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Next to free for me. I just paid for a yearly account on the Well and a small monthly amount (I don't recall exactly how much, but it was pretty cheap) for PC Pursuit.

In lawsuits that were originally filed in 2003, attorneys for the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of red light photo enforcement systems primarily because they involved payments to private, for-profit contractors based on the number of citations paid

In many US cities, it is illegal to re-fill a parking meter. That would seem to limit the appeal of this feature.

Vote these maniacs out of office! They are out of control.

The last time I used gopher was in 1996 for The Well.

Note page 15 of this PDF'd election manual. (The document is an election workers manual from the County of San Francisco, I've worked polls in Santa Clara County myself.) Note that it does not state that ID is illegal to ask for, but does say that "Voters are NOT required to provide proof of identity or residence."

I will add that many voters do bring their voting booklet, or present an ID, and it definitely helps poll workers when you do that, it's somehow just slightly quicker to look something up when you have a nicely printed version fo what you're searching for, particularly with hard-to-spell names.

Here is the text of a proposed law, from February 2003, to require IDs to be checked by precinct workers.

I can't, in the few moments I've looked today, find an explicit prohibition, although I believe I've seen one, I'm willing to drop the assertion that it's directly illegal until I can find direct proof of that statement. I will note, however, that if it's not required, it'd be a pretty bad idea to demand it of voters, since it'd be a direct opening to charges of discriminatory, selective checking of IDs.

On the other hand, a mistake by a polling worker on this point is far more likely to be a mistake than a serious attempt at fraud, poll-workers don't get a ton of training.

His main point seems to be that government web sites should be dedicated to organizing grass roots groups. First of all, the idea of the government organizing grass roots groups is oxymoronic. It is also a pretty dumb idea. I can just imagine the paranoia if the government tried to monopolize all of the grass roots organizations by hosting them on government web sites. "I spent the last 5 hours typing up my opposition to the mayor's speech when my computer crashed and the whole thing was lost. Then I got to thinking, who controls the web site? (The mayor.) Was it really a mistake that my post was lost?"

This guy, Plotkin, should go back and dig up some real abuses to complain about. Lacking that, this article just sounds like a big long whine.

His main point seems to be that government web sites should be dedicated to organizing grass roots groups. First of all, the idea of the government organizing grass roots groups is oxymoronic. It is also a pretty dumb idea. I can just imagine the paranoia if the government tried to monopolize all of the grass roots organizations by hosting them on government web sites. "I spent the last 5 hours typing up my opposition to the mayor's speech when my computer crashed and the whole thing was lost. Then I got to thinking, who controls the web site? (The mayor.) Was it really a mistake that my post was lost?"

This guy, Plotkin, should go back and dig up some real abuses to complain about. Lacking that, this article just sounds like a big long whine.

When did Bruce Sterling write The Hacker Crackdown? Ten years ago? This isn't exactly news. Incidentally, read Sterling's book if you haven't already -- it covers the early days of hacking AT&T unix systems, phone phreaking, the history of the US Secret Service and more. The EFF has it in a dozen-odd formats, there's an ebook version for the PalmReader, and just for grins you can even get it of The WELL's Gopher server(!).

Electric buses (which the Municipal Railroad calls trolleys) are used extensively. There are 173 miles of overhead lines for these busses (source). In addition, there is an under- and above-ground light rail system which serves many parts of the city. The system is underground along market street, and above ground everywhere else. Finally, surface street cars are operated on Market street. This is known as the "F" line, which employs many historic street cars retired from other cities' transit systems.

My personal favourite gopher is the WELLGopher.

Finally, be warned about using gopher in current browsers. Since no one cares about gopher any more, the existing clients are rather crashprone.

• My business web site has my name, address, phone number, business license number, Dun and Bradstreet ID, and valid E-mail addresses. I have a listed phone number. I'm required to do this by the California business and professions code.
• Back in my aerospace days, I used to hold a high-level security clearance from one of the three-letter agencies, which meant periodic lie detector tests and a thorough background check.
• I was involved with a major company during the IPO phase, and had to report my financial transactions to the SEC, which published them. So my financial history is a matter of public record.
• I was an expert witness in a major court case that resulted in some prosecutors losing their jobs. This got me some publicity.
• Most of the technology I've developed over the years is described in Internet RFCs, free software, published papers, or patents. I prefer to use trade secrets as little as possible.

So it's possible to live without much privacy. Once in a while I have to deal with some jerk. They usually lose. That's life.

I was at the hearing in support of Jamie. Have you actually emailed your rant to Mayor Willie Brown? If not, then please do. I'm sure my email address has been blocked by now given how many rants I've sent him. ;)

- tokengeekgrrl

I was at the hearing in support of Jamie. Have you actually emailed your rant to Mayor Willie Brown? If not, then please do. I'm sure my email address has been blocked by now given how many rants I've sent him. ;)

- tokengeekgrrl

At first when I saw SF was #1, I thought, "Groan. They must have lumped San Jose in as part of San Francisco again." (It's mildly annoying considering San Jose is the bigger city but far and away lesser known of the two. People outside the area seem to always call the whole Bay Area "San Francisco", even though SF is really just the 6x8-mile city at the tip of the peninsula.) But I see they did separate them after all - their criteria was weighted in favor of the (rather nebulous) hosts per capita figure. I can believe that SF's financial district and the peninsula cities could dominate that. So at least they had an explanation for how their numbers turned out that way. San Jose was highest in the categories you'd expect for Silicon Valley... users accessing the Net from work and .com domains per thousand licensed businesses.

FYI... for more info, here are the pages for San Jose, San Francisco and the Assoc of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).