven National Laboratory, as RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) just saw its first collisions. There are pictures and a press release here. That page also has links to some animations and more info on how RHIC and its component systems work. RHIC is the new particle accelerator at Brookhaven. Its main goal (among many) is to look for a quark-gluon plasma. This is the result of about 18 years of work, and it will be the premiere facility for high-energy physics research until about 2008.

Tell me again how this makes things easier? snoogans writes "I just received this from my Dell account rep. As deep a hole as Microsoft has dug, do they really need to do this? How can they force all OEM's to implement this BIOS lock thing?

'The contents of the OS media kits that are shipped with Dell systems for Windows 95, Windows 98SE, and Windows NT4 will be changed as of June 1,2000 (New OS media kits are already shipping for Windows 2000 Professional) Systems impacted: All OptiPlex, Dimension, Precision, Latitude, and Inspiron systems. Implementation will be worldwide and include all languages. Why? The changes to the OS media kits are required by Microsoft in an effort to reduce software piracy What is changing (exactly) Dell-branded OS media replaces the Microsoft-generic OS media. Artwork on CD will change from "Microsoft Windows X" to "Dell Product Recovery CD -- Windows XX" In addition to a copy of the OS, the OS media will include a BIOS lock that prevents the OS media from being installed on a non-Dell system. Microsoft requires the BIOS lock to help prevent software piracy. The set-up diskettes have been removed because customers can now boot directly from the CD The functionality of the OS media remains the same -- whenever the user is asked to insert the "Microsoft Windows XX" CD, such as when they are reinstalling the OS or when they are changing the configuration of their system -- they will use the Dell Product Recovery CD The Certificate of Authentication (COA) will no longer be attached to the front of the Product documentation. Instead, it will be on a label affixed to the outside of the system chassis. The COA label should not be removed from the chassis -- the label will tear into small pieces if there is an attempt to remove it and it will become unusable. The product key located on the COA label is a mechanism used by Microsoft to ensure that the operating system loaded on the system is legal - the product key cannot be used by other users to compromise the security of the system. Your ability to re-install the OS from CD has not changed, the Dell Product Recovery CD replaces the functionality available in the Microsoft OS media kits'"

It would be great if hordes of programmers and interface designers worlwide would come up with a freely distributable alternative that was more stable than Windows and obviated the need for such presumption.;)

Blowing their nose in the general direction. MissKitty writes: "Even though I deplore Naziism and have got to wonder about the people who collect this stuff as memorabilia, I was amused that someone had the guts to tell the French Court to push off. Under French law it is illegal to exhibit or sell objects with racist overtones. They were wanting for Yahoo to filter France's access to these things (that came up on their auction site). "Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of Web surfers is very naive," Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! said. Score one for political incorrectness."

osm writes: "Using nanoplotter pens dipped into organic molecules, this device has drawn structures with lines 15 nanometers wide. This could be used to produce circuits several orders of magnitude smaller than what is currently possible. Full story is on latimes.com." Understanding the fundamental processes of electron and ion transport and chemical reactions that occur within such films is vital to the development of new molecule-based chemical sensors, opti- cal switches, electrocatalysts, nanofabrication technology, and other electronic and photonic devices," says the Web site of Dr. Chad Mirkin, head of the team involved in this research.

osm writes: "Using nanoplotter pens dipped into organic molecules, this device has drawn structures with lines 15 nanometers wide. This could be used to produce circuits several orders of magnitude smaller than what is currently possible. Full story is on latimes.com." Understanding the fundamental processes of electron and ion transport and chemical reactions that occur within such films is vital to the development of new molecule-based chemical sensors, opti- cal switches, electrocatalysts, nanofabrication technology, and other electronic and photonic devices," says the Web site of Dr. Chad Mirkin, head of the team involved in this research.

brusk writes: "An article from this Sunday's Los Angeles Times is a fascinating investigation of the background to the Caltech spinoff company that produced and sells the DNA sequencer that will be responsible for a complete draft of the human genome within a month or two. It appears that despite denials by the developers and Caltech, millions in NSF and other federal grants went into the development of the sequencer. This is supposed to give federal agencies large discounts on their purchases of sequencers and input into how the devices are marketed. This has interesting implications for the future of these for-profit spinoffs from academe. Perhaps even more significantly, the article raises questions about whether the patent application misrepresented the development process, which could invalidate the company's patent on the sequencing technology. This could shake up biotech world."

shinar writes: "In the LA Times, AirFiber announced the July/August avaliability of a new last-mile replacement for fiber: a wireless laser system delivering up to 622 mbps. It's a short-range system, mainly viewed as a delivery system within cities. It's being tested in Dallas, Tokyo, and Madrid, and projected for first commercial release in July or August. Not huge or revolutionary-a few other companies are working on the same sort of thing-but it might be a blessing for people in high-population density areas. "

jesser writes, "The L.A. Times reports that a Web site operator is suing image search engine Ditto over copyright infringement. A lower court has already found Ditto to be exercising 'fair use' legally. One wonders why the Web site operator isn't happy that people can actually find his Web site, and also why he didn't submit his page to an image search with more money behind it ... and then sue it instead of Ditto." Here's the courtopinion - don't know how much longer that URL will be valid.

A couple of people pointed us to this good article summarizing UCITA. Will it do any good? Probably not. But we remain hopeful.

Christopher Pereda sends us a LA Times story about IBM demonstrating atomic scale circuitry. Or see IBM's press release. Who needs Coppermine?

peter303 writes "Todays LA Times has an article on how high speed InterNet access (defined as 10 Mbit ethernet in your dormroom or 100+ times T-1/ISDN/fast modem) is revolutionizing college life: such things as routine streaming video and free long distance phone calls. It is creating a generation of "speed-junkies" that is affecting college admissions, employment and housing decisions, and propelling consumer demand for high bandwidth pipes. " Bandwidth convinced me to move on campus. The lack of bandwidth nearly kept me there (despite paying like 4x as much as I did simply renting a house nearby). Its very true.

rillian writes "Gary Chapman has an interesting take on the geekness-autism connection in his Digital Nation column in the Los Angeles Times: So what? Some of us are offended by this connection because it makes us even less normal, but he points at the opposing point of view: that the concerns of 'normal' people can be shallow and don't advance civilization. We need more Edisons, not more pop stars."

mathowie writes "Here's my notes from the 30th Internet anniversary event that took place at UCLA on Thursday. This is a very long, very detailed piece, but worth your time to read if you're interested in learning where the Internet might be heading in the next 5 - 10 years. A Recap of the 30th Anniversary of the Internet Celebration at UCLA September 2, 1999 by Matthew Haughey

Thirty years ago today, the first communication between the Interface Message Processor (IMP) and a host computer took place in a Computer Science Lab at UCLA. The ARPAnet was born, with four nodes by the end of 1969. Today amid the current explosion of Internet growth, the pioneers gathered along with the forerunners of the internet revolution to commemorate that first event and talk about where we are today and where we go from here.

As I walked in, I caught Leonard Kleinrock in the lobby being mobbed by reporters doing interviews in front of the original IMP. As you can see in the photo, several local news and radio outlets covered the event. I had hoped to see some of the footage on the 11 o'clock news, but as I write this, it's just after 11:30, and I only saw a few seconds and quick mention on one of the network news shows.

After 20 minutes of mulling around past the original start time, The Chancellor started off the event with a quick welcome and general speech about how the internet has spread and enriched our lives. The Chair of the Engineering School at UCLA spoke next for about 15 minutes, discussing the impact of Leonard Kleinrock's achievements and Len's great rapport with his former students.

Len Kleinrock took the stage and recounted the 20th Anniversary event, which was a symposium held at UCLA, the 25th Anniversary event, which was held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a recent gathering just a few days ago up in Stanford. Those events, he said, focused on the rich history of how the ARPAnet was built and how it eventually lead up what we call The Internet today. Rather than delve into the past, he went on, today's event was going to center around where the Internet will lead us into the future. I was a bit surprised at first, but relieved that I wasn't going to see a rehash of the history, but a refreshing dialogue between the brilliant set of panelists of what they felt was to come.

Dr. Kleinrock then laid down the ground rules for the day. There would be four panels, and he would act as chair of the event, introducing each moderator. He introduced the first panel, titled "Gorillas", which was supposed to represent the proverbial 900 lb. gorillas of the Internet industry. Joining the moderator, Kipling Hagopian of Brentwood Venture Capital were Christine Hemrick of Cisco, Daniel Rosen of Microsoft, George Vradenburg of AOL, and Ronald Whittier of Intel.

Everyone on the panel was in good spirits and took some gentle jabs from the moderator. When the moderator made a joke about the justice department's crackdown on Microsoft, the representatives of Microsoft and AOL both praised the low regulation of the industry thus far and accredited their rapid and extreme growth with the "hands off" policy of the U.S. government. They also stated their support for ICANN and the deregulation of the Internet's domain namespace.

In response to a question about the growth of Cisco, Christine Hemrick praised openness and non-ownership of industry standards like TCP/IP. Since no one owned TCP/IP, she said, anyone could start a company that based their communications on that protocol. The moderator asked several questions about bringing broadband into the home, and whether cable or DSL would be the key technology. Ms. Hemrick stressed that wireless technologies might surpass the capabilities and availability of cable and DSL very soon, which was a good thing to hear.

The panelists were a sharp group of people. Whenever a question about upcoming technology was posed, they acknowledged the fact that the industry moves so fast that no one knows what we will be using in 5 years for any specific technology. They pointed to the audience several times and said that someone among us could start a new company tomorrow with technology that could blow away anything their corporations had done before. When the panel was asked about the longevity of their large corporations, they agreed that scalability was important, to grow with the industry, but trying to stay as close as possible to customers and continuing to address their needs was also important.

All the panelists talked about how hard it was to stay ahead of everyone, to continue as industry leaders with so many competitors on their heels. When asked about the future, one panelist commented that soon the term "e-commerce" would be meaningless, due to a blurring between conventional commerce and commerce done over the Internet. Someday soon, they said, every business would have some aspect of it that would be Internet related. All in all, the four panelists were charismatic, well-spoken, and a hip bunch, making a few jokes about Al Gore inventing the Internet.

The second panel was for the people behind recent industry successes, titled "Netpreneurs." It was moderated by Willem Mesdag of Goldman Sachs and the panelists were David Bohnett, founder of GeoCities, Eric Brewer, co-founder of Inktomi, Sky Dayton, founder of EarthLink, John Payne, CEO of Stamps.com, and Henry Sameueli, co-founder of Broadcom.

It was amazing that no company represented on the panel was created before 1991, with most of them formed in either 1995 or 1996, yet they all had market caps of at least a billion dollars each. Overall, the second panel wasn't as interesting as the first bunch of panelists, some of their answers sounded like a press release. This was especially true for Sky Dayton, who sounded like he was repeating his radio commercials in response to every question he was asked. When asked how they became successful, each panelist talked about how their company filled a void not covered by a larger company, and how they could move faster than a large corporation. Sky Dayton stressed this, the size of your company compared to your competitors was unimportant. What mattered most was the speed at which you could respond to changes in the industry, economy, and customer base. He said that if you were starting a new company, focus on one specific area of the market, and stick to it. Don't try to be monolithic agencies that can do everything like Microsoft tries to be, he said, just do one thing really well and you can emerge as a market leader. He also pitched his new company eCompanies.com for budding entrepreneurs, they are setting up a clearinghouse of new ideas, and intend to fund business plans that catch their eye. When asked about the potential for new companies Dayton said something interesting, he estimated that the development of the Internet as a "thing" was about 20% done at most. That even in 1999, we were just barely scratching the surface of what is possible, he said. Overall the session was enlightening and I came away with a new found enthusiasm to get my ideas out the door.

The third panel was perhaps the most interesting. It was titled "eConsumers" and was moderated by Patt Morrison of the LA Times, who was joined by John Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jeffrey Cole, director of UCLA's Center for Communication Policy, Alan Kay, VP of Imagineering at Disney, and Dan Lynch, founder of Cybercash.

Although the panel was supposed to focus only on consumer issues, the topics discussed ran the gamut, from personal privacy issues to numerous "what if" scenarios of our future ultra-wired world, and the social implications of each. Patt Morrison moderated as a sort of devil's advocate, asking for the panel's reaction to several cynical questions like trusting e-commerce vendors, internet rumors becoming news, and how our lives may be hindered by the burden of technology. Surprisingly, the panel, which had varied opinions on most topics, all found something positive in each question and future scenario. An ebay deal gone bad meant a user could learn to be more careful of sellers, news could not be trusted and should be approached with skepticism, and our lives could be made much better by an increased use of technology by saving us time spent on mundane tasks like paying bills or waiting in lines while shopping.

Intellectual property and copyright issues were discussed, where John Barlow and Alan Kay agreed that intellectual property was dead, and that ideas should be given away freely. Mr. Barlow talked about how every article he's written is freely available online, which allows him to generate revenue from unwritten works. Publishers can see all his writing, he went on, and they pay for new pieces to be written. He said he didn't worry about copyright, because his most valuable ideas were the ones he hasn't had yet. John said it was the philosophy behind the Grateful Dead (whom he wrote songs for); they allowed their shows to be freely taped and exchanged, and they derived revenue from people wanting to see them perform live.

Alan and John also talked about how a lot of intellectual property is meaningless to much of the population, that a technical idea is so complex that few people understand it, regardless of whether or not it is in the public domain. Dr. Kay used Linux as an example of this, the kernel is so complex that one in a million people can understand it all and contribute programming expertise. But with the advent of the Internet, he added, finding that one in a million is easy, and 100 or more people can be brought together to work on it. He praised the development of the ARPAnet because it was open, allowing researchers from all over to contribute to a greater good, and said in today's climate a large corporation would probably try to make much of it proprietary and hinder its development.

When asked how Linux can generate revenue, Alan said that like the Grateful Dead example, giving away Linux meant that large fees could be found in consulting, helping companies use the technology to their advantage. He then mentioned something that dropped just about everyone's jaw: he said that the company with the biggest revenue in the computer industry was not Microsoft, but IBM's consulting business, which he said brings in double the revenue that Microsoft does selling software, just by showing companies how to use technology in their business (which Linux is a part of). Alan Kay stood out as an extremely articulate guy with numerous enlightened answers, and everyone on the panel had great things to say about what the future might be like.

The fourth and final panel, titled "Beyond Today's Internet" was moderated by Stephen Segaller of WNET, the PBS station behind the Triumph of the Nerds series. He was joined by the four pioneers of the original ARAPnet, Vinton Cerf, now with MCI, Robert Kahn, now with the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Leonard Kleinrock, of the UCLA Computer Science Department, and Lawrence Roberts, now of Packetcom

Along with the theme of the day's event, the forefathers of today's Internet focused solely on the future. Since they all have networking backgrounds, the first question was whether or not the network could keep up with client demands. The four panelists unanimously agreed that the capacity of the network would continue to expand at a rate greater than our immediate needs. They acknowledged the limits of the current IP naming system, and that IPv6 would expand the limit of addresses to near 10^38. Len Kleinrock had a problem with these imposed limits and Vint Cerf joked that 10^38 IP addresses would mean enough for "a web page for every molecule on earth." Len clarified his protest and stated that we should instead design variable length solutions to the problem, solutions that offer unlimited means. When asked about limits of physical devices like routers handling packet switching, they agreed that packet switching would probably be replaced by an unknown technology, and that physical capacities of networks would increase with the increased use of fiber. Len said instead of digital packets traveling through copper wire, in the future, it would just be pulses of light traveling along fiber. They all spoke of the proposed growth of the Internet, to surpass one billion people online in the next decade, and they mentioned something that was discussed briefly on an earlier panel; that someday soon, anything you buy over a certain price, say $25, would offer connectivity to the internet for a specific reason. Not a toaster that checks email, but each appliance would use the Internet for communication purposes.

This was another reason Len used to support unlimited IP addressing, due to the fact that billions of devices would need to access the internet. Questions asked by the moderator were mostly big picture, and the panel discussed them at that level. They talked about distant futures, when billions of people would be interacting with billions of devices, we would see drastic changes in Human-Computer interaction. They even alluded to the similarities between an enormous interconnected network of people and machines approaching the complexity of organic beings. The panel agreed with earlier panels that what were are witnessing is bigger than the industrial revolution. The knowledge explosion, as many called it, was going to fundamentally change how we do everything in the future.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. Among all the speakers and panelists, there were several messages that came across. The mood of everyone thinking about the future was one of optimism and opportunity. The interconnecting of everyone person on earth will trigger a knowledge revolution that will have deep, drastic changes on our lives and those around us. But if these future developments are met with some skepticism, and intelligence, it will undoubtedly be a good thing.

Matthew Haughey September 3, 1999

My photos from the event can be seen here

"

An anonymous reader wrote in "According to this article in the LA Times, the web is "contracting." No, the number of sites is not decreasing, but web users are visiting the same sites more often & other sites less often. Interesting. The article has some good stats. "

An anonymous reader wrote in "According to this article in the LA Times, the web is "contracting." No, the number of sites is not decreasing, but web users are visiting the same sites more often & other sites less often. Interesting. The article has some good stats. "

ectospasm writes "This article in the Los Angeles Times is a brief history of the squirt gun, with it's main focus on Super Soaker, the undisputed champion of the water arms race. Interesting because the original Super Soaker idea was the brainchild of a Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer. I especially like what they say about a forth-coming product line aimed at college-aged children. ;-) " I need a big honkin, uber efficient squirt gun for sniping these kids that keep ringing my doorbell and running.

ectospasm writes "This article in the Los Angeles Times is a brief history of the squirt gun, with it's main focus on Super Soaker, the undisputed champion of the water arms race. Interesting because the original Super Soaker idea was the brainchild of a Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer. I especially like what they say about a forth-coming product line aimed at college-aged children. ;-) " I need a big honkin, uber efficient squirt gun for sniping these kids that keep ringing my doorbell and running.

richnut writes "Here's an interesting LA Times article on the negative side of being a well-paid techie in today's industry. " Talks about burnout, stress, boredom, restlessness, and all the other things that so many of us get used to before quitting and moving on. Been through that twice...

richnut writes "Here's an interesting LA Times article on the negative side of being a well-paid techie in today's industry. " Talks about burnout, stress, boredom, restlessness, and all the other things that so many of us get used to before quitting and moving on. Been through that twice...

At the end of this interview with Michael Dell: Where is [alternative operating system] Linux going? A: I've been surprised. We had a commercial customer order 250 machines with Linux on them to run a retail network of stores. There is growing demand there. We're going to start selling Linux to single-party users very soon. Q: It's going to be on the menu? A: Yes. You'll go to Dell, pull down "operating system," and click "Linux."

Rob Cresswell writes "I know its not very linux/gnome/etc... related, but look at this link. Seems a few holdouts have axed the H1-visa extension that passed in the house and senate (last week?). This is yet another example of out government being out of touch with the convergence of reality and the tech industries. For the full story: poke here Even the proposed number of visas is very small. We all know the gap between open people and open jobs in our industries and we've all watched the US slide behind the world -- what's the deal? I, for one, plan to find the vote list on this one" Ho hum, one /. editor's wife may not be able to find a job because of this...

Rob Cresswell writes "I know its not very linux/gnome/etc... related, but look at this link. Seems a few holdouts have axed the H1-visa extension that passed in the house and senate (last week?). This is yet another example of out government being out of touch with the convergence of reality and the tech industries. For the full story: poke here Even the proposed number of visas is very small. We all know the gap between open people and open jobs in our industries and we've all watched the US slide behind the world -- what's the deal? I, for one, plan to find the vote list on this one" Ho hum, one /. editor's wife may not be able to find a job because of this...

Kurt Gray writes "So why did the US blow up a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan? Because they're web site sucked! Seriously, check out this article in today's L.A. Times which mentions "...the [U.S.] officials said they did not believe that the plant actually produced such medicines, because they saw no evidence of such an output when they accessed a Web site for it."" Wonder what they do to people use use the BLINK tag?

D. Koppenheffer writes "LA Times has a story on Linux this morning." As well, Corey Saltiel sent us an article by Petreley about the in-fighting within the Linux community. Read more here.

greg writes "I found this story on the front page of the LA times. Its all about the phenomenom of LAN parties and people who participate in online communities seeking real face to face contact, and of course quake. "