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I believe this was announced last week on MyHomeTechie.com.

It's amazing what passes for news here ; get up to speed!

Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:

2001-01-11 20:10:14 Canadian Internet Access (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-02-28 21:34:29 New security exploit puts companies at risk (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-03-12 06:38:52 DMoZ promotes the wrong people (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-04-06 01:17:08 Bearshare = Spyware (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-08-17 22:07:40 Open Sourcing your Telephone (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-09-30 22:39:32 ECA's Programming contest at the Eggforge (articles,programming) (rejected)
2001-10-09 14:34:13 Network Solutions resorts to Telemarketing (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-11-27 18:49:49 The "Courtesy" Support Team (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-11-27 19:34:42 Has anyone on slashdot ever gotten a story publish (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2002-06-03 21:09:19 Slashdot, Slashcode and the W3C (askslashdot,internet) (rejected)

Summary:

rejected (10)

Interesting the last question was regarding slashdot's outdated code.

You want real news? Me too.

Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:

2001-01-11 20:10:14 Canadian Internet Access (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-02-28 21:34:29 New security exploit puts companies at risk (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-03-12 06:38:52 DMoZ promotes the wrong people (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-04-06 01:17:08 Bearshare = Spyware (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-08-17 22:07:40 Open Sourcing your Telephone (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-09-30 22:39:32 ECA's Programming contest at the Eggforge (articles,programming) (rejected)
2001-10-09 14:34:13 Network Solutions resorts to Telemarketing (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-11-27 18:49:49 The "Courtesy" Support Team (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-11-27 19:34:42 Has anyone on slashdot ever gotten a story publish (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2002-06-03 21:09:19 Slashdot, Slashcode and the W3C (askslashdot,internet) (rejected)

Summary:

rejected (10)

Interesting the last question was regarding slashdot's outdated code.

You want real news? Me too.

Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:

2001-01-11 20:10:14 Canadian Internet Access (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-02-28 21:34:29 New security exploit puts companies at risk (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-03-12 06:38:52 DMoZ promotes the wrong people (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-04-06 01:17:08 Bearshare = Spyware (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-08-17 22:07:40 Open Sourcing your Telephone (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-09-30 22:39:32 ECA's Programming contest at the Eggforge (articles,programming) (rejected)
2001-10-09 14:34:13 Network Solutions resorts to Telemarketing (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-11-27 18:49:49 The "Courtesy" Support Team (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2001-11-27 19:34:42 Has anyone on slashdot ever gotten a story publish (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
2002-06-03 21:09:19 Slashdot, Slashcode and the W3C (askslashdot,internet) (rejected)
Summary:

rejected (10)

You want real news? Me too.

"Watching him, it dawned on me that this was something that was very easy to do," Webb said. "In the Mac world it's pretty easy to plug in and copy things. It's a lot easier than stealing the box."

Welcome to computers Webb. In the any digital device at all world, it's pretty easy to copy things. It's what digital devices do.

He must have been flabbergasted, like if someone saw how easy it is to steal OsX off the internet, or in an office where two computers are networked, or where people own "CD BURNERS". They're not just for the elite anymore, Webb. Maybe that's why zitty teenagers who make $5.00 an hour ignored you. My grandmother wouldn't give a sh!t.

Now watch as everybody who reads this article talks about how the iPod is a great tool for piracy. Morons.

This is a better web community.

----
-=A file folder with a hammer and chisel on top ... how honest can you be =-
----

I think your experience was just a coincidence. It may be because IE just sucks and couldn't load the page properly. Unfortunately, I have to use windows regularly - but I do have a Debian partition that I get a lot of use out of. Let me tell you, you can't take the whole Microsoft sucks thing too far.

I checked my connection log with IE 6.0 and, also I got the web page. No rejection.

New computer user help & resources are going to do really well as a result of this post.

I believe the easiest way to setup a good firewall is to find an old system (or assemble one). A 486 66mhz with 16MB of ram works incredibly well; but an even lesser system is also good.

Put in two Ethernet cards, and install Coyote linux. A distribution that works off of a standard 1.44Mb Floppy Disk. It reads its config. and binaries from the disk at bootup, and never touches the disk again - to ensure the drive lasts as long as possible, as well as the disk.

This solution is so good, (in my humble opinion), that just last year me and my makeshift consulting company were selling 486 boxes configured for just this purpose at about $300CDN. 1 of the 5 boxes we sold went defunct; it's Cmos battary died. So we replaced the whole box (for nothing) to save time and still made an 'ok' profit.

The benefit to using a whole system, especially an outdated one is the amount of customization you can make to the firewall; ie: displaying attacks of a certain nature on the monitor, respond to attacks of a certain nature maliciously, and automatically. etc. etc. And it's cheap. Super cheap!

The only disadvantage to Coyote is that the distro. doesn't support HDDs, so you can't keep extensive log files.

I would only buy Hardware Routing / Firewall Devices for small business that may wish to go with another, less "knowledgable" consulting company in the near future. Otherwise, Linux boxes are the best for Networking.

Check it out:
Coyote Linux Dot Com

Ace905
[Admin] www.MyHomeTechie.com

QUiCK, STOP P0STING!!!

It's an April Fools Joke. The RFC was written 1, APRIL 2001. It is not written well, and it was obviously done in a hurry.

It mentions many times over that "we respect the right of people to use a firewall"; yet the RFC proposes circumventing a firewall completely at every level. It is a JOKE.

What's more is, and I'm sure somebody could argue this; but HTTP uses UDP connections. The entire TCP/IP Protocol suite requires TCP connections which are more complicated than simple UDP - using HTTP a true TCP connection is impossible.

The pranksters are probably network admins themselves, and thought it would be funny to write an RFC that claims employees on an internal network are actually smart enough to decide which of their programs are good - which is why the mention, "Best of all, no need to bother a network admin".

Just thought I'd mention it so I can start hating every idiot who posts on this one.

Since this idea is so easy to circumvent, I sure hope they don't get rid of the CDR tax ideas they've implemented.

I can't wait to pay tax for CD's I haven't illegally copied, and not be able to copy CD's I have a right to copy.

I'm sorry, did that sound sarcastic?

If this product you've been working on for 6 months is only 50 hours from completion, then I would tell the company you're 6 months ahead of developement on it; you want the rights to it, and you're willing to sell it. Tell them it's their best solution.

If you want to be sneaky, have a friend of yours register a company and tell the company you're working for that a company with the same product already exists; then split the money with your friend 90/10 and retain the rights.

In any event, if I were the owner of even a fairly large business, I would be more than happy to hear a potential solution for a client was 6 months ahead of completion; I would personally look at it as a sale you wouldn't have gotten on your own, and split the profit but not the rights with the company.

I'm guessing the situation is more complicated than that, could you explain why?

While this technology may not be new, implementing it for fairly cheap and with competition may be a step in the right direction for a number of reasons.

The competition will induce aggressive advertising strategies; getting more people and small business away from modems (those who otherwise wouldn't be swayed by the hype of only two competing 100MBs ISPs (it's two in canada)); it will allow faster communications once it is developed more (ie: transmitting varying light frequencies from the same location does not cause interference as is caused by electromagnetic waves).

I think it will also put us closer to quantum-encryption between server and client, which will improve privacy. In the long run, I envision light-based communications will take over current wire-based technology. I think we all do.

"Let's see: you take carbon (coal) and oxygen (air) and run a chemical reaction to give you carbon dioxide and energy. Then you add a bacterium and light and get back (Ta Da!) carbon and oxygen."

First of all, there's nothing wrong with this equation - except that you left out the concept of losing mass to energy creation. Since so much energy is contained in mass - it makes sense that you would be able to keep converting your material back and forth and getting energy; it's just that the material shrinks a la everything else in the world, ie: not free energy.

Secondly, in any chemical reaction - there are always other compounds produced from reactions in some amount, some are completely unstable and break down into something else, some aren't... ie: you would also get, Carbon monoxide, Cyanide... and a slew of other carbon-something compounds; just in smaller amounts, so mass is lost that way.

I agree with you 100%, why not just use the solar power and not the plant - well because the solar power can not at this time be converted well into direct useable energy. In a very real way, this will utilize solar power if the recombinant carbon could be used again.

unfortunately your entire argument is flawed in that carbon in fact does not combust. To combine stable C2 with oxygen you need to actually add energy to break it apart and have it recombine with oxygen. I do believe the energy required is more than the energy gained by the fusion of C and O2. As these guys note, "the basis for most coals, is a large, carbon-based molecule that makes up 30 percent of vascular plants such as trees.". Coal is made up of carbon based molecules and not carbon itself.

This is why when you have a fire, you are left with black ash that does not burn; Carbon.

"An intelligent reactor design (such as Candu) operated by well-trained individuals would never suffer such a catastrophe."

This really isn't an accurate statement. I am not disagreeing with you, Nuclear Energy is probably the best energy source for today; as well as Solar Power which feeds energy back into the electric grid (thereby, eliminating the need for nuclear energy by over 100% if everybody did it, and it was a government funded project). Anyways, I'm getting off topic.

The problem with complicated, dangerous (potentially dangerous?) technology is that you can look at it and say, "That was old technology, new technology won't do that". The truth is, new technology has not been tested as long as old technology; and in reality, new technology is always new, and never the technology being used everywhere; so it is not possible (in this case) to forgive the use of dangerous technology worldwide with a few examples of some new reactors running in a few small locations.

What's more is, Nuclear Technology is very expensive. A Nuclear Power plant is not something that just springs up over-night on a whim. The very nature of dependance and cost of Nuclear Technology makes it a dangerous thing. Should a problem be found in new reactor designs, or a problem occurs in the many tiny unique variables that effect nuclear power production at any facility; the technology is still going to be used for a long, long time. Until it is forcibily removed by government, or a serious disaster occurs. It is simply too expensive, and even most politicians will turn a blind-eye when they realize the risk of running a dangerous plant is less than the sure-statement that it must be replaced at a serious cost to taxpayers.

If you are looking for some examples of serious Nuclear mishaps, you will be very surprised by "Greenpeaces Guide To The Nuclear Age". Chernobyl was only one of many many disasters that have occured worldwide; many have occured in the US and Canada that nobody has even heard of, and they were very serious. The first Meltdown of a Nuclear Reactor actually occured in Canada.

On a personal note, I have a relative who used to work as an electrical engineer for a very large design and fabrication company you all know. They were contracted by a Nuclear plant, which was considered a very very small contract - for public-relations more than anything else, they did a quote on some fabrication of Printed Circuit Boards which were to control their reactor (Serious stuff). The quote was way below margin, and the plant thought it was too much!
"We really sharpened our pencils on this one! How can that be too much? These boards run the whole plant!"

The answer? Because the staff at the plant itself were actually designing, and building the controlling circuitry AT HOME, as it was needed! Very smart people, whose HOBBIES were Electronics were doing this stuff At Home. That too never made the papers.

There's a lot to Nuclear Energy that is scary besides Meltdowns, such as leaks, dumping(storage) of useless highly radioactive material, accidents which cause serious leaks (ie: the heavy water-barrier is super heated, causes an explosion or burst but manages to stop the reaction). I don't trust any industry that has to make commercials saying, "Nuclear Energy is Safe!", but they can't explain why, even in simple terms.

"I'm surprised they haven't mentioned the TINI from iButton."

I've spoken to different representatives from Dallas Semiconductor in the past year, and have come to the conclusion that they are not a good company for the Unix-loving community to support.

They are not interested in the ingenuity and progress end-users often add to 'open' products such as their iButton, or TINI TCP/IP stack Chip. They are nothing more than a company of glutenous exec's, looking to sell millions of units to other large companies; They have no feel for the general publics willingness to contribute to new products.

I realize I sound like I'm describing every company out there, but hey; Even Microsoft tries to speak to its customers, game companies are switching platforms, and almost any large company looking to develop products which can be modified; want the general public to be happy and 'in-the-know' so they will feel a need to contribute to those products. This is not the case with Dallas SemiConductor.

Case in point. I was working at a small computer networking company in Ottawa a year ago, when 2600 magazine published an article on the iButton. I ordered one out of interest, and to become familiar with coding for it. Later the company I worked for mentioned it would be interesting if we could offer cryptographic ID rings to our customers that would log-them-in to their workstations. So I did some more research.

And came up with a few questions for "DS", 1 in particular: what protects computers from static when the wearer walks accross a room and plugs straight in to the serial port?

DS response, "why does it matter?",
me, "Because we may be ordering these for connecting to servers and workstations at our clients business's"
DS, "Look, we sell lots of these, there's nothing wrong with static"
me, "Ok well, do you have any information to support that? Do you have white-papers with measured voltage levels on connection?"
DS, "All the white-papers are online."

The online white-papers (at the time) contained little useful information; and this man knew there was no detailed information in their on it. (I know this because, my question before this was, "do you have more detailed white papers with data on")...

My point? I think Linux/FreeUnix has enough pull now-a-days to demand a certain, small amount of interest from companies offering new, end-user configurable products. After all, it was the OpenSource community that made SEGA stay in the market with inferior products, they've added to the success of the Palm Pilot, etc. etc. All examples of the Opensource community modifying, or changing new products are because the companies who offer them,
1) *do* take an interest in end-user opinions,
2) they are interesed in innovation, and they
3) *do* provide important technical information on their products to end users.

Opensource has done little to help Microsoft, because they have missed out on the last requirement for innovation.

"Just do it on a server, a system that the user of the program doesn't have access to. Really simple."

I believe this would require the company coming in, installing it themselves and guarding the server. It would also require that the server have no other connection options or possible access hacks.

If you mean that companies provide their software through internet connections; that is far beyond today's bandwidth possibilities for all useable software, and you would either be replacing hackable main-software programs with cracked login programs, or you would be cracking simple logins.

This is beyond feasible, and is still susceptable for the same reasons; however you access it, part of the security relies on your access through software which is open for you to view and use however you wish (ultimately).

People are talking about posting more complicated messages to give instructions on building devices for communication.

In the least, this would show a need for communication between ourselves and another civilization; I believe it would be possible for 1 very simple reason.

The periodic table is as self-evident to an advanced culture as the number system, elements are formed in the table one after the other, and so with a little work we could send anything so long as we use diagrams.

I think it would be a great cosmic disaster to send plans for an atomic bomb to a race which has just mastered radio communications; what's more is, it would be very very funny.

A good example of the problem with converting radio waves to sound waves:

These radio waves were detected at very low frequencies. That means they have a very long wavelength; (ie:) physically, their wave length could be measured in meters.

When you convert this to sound, you end up with base of such a low wavelength, a modern speaker probably could not produce it. If it could, it would probably be outside the range of human hearing. If you could hear it, it would be very bass-y, and not high-pitched such as in the example.

This means that in even a direct translation to audible sound, the radio waves frequency was shifted into the audible sound-wave spectrum. This also means the researchers decided exactly how much to shift it, and so it really *doesn't* sound like the radio wave would -- could your ears hear radio waves.

"if you've ever wondered what it sounds like out there, this is it."

I'm sure people are going to mention this, so I thought I'd be first;

There is *no* sound in space. None at all.

I'm not saying that these audio clips are not interesting, or that they don't necessarily contain some sort of useful data. But the fulfillment factor in listening to these should be the same as looking at a graph of x vs. y; because if you think about it, way out in the cold depths of space, your ears do not pick up sound because there is no medium to transfer sound.

What's more is, were a small event to occur which normally should be heard here on earth, ie; two small rocks colaid; you wouldn't hear that either, because these are radio waves. Larger events, you can hear, but they are a reflection of things you do not see or relate to properly, since once again, these are radio waves and not vibrational waves caused by friction.

My point is, don't believe the hype: when people tell you it's possible to get a CD of sounds from space, what you're really getting is a small selection of the huge radio-spectrum converted to screechy, unintelligible garble. For that matter, it is possible to give any radio signal a certain characteristic (ie: easy to listen to, noisy screeching) because you decide the method used to represent that wave as a sound wave; since they are wholly different.

Who's to say that these radio-waves to sound-waves you hear would even sound the same were another person to take the raw data and convert it to sound; they probably wouldn't. So really, you're hearing 1 person (or 1 small group of peoples) interpretation of data put to unintelligible garble.

I hate fads.

"Well the first half says it must not release too much EMF, while the second half says the equipment must behave relatively reasonably if, for some reason, it does recieve too much EMF.

And what is a reasonable reaction to EMF, and why should a devices reaction to EMF be governed by law in such a vague way?

It doesn't state that, "The device must operate properly under the influence of EMF"; and if it did, I suspect the law would be much more eleborate in terms of the EMF Signal Strength a device is expected to operate normally under the influence of.

It only states the device must "accept" EMF. It doesn't say that, "EMF" should or should not effect the operation of the device in a desirable way, only that the device must be able to accept it.

I've always wondered if the FCC's requirements for small radio transmitters/receivers ever had anything to do with keeping TEMPEST technology at the forefront of Big-Brother's Eavesdropping.

For example, check any electronic device such as your computer Monitor, and you will find a required FCC label which reads:

"This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) this device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation. "

Now why would anybody care if your home computer monitor was able to accept Interference? And for that matter, what does it mean to be able to 'accept' interference. I don't believe it is illegal to Shield your monitor internally, or to place a Lead cover on all sides, or to Coat the entire thing in copper-sheets and ground them all...

So what does it mean to say, "It must accept interference" - as a whole, if the device itself must accept any radio signals which touch it, but not necessarily alter its operation as a result, well then in that sense - it is impossible to *not* accept interference. Radio waves interfere with all objects and people constantly.

I believe this is worded in such a way as to confuse and scare end-users of electronic equipment into not installing better shielding should they come up with a useful reason to. (ie: Their computer speakers 'pull' their screen to one side). After all, a device which easily accepts radio interference also emits radio interference through the same diminished resistance.

Why would the FCC care if our electronic equipment was all together "quieter"; if anything, it would leave more of the spectrum open for commercial use.

OK, Let me put this argument to rest. The point of me mentioning acceleration is that the only time force acts on an object is under acceleration in a utopian frictionless space.

An object moving in a circle is under constant acceleration. Now whether the 2 forces acting on that object are the string pulling inwards and the object wanting to move perfect 180 degress outwards OR a force 90 degrees to the string in the opposite of the direction the object is moving. There is still force acting on that object which can give the same impression as gravity.

Proof: You can take a bottle of pop, remove the lid and whiz it in a semi-circle over your head completely upside down. The pop will not spew out.

I could draw diagrams of the forces I perceive, but this simple test proves something will imitate gravitational force on that barrel of beer. Please please, let this prove it. 8-)

"There actually is no outwards force when you wing something around in a circle"

I'm humiliated.

I was under the impression that under circular motion all objects are subject to constant acceleration. Under acceleration, a force exists 180 degrees to the direction of acceleration; which explains why when you step on the gas, you sink back in your seat, or when you turn left, you move to the right.

How can you have tension in a string without force? And if you have force holding the yo yo to the centre of its axis, then you have an equal and opposite force pushing it outwards, away from the centre of its axis.

Can't we all just drink a spacebeer and be friends?

Now, if they were trying to find a way to brew beer in space, that would be different. I'm not sure how, if at all, fermentation would be affected by microgravity.

When you ferment something, Yeast grows exponentially and slowely dies off as the Alcohol content rises. Once a sufficient amount dies, you have to 'rack' the beer/wine/moonshine. This means removing the liquid from the top of the barrel and leaving the dead yeast at the bottom. Otherwise, you end up with a yeasty/moldy smelling drink.

Without gravity the yeast would not drop, and the dead yeast ("lees") would make it a colloid mixture of pretty gross proportions.

On another note, someone mentioned centrifical force would force carbonation to the centre of a barrel, which would be useless. This is only true if the barrel were spun so both ends were cut symmetrically in two: meaning the spinning of the barrel on its own, would force the liquid to both ends, and carbonation to the middle.

If the barrel were placed inside a large circle which spun, then carbonation would rise. During fermentation - yeast would drop. This is due to the fact that the bottom of barrel would be moving fastest, and subject to the largest amount of centrifical force. As you move away from the bottom, each slice of the barrel is moving in a smaller and smaller circle, and is therefore under less centrifical force. This produces force in a downwards-direction, the same as gravity.

I'm speaking of the large circular rooms we all love from 2001.

I have too much time on my hands, I know.