Slashdot Mirror

I'm a junior partner at a CAD consulting agency. They put me on salary a few months ago, and I bill out about 37 hours a week to our clients. Add maybe .5 hours to that each week for administrative stuff.

I've spent a long time working by butt off so I could get to a point where I'm working less than 40 hours a week. Hey, I work hard for my Slack!

RedHat has contracts totalling billions of dollars. Does that sound like a poor revenue source? If Linux companies fail, it's either because they were depending too much on the stock bubble, or their business simply failed.

Remember - these are ALL startups, and four out of five startups fail. Shall we recite the past of failed (died or merged) computer companies that had their moment of glory? Digital, Tandy, Cray, and many many more.

every linux company (even media-based ones, like VA Linux and OSDN) is facing bankrupcy in the near future.

I don't see VA Linux doing *anything* media-based (yes, many of their subsideraries and side-projects are)... they sell hardware and clustering solutions. Period. And other than their stock tanking, I don't see anything that says that they are going to go bankrupt. If their business plan is *based* on the income from their stock, they are going to have to rewrite (okay, they will have had to rewrite it awhile back), or their going bankrupt is a function of poor business practices.

-blink- -blink- And what the hell does this have to do with Slackware?

I'm just pissed because they stopped printing Dobbsheads on the CD-ROMs. Bastards. They turn their back on the great salesman, and they lose karma (the mystic kind, not the CowboyNeal kind). Gee... I wonder why?

Praise Bob!

--
Evan

Unlike M:TG, which comes out with a new collectable expansion every month or two, INWO has only had a few expansions in its life, and one of them isn't even collectable! INWO SubGenius is a stand-alone version of INWO produced in cooperation with the Church of the SubGenius. (Yes, the "Bob" guys.) Ah, heck, let me quote:

This is a hundred-card non-collectible set. The cards feature art provided by the Church itself. [...] You will like it.

The set of 100 cards is usable by itself, and includes rules for a 4-player common-deck game, using four Church of the SubGenius cards (with different art, of course). Each represents a different faction of the Church, fighting for control, Slack, and that unending flow of dollars from the mindless Pinks. You can also drop other INWO cards into a SubGenius game, or vice versa!

BTW, INWO encourages players to create their own cards. Steve Jackson Games sells blank cards expressly for the purpose.

In case you haven't guessed, this is one of my favorite games of all time. Buy it, you won't regret it!

So this conference is being held by the infamous Dr. Dobbs. The Church of the SubGenius strikes again! Beware Bob Dobbs!

Your daily news source for the last 3 years is not just a 'right wing advocacy site.' It is propaganda for the Republican religious right with heavy racist overtones, plus healthy dose of general loonyness. You have commentary by Christian millennial kooks like Hal Lindsey, two separtate attacks in one day on Jesse Jackson, and (I swear) a serious article from their editor-in-chief claiming that this PS/2 "threat" is reason to finally do, um, something, really, about Saddam. It sort of gets vague from there; I think more support for the oppostion in Iraq is what he wants. Probably they should have Playstation Parity with their oppressor.
This is a Libertarian site in your opinion? In the last three years have they sounded this nutty every day, or is this a special day? My guess is that if we dig some more we'll find these credulus paranoids being taken in by lots more hoaxes like the PS/2 gag.
You can keep it. When I want news, I'll take the bland AP kind, or even the NY Times, before I trust these freaks. When I want conspiracy cult fruitcakes, I want REAL conspiracy cult fruitcakes. Give me SLACK and be off with your weak imitations.

Could a European on Slashdot please tell us what the connotation of Eris is over there?

You see, here in America, it's an underground "art" style movement (ghod, it's difficult to describe) that is described in the free tract Principia Discordia and the Illumnati Trilogy has led to things like the The Church of the SubGenius. Even new agers seldom touch Eris due to her modern links to the wierd.

Serious Freak. I'm curious if he's expressing a bit of his inner freak nature, or if it has a different connotation in Europe.

--
Evan

But that's not how the law works. Nor should the law be made to work the way Mr. Davis wants it.

How do we inform Mr. Davis of this fact? What possible means could we use to drive this point home with him? People have tried hacking, but they get cease-and-infringe letters. Obviously (to me anyway), sending hate mail is not a useful answer. And people have sent him many, many letters threatening his company under postal statutes; made loud noises about outing their idiocy to their shareholders; and other such thumb-their-nose letters.

Does reasoned mail work? Has anyone actually sent him a letter that reads, "Sorry, Mr. Davis, but the law doesn't work your way?" I'd be curious to find out if he's replied to anything but postings of drivers on the web.

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

It's a touch limited at this point, but you're free to add any bar codes you encounter.

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

Electronic circuitry contains lead and cadmium, both of which can leach out of landfills and contaminate groundwater. Recycle your :Cue:Cats or dispose of them at your community's "HazMat Dispozal Daze" or whatever. Please, do not throw heavy metals in the trash!

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

That said, Digital Convergence didn't find any "little loopholes" in any law. What happened is that Digital Convergence reacted to the initial hacking of their device with vague, legal-sounding threats. The /. community responded the same way hackers have always responded to any legal sounding threat: mirrors, freedom rants, and of course, more code.

For their part, I've heard NOTHING more from Digital Convergence since the "Victory over Evil Hackers" speech. I suspect this speech was made strictly for the investors' benefit. I think they tired of our hacker rants long before we did.

So, is Digital Convergence evil? No, they're trying to make a buck. Are they being ethical about it? They're not very up-front with their data collection intentions. (They are never mentioned in the paper documentation that comes with the CueCat, nor in the Radio Shack advertising or signage. It's certainly the darker side of ethics as we define them here on Slashdot.) But evil? They're just a corporation, driven solely by profit.

You are absolutely right. The "cease-and-desist" letters were a knee-jerk first reaction, and very poorly thought out. I think they were sent based on their misunderstanding of the various intellectual property laws. But we on Slashdot are being way too harsh on them by calling for lawsuits, filing frivolous fraud complaints, predicting the demise of the company, etc. We do ourselves a disservice by making ourselves into the pitchfork-waving-mob. We should let this drop, ignore the threats, and get back to coding Linux drivers for CueCats.

In this case, the legalistic letters prompted the mob reaction. Hopefully, the next company with a cheap hardware model will keep these lessons in mind before angering the peasants again.

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

Yeah, but in a little while you can hook up a CueCat! :-)

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

Whether or not the law actually applies is hardly necessary to bring charges up against someone. Look at the Wen Ho Lee (sp?) case. 59 counts of various crap (including espionage) were thrown at the guy. One count of "mishandling data" stuck. It's how the system works these days. The Justice Department is not interested in justice. They're interested in making sure that somebody who gets charged with something serves some time. Hackers are especially vulnerable these days (see Kevin Mitnik's or Bernie S.'s stories at 2600 magazine for more examples.)

I'm just saying that the details of the law are determined in a courtroom. And most of us can't afford to start out in that courtroom, much less see a case like that to completion. Color us "chilled".

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

Reduce, reuse, recycle, and all that green stuff, y'know.

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

They really don't need to. Their "infallible" registration software collects all that anyway.

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

This software has the capability to specifically state: "Mr. Bush, Mr. Herman Munster (addresslookup="1313 Mockingbird Lane") (partylookup="Republican, registered") was watching your speech at 7:05PM but did not have the audio on when we tweedled the audience at 7:09. As a matter of fact, we discovered that he switched to the Gore broadcast on CBS at 7:14PM. At 7:19, our call center tried his house but got his answering machine, so we've scheduled the door-to-door people to stop by his house on Wednesday evening. According to his scanner report, he has scanned Winston cigarettes (productcategory=POLITICAL, product=WINSTON CARTON), so we'll hit him with Gore's zero-smoking-tolerance plans for national parks. Don't worry, sir, we'll have him voting Republican by Friday."

It's just information flow, really. Do you want to see it happen this way?

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

For the moment, let's assume D.C. is not totally without clue, and that they are capable of reading the many Slashdot postings, and have been following many of the hacking pages. (No extra jokes about the size of this assumption -- as they say on Wall Street, "past performance is no guarantee of future performance.") They're obviously concerned, if they haven't yet thrown in the hacker towel.

The question is: What should they do about all of this rogue analysis?

I see a couple alternatives for them:

1. Do nothing. By doing nothing, they acknowledge that "unregistered users may use their database." They still capture some demographic info: product scanned & IP address, notably. It won't be tied to a specific user as well as the scanner ID, and it won't give them the name / gender / zipcode stuff they might want, but it's still valuable data as to "how much" is their scanner being used.
2. Block access to invalid serial numbers. It sounds like their desktop software is already complaining if it receives a "bad" serial number from a modified scanner. Their server could also perform such a check. Their server optionally could lookup the scanner number on a table, making sure that it's in a range of devices actually produced and not something like zero.
3. Block access to invalid activation codes. Their server could be modified to reject requests from activation codes that are not found on the database. This might have performance implications on their end, as well as denying themselves their free (as in beer) demographics.

A cursory glance at the serial numbers in a couple of units (as well as data gleaned from the web) shows that the serial number does not seem to incorporate any kind of checksum, so any random number passed by a browser would probably work today. However, their client software could be set up to reject scanner input coming from a modified scanner. Why do this? Mostly to annoy the people who went out and cut the trace to the ID chip. Of course, these people will simply go to Radio Shack and pick up another scanner, costing D.C. more money, but they could. At least they could claim their software won't be party to any hardware hacking.

The activation code would be the tough one for a hacker to derive. First, they could use something like a doubly-signed MD5 signed activation code. Take the activation code (aaa...a) and sign it with a key they'd be willing to hide in their Windows client software (SSSS). Then, sign the whole aaa...aSSSS with a secretly held key (kkkk) known only to their servers.
key format: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaSSSSkkkk
The client application can check the value SSSS to see if the activation code being entered was created by D.C. (or forged by someone who disassembled their code.) This would stop the casual AOL user from typing in all zeros for the activation code. The server, however, would be the ultimate arbiter of who gets served, and could be set to only honor requests from Officially Signed activation codes..

This one actually has an interesting side effect that could be a 'benefit' for D.C. -- if they consistently received an unissued activation code that was signed, but the server signature is not valid, they might use that as evidence that the code is coming from someone who has circumvented their program's activation code, violating the DMCA in the process. "Lookee here Miz Reno, we caught us a hacker!" The truly insidious part of this plot is that they could institute it immediately (as soon as the software is ready.) I am assuming that a company that avoids enough ethics to inform their users of the marketing purposes behind their "free" (as in beer) scanner would already have their software set up to perform automatic "upgrades" to itself. They download new software, generate new doubly signed activation codes, and wait for the flies to be drawn to their website.

So, the hackers will be reduced to using other peoples' activation codes. Not the end of the world for them, as long as they're not personally being tracked, kind of like using your mom's Grocery Shopper Saver barcoded keytag. Someone will eventually post a couple to the web, the "hackers" will pounce on them, and D.C. will shut them down until the next round is posted.

The final analysis? Going down the "denial" path means a never ending circle of hacker harrassment that NEVER ADDS A DIME TO D.C.'s BOTTOM LINE. I emphasize that because any countermeasures taken by D.C. can't actually gain them any more revenue or extra users, but only serve to embroil them in expensive lawsuits that some high-school kid will never pay in his lifetime anyway. Allowing the hacked units to continue to use their database gives them MOST of the demographic data they originally intended to collect. (Privacy wonks can still use the anonymizer to get their data if they're really paranoid, but most hackers using dialups are fine letting sites like this see their temporary IP address. It's effectively anonymous enough.)

I hope D.C. doesn't feel the need to wage war upon its "extra" customers. They already can't "win" it if they choose to fight, but they can certainly "lose" it.

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

China's not missing out. They got to make all of them (and probably for six bucks each)!

[ Sorry, I couldn't resist... :-) ]

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

The number of hackers expressed as a percent of the computer-using population is maybe 5%-10%. Sure, the number who "shop the Shack" is certainly much higher, but they're still barely statistically significant. It's the AOLers of the world that will make them ALL of their money, regardless of hackers.

Hackers tend to understand cookies and privacy issues better than the general population, too. Most privacy-informed people wouldn't ever fire up the software that came with it, once they understood the tracking mechanisms beneath it. These people are already lost to Digital Convergence, whose stated goal is to build up a marketable database of info on their users.

So, given that hackers and privacy wonks will never use their software the way it was intended, D.C. should drop that market segment and focus on making sure that every AOLer gets to see Pepsi ads at $.025/eyeball. As Willie Sutton said about robbing banks "that's where they keep the money!"

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

That was my point. The percentage of uncertainty that comes from the hacker camp had better be beneath their threshold for failure. If their business model didn't take into account that some (most?) of their scanners will sit idly next to most computers, then DC is extremely naïve, and their Venture Capitalists were extremely stupid with their money if they didn't see a hole this size.

I predict the hacker contingency will play with them for a few months, then something else will be the sparkly object that distracts them. Then the hacker's scanners will join the majority of idle scanners, forgotten for months at a time until someone needs to go to Radio Shack for something, and the little tickle in their hindbrain reminds them that they have a CueCat that's fallen behind their computer desk. The hackers' 5% of the forgotten scanners are still equally forgotten.

It's just not worth pumping money into lawyers and annoying the hacker community, when the alternative of ignoring the hackers works out so much better (see the TiVo hackers for an excellent counterexample.) Right or wrong, the hackers have a long history and a strong tradition of pushing back against legalistic threats.

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

Don't worry. If you use their service, I imagine you'll be taken to a site from which you can purchase penguins...

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

I've scanned many barcodes with a couple different copies of their device now, and I've found that it consistently reads UPC/EAN, 3 of 9, Code 128 and all these other symbologies really well. I try to scan the Cues in the catalog -- maybe a 33% first time scan rate. Appalling. I've tried varying my scan speeds, the angle with which I hold the scanner, the distance from the page, starting and stopping within the white space near the ends of the code, but nothing seems to help.

I don't know if it's because the barcodes in the catalog are too dense or if they were printed poorly. I imagine the 22.5 offset angle probably made for some uneven aliasing during the catalog printing process.

Has anybody else noticed this problem?

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

I think they're really barking up the wrong tree trying to shut down the hobbyists and the LINUX driver writers. Their true revenue stream lies with the AOLers of the world, and not with the bitheads that read Slashdot.

They should recognize that 5% of the people are going to hack their cats NO MATTER WHAT THEY WANT, and that the other 95% will be firing up AOL so they can quick scan the barcode on the front of the Radio Shack catalog.

Even if a Windoze version comes along (AOL compatible), over 75% of the users will still not circumvent their device. Mr. Matthews should chalk these up to "acceptable losses" and make sure that the content he provides to his "real" subscribers is good enough that the hacker substitutes don't compete in features.

When did "Cease and Desist" become an acceptable substitute for "Common Sense"?

John

The Church of the SubGenius -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...

YOU'RE STILL PINK TO BOB

There are people who believe the earth is hollow.

Well, DUH! Where else would the Advanced Supersonic Alluminum Nazi Hell Creatures from Hollow Earth live?

But it could have been filled in seconds before you looked and hollowed out again as soon as you turn your back.

Yeah, shit like that happens to me a lot for some reason. HOLY GOD WHAT IS THAT THING... oh, it's gone now... nevermind.

don't forget "Bob"...His name should always be in quotes (:

I've got the perfect person for the role! I'm surprised nobody's thought of this yet...want conspiracies? Try Rev. Ivan Stang of the Church of the SubGenius! Bring up 5000 more absolutely bizarre and impossible conspiracies linked directly with humans having sexual relations with aliens! Praise "Bob"!

Ohh, this is a great idea. Could we instead leave something useful for future generations?

If there is an apocalypse and humanity needs a record of the past, wouldn't it be handier to include something other than a record of who begat who?

I'd personally rather have a nice set of instructions on how to be decadent than listen to some 4,000 year old skewed version of reality.

-Peter

Three and Four Fisted Tales of Bob
heh heh

This could also support the Jar Jar Binks = J. R. "Bob" Dobbs theory.

Watch that Luck Plane slant, man!


--------------------
WWW.TETSUJIN.ORG

Maybe they should join together and form Dr. 'Bob' Dobbs magazine... ;D

=-=-=

And when I said battle, I meant it. My money's on the Slackers--the followers of Bob. First of all Bob is just more powerful than Xenu (look at the pipe; does Xenu have a pipe?). Second, take a look at last year's apocalypse! Find me a Scientologist who can win this--the Church of the SubGenius have been practicing since X-Day 1996.

An Introduction to Slack

--

And when I said battle, I meant it. My money's on the Slackers--the followers of Bob. First of all Bob is just more powerful than Xenu (look at the pipe; does Xenu have a pipe?). Second, take a look at last year's apocalypse! Find me a Scientologist who can win this--the Church of the SubGenius have been practicing since X-Day 1996.

An Introduction to Slack

--

And when I said battle, I meant it. My money's on the Slackers--the followers of Bob. First of all Bob is just more powerful than Xenu (look at the pipe; does Xenu have a pipe?). Second, take a look at last year's apocalypse! Find me a Scientologist who can win this--the Church of the SubGenius have been practicing since X-Day 1996.

An Introduction to Slack

--

And when I said battle, I meant it. My money's on the Slackers--the followers of Bob. First of all Bob is just more powerful than Xenu (look at the pipe; does Xenu have a pipe?). Second, take a look at last year's apocalypse! Find me a Scientologist who can win this--the Church of the SubGenius have been practicing since X-Day 1996.

An Introduction to Slack

--

I'm reminded of a Dennis Miller quote: "Think of the average person in America. Now realize that 50% of America is dumber than that." It's a pain, but we will have to deal.

In all fairness, the quote is not orignially his. The quote sprang form the lips of the immortal, immoral, J.R. Bob Dobbs. Remember, Bob has died for your sins--twice so far! Perhaps, however, you were confused into thinking Dennis Miller was an avatar of Bob. This seems quite likely, indeed. Hail Eris!

It's about getting Gubbanint off our backs and into our shorts, and charging us for it.

This agent by whom I mean the "feminist" Anonymous Coward, is what is referred to as a "pink boy", in the official Sub-Genius text. Therefore he is clearly, by definition, not female (see the "boy" part of the appelation) and therefore his ranting may be taken with a grain of salt.

To "Pink Boy" the AC: I hope you will accept J.R. "Bob" Dobbs as your personal Lord and Savior, and leave your servitude to themightyandterribleJehovah1. Fnord.

The Answer to Your Prayers
BSD Development

YESSSS!!!!

And if that ain't enough for you--if you want to learn about the World's First Industrial Church, go visit:
The Website Of "Bob!"

For "Bob" learned that the Yeti were the original race,
and the humans came later, and there went the place!
They both were created by creatures from space.

The genes of the Yeti to this day survive
in those called SubGenius, those few left alive,
who are different as different as different can be.
Do you think one is you? I know one is me!

(from The Slack FAQ)

Also check the Fobonics Institute, accept no imitation!

And then there's the correlation between hackers and adherents of fringe subcultures and interests. The Church of the SubGenius draws a sizeable percentage of its base from computer people (this is evident in SubGenius references in things such as Slackware).
Quite a few computer people are into psychoceramics, following crackpots and lunatics and collecting fringe theories and beliefs. (This also ties into the affinity for unconventional thinking.) Askew visionaries, from Ed Wood to Harry Stephen Keeler get a lot of their fan base from computer "geeks". And need I say anything about Kibo, arguably the first genuine Internet personality?

Maybe "Bob" was right after all. What could be more prophetic of the coming Tribulation of a post-X-Day World Without Slack than the rise of a master race of TV celebrities, and their dominion over the wretched remnants of un-Ruptured Pink humanity.

• Should I surf/online-shop on the Sabbath?
  
• Are spammers going to hell?
  
• Are internet marriages recognised by CofE?
  
• Is pulling the plug on an AI machine breaking the 6th commandment?
  
• Is Bill Gates breaking the other 9?
  
• Is it possible to drive the evil spirits out of Slashdot?
  
• Where do programs go when they die?
  
• Is there life after BSoD?
  
• Does the CoE recognise the CoSub-Genius (and if Microsoft created Bob, does this make Bill Gates God?)
  
• Any more ... ?
  

20% of U.S. population now considered clinically insane. Concentration camps for 'abnormals" are opened in some states; SubGeniuses begin waging open war on non-SubGeniuses.

So "Dateline for Dominance" as printed in my 1987 version of "Book of the SubGenius" is only 8 years behind the times. It just means that we counted the dates wrong and the saucers are 8 years late in coming, and that X-Day won't be until 2005! Woo-hoo!

...and if you're worried about 20% of us being nuts, wait'll 1992, when...

What we would call "lunatic-fringe kooks" account for 43% of U.S. population. Over 2 million separate, active sects. Well over half, however, are basically aligned with the Church of the SubGenius. The rest are violently anti-SubGenius, anti-individual, anti-thought Conspiracy dupes who still cling to a now-useless lifestyle. The United States is divided between these two powerful social forces.

The Fifth Civil War: Abnormals vs. Normals. During this period, the U.S. reverts to medieval barbarism.. Feudal warlord chieftains rule the thousands of mini-states into which the country has splintered. Bands of outlaws roam the countryside and the cities. Law as we know it is non-existent. Only huge corporations provide any stability to the social structure; they have *become* the "government", and jealously guard the remaining pockets of high technology. Most corporations run by "Bob".

AIYEEEEEEEEE YES! LET THERE BE SLACK!

Everything else you wanted to know is available at http://www.subgenius.com. Might I recommend:

some classics

Our Y2K preparedness page

Our effort to skew Time Magazine's Top Fraud of the Century" poll in favor of our spiritual Leader, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, because Time (of all magazines, after publishing The Cult of Greed and Power!) was probably too scared to have L. Ron Hubbard on the list. Unlike Elron's cult, OUR cult isn't afraid of being labelled for the fraud it is! HAH!

They'll never clean my cage! Now give me some more of... (post runs out)

20% of U.S. population now considered clinically insane. Concentration camps for 'abnormals" are opened in some states; SubGeniuses begin waging open war on non-SubGeniuses.

So "Dateline for Dominance" as printed in my 1987 version of "Book of the SubGenius" is only 8 years behind the times. It just means that we counted the dates wrong and the saucers are 8 years late in coming, and that X-Day won't be until 2005! Woo-hoo!

...and if you're worried about 20% of us being nuts, wait'll 1992, when...

What we would call "lunatic-fringe kooks" account for 43% of U.S. population. Over 2 million separate, active sects. Well over half, however, are basically aligned with the Church of the SubGenius. The rest are violently anti-SubGenius, anti-individual, anti-thought Conspiracy dupes who still cling to a now-useless lifestyle. The United States is divided between these two powerful social forces.

The Fifth Civil War: Abnormals vs. Normals. During this period, the U.S. reverts to medieval barbarism.. Feudal warlord chieftains rule the thousands of mini-states into which the country has splintered. Bands of outlaws roam the countryside and the cities. Law as we know it is non-existent. Only huge corporations provide any stability to the social structure; they have *become* the "government", and jealously guard the remaining pockets of high technology. Most corporations run by "Bob".

AIYEEEEEEEEE YES! LET THERE BE SLACK!

Everything else you wanted to know is available at http://www.subgenius.com. Might I recommend:

some classics

Our Y2K preparedness page

Our effort to skew Time Magazine's Top Fraud of the Century" poll in favor of our spiritual Leader, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, because Time (of all magazines, after publishing The Cult of Greed and Power!) was probably too scared to have L. Ron Hubbard on the list. Unlike Elron's cult, OUR cult isn't afraid of being labelled for the fraud it is! HAH!

They'll never clean my cage! Now give me some more of... (post runs out)

20% of U.S. population now considered clinically insane. Concentration camps for 'abnormals" are opened in some states; SubGeniuses begin waging open war on non-SubGeniuses.

So "Dateline for Dominance" as printed in my 1987 version of "Book of the SubGenius" is only 8 years behind the times. It just means that we counted the dates wrong and the saucers are 8 years late in coming, and that X-Day won't be until 2005! Woo-hoo!

...and if you're worried about 20% of us being nuts, wait'll 1992, when...

What we would call "lunatic-fringe kooks" account for 43% of U.S. population. Over 2 million separate, active sects. Well over half, however, are basically aligned with the Church of the SubGenius. The rest are violently anti-SubGenius, anti-individual, anti-thought Conspiracy dupes who still cling to a now-useless lifestyle. The United States is divided between these two powerful social forces.

The Fifth Civil War: Abnormals vs. Normals. During this period, the U.S. reverts to medieval barbarism.. Feudal warlord chieftains rule the thousands of mini-states into which the country has splintered. Bands of outlaws roam the countryside and the cities. Law as we know it is non-existent. Only huge corporations provide any stability to the social structure; they have *become* the "government", and jealously guard the remaining pockets of high technology. Most corporations run by "Bob".

AIYEEEEEEEEE YES! LET THERE BE SLACK!

Everything else you wanted to know is available at http://www.subgenius.com. Might I recommend:

some classics

Our Y2K preparedness page

Our effort to skew Time Magazine's Top Fraud of the Century" poll in favor of our spiritual Leader, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, because Time (of all magazines, after publishing The Cult of Greed and Power!) was probably too scared to have L. Ron Hubbard on the list. Unlike Elron's cult, OUR cult isn't afraid of being labelled for the fraud it is! HAH!

They'll never clean my cage! Now give me some more of... (post runs out)

After all the programming I've done, and all the hassles I've had in getting the damn things to do even half of what I want them to do, I can say without reservation that computers do not revere us as Gods.

They sure make me wanna use the Stark Fist of Removal© on 'em sometimes.

--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)