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The main arguement for Yucca mountain is that it is a more "secure" place to put all this stuff, and is far away from a major population. But to GET it there, it will be made incredibly vulnerable to attack, and we'll be driving it through cities. Instead of spending all this money on one site whose solution is worse than our current problem, we should be spending it to make sure the sites we have are made more secure.

So, leave aside the difficulty and expense of trying to secure the material against terrorists in the present locations. Leave aside the fact that these facilities are at or beyond capacity already. Leave aside the security advantages to putting all the (bad) eggs in one basket, and REALLY guarding that basket. Fact: IT IS NOT HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO SECURE PRESENT STORAGE FACILITIES ON THE TIMESCALE REQUIRED AGAINST THE RELEVANT THREATS. Even God might find it a challenge. Such threats include not only the threat of terrorists, but natural disasters, and the inexorable passage of time. Furthemore, the threats must be dealt with without the assurance of human intervention to mitigate them!

From my time as an engineering student, and from my sister's work on the 10000 year hydrology model while she was at the NRC, I am far more familiar with the project than the average layman. I am familiar with most of the objections raised by opponents, including the transportation risks, internal security questions, auditability, questions about geologic and hydrologic instability, and the issue of whether even 10000 years is long enough. I even agree with many of them.

To each of them, I respond: the current "solution" is a greater and far more immediate danger, and for the forseeable (~100 year) future THERE IS NO BETTER SOLUTION POSSIBLE (... unless you propose the United States annex Australia; there's a very nice deserted section of the Outback that has better long term geology and hydrology, but the Aussies are understandably not too keen on that).

Yucca mountain may be a flawed plan. In fact, you can even say it sucks in many respects. In fact, I'll do it for you: "The Yucca Mountain plan sucks in many respects." However, I've never heard anyone who objected to it who could seriously present a better, safer, and more "secure" one. Most suggestions consist of saying "These folks made the waste, they should solve the problem; not my problem, and certainly Not In My Back Yard!" While such insistance provides a good method (leaving aside the "all power corrupts but we need the electricity" problem) for shutting down further nuclear construction and thereby eliminating new nuclear waste, it does not solve the problem that already extant wastes represent to all of us. If you have a suggestion for improvement, fine; but if it's not an improvement, you've made a stupid suggestion.

So, what's your plan for preventing waste release for the next 10000 years?

Slashdot is designed so that browsing at +5 means "show me the posts that have been seen by the largest number of readers with mod points."

When mod points get assigned, users are given six at a time (instead of the current five). Mode Points then may be used in one of two ways.

1. A "moderation" link, much like "meta-moderation". You're given 10 posts to look at; mod as many of them as you see fit, up to the number of mod points you have at the moment, or until they expire. If a post doesn't stands out as good or evil, you can mod it "normal" for free, and not see it again on your "moderation" page.

1. The current moderation interface... with a catch. If *you* pick the item you see while browsing as worth moderating, it takes three points. This diminishes the moderation importance of things seen because other people already thought it was interesting/insightful/funny/whatnot.

I'd also suggest increasing the "wretched" range from only -1 to go down as far as -3 in this event-- some of what's out there really ought be lower than -1. And of course there's the suggestion implied from my sig...

Here's the audio

Dan

Here's the audio

Dan

There are a great number of interesting underground talk radio shows which have sprung up as of late, many of which deal with network security, computer programming, software piracy, individual privacy issues, etc.

I recommend the following shows:

The ARTS: Artscene Radio Talk Show - show archive
BinRev: Binary Revolution - show archive
RFA: Radio Freek America - show archive

and of course we can't forget Emmanuel Goldstein's Off the Hook which has shows dating back to 1988:
2600's Off the Hook - show archive

TEXTFILES.COM also stores a huge library of other radio shows and rants at its newly branded AUDIO.TEXTFILES.COM.

Iii neverii getii anyii virii. Itii mustii beii painfulii toii runii windowii.

Or possiiblii Swedish

These raids are the result of "Operation Fastlink" and are a direct attack on the Release Groups that supply everyone with movies/warez/appz/gamez/etc. Here's a real story & A much better google news link will help fill out the picture. here are some snippets:

No arrests were immediately announced, but Ashcroft said they were coming. Among the countries in which FBI searches have been conducted are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and Great Britain.

Three Singaporeans were arrested on Wednesday night in an anti-Internet piracy operation involving 12 countries.

At the request from the US authorities, the Dutch tax investigation service FIOD-ECD has raided 14 locations in the Netherlands in an operation against large scale software piracy.

In Their 18th Year Of Glory, FairLight Is No More
A small archive of their text files

> Come to think of it, isn't Razor 1911, and a few other "big players" still in the game?

If memory serves, RZR1911 was decapitated in the mid/late-90s. The group was then reformed by some of the former members under the same name. There were also defections to other groups (TDT for one, i believe).

See http://blackroses.textfiles.com/piracy/ for info...

Since so many sysops around (havnt used that term in years)

Check out these links.

http://archives.thebbs.org
and
http://bbslist.textfiles.com

Don't forget to google for Similar pages, if you migrated to PC after the Apple/C64 classic modem BBS'ing, you can find all the Ansi Door games of the past. BTW, you can run door games under linux with dosemu and Linux BBS software for those broadband Tradewar junkies.

I take it you never heard of Textfiles.com.

Does anybody remember the Alpha Complex tune ?

I'm an Alpha Complex Dandy
(Sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy)

I'm an Alpha Complex Dandy.
Alpha Complex do or die.
A new clone version of my last five clones.
Like them I know I'll soon die.
I've got an Alpha Complex sweetheart.
Teela is my Alpha Joy.
Troubleshooters find the Commies.
Beat the mutants senseless.
I am an Alpha Complex boy!

I'm an Alpha Complex dandy.
Troubleshooter do or die.
A clone replacement of my former self.
Soon I will probably fry.
I've got to serve my friend Computer.
If I don't, I know I'll die.
Kill the Commie infiltrators,
Also Troubleshooters.
I am an Alpha Complex guy!

I'm an Alpha Complex Commie
(Subversive version of the above)

I'm an Alpha Complex Commie.
Alpha Complex do or die.
A new clone version of my last five clones.
Like them, I know I'll soon die.
I'm not an Alpha Complex sweetheart.
Girls are just the same as boys.
Commie mutants beat computers.
Troubleshooters, phooie!
I'm not an Alpha Complex toy!

http://www.textfiles.com/rpg/song
Scroll down to THE ALPHA COMPLEX SONGBOOK

I don't know about that -- Captain Midnight did a nice number on a satellite with little more than the right opportunity. My apologies for the comparison, as Captain Midnight was certainly not a force of evil like those two entities, but the point stands to say -- you don't have to put a bullet through a satellite to kill it.

Nuff respect to groups like ACiD and ICE for doing what they do with pride. While these two are arguably the biggest players in the ANSI and now "VGA" scene, they're certainly not the only ones still doing it and actively discussing it.

Be sure to check out telnet BBS's - same as the old POTS equivalent but with way more lines and generally better bandwidth (althogh displaying ANSI's is smoother via dialup). A list of active telnet BBS's can be found at The BBS Corner.

Before there was ANSI art there was ASCII. It's a little cheesy and rudamentary but it takes a lot of talent to represent visual art as typographic characters. IRC-ers will dig the ASCII block fonts. For some info on the history of PC art check out Textfiles.com Art.

Parallel to the art scene were the MOD (music module) and demo (megademo\intro\loader) scenes. These disciplines all began in the C64 days, most often seen accompanying cracked games with chippy SID tunes. Warez and demo began together as a sort of cyber-Pangea and though they have separated and flourished in their own way, they still occasionally accompany oneanother to this day. Thanks to products like Sk@le Tracker and ModPlug Tracker the MOD scene is still kicking.

While the popularity of ANSI has declined over the years, megademos are more popular than ever (particularly in Finland, Belgium, Germany, and thereabouts). Demo parties are bigger and badder than ever and are even covered on national television. For a very entertaining primer on the demo scene pick up a copy of the Mind Candy DVD Vol. 1. It's the best $16 you'll ever spend.

ANSI and demos seem to have shared a similar fate. ANSI, in all its blocky glory, is a testement to the speed and limitations of its time - the very definition of zeitgeist. As artists grew in number and in skill, more advanced techniques such as shading and emulating texture were implemented, but there's only so much that can be done with the medium. Demos, by definition, have much more freedom and were, in earlier times, a competition to code the newest, coolest, most efficient realtime effects. 3D video accelerators all but destroyed this pursuit and now the megademo has become more of a demonstration of design than coding. For all the demos you could ever hope to watch, check out The Hornet Archive.

And check out my MODs!

How can they call the notebook M6805? What a strange misleading name! Are everyone too young to remember the Motorola 6805 microprocessor? Are they sure the notebook uses a 64-bit microprocessor?

People actually pay you money to host their websites in that basement? Please let me know what form of hypnosis you used on your costumers. *sarcasm off* Seriously beyond the basement, how can you possibly compete price wise with any half-decent provider? Are these friends of yours or something? Just no way that you could afford a T-1 and still make money by hosting 3 customers. Unless they are a bit "sheltered" and don't realize what a few hundred dollars gets them on the open market.

Even though this thread is well on its way to death, I wanted to respond to this (currently 0 rated) comment, since I think there's something worth discussing in it. Likely a version of this will go into a "my basement data center" page I should really build.

There are several considerations you're not aware of or missing. There is no shame in this, since all you've had to go on is a paragraph and a picture.

First of all, I am an additional customer along with my other 3-4 customers. I use an awful lot of bandwidth (imagine how much goes out the door on artscene.textfiles.com alone) and so I pay a good portion of the monthly costs, more than anyone else in fact. What opening my basement to others does is turn what would be a crushing monthly recurring charge into a merely indulgent one. Since the vast majority of my work and public face comes through these machines and the network, I think it's a worthwhile expenditure.

I will take this moment to say that my T-1 comes from Speakeasy, and is an amazing bargain at about $520 a month. I've had people say "how do you afford the thousands for one" and the answer is I don't. They give me incredible service and top-level support. I've had a total of 30 minutes of outage in 11 months. They're good people and you should consider them instead of cable companies, who are, in fact, distilled evil.

I might have lost you (or others) when I displaced the notion of a profit motive behind the setup of my home. I don't really call these folks "customers", I call them "roommates", with a lot of the needed give-and-take that comes from that. When they need a reboot, they call me on my cell phone and I go do it. I've done part installs and troubleshooting, all part of the deal, just like roommates help each other out. When they need an extra IP or two, I get one to them. If they ask for a reverse lookup change, I go do it. And so on. I answer questions and make myself available. Also, we do things month to month, no contract. If one person leaves for whatever reason, I can swing the cost until I find a new person.

So I don't think it's hypnosis or delusion or sheltering; you will find most places give you "virtual hosting" or charge a lot for rackspace or will not give you the access to a dedicated person that I give, and can really only give if it's a small number of people. Will it ever be a full-on Colocation Facilty? No. Do I want it to be? No. Am I in competition with these places? I don't think so.

The 1990's imbued otherwise-rational geeks with this inherent need to justify everything as a business case. It really sours everything, if you ask me. This is more a little community than anything else. Don't worry, I'm not putting any colos out to pasture.

I used to host with a fine place, but disagreements over costs and bandwidth usage charges inspired me (along with the purchase of my home) to host in my own basement. I have 3-4 customers, and we'll keep it at that. Bandwidth is a T-1. And I think the place looks pretty sharp. This is also where textfiles.com and bbsdocumentary.com are hosted, so it works for me.

Given the nature of his spamming, it sounds like he is a prime candidate for what this law was intended for (not random victim, or a script kiddie learning to spam for fun).

Ugh. That is the single scariest most disturbing comment I have ever read on slashdot. This is what "script kiddies" do for fun, now? What the hell happened to The Mentor? There isn't even any semblance of excuse for spamming. Its surely not to discover, nor is it even about "making your voice heard" or even "attacking your enemy". It's just picking the pocket of every single one of your peers out of sheer greed.

My .sig just became so frightening.

Relive the good ol' days at textfiles.com

http://textfiles.com/ is another fantastic, wonderful resource and window into computer-ages long gone. Check out the top 100 - especially the Captain Midnight story. My kids will be getting this read to them before bedtime some day.

http://textfiles.com/ is another fantastic, wonderful resource and window into computer-ages long gone. Check out the top 100 - especially the Captain Midnight story. My kids will be getting this read to them before bedtime some day.

We have a situation here where we're reading a reporter's review of a conversation with the author of an academic study about that study. Doesn't that seem a little weak? I understand if there's an attempt to simplify and provide a summary, but how can we make any judgements, or even see what the author was trying to get across without a link to the document?

I made a vaguely involved attempt to find the PDF or HTML file somewhere on the various universities mentioned in the article, but then figured out I was doing too much work for it.

I collect strange academic papers so I'd like a copy, as I'm sure some small portion of Slashdot folks would as well. Others can continue the trend by commenting on a slashdot story about a reporter's thoughts on a conversation with a professor about an academic study.

Anyway, there were probably worm/virus prototypes before 1983. Anyone know of them?

In 1981-1982 the first computer virus, Elk Cloner, started spreading in the wild but it was not until 1983 when Fred Cohen finally proved that the concept of a computer virus was viable. To my best knowledge the first worm spreading in the wild was IBM Christmas Worm in 1987 and the first Internet worm was Robert T. Morris' Worm in 1988.

Where does it end? Should I just give them a hair sample now or wait until my implant is required?

Neither. Under US law the cops don't need a warrant for anything you willfully disregard, and that extends to bodily waste. All they need to do is follow you around for a few days till they see one of yours fall, everyone loses hair constantly 24x7. Either that or they can just go through your trash and find a comb / hairbrush / kleenex, also without a warrant

Seriously, your paranioa is way too little, way too late. It's even against the law in most states now for an adult to walk around without carrying ID. So unless you're a homeless hobo, you're being tracked. Everywhere. .

Heh - are these the same folks who published plans on how to power your house out of the phopne lines? Most of their textfiles will never be implemented. Especially the ones about things like making cocaine by concentrating espresso.

No

The Palestinians got online and got hold of the wealth of bombmaking content availiable online. They'd be blowing up Israelis much more efficiently in next to no time at all!

A couple of choice links:
http://www.twistedinternet.com/library-files/Anarc hy/
http://web.textfiles.com/destruction/

Yo Bill! Here is my "patch".

PATCH THIS"

wait a minute... what does an Irish Car Bomb have to do with beer? ;-)

Here are some additional ASCII art sites worth visiting, some of which host artwork dating back to the early 1970's...

The Textfiles.com Computer Art Collection
Features a wide range of computer-oriented text-based artwork beginning with teletype (RTTY) art which predates ASCII. An archive of archives.
http://artscene.textfiles.com/

The ACiD Artpacks Archive
Indexed and sorted by year. Hosts a collection of over 13 years of ASCII, ANSI, RIPscrip and other digital artwork.
ftp://artpacks.acid.org/pub/artpacks/

The Christ ASCII Archives
Indexed and sorted by artgroup. The authoritative archive of IBM-PC and Amiga ASCII art.
ftp://ftp.mimic.ca/pub/ascii/

Thuglife ASCII Art/News Portal
http://www.thuglife.org

Joan Stark's ASCII gallery
More mainstream but rich in content regarding the different facets ASCII artscenes. Unfortunately this site is constantly plagued by Geocities bandwidth caps.
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/

I think the protocol that let you upload & download at the same time was bimodem. It also let you chat with the sysop while the file transfers where going.

It was released on December 7, 1988.

Here's a link to textfiles.com timeline

Back in the day, "Ansi Bombs" were considered an art form. With the art scene so active, you could usually embed some evil escape string in a good looking graphic and know that you were going to get people.

The problem was DOS' overly-powerful ANSI.SYS interpreter. It let you remap any key to an arbitrary set of keys, making keyboard macros pretty easy. However, it also let evildoers remap "Space" to, for example, "del *.*, enter, y, enter." Luckily, there were third party ANSI interpreters that didn't suffer this vulnerability.

One time, when I was about to reformat my HD, I even wrote an ANSI bomb to do it. Crazy stuff. There's an interesting (and of course, old) paper about it here.

Check out TextFiles.com.

I especially love the anarchy files. "Wahahhahah!" There's also great commentary about the whole BBS scene.

For anyone looking for that file they saw on a BBS 15 years ago, you may be able to find it here.

Granted some of these links are now repetitive, but many of the largest warehouses of ASCII art have yet to be mentioned. Listed in order of magnitude:

TEXTFILES.COM Computer Art Collection
Features a wide range of computer-oriented text-based artwork beginning with teletype (RTTY) art which predates ASCII. An archive of archives. http://www.textfiles.com/artscene/

The ACiD Artpacks Archive
Index and sorted by year. Hosts a collection of over 13 years of ASCII, ANSI, RIPscrip and other digital artwork. ftp://artpacks.acid.org/pub/artpacks/

The CHRIST Ascii Archives
Indexed and sorted by artgroup. The authoritative archive of IBM-PC and Amiga ASCII art. ftp://ftp.mimic.ca/pub/ascii/

Thuglife ASCII Art/News Portal
http://www.thuglife.org

Joan Stark's ASCII gallery
More mainstream but rich in content regarding the different facets ASCII artscenes. Unfortunately this site is constantly plagued by Geocities bandwidth caps.

textfiles.com is a good repository of "BBS era" text files. Specifically a good selection of ASCII art. (Be nice and don't all hit the the same page, the main site has mirrors)

textfiles.com is a good repository of "BBS era" text files. Specifically a good selection of ASCII art. (Be nice and don't all hit the the same page, the main site has mirrors)

textfiles.com is a good repository of "BBS era" text files. Specifically a good selection of ASCII art. (Be nice and don't all hit the the same page, the main site has mirrors)

Well, until it's free, there's always textfiles.com.

Actually, a while ago I copied a lot of the Project Gutenberg library, along with some others, and created etext.textfiles.com.

In my experience, the reason a lot of people don't donate free time to transcription or other similar drudge work is because a lot of sites that encourage it steal it. Witness CDDB, and just wait to see how long before you pay for IMDB.

Well, until it's free, there's always textfiles.com.

Actually, a while ago I copied a lot of the Project Gutenberg library, along with some others, and created etext.textfiles.com.

In my experience, the reason a lot of people don't donate free time to transcription or other similar drudge work is because a lot of sites that encourage it steal it. Witness CDDB, and just wait to see how long before you pay for IMDB.

The reference, in case you didn't get it, is from this: Conan the Librarian

Welcome Slashdot readers! We are currently under WAY HEAVY LOAD, which should not be a surprise :-)
The regular website is disabled until we can cope with the load.

Until then, you can get more information about MindCandy from Maz Sound.
For ordering, check Fusecon's MindCandy ordering page.
If you'd like to see the trailers, a mirror of selected MindCandy content has been provided by Jason Scott.
(You may know Jason as the curator of textfiles.com and the BBS documentary project, so check them out.)

Here's some other questions people might have. I'll do my best to head them off:

What are you, Jason Scott, getting out of all this?

I am working on a Documentary about BBSes and run a site about 1980's BBSes and have a soft spot for anyone who dedicates so much time to bringing back computer history, as I'm doing myself. I know how much they spent in money on this (equipment, DVD pressing) and they went for tip-top quality in all of it, and I think this should be rewarded. Slashdot brings people to a site that might otherwise be overlooked.

What about the Amiga, C-64 and other machines?

I know they have plans to do those machines as well for the next in the series; that's why it's Volume 1. If this one sells well, they can afford to do another one. Therefore it's important that everyone who could want a DVD like this know about it. I know they're working on the technical issues of taking video output from these machines and making them look good.

Big deal, they hooked a VCR to a PC

No, that is not the case! When the site lightens up, and you read all they had to keep track of to make the demos look decent on a DVD, you will understand what a massive undertaking this is. Flicker, color-quality, even the problems of general radio interference across the video cables.... they had to handle all these problems, find solutions, and deal with them.

Who are these people?

If it means something to you, these folks are the driving forces behind the Hornet Archive and Mobygames. They care. They care a lot.

What do you mean they don't make them like they used to?

Surprisingly enough, the textfile scene is quite alive!

Both www.textscene.com and scene.textfiles.com do what they can to stay on top of the newest tfiles.

just remember, you asked:

http://blackroses.textfiles.com/sex/sex-cars.faq

--
Efficient Quiz

The BBS Documentary is still chugging along at the usual place. Over 120 interviews so far!

I'm not listed on the BBS Links, but that's OK. I also maintain a historical BBS List and a few BBS-era textfiles.

The BBS Documentary is still chugging along at the usual place. Over 120 interviews so far!

I'm not listed on the BBS Links, but that's OK. I also maintain a historical BBS List and a few BBS-era textfiles.

Eh, nothing that's going to convince you to start using them.

I still connect to a few to play TradeWars, L.O.R.D., and other goofy console games. They're not fantastic games by today's standards, but I still dig them.

Other than games, I don't know what people connect for. textfiles.com takes care of all my old skool textfile cravings, so there's little need for a bbs in that regard.

Mostly, I think it's just an anachronism. It's nice to fire up a telnet app and get back to your roots.

Although not a computer science paper per se, The Hacker Papers was one of the first widely read articles about people who spend an excessive amount of time using computers. This article also introduced the original definition of the term hacker to a wider audience.