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what I have said before, and it still makes sense, is to have infinite TLDs. Open them all up, have a party. Then at least there is a chance for the freedom that was there before. and if MS wants to spend untold millions registering every possible name variant, they can afford to spend some of the extra cash.

as it is, now everytime a company wants to lock up a site, the need to buy up all of the variants of .com .net .org, regardless of what these meant originally. These were never really well enforced.

And don't forget about the thought police who beat on folks who had a really cool name legitimately years before the "dotcom company" came out. For an interesting story in this regard check out Toywar.com, where the story of etoy.com is documented in humorous style.

Etoy.com of Toywar fame are swiss, like cheese (or whatever)...

I see just one major problem with the idea, great as it is: the MPAA, which is the major force behind the lawsuit, is not a 'BB' - it has no stock to be voted, and a request from any SINGLE one of its members would most likely not have the clout to get them to stop. Hackers of the world would need to control a notable percentage of stock in THE MAJORITY of the several dozen major motion picture 'BB's that support the MPAA, and that, unfortunately, is very unlikely to happen.

One possible alternative is a media campaign, and to that effect, etoy might take an interest in helping, as they already have an established agent base in the thousands.

damnnewbe@hotmail.com
"I am not responsible for the opinions of my peers"

The answer would be eToys requesting Network Solutions to take etoy.com away. Network Solution then claims they had a court order to do so, despite the fact that both etoy AND etoys claim otherwise and no such court order has been shown. The lawsuit is dropped by eToys, and Network Solutions still refuses to return the domain name. ICANN refuses to look into the matter, and a group of artists are still denied their site.

It doesn't take hackers to destroy your site where Network Solutions is involved. They'll do it themselves, just to make their larger clients happy.

This is agent JohnnyAngel at Toywar reminding you that you can no longer buy a vowel.

-----

Just speaking for myself personally, I would love to see Linux ports of Ultima I, II, III, IV, V and VI. Those games don't have all the fancy graphics of, say, Quake, but they were a of a lot of fun to play. Ultima IV, released I think in 1986, is still a great game. Since most of these games are over 15 y.o. I would think it would be a sinch to get them ported.

What would be better is to have these games GPL'ed. A GPL Ultima IV would be better than NetHack! :)

ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report

Contact: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com
More information: Press cverage, RTMark etoy Projects, etoy Toywar Platform, Shell Oil, Nazi toy

Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.

Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.

The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."

"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)

"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."

WHAT NOW?

Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.

"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."

"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.

"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.

"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)

BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE

Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.

During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.

The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.

Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.

Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.

Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.

RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.

ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report

Contact: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com
More information: Press cverage, RTMark etoy Projects, etoy Toywar Platform, Shell Oil, Nazi toy

Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.

Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.

The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."

"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)

"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."

WHAT NOW?

Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.

"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."

"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.

"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.

"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)

BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE

Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.

During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.

The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.

Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.

Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.

Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.

RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.

ETOYS FINALLY DROPS LAWSUIT, PAYS COURT COSTS
Waited a month to make good on promise, just in time for earnings report

Contact: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com
More information: Press cverage, RTMark etoy Projects, etoy Toywar Platform, Shell Oil, Nazi toy

Four weeks ago, Internet toy giant eToys announced to the press that it was "moving away" from its lawsuit against European art group etoy in response to the torrent of public outrage. As the weeks went by without further action, however, many activists decided that eToys' words had represented a typical corporate ploy to derail opposition, and that the company had no intention of actually dropping the suit.

Activists quickly renewed their campaigns against eToys. RTMark initiated two new campaigns to drive eToys' stock price yet further down (it has now sunk well below its opening value of $20 per share, after a high of $67 reached the day the protests began), and a new community platform, http://www.toywar.com, gathered a "toy army" of 1400 activists poised to perform "operations" on command.

The strongest attack to date was scheduled to coincide with eToys' earnings announcement on Thursday. Today, just in time, eToys formally dropped its case against etoy "without prejudice"--a phrase that means either party is still free to attack the other. eToys has also formally agreed to pay etoy's court costs and other expenses incurred as a result of the lawsuit.

"A precedent has now finally been set in stone," said RTMark spokesperson Ray Thomas. "eToys thought it could act like corporations typically do, but it had no idea how the Internet works. Now e-commerce corporations have a choice: either obtain a legal stranglehold on the Internet, so that this kind of defensive reaction is no longer possible, or behave decently towards the humans who use this medium for purposes other than profit."

"This is the Brent Spar of e-commerce," said Reinhold Grether, an Internet researcher and a mastermind of the anti-eToys campaigns. "Just as the petroleum industry learned it had to listen to environmentalists, so e-commerce companies have now learned that the Internet doesn't belong to them, and they can't do whatever they want with it." (See http://rtmark.com/shell for more about the Brent Spar, and http://www.hygrid.de/etoyrhiz.html for more comments by Grether.)

"eToys will try to paint this as a misunderstanding, as just a simple error that has now been corrected," wrote etoy in a prepared statement. "But this is not what happened. They tried to destroy us, and that got them into very big trouble. They wanted to drop their case 'with prejudice,' because they fear further attacks and trademark battles, but now they see they have no choice at all in the matter. It is a total victory."

WHAT NOW?

Even though etoy has recovered its domain, the etoy Fund will not be retired, said RTMark spokesperson Thomas. Each project's discussion board will continue to function, and the resources of the etoy Fund pages will continue to be accessible for use and research.

"We hope that this campaign continues to serve as a reminder to people of what corporations do when left to their own devices, and as a reminder to corporations of what they cannot do, at least on the Internet," said Thomas. "We also hope people continue expressing their anger at eToys, if they so choose. There are many ways to embarrass and further damage this company--the Nazi figurine eToys advertises could lead to a boycott by Jewish groups, for example." Another immediate option would be a class-action lawsuit by eToys investors, said lawyer and RTMark member Rita Mae Rakoczi. "It could convincingly be argued that eToys, being an Internet company, should have known what it was getting into, and has seriously mismanaged its stockholders' money. If etoy's possession of etoy.com is so dangerous-- as perhaps it really is--why didn't eToys choose a different name for the company when they had the chance? And why did they choose to pursue in an openly hostile manner an art group best known for a piece called the 'Digital Hijack,' which made sophisticated use of technology to playfully attack users' browsers? It wouldn't take an Einstein to predict trouble."

"If eToys stumbled into this through sheer stupidity and negligence," Rakoczi continued, "it could be liable to investors for part of the $4 billion in value that's been lost as a consequence. A successful lawsuit could even entail eToys losing its own trademark, which would likely mean the end of the company." RTMark has set up a page containing links to resources on class action lawsuits against corporate managements.

"Things on the Internet don't go away," said etoy in its statement. "'Brick and mortar' corporations do this sort of thing and then bury it--but this will always be there when you search for information on eToys. It will always be very visible what bastards they were. They can never recover from this." The 1400 "Toywar soldiers" mustered by http://www.toywar.com will remain on high alert, according to the platform's operators, and are prepared to spring into action at the slightest indication of further aggression by eToys.

"And Network Solutions had better be careful, too," etoy said. "We will not tolerate any delay in the reinstallation of the etoy.com DNS entries." Network Solutions, the company in charge of Internet domains, illegally terminated etoy's e-mail shortly after the November 29 injunction, although no such move was required by the order. (See http://rtmark.com/etoyvaticano.html for another example of illegal behavior by Network Solutions.)

BACKGROUND AND TIMELINE

Late last year, eToys attempted to buy etoy.com from European art group etoy, and offered upwards of $500,000 in cash and stock options for the domain. etoy turned down the offer, so on November 29, 1999, eToys obtained a court injunction preventing etoy from operating a website at www.etoy.com, which had been registered before eToys even existed. To obtain the injunction eToys told the judge that etoy.com was confusing customers, and furthermore that it contained pornography and calls to violence. etoy.com had never made any reference to eToys or toys, nor featured anything resembling pornography or calls to violence.

During the subsequent weeks, activists attacked eToys by a variety of means that have been widely credited with contributing to the 70% decline in the value of eToys stock--a decline that began the same day as the protests.

The Dec. 15-25 Virtual Sit-in crippled the eToys servers, as CNN reported, and prompted eToys to file a restraining order against one of the organizations responsible for it, and to threaten another activist anonymously.

Simultaneously, the Disinvest! campaign filled eToys investment boards and other outlets with messages about the situation. Many investors responded by dumping their eToys stock. Even those who refused to see a link between activist attacks and the eToys stock fall were at a loss to explain how it could lose so much money, so consistently, on consistently good financial news. Some suspected foul play by eToys management, and the possibility of a class-action lawsuit was raised.

Finally, on December 29, eToys announced it was "moving away" from its lawsuit in response to public outrage. At first, etoy and the activists were delighted, and a formal counterpart to the statement was expected from hour to hour. Then, when nothing happened for days and then weeks, it became clear that eToys' announcement had been an empty verbal concession it had no intention of making concrete--a typical corporate ploy to derail activist momentum.

Activists quickly renewed their campaign to damage eToys. Perhaps startled by the endurance of its opponents, and nervous about further attacks and proof of instability during the week it is to announce its quarterly earnings, eToys today--at 15:20 Pacific Standard Time, to be exact--finally backed down on paper, ceding full rights to etoy.com on etoy's terms, without precondition and with payment of court costs and other expenses.

RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage projects." Groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in order to call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to identify corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target specific companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.

Don't mind me if I'm in no mood to celebrate. Between eToys, DVD and the MPAA, I've developed a distaste for the legal system as it applies to intellectual property.

Just don't do it in the People's Republik of Kalifornia, as that carbine is now an 'assault weapon'. (because its less than 30 inches long, whereas the feds say a rifle is 26 inches or longer since 1934.)

Doesn't it have to be semiautomatic in order to qualify as an assault rifle in California?

If you really want to get rid of all your MPAA stuff, find a local chapter of Geeks with Guns and a good outdoor range.

If you're in the Pacific Northwest, email me. I'd like to try a carbine out on some DVD equiptment...

Yet another reason why we need to boycott DVD technology and, probably, anything that one of the MPAA's associates puts out, until this lawsuit settles. Let's not give these jerks the ammunition they need to prosecute the case (our money.)

Oh what I wouldn't do to be living in this person's district, so I could run against her.

It's one thing to be pissed off at the studios. It's another thing to boycott them! DVD's are great, and these companies make most of them. So screw this boycott!!!

I say, screw you. These companies are trampling on your rights, and you're paying them to do it every time you buy a DVD or rent a video. I for one refuse to feed the mouth that bites me. I've joined the boycott. If you gave a damn about your freedom of expression, you'll stop giving these people your hard earned money.

I like movies too. But if having movies means paying people to destroy open-source software, then fuck the movies. I'll play Quake instead. At least ID software supports what we're doing.

2600 is calling for demonstrations against the MPAA, and I for one agree. We need to educate ordinary people on the fact that their right to free speech is in serious jeopardy thanks to the greed and stupidity of an organization (the MPAA) that fell for the DVD-security snake oil and can't admit that it's been had.

• If you're not a member of EFF or the ACLU, join now.
• If you are a member, or want to be more active, contact your local 2600 cell or Linux User's Group and help to organize a demonstration.
• If you have a DVD player, and you're too sick to even look at it, consider donating it to a local Geeks with Guns outing, in exchange for plenty of photos. Post them on a website, and mail them to DVD CAA and the members of the MPAA (listed on the 2600 announcement of the injunction).
• Consider buying a DeCSS source shirt; or if you're really radical, consider becoming a DOE (one of the 500+ anonyous people mentioned in the first injunction hearing).
• Boycott movies and videos until the MPAA drops the lawsuit!
• Most importantly: SPREAD THE WORD to other geeks and non-geeks. This is too important for us to keep silent!

This and the Etoy lawsuit are probably the most significant fights to hit our commmunity since the Clipper Chip fiasco. The lines are drawn, ladies and gentlemen; we need to fight with everything we've got to prevent Internet from becoming nothing but a huge, suburban shopping mall. Get involved in an historical fight and have something that you'll be proud to tell your kids and grandkids about, twenty years from now.

This actually happened to me. A person who shall be un-named (but I know who it is, and he is on my permanent shit list) sent emails to the dean of a school I went to, complaining that I was sending him harrassing emails and making obscene posts to a newsgroup. The dean recieved a lot of these emails, who were signed with a pseudonym (with NO contact information). The Dean tried contacting me at a Groupwise address that I never used, and made no attempts to contact me by any other means (even though he obviously had my home phone number, knew I had a mailbox with the department, could have used any of my other email addresses, &c.) He shut down my email service on all accounts for 24 hours as a result. He claimed that he would eventually revoke my email service, but that never happened. Eventually it came down to a shouting match between the dean and the department sysadmin.

I have very fond memories of that institution and I recommend it highly. But even in the best of institutions, there will occasionally be idiots in charge. Those are the people you need to watch out for.

Haven't they been doing this with genes in fruit flies for years?

This is a two step proposal. One step is trival. The second takes a lot of work.

1. Include a moderation, -1, naked and petrified post
2. Allow people to screen out posts, or highlight posts, with certain moderations. Thus, if Nitrozac (who presumably posts at 2 by default) posts a "I want Linus Torvalds Naked and Petrified!!" and gets moderated down for a naked and petrified post, I wouldn't even see it if I was "bottom feeding" at a threshold of -1, if I didn't want to see a naked and petrified post. This would save considerable time and trouble for moderators, who would otherwise have to waste valuable moderation points moderating a "Naked and Petrified" post down to -2 (invisible). The downside is that "naked and petrified" posters wouldn't lose much karma...but hell, most of them post as AC's anyways, right?

One possible abuse: moderators who disagree with someone's comments can abuse the "Naked and Petrified" option. Blip their comments are never seen again, until meta-moderation, and then the moderator loses only one karma point. I'm not sure how to fix this except to up the karma penalty for an unfair "Naked and Petrified" post to -5.

If there's to be a proposition for a Hedy Lamarr award, why not make it for the person of any gender who's had the best out-of-left-field idea that made the most impact?

Speaking of lateral thinking, that's a far better idea than the one I came up with. Hat's off to you.

How about it Slashdot? If you want I'll start developing products that we can sell...proceeds to go to the Hedy Lamarr Award for Lateral Thinking.

No, I skipped the rest of the bible. Turns out its pretty boring

Oh...well...this explains everything.

Care for some tea? One lump or two?

The problem with this proposition is that it is not ok. Women are inferior to men (1 Timothy 2:11-14) and should act like it and obey the bible in order to save there lustfull and sinful souls from the flames of hell.

Dude...this is exactly the kind of ignorant, sexist garbage that keeps talented people from using their talents. (You do remember the parable of the talents, right?) If women using their God-given talents is against your religious code, then maybe you ought to re-think the way you worship.

I certainly hope your children don't grow up to resent you. Gods know if I had been raised to think the way you do, I'd end up bitter and angry at my own father as I came to the realization that the real world is completely different from what my father told me.

Maybe a Slashdot Hedy Lamarr Award for the most outstanding contribution made by a woman in the last year?

Hey, it could work.
TOYWAR!!

To Hedy Lamarr, the original, never-to-be forgotten, Tech Talking Babe.

Ziggy gave out loans, screwed up money and screwed up concept
Like some cat from Japan, he could lick 'em by smiling
He could leave 'em to hang
Came on as a loaded man, well hung and snow white tan.

So where were the tellers when we system started to crash
No DSN to guide us,
So we bitched about his rights, and should we crush Ziggy's site?

Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo
The kids were just crass, he was the nazz With God given cash
He loaned out way too much but boy he didn't lose his touch

Making love with his ego Ziggy sucked up their money

Like a Judas he sold us
When the kiddies launched their scripts I knew we were dying quick

Oh yeah
Ooooooo
Ziggy played bankerrrrrr

I wonder if he'll remake Little Toy Soilders for Toywar - JohnyAngel

Mark Pauline is the Bob Geldorf of cool technology projects. Where would we be without him pushing the limits?

By the way. Toywar is up and running

TOYWAR, etoy's new site is up! See it to see why you should see it!

OK let's say I'm one of the artists at etoy.com right, chilling at the office with my fellow artists then suddenly we get the offer from eToys.com.
Here's where I go into logical reasoning mode and postulate what happens if we refuse and they take legal action.
"Ok guys what could happen if this goes to a court or similar regulatory body?".
Well the judge on one hand sees a bunch of artistic types who use profanity on their website and on the other hand sees a legitimate business. Score 1 against us...(I've been to court that is how judge-types think.)

Secondly what hapens if we win a.) eToys.com (a legitimate business) stands to loose a number of customers who come to our site by accident and loose some reputation among the unknowledgeable b.) eToys.com is decides to forego the website and creates a new one, has to start a new marketing campaign and maybe change its stock ticker. What if we loose...well the judge says buy another domain for $70 bucks and do what is currently done at slashdot.com . So the judge has a choice of costing a legitimate business thousands to millions of dollars or costing a bunch of artists $70.

I wonder what he'll choose?

At this point my friends and i accept the stock, sell it, buy ourselves some kick ass SGI boxes and some killer software and keep doing what we do at another domain name.


PS: I can't get over the way people on slashdot make it seem like a domain name is some necessity of life like food, air, water or shelter. We were not born with them and they'll be gone before we die. So what's the fscking point of all this ruckus. If a new domain naming scheme comes into effect tomorrow all domain names will be null N void. If slashdot changed it's name to geeknews.com or something all that would happen is a bunch of geeks would have to update their bookmarks. no crying, no sickness, no famine, no plague, just updated bookmarks.

sheeesh!

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