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Or, vote for him to be canned!!!

yep, and check this out!

When I appeared on a public radio program recently, the interviewer asked me to comment on reports that the Net was the source of epidemic "misinformation" about the terrorist attacks.

No, the interviewer was asking, "How did you get in my builder?" Then shouting to get security in here.

Musta misinterpreted him...

This is why we have this, just for you Jon.

Another first for DFW
Petition to fire Katz!

Ack! How could I forget.

Please take this link as an apology!

Online Petitions!!!

Already one up, my friend!

Technology at its best: Petition to fire Jon Katz!!!

You don't know Jon Katz friend!

Take a topic everyone has talked about till is old and moldy, and Jon Katz will find another angle to view it, thereby beating the tar out of the dead horse. We all hate it, but those at /. have yet to get it in their thick skulls, otherwise he'd be fired on the spot.

So join the Slashdot Comunity in Petitioning to Fire John Katz!

Instead of replying to all the above messages I'll just write one.

My congressman (Steve Chabot [R-OH]) has responded to my e-mails in the past and even once corrected a 'fact' in my (e)letter.[i was wrong]

I don't like this guy at all and even worked on the campaign [sorta] for the other guy. But really no matter who he/she is - if they don't read your e-mail then they don't care about your p.o.v.

Who cares how long it took you to write it? Chances are if you own a computer and can access e-mail you have some $$, and congress does care about you. Although I don't have squat.

Let's get down to it, no congressman reads your e-mail, letters, faxes and etc. It's all read first by someone else.

Flood them with 30 or so e-mails to let them know that you mean business - wait outside their office with a gun... how else do we get them to listen? Is they what it's come down to?

One simple and easy way. [on top of your letters]
PetitionOnline [SSSCA]

Yes, I mailed snail-mail--with a stamp (though it's a self-adhesive; I don't know if that makes a difference). If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to do so NOW! It's easy--I mailed the EFF's sample letter because they pretty much summed it all up. It took ten minutes to do the whole thing. (It would have been cool to print out the 11,000 some odd signatures (mine is in there) on the petition and mail that with the letter. But in the words of my intelligent employer, "Oh well.")

I'll try to locate mailing addresses for others who might send letters as well. You might try talking to folks who own small businesses or even mail letters to large companies, telling them about the catastrophic consequences of such legislation. This isn't about music. I suggest you don't even mention music because that causes folks to think you're an MP3 pirate or some geek or something. This is NOT about media or any bullshit like that. This is about policeware on YOUR belongings. This is about your computer making decisions for you. This is about your fair-use rights going down the tubes. This will have an enormous effect on small business owners who make "digital devices" for a living, who will probably be put out of business by defective legislation like this. (Rest assured there will be an ENORMOUS price on certification. Only companies the likes of Sony could afford it. And best of all, this won't benefit the individual artist--it will fill the pockets of beaurocrats and RIAA executives, empowering them to come up with more innovative legal solutions. What, did you actually think the artist would benefit?!)

This is about our rights and our responsibility to protect those rights. It's NOT the responsibility of government to do that, contrary to what most people believe.

Let's talk about the consequences for a moment. Where do you draw the line on what contains policeware? Will industrial automation systems (these are digital devices) contain policeware? (How about the position readout (digital device) for the lathe?) Don't forget the computer in your car--that thing is a full-blown digital device. Or aircraft control systems--I'm sure there's something digital in those. Don't even mention medical devices--on second thought, I think those should be the first to receive this technology. The patient has a song stuck in their head, so the life support systems turn off and kills them. Hey, thinking about a song is a copyright violation! How about business computers? (I'm not talking about a Dell desktop, I'm talking about computers the size of refridgerators.) What about ICs? Like 74F373 (latch/flip-flop)--that's a "digital device." Oh, I know, let's put Microsoft DRM software on every transistor. Will wristwatches (digital devices) need to contain government-mandated digital rights management? Will it be illegal to "traffic in" Swiss watches, which don't contain this compelling enterprise solution? Think this is funny? Think again. This is DEFECTIVE, but someone somewhere will go to PRISON for it if this gets passed. It could be you. I suggest you mail that letter ASAP. Either that, or buy some open airline tickets and have a suitcase packed and ready at all times. Better yet, just move out of the country while you have the chance.

Oh yeah, and let's see... the SSSCA is a sort of "extension" to the DMCA. I wonder what kind of law they'll come up with five years from now? Oh, I have a good idea: How about a law that states you have to mail $100 to the RIAA every time you get a song stuck in your head? Yeah, let me write up a draft and mail it to Congress.

I just read the first paragraph about how functional languages have too many parenthesis, and OO languages have to many dots (although OO languages have operator overloads, but that's a whole other arguement).

What's funny is first, he overuses the $ sign like mad, and perl is so well known to be unreadable.


OT: Did you guys see the online petition to fire Jon Katz? Somebody has brass....

Sign the following petition to remove Jon Katz! NOT A GOATSE LINK! REAL PETITION! Pass it around!

If you sign it, your email will remain secure!

Foist Fire Jon Katz Petition Poist!


Stupid Lamness Filter.

Petition to fire Jon Katz
http://www.petitiononline.com/RmKatz/petition.html

Online petitions are actually worse than useless, because they give the illusion to people that they are actually doing something, when they might otherwise have written a letter.

That is just plain wrong.

The real purpose of a petition is educational. It is a form of advertising aimed get more people to participate in opposing the law.

The target audience that a petition has the maximum impact on is the group of people one or two rings out from the die hards in the inner circle that do write letters on real paper with real stamps. The newbies probably don't know a whole lot about the issue, but if they see a well written petition with a lot of signatures they may pay more attention next time.

A petition is a recruiting and PR tool. People who are die hards absolutely should sign petitions, not because they are deluded into thinking this affects Congress, but because they want to create a vehicle to spread the word. They should forward them to others and use them to expand public awareness. I did exactly this with the anti-DMCA petition and convinced several of my friends who had never heard of the DMCA to sign it. You seem to think this makes them less likely to write a letter to Congress, but it actually makes them more likely to do it.

http://www.petitiononline.com/nixdmca/petition.htm l is another.

Sign the Petition to Abolish the DMCA.

Forward it on to people you know who oppose the DMCA.

They're dead.
Not a single one of them gives a sh1t if we eventually decide to get on with our lives. There is an understandable impulse to not forget those who died. But get some perspective: these will be the least forgettable 6000 deaths we've ever seen. Everyone's been crying for almost three weeks now. We can get on with our lives without "dishonoring the memories" of anyone. The events of this past month have made a lot of people like you come out of the woodwork and it's amazing and disturbing to see how many idiots like you there are.
You should really be ashamed of yourself. You're trying to enforce this mourning period to last as long as it possibly can as though you're really enjoying it, and you loudly disapprove of every ounce of joy and normalcy you find left in the world. Stop tsk-tsking people who aren't constantly talking about terrorism, and go do something that will really help. Spend some money on consumer goods. Buy some stocks. Hell, go take unnecessary flights. And please stop throwing a fit every time you see things getting back to normal.

I'm just amazed that political correctness has now been taken over by conservatives! Damn!
BTW- support Bill Maher and sign the petition to keep Politically Incorrect on the air!

Sign this petition to change the theme music for Enterprise! It takes just a minute!

You can sign the petition to change the intro to "Enterprise" at this address.

Online petition to get Paramount to drop the current HORRIBLE theme song:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/STETheme/

oops, with a link:

http://www.petitiononline.com/entintro/

There is a petition: A Plea To Alter The Intro to "Enterprise"

A Plea To Alter The Intro to "Enterprise"

I just signed it. Easier oneclickTM (Amazon.com) link here.
I send a note to TiVO as well. They would have a vested interest in getting this nonsense stopped. We need to mobilize money on the other side of the SSSCA fence.

Instead of bleating on about it on /., talk to your friends, your family, your colleagues, and make sure they understand the issues.

Also don't forget to Sign the petitions.

I have been a professional software developer since 1980. I am sick and tired of the attitude that software, unlike every other product produced by man, should be exempt from lawsuits, scrutiny, etc. That attitude is precisely why Microsoft is spending time writing bad video editors and copy protection schemes rather than making their OS solid and bug-free.

That is probably the most well-said comment I've read here in a long time. Microsoft has created most of the problems I know of that are related to computers and software, starting with licensing, which is probably the root of horrible things like the DMCA (which should be abolished, by the way). They created an industry where I would guess that most software is slopped together hastily ("fast time to market," in suit-speak), rather than crafted by careful professionals.

Why are there so many "MCSE-in-2-weeks" ads in those lame freebie computer magazines? You don't honestly believe that 2 weeks of instruction make you a professional, do you? Here's something that will *really* crack you up: I heard a commercial on the radio for one of those lame MCSE courses. They said you'll earn 83,000 bucks in your first year on the job! I'd like to know exactly who-in-the-phuc will pay that kind of money, especially now when the economy's down the sh*tter. I haven't actually taken one of these courses myself, so if anyone has, please correct me if I'm wrong on this--I believe that these MCSE courses are just like SAT-prep classes: the answers to test questions are drilled into your head so you can pass the test. That's all. I don't honestly believe that anything (besides maybe some bedrock basics) is taught in those courses.

So back to my discussion of Microsoft... I believe they have and are committing fraud. They advertise high quality, high availability and security, when their software is probably the least secure on the planet.

Am I saying that UNIX doesn't have its problems? No. There are quite a few problems in UNIX and UNIX-like systems. The difference is that the entire software design, from the ground up, is inherently secure. The exploits are in subtle bugs, not in major software design issues. In the various Windows patchworks, the security problems stem from very deep software design issues. Oh yeah, and on top of that, they have the usual bugs. In other words, it's a buggy implementation of a crappy design built on a shaky foundation. And businesses trust their important data to this garbage, which results in billions lost every time some email attachment gets forwarded around. So after all that, what the hell is this about lower total cost of ownership?

I know I'm just ranting in this post... I'm really tired. Oh well.

Get the word out!!

-core

A Petition Against Government Required Cryptography Backdoors [petitiononline.com]

There are only 51 signatures as of this morning. This needs to get the slashdot treatment so we get that into the thousands.

Don't think that this is a substitute for calling/writing/faxing/e-mailing your congressman though....

-core

I've started an online petition located here urging the government not to persue this line of thought any further. Please sign it and pass it along to any of your friends

A Petition Against Government Required Cryptography Backdoors

-core

BTW, here's a petition worth signing.

Considering the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) is the next step for DMCA and, likely, endorsed by MPAA it seems the /. community should do what it can to stop SSSCA in its tracks now.

From Wired magazine: "The SSSCA and existing law work hand in hand to steer the market toward using only computer systems where copy protection is enabled. First, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act created the legal framework that punished people who bypassed copy protection -- and now, the SSSCA is intended to compel Americans to buy only systems with copy protection on by default."

If you have a minute and oppose SSSCA, please sign the petition opposing this drafted legislation at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/SSSCA/petition.html.

BeOS will never be open sourced.

There is however, an effort underway by the Open Be Developer Network, http://www.obedn.com to create a parallel, replacement of BeOS, that over time will drop in new kits.

But as for BeOS itself being open sourced, I very highly doubt that.

There is also another effort to show Palm Inc. that the BeOS Community is serious about creating a future for BeOS.

More information can be found here:

http://www.befaqs.com/save/
http://beserved.teldar.com/petition.asp
http://www.petitiononline.com/savebeos/

-Chris Simmons
Avid BeOS user.
stinger@islandtelecom.com

Might as well toss this tidbit in, check your cartoon network listings. 9 and 9:30 CST.

Also check out this petition to get Disney to release some of Japan's greatest anime.

A better method would be to have spammers pay for their bandwidth and adopt an advertising convetion like putting ADV in the subject line.

This would kill the problem in two easy steps:

1. ISPs won't have pass the cost of mega-bandwidth waste to their customers because they'll be billing the spammers directly.

2. Users can make rules to put spam in either the proper folder or just delete it. Spam without an ADV gets reported to the authorities. With all these newly trained cyber-cops they'll appreciate the work of tracking down spammers.

As spam prices increase because of real cost billing "scam spam" will disappear because only legitimite businesses will be able to afford mass mailings. Instead of getting credit fixing ads you'll get coupons from Target. They're going to have to make you want to open those emails, especially for those who have them going into a bulk mail folder.

Sign the petition to get Disney to release Hayao Miyazaki's anime in the US.

First off, spam usually equals scam. Think those penis pump devices work or that credit fixer is going to do anything than offer you a high interest load?

Second, unlike traditional junk mail spammers do not pay the real cost for their mailings. Bandwidth is usually stolen. Guess who eats up the cost? The customers of the ISP. We're paying for the penis pumps HTML ads.

What? @home is $6 more this month! Wonder why.

Third, its inconsiderate to put someone on a mailing list and have them manually unsub themselves 10 times a day to avoid more spam.

Fourth, spammers won't agree to any convention for easy filtering, like Subj: ADV blahblah. Instead they send use fake names with misleading subjects to fool people into reading their aluminum siding ad. With an ADV tag we could put it straight into our spam folders or auto-delete it.

Spam sucks.

Sign the petition to convince Disney to bring Hayao Miyazaki's anime to the US.

Don't port to linux. Don't port to mac, either.

Write a decent compatibility library, or tweak SDL for your own uses. Port to that. It would be a bit more work to try to cover up all the loose places where the compatibility library doesn't fit that os well, but you'd be able to simulteneously release for linux, mac, mac os x, and linuxppc, and maybe later on put together a SUPER HAPPY FISH BONUS PACK! with playstation2 versions of like four of the games you just ported to linux/mac.
If you're going to bother with the herculean task of porting spaghetti code (which most games are) to a different operating system, take the extra time to work in a sane portability architecture. In doing so you'll probably at least double your possible target audience with not *that* much work.

That being said, you probably could make more money off the mac users. Mac users probably aren't as heavy into gaming, true, but mac users are a captive audience. Unlike (((the majority of!))) linux users, mac users do'nt have the option of booting into windows. Now that bungie is dead, they have only what can be ported or emulated, and because there have been almost no new mac ports to speak of in nearly forever they are mostly starved for decent games and will probably run anything even mediocre that runs on their computers.

What? Bitter because Loki seems to be gone, and dynamix seems to be gone, and i will probably never get that mac os x version of Tribes 2 i've been wanting so badly? Who, me?

There's a petition to save Dynamix up here.

Dunno what good it will do, but it's worth a try.

Go here and sign
http://www.petitiononline.com/aotc/petition.html

There's a petition. Hopefully it can get Lucas's attention.

I see no link to a petition. You can however, host one here

Are you aware that Fox has bought Speedvision, and they are going to turn it into the all-NASCAR network?

There is a petition up to oppose this, as if it will help. (I still have it linked to all over my web sites anyway.)

There is no fairness in our court system. Microsoft will skate.

Did anybody really expect that anything else would happen (especially with the outcome of the presidential "election")?

Free The Slaves!

Theres an existing interesting Thread on Wireplay (Telstra's gaming network) about it all. And also a petition you can sign to protest against the move. Furthermore the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) is already investigating the matter.

The essential truth here is that AT&T is acting in a way that indicates that they wanted all those people to lose their connectivity. People will have an irrational fear of DSL in general, so they will use cable instead... nevermind that cable is generally not a secure connection, and is inherently less able to guarantee performance levels due to the fact that all their customers share bandwidth. For uses such as telecommuting, IT departments rightfully prefer DSL access.

The cost of allowing a reasonable transition for Northpoint's customers would have been far, far less than what AT&T paid for Northpoint, and the cost of the extra service they provided could have been charged to whatever service they transitioned the line to. Everyone knows that in order to give these users a realistic chance of switching over, they should have been given about a 60 day warning period.

Is it just me, or should the FCC protect consumers better in situations like this by requiring an adequate transition time in such circumstances? Personally, I'd do something... I'd sign a petition or write the FCC (address at bottom of their webpage) so that this kind of rapidfire corporate liquidation doesn't happen again.

My personal use of AT&T services comes out to about $3000 a year. Over a ten year period, that's $30,000. Spending a couple hundred dollars to preserve the connections for 30 days to protect a future $30,000 revenue stream sounds like a pretty good business decision to me.

Check out this petition.

Petition for UO2/Origin

Google and Deja have had different corporate cultures since day one: deja has positioned itself as a bloated portal, wheras google has prided itself on being sleek and lean with inobtrusive ads. Deja tried to be everything to everyone, whereas Google tried to be the useful tool that users reached for when they wanted to get a specific task done.

These are completely incompatible philosophies, so which one can we expect to win out? I'm afraid Google might decide to become more bloated as a result.

But more important than that is how Google will respond to other criticism leveled at Deja in the past. There has been a petition floating around for the past six months demanding that Deja reopen its pre-1999 usenet archives to general access. Can we expect Google to comply with these wishes, now that the archives are in their hands? Or will corporate expediency force them to maintain so many of Deja's odious practices?

This acquisition will be a key test of how open-source culture can survive in the face of extensive funding. Companies like RedHat and TurboLinux have done so with more or less success, but their markets, no matter how much linux users may trumpet their operating system's virtues, have always been constrained to a small number of zealots who are willing to go along with some corporate changes as long as their operating system is improved at the code level. Google, however, is bigger than all the linux companies combined in its user base. It's aimed at the average internet surfer.

How long can we expect Google to stay the same search engine we've always reached for? How long until we have to switch back to Altavista or embrace the next young upstart who can provide what we want and need without the bloat?

Click here to sign the petition against Verizon, Southwestern Bell, PacBell, and EarthLink. I call upon them to replace PPPoE with DHCP!

I'm considering starting an online petition for this. Do you think that'd work?

Alex Bischoff
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