Slashback: Pop-Ups, Books, Qmail

Slashback tonight is loaded with updates and addenda to previous stories on Bayesian spam-prevention, pop-up ad blocking, and celebratory picnics as well as an inquiry into the other side of visionary literature. Read on below for the details.

What's your idea of feel-good literature? A few weeks ago, an Ask Slashdot question was posed about the greatest dystopic novels, and quite a few people weighed in with their choices for visions of the post-nuclear, post-germ-warfare, post-natural disaster or otherwise blighted future.

Now reader itwerx wants the other side: "That "Dystopic novels?" Ask Slashdot was so darn depressing we need a counter balance! Let's hear what novels of utopia may not be widely known."

It's certainly widely known, but I'll start the bidding with Atlas Shrugged.

The best revenge is living well, and gluing spammers end-to-end. RealDhar writes "Hey, just thought I'd let folks know that, inspired by the recent article about Paul Graham's Bayesian spam filter work, I went and wrote one for qmail. Please check it out!"

What took so long? Pop-up ads are no fun. iVillage cut them out, AOL swears they're cutting back, and even Netscape 7 can be wrangled to block them. An anonymous reader writes "From the Associated Press (via Salon): EarthLink Inc. said Monday it plans to offer its subscribers software to block Internet pop-up advertisements as part of a wider campaign to set itself apart from competitors. The full story is here.."

Penguins and picnics go well together. ArtEnvironment writes "Besides today's 2nd California Linux Anniversary Picnic previously mentioned, there will also be PLUS, the Philadelphia Linux/Unix Symposium which is the 2nd annual East-Coast Linux anniversary picnic and more, including a bar night kicking off Friday the 23rd, a free computer/electronics swap meet and giveaway on Saturday the 24th, and of course the picnic on Sunday the 25th. Also included is one of the well-known PLUG GPG Keysigning parties. PLUS will be an annual grass-roots event, but it 'won't be big and professional like' ALS or LWCE. ;)"

I look forward to the final, triumphant mention of this :) Qbertino writes "The Blender Fund, established a month ago in order to buy the IP of the 3D Pakage Blender and, at last, GPL it, has accumulated 90K Euro (90K$) of the required 100K in less than 4 weeks. As it indicates on the Website, Ton Roosendahl, father of Blender, is preparing to release the sources which should happen within the next week or so. Time for a Blender icon on /."

Comments

Ayn Rand was a wack-nut-fruit case

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlas Shrugged: one of the worst works of literature to ever be popularized. Almost as good as L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. The difference? The religion Rand started she decided to call a "philosophy", even though it's really more of an ideology.

Seriousuly, her utopia is not only deeply flawed, but her writing sucks. I mean, come on, did anyone really buy into those 20-minute long monologues that folks like D'Anconia have at dinner parties while everyone stands in silence and listens to his tedious diatribes?

The Fountainhead was much better (Rand was able to resist her temptation to "tell" not "show" a bit better), but even that work was deeply flawed, both from a literary perspective and from a philosophical one. Still inspiring in many ways, but seriously flawed.

She was rejected by 40 publishers for a reason.

I have no problem subscribing to the "less government" view of the world, but Objectivism is strictly out.

Re:Atlas Shrugged Utopia

[Anonymous Coward]

I was about to post an Ayn rant (anti) and lost hope during the middle of it.

Let it just be said that this Romantic tried to call her poor justifications objectivity for a good reason... to hide the lack of any internal coherency. At least half the people that "like" her simply don't understand her and buy the surface level rhetoric of libertarean objectivity. She hated Libertarians, She was not Objective ("objectivity" for her refers to the cold hard outlook, the ability to step over a homeless person, not in the scientific sense of subjecting one's hypothesis to doubt and test). Nietzsche is a much better way to spend your youthful rebellion against the herd. Rand is a waste of time. You can still step over homeless people without having to deify yourself to justify it. Hell, you can even help them if you like. (Not for rand, her not-for-profit organization doesn't believe in charity, volunteerism or, for that matter, not-for-profit endeavor!) There is no more humourously self-refuting organization or philosophy on earth, I believe.

She simply was justifying why men that rise to the top of the capitalist world, like Ken Lay, are a better sort of people, period.

Rand is actually quite dangerous, I think. She represents an anti-rationalism which is always a key ingredient in fascism.

Dang, I did the rant.