I think raising gas prices is needed but is not going to be an acceptable solution unless alternate transportation is provided. Our cities are just not layed out to make it possible to live in the range most people can travel without automobiles. They really should give a few years notice that fuel prices are going to rise and put in place some kind of encouragement that cities improve their mass transit systems. Either way fuel prices are going to rise so giving some offical warning would be a good idea although I expect most people would just bitch and moan and then ignore the warning.
True. I'm all for telecommuting as much as possible. Unfortunately many jobs require a physical presence as do other reasons to travel. We have adapted to sprawling and it'll take a while to redesign our cities and national transit system.
Effecient doesn't only mean in fuel. I mean in all resources automobiles use and the toll they take from our personal lives. How much do you spend yearly on owning, maintaining, and driving a car? From car payments to added taxes it really adds up.
I mean trains as in vehicles who follow pre-defined tracks and therefore can be easily automated. That does not necessarily mean a subway type of system. I'm thinking more of individual cars that are automated, centrally powered, and not individually owned. Less road space being required would benefit the enviroment.
With an automated system it'd be easy to save room by not needing near as many roads and by stacking the roads vertically and underground. Being automated they can be much quicker and safe.
A central powersource means that even if they run off fossil fuels they are more effecient than an equivilant number of individual cars. Also because they are automated they can complete their route more effeciently thus saving fuel.
Being owned by a company that essentially leases the use of them to you, the passenger, for the duration of the trip means that you don't have to pay for licensing, maintence, and other expenses that plague the modern American. Also we'd save natural resources by needing fewer vehicles as many indidivual cars sit idle and empty the majority of the time while a central transit system could pool this resource.
In the end I think even emergency vehicles and delivery vehicles should be replaced by a train system. However I think that'd be much harder to make happen. A working pedestrian system would probably have to be socially excepted before the complete overhaul could be accepted.
Long haul trains is a better solution. Unfortunately the US has all but slaughtered it's train system. There was more money to be made in automobiles so that is the system that won out here. Unfortunately we're punishing ourselves for buying into that ill-conceived notion.
Really the only place automobiles are really useful is where roads don't go. They're very well suited for offroad use but are not usually used that way. Anywhere a paved road goes it'd be cheaper to install and maintain a track system.
It's pretty funny that you think I've an ecosocialist when I've encouraged the best way to stop terrorists attacks on the US is to nuke Las Vegas out of existence as a show of how insane we are. I'd pollute the enviroment incredibly just to make a big fireworks display and you think I'm a tree-hugger.
Just because I really don't give a damn about the enviroment doesn't mean I see any reason to do things in an ineffecient way or to make a mess constantly.
Recycling is mostly a rip off. We're better off, for the time being, dumping our garbage into landfills. At a later date, when recycling is more effecient, it'll be easier to collect and recycle if it's already been collected into a central location.
You obviously know nothing about modern public transit. It can be on demand and can take you direct to your destination. It's much quicker than driving because there are no traffic jams.
You think we should just throw everything on the ground and streamline picking it up? That's effecient? You must never have learned to get off your butt and clean up your own mess.;)
The problem with no cheap plastic is one reason why we should stop burning it all up for damned automobiles. Plastic is something that'll take a lot of work to replace fully while automobiles would easily be replaced if people weren't so shortsighted.
Better road management certainly wouldn't hurt but it's much cheaper to just minimize the number of roads required. There really is no need for them as computerized vehicles are cheaper and more effecient anyway.
Yes, I know that employers like fat lazy workers instead of those that are in shape and active. Obviously the fat lazy employees are much more effecient. People who drive two blocks to work or the grocery store are surely the most effecient people alive. It takes them longer to wait at a stop light than it takes me to get all the way to my destination.
People who insist on using fossil fuels are holding back technology and society. People who insist on oversized non-automated pollution producing forms of technology are holding back technology and society. Get out of the 50's and get with the new technology.
If it's a computer support position then usually I should be able to telecommute. The rest of the time they shouldn't care how I get there as long as I do get there.
It is a problem that many cities shutdown the public transit at night but that doesn't stop me from walking, bicycling, or simply driving at night even if I take the bus or whatever during the day. It also wouldn't be a problem if more people used public transit because then public transit would be 24/7 and much quicker.
I've lived all over the US and worked in several job fields including computing and healthcare. Almost every job I've ever had has asked what kind of transportation I have available to get to work. It's not totally unreasonable for them to worry that you have reliable transportation but it seems to me that they shouldn't care unless the issue becomes a problem.
That's why better public transit has been invented. Not to long ago there was an article here on Slashdot about little train cars that come directly to you when you call them and take you directly to your destination. The cars are small enough for the privacy of a personal vehicle while still being quicker, more energy effecient, and safer. There have been several stabs at selling this kind of technology but unfortunately the US at least is resistive to it.
Scooters are usually to small and slow to be legally used on the roads. Also they aren't safe to use on the roads for the same reason bicycles aren't - motorists are unsafe and aren't watching where they are going. What they really need is a slow moving vehicle lane next to the sidewalk. Raised above the curb for some protection from drivers but sepperate from the sidewalk.
That would work except for the fact that the ICANN has already proven that it doesn't respect alternate root servers at all. They've more than once implemented a new tld that was in use by a major alternate root.
So, it could work, but the new root would have to have a policy of not accepting new tld's of the ICANN root if they clashed with an existing alt root and eventually would want to replace the current ICANN tld's or possibly, if the ICANN became willing, let the ICANN join the new root and then vote to see if they could still control those tld's they've already established.
What?! I like to live in my bathroom. It's got a tv, a microwave, a little fridge, and a laptop. What more could I need? If toasters were safer I could keep it next to the tub!
Who gives a shit if something that saves you time every day of you life has a small chance of shortening your life? The chances are that the time saved by using the cellphone will more than replace the time you lose by using the phone.
Related to this someone recently tried to convince me that eatting microwaved food gives you cancer. As with the phone issue I told them I didn't give a f*ck.
If you live your life worrying about every little thing that could be harmful then you're not really living anyway. Enjoy life and don't be afraid of death.
I think it's a bit much to claim that we're headed for an ice age or that our own emissions are the cause for it. However I do think we should take better care of our enviroment. Regardless of ice ages and such we're fucking up our enviroment and it is disgusting. Driving towards LA is revolting and it's not much better in other major cities. We need to replace our road systems with effecient electric train systems and more people need to go back to walking and biking. It'd certainly not hurt if people would stop throwing their garbage on the ground wherever they go. People, and especially us Americans, are slobs. We need to change our lifestyle before we live in total filth.
I live in Las Vegas right now and most days you can't see across the valley even. Driving through town is a horrible experience. The Strip is especially bad. That area at least should be blocked to non-commercial and non-emergency traffic (ie firetrucks, FedEx, and taxis should be able to go through). I'd not get rid of roads entirely but I'd cut them down to one or two lanes and I'd encourage non-commercial traffic to come by train or taxi rather than driving.
Most places I've lived it's been all but taboo to walk or bicycle. Tell a job that you're going to walk or bicycle or even take the bus to work and they're a lot less likely to hire you. Often there aren't bike lanes or sidewalks. Bicyclists and even walkers get hid by careless drivers all the time. Small effecient vehicles like the recently popular scooters are often against the law to use on either street or sidewalk. Not exactly encouraging to those that'd like a cheaper and more enviromentally friendly way of getting around.
There've been plenty of efforts to make alternate root servers with a more democratic government as well as other useful features such as a better choice of tld's. The problem is to some degree ISP's but more it's the users. Users would be mad if they couldn't access the URL's they've came to know.
To start such a revolution you'd need to get most popular websites to sign-on to the alternate root. Everything from Google to MSN would have to have an alt root address. I'd suggest working out a system by which companies could have their own tld - that might be enough to get many of them interested. If search.google and mail.google could be valid names it might be of interest. If it was a democratic system where domain owners could vote on the admitance of new tld's and various other issues it might solve some of this ICANN abuse. It'd be nice to have a governing body that'd actually do something about domain squatting. Some non-profit free tld's would be nice too.
I think the government has so many ways to snoop as it is that it really doesn't matter if they find one more way. Do you care if they're watching you with a satelite or an airship? At least an airship is easier to shoot down.;)
This makes me wonder how realistic an idea it is to use nano to create blimps that are filled with absolutely nothing. If they could manage that it'd seem to cut their ongoing costs and downtime down a lot. They'd not have to use helium and they wouldn't need such big ships as a vacuum weighs less than helium and has more lift. Not having to refill the helium would mean less downtime and less maintence.
This doesn't sound like extremely different nano to create as it's just creating a lightweight material that is stiff enough to hold it's shape even when internally it contains a near-total vacuum. It'd seem you could use a normal material and coat it with some sort of substance that'd give it the needed strength. No buckytube spray-on gunk yet?:)
Okay, I admit it. I just want the price to come down so I can afford to live on an airship. That'd be pretty cool. Gradually floating all over the world.
I think the people who implement the bad security of these easily hacked systems should be held negilant and be sentenced to some jail time too. To often security is just ignored because some asshole decides that as long as nobody finds out about the problem they'll just bury it and if it does come out they'll try to fry the ass of the people who exploit the hole. When you deal with important information that belongs to others (like your customers) you should be legally required to make a reasonable effort to safeguard that data.
If I remember this case correctly Lowe's pretty much had no security at all enabled so anyone driving by could just tap into the network with very little effort. It's not much of a crime if you take something that someone leaves sitting on the curb unguarded.
I think newspapers and magazines will be largely replaced by the Internet but that books will retain their popularity.
Newspapers will be replaced because usually articles are short and are more interesting the sooner you read them after the topic events happened.
Magazines are largely similar - especially technology or current events magazines will be threatened by the Internet.
Books won't really be at risk though because it's more pleasent to read a paper book than a screen and the contents of books are less time sensitive.
Magazines that are less time sensitive will also be okay as again they are more pleasent to read than online magazines. Newspapers aren't really pleasent to read.. the format is more annoying to deal with than magazines. I think of all printed media they will suffer the most due to the Internet.
Doesn't Slashdot get a lot of hits per minute? If the pages cached well and more users were made to use proxies I'd think it'd still save a significant amount of bandwidth. Even if you only had to send the page once per minute instead of ten times per minute that'd seem like a huge savings in bandwidth to me. I'd imagine Slashdot gets a lot more than ten hits in a minute on the major pages.
Don't normal web proxies work just fine for caching RSS traffic? I just looked at Slashdot's feed and it seems to cache well - much better than the rest of Slashdot apparently. [Is there a reason Slashdot doesn't cache better? I'd think that'd save a lot of bandwidth.]
So, to me, it looks like there is no need for a RSS proxy. RSS readers just need to learn to use regular web proxies and users need to be convinced that using such proxy servers is to their benefit. Good luck given the low number of users that bother using such proxy servers for their web browsing.
Going with the system you described I might suggest limiting an IP to two hits per resource an hour unless that IP is from a known proxy server. If a lot of popular sites did this, and provided some directions, then it'd not be long before users began using the proxy servers and anyway it'd help cut back on bandwidth usage.
On my own websites I like to compromise by including a link to users not logging from a proxy server that gives them information on using a proxy server.
The Internet could function even if the whole US went black but it'd definately be hit on miss as so many resources are tnagled together. Smart foreign governments should be making mirrors of important resources. On the other hand if the US government conspired to attack the rest of the Internet with DDoS attacks and things like that it might be possible for them to bring the entire thing down - for a while.
I think Jefferson probably, unfortunately, had the right idea. If we really wanted America to be what it should be we'd have had far more civil wars than we have had. These things you mention are in themselves minor wars. Luckily they take place as battles of words as much as battles of blood but they are still wars that keep the system in check. Right now we need another war to set things right. We've let big business and intelligence wackos conspire to take away our freedoms and to change the basic shape of our government. Outright lies are being taught to children so that they think they don't have rights which they do - so when they lose those rights they won't notice. This ongoing attack is ranging everywhere from the RIAA and MPAA burying the concept of fair use to the CIA trying to take away online privacy. These organizations fear the freedom and power that the Internet and digital technologies have brought us. They are slowly taking not only those new freedoms but also old freedoms away from us in an effort to protect themselves. Are we just going to let them or will somebody make an effort to stop them?
I've long thought it'd be nice if there was a little bracelet or something people could wear that'd sense how drunk and horny they were. Maybe give it the ability to be told if the wearer is already married or dating and how much they're willing to cheat. Then you could just look for the glow of their wrist to see how good a chance you have.
It'd be even better if it could sense how they responded to you and let you know. If you start to walk up to them and they are hot to you then it should let you know.. and vice versa.
Of course that isn't really a wife finder. It'd be handy though. I once applied to a nightclub that had something similar built into their place. You could use webcams to look at everyone there and rate your interest in them or send messages. Very geeky but cool. Sadly they didn't hire me.
Darn you, that was my joke! Now I'll have to think of another joke for when I go to hardware stores. Of course that joke never did actually work for picking up girls so maybe I'm better off without it. I'll just go back to my "So you like wood?" pickup line for those cute cashier girls.
Projects usually do better if a unified body (either a person, a company, or a small group) do the initial design and work. The bazaar is most effective in fixing bugs and reengineering. The process need a core to build around.
There is no reason this core group can't be open to public inspection though just so long as they can block out the interference.
I think people are looking at this project's likelihood of failing in the wrong light. Such a project doesn't have to compete with the cutting edge cards - it just has to create a core around which something can evolve. Build that core and even ATI and Nivida will feel the pressure to contribute to version 2. The best way to control such a dangerous change to their business is to embrace it. They've already seen this working in software.. they just need to see it start to work in hardware. [And yes it can, other openhardware projects exist. Just not to such a scale yet.]
Well yeah, as many opensource coders have learned, you can't just give stuff away and have much real hope of money just raining in on you. You have to make an effort to help people give back to you. If your looking for a job then posting your resume, and a statement that you're interested in job offers, is a must. If you're trying to make a business out of giving then you have to let people know that they can sponsor you, get support from you, get custom work from you, or whatever your angle is.
Just expecting people to decide to mass and send money to you is a bit naive. It'd be nice if it were that easy but people just are not used to thinking that way yet. I do think it'd be nice to sponsor an awareness project to teach people about opensource and the concept of a gift economy and to encourage them to give back - code or artwork of their own, money, or other stuff (room, food, their own services whatever they may be). The closest we really have in our society is religious groups but most of those make it a matter of God to give and they tend to make it a negative to be one of those collecting from the community resource. We need to teach that it's good to receive but it's better to give. Sounds like a project of the Christmas spirit right?
If they had an idea of who the perp was that could help prove it but I'd find it hard to imagine they could actually track you down by such a fingerprint unless you connected to a system they were already monitoring.
Slashdot Mirror
I think raising gas prices is needed but is not going to be an acceptable solution unless alternate transportation is provided. Our cities are just not layed out to make it possible to live in the range most people can travel without automobiles. They really should give a few years notice that fuel prices are going to rise and put in place some kind of encouragement that cities improve their mass transit systems. Either way fuel prices are going to rise so giving some offical warning would be a good idea although I expect most people would just bitch and moan and then ignore the warning.
True. I'm all for telecommuting as much as possible. Unfortunately many jobs require a physical presence as do other reasons to travel. We have adapted to sprawling and it'll take a while to redesign our cities and national transit system.
Effecient doesn't only mean in fuel. I mean in all resources automobiles use and the toll they take from our personal lives. How much do you spend yearly on owning, maintaining, and driving a car? From car payments to added taxes it really adds up.
I mean trains as in vehicles who follow pre-defined tracks and therefore can be easily automated. That does not necessarily mean a subway type of system. I'm thinking more of individual cars that are automated, centrally powered, and not individually owned. Less road space being required would benefit the enviroment.
With an automated system it'd be easy to save room by not needing near as many roads and by stacking the roads vertically and underground. Being automated they can be much quicker and safe.
A central powersource means that even if they run off fossil fuels they are more effecient than an equivilant number of individual cars. Also because they are automated they can complete their route more effeciently thus saving fuel.
Being owned by a company that essentially leases the use of them to you, the passenger, for the duration of the trip means that you don't have to pay for licensing, maintence, and other expenses that plague the modern American. Also we'd save natural resources by needing fewer vehicles as many indidivual cars sit idle and empty the majority of the time while a central transit system could pool this resource.
In the end I think even emergency vehicles and delivery vehicles should be replaced by a train system. However I think that'd be much harder to make happen. A working pedestrian system would probably have to be socially excepted before the complete overhaul could be accepted.
Long haul trains is a better solution. Unfortunately the US has all but slaughtered it's train system. There was more money to be made in automobiles so that is the system that won out here. Unfortunately we're punishing ourselves for buying into that ill-conceived notion.
Really the only place automobiles are really useful is where roads don't go. They're very well suited for offroad use but are not usually used that way. Anywhere a paved road goes it'd be cheaper to install and maintain a track system.
It's pretty funny that you think I've an ecosocialist when I've encouraged the best way to stop terrorists attacks on the US is to nuke Las Vegas out of existence as a show of how insane we are. I'd pollute the enviroment incredibly just to make a big fireworks display and you think I'm a tree-hugger.
Just because I really don't give a damn about the enviroment doesn't mean I see any reason to do things in an ineffecient way or to make a mess constantly.
Recycling is mostly a rip off. We're better off, for the time being, dumping our garbage into landfills. At a later date, when recycling is more effecient, it'll be easier to collect and recycle if it's already been collected into a central location.
You obviously know nothing about modern public transit. It can be on demand and can take you direct to your destination. It's much quicker than driving because there are no traffic jams.
;)
You think we should just throw everything on the ground and streamline picking it up? That's effecient? You must never have learned to get off your butt and clean up your own mess.
The problem with no cheap plastic is one reason why we should stop burning it all up for damned automobiles. Plastic is something that'll take a lot of work to replace fully while automobiles would easily be replaced if people weren't so shortsighted.
Better road management certainly wouldn't hurt but it's much cheaper to just minimize the number of roads required. There really is no need for them as computerized vehicles are cheaper and more effecient anyway.
Yes, I know that employers like fat lazy workers instead of those that are in shape and active. Obviously the fat lazy employees are much more effecient. People who drive two blocks to work or the grocery store are surely the most effecient people alive. It takes them longer to wait at a stop light than it takes me to get all the way to my destination.
People who insist on using fossil fuels are holding back technology and society. People who insist on oversized non-automated pollution producing forms of technology are holding back technology and society. Get out of the 50's and get with the new technology.
If it's a computer support position then usually I should be able to telecommute. The rest of the time they shouldn't care how I get there as long as I do get there.
It is a problem that many cities shutdown the public transit at night but that doesn't stop me from walking, bicycling, or simply driving at night even if I take the bus or whatever during the day. It also wouldn't be a problem if more people used public transit because then public transit would be 24/7 and much quicker.
I've lived all over the US and worked in several job fields including computing and healthcare. Almost every job I've ever had has asked what kind of transportation I have available to get to work. It's not totally unreasonable for them to worry that you have reliable transportation but it seems to me that they shouldn't care unless the issue becomes a problem.
That's why better public transit has been invented. Not to long ago there was an article here on Slashdot about little train cars that come directly to you when you call them and take you directly to your destination. The cars are small enough for the privacy of a personal vehicle while still being quicker, more energy effecient, and safer. There have been several stabs at selling this kind of technology but unfortunately the US at least is resistive to it.
Scooters are usually to small and slow to be legally used on the roads. Also they aren't safe to use on the roads for the same reason bicycles aren't - motorists are unsafe and aren't watching where they are going. What they really need is a slow moving vehicle lane next to the sidewalk. Raised above the curb for some protection from drivers but sepperate from the sidewalk.
That would work except for the fact that the ICANN has already proven that it doesn't respect alternate root servers at all. They've more than once implemented a new tld that was in use by a major alternate root.
So, it could work, but the new root would have to have a policy of not accepting new tld's of the ICANN root if they clashed with an existing alt root and eventually would want to replace the current ICANN tld's or possibly, if the ICANN became willing, let the ICANN join the new root and then vote to see if they could still control those tld's they've already established.
What?! I like to live in my bathroom. It's got a tv, a microwave, a little fridge, and a laptop. What more could I need? If toasters were safer I could keep it next to the tub!
Because people are f*cking idiots?
Who gives a shit if something that saves you time every day of you life has a small chance of shortening your life? The chances are that the time saved by using the cellphone will more than replace the time you lose by using the phone.
Related to this someone recently tried to convince me that eatting microwaved food gives you cancer. As with the phone issue I told them I didn't give a f*ck.
If you live your life worrying about every little thing that could be harmful then you're not really living anyway. Enjoy life and don't be afraid of death.
I think it's a bit much to claim that we're headed for an ice age or that our own emissions are the cause for it. However I do think we should take better care of our enviroment. Regardless of ice ages and such we're fucking up our enviroment and it is disgusting. Driving towards LA is revolting and it's not much better in other major cities. We need to replace our road systems with effecient electric train systems and more people need to go back to walking and biking. It'd certainly not hurt if people would stop throwing their garbage on the ground wherever they go. People, and especially us Americans, are slobs. We need to change our lifestyle before we live in total filth.
I live in Las Vegas right now and most days you can't see across the valley even. Driving through town is a horrible experience. The Strip is especially bad. That area at least should be blocked to non-commercial and non-emergency traffic (ie firetrucks, FedEx, and taxis should be able to go through). I'd not get rid of roads entirely but I'd cut them down to one or two lanes and I'd encourage non-commercial traffic to come by train or taxi rather than driving.
Most places I've lived it's been all but taboo to walk or bicycle. Tell a job that you're going to walk or bicycle or even take the bus to work and they're a lot less likely to hire you. Often there aren't bike lanes or sidewalks. Bicyclists and even walkers get hid by careless drivers all the time. Small effecient vehicles like the recently popular scooters are often against the law to use on either street or sidewalk. Not exactly encouraging to those that'd like a cheaper and more enviromentally friendly way of getting around.
There've been plenty of efforts to make alternate root servers with a more democratic government as well as other useful features such as a better choice of tld's. The problem is to some degree ISP's but more it's the users. Users would be mad if they couldn't access the URL's they've came to know.
To start such a revolution you'd need to get most popular websites to sign-on to the alternate root. Everything from Google to MSN would have to have an alt root address. I'd suggest working out a system by which companies could have their own tld - that might be enough to get many of them interested. If search.google and mail.google could be valid names it might be of interest. If it was a democratic system where domain owners could vote on the admitance of new tld's and various other issues it might solve some of this ICANN abuse. It'd be nice to have a governing body that'd actually do something about domain squatting. Some non-profit free tld's would be nice too.
I think the government has so many ways to snoop as it is that it really doesn't matter if they find one more way. Do you care if they're watching you with a satelite or an airship? At least an airship is easier to shoot down. ;)
This makes me wonder how realistic an idea it is to use nano to create blimps that are filled with absolutely nothing. If they could manage that it'd seem to cut their ongoing costs and downtime down a lot. They'd not have to use helium and they wouldn't need such big ships as a vacuum weighs less than helium and has more lift. Not having to refill the helium would mean less downtime and less maintence.
:)
This doesn't sound like extremely different nano to create as it's just creating a lightweight material that is stiff enough to hold it's shape even when internally it contains a near-total vacuum. It'd seem you could use a normal material and coat it with some sort of substance that'd give it the needed strength. No buckytube spray-on gunk yet?
Okay, I admit it. I just want the price to come down so I can afford to live on an airship. That'd be pretty cool. Gradually floating all over the world.
I think the people who implement the bad security of these easily hacked systems should be held negilant and be sentenced to some jail time too. To often security is just ignored because some asshole decides that as long as nobody finds out about the problem they'll just bury it and if it does come out they'll try to fry the ass of the people who exploit the hole. When you deal with important information that belongs to others (like your customers) you should be legally required to make a reasonable effort to safeguard that data.
If I remember this case correctly Lowe's pretty much had no security at all enabled so anyone driving by could just tap into the network with very little effort. It's not much of a crime if you take something that someone leaves sitting on the curb unguarded.
I think newspapers and magazines will be largely replaced by the Internet but that books will retain their popularity.
Newspapers will be replaced because usually articles are short and are more interesting the sooner you read them after the topic events happened.
Magazines are largely similar - especially technology or current events magazines will be threatened by the Internet.
Books won't really be at risk though because it's more pleasent to read a paper book than a screen and the contents of books are less time sensitive.
Magazines that are less time sensitive will also be okay as again they are more pleasent to read than online magazines. Newspapers aren't really pleasent to read.. the format is more annoying to deal with than magazines. I think of all printed media they will suffer the most due to the Internet.
Doesn't Slashdot get a lot of hits per minute? If the pages cached well and more users were made to use proxies I'd think it'd still save a significant amount of bandwidth. Even if you only had to send the page once per minute instead of ten times per minute that'd seem like a huge savings in bandwidth to me. I'd imagine Slashdot gets a lot more than ten hits in a minute on the major pages.
Don't normal web proxies work just fine for caching RSS traffic? I just looked at Slashdot's feed and it seems to cache well - much better than the rest of Slashdot apparently. [Is there a reason Slashdot doesn't cache better? I'd think that'd save a lot of bandwidth.]
So, to me, it looks like there is no need for a RSS proxy. RSS readers just need to learn to use regular web proxies and users need to be convinced that using such proxy servers is to their benefit. Good luck given the low number of users that bother using such proxy servers for their web browsing.
Going with the system you described I might suggest limiting an IP to two hits per resource an hour unless that IP is from a known proxy server. If a lot of popular sites did this, and provided some directions, then it'd not be long before users began using the proxy servers and anyway it'd help cut back on bandwidth usage.
On my own websites I like to compromise by including a link to users not logging from a proxy server that gives them information on using a proxy server.
The Internet could function even if the whole US went black but it'd definately be hit on miss as so many resources are tnagled together. Smart foreign governments should be making mirrors of important resources. On the other hand if the US government conspired to attack the rest of the Internet with DDoS attacks and things like that it might be possible for them to bring the entire thing down - for a while.
I think Jefferson probably, unfortunately, had the right idea. If we really wanted America to be what it should be we'd have had far more civil wars than we have had. These things you mention are in themselves minor wars. Luckily they take place as battles of words as much as battles of blood but they are still wars that keep the system in check. Right now we need another war to set things right. We've let big business and intelligence wackos conspire to take away our freedoms and to change the basic shape of our government. Outright lies are being taught to children so that they think they don't have rights which they do - so when they lose those rights they won't notice. This ongoing attack is ranging everywhere from the RIAA and MPAA burying the concept of fair use to the CIA trying to take away online privacy. These organizations fear the freedom and power that the Internet and digital technologies have brought us. They are slowly taking not only those new freedoms but also old freedoms away from us in an effort to protect themselves. Are we just going to let them or will somebody make an effort to stop them?
I've long thought it'd be nice if there was a little bracelet or something people could wear that'd sense how drunk and horny they were. Maybe give it the ability to be told if the wearer is already married or dating and how much they're willing to cheat. Then you could just look for the glow of their wrist to see how good a chance you have.
It'd be even better if it could sense how they responded to you and let you know. If you start to walk up to them and they are hot to you then it should let you know.. and vice versa.
Of course that isn't really a wife finder. It'd be handy though. I once applied to a nightclub that had something similar built into their place. You could use webcams to look at everyone there and rate your interest in them or send messages. Very geeky but cool. Sadly they didn't hire me.
Darn you, that was my joke! Now I'll have to think of another joke for when I go to hardware stores. Of course that joke never did actually work for picking up girls so maybe I'm better off without it. I'll just go back to my "So you like wood?" pickup line for those cute cashier girls.
Projects usually do better if a unified body (either a person, a company, or a small group) do the initial design and work. The bazaar is most effective in fixing bugs and reengineering. The process need a core to build around.
There is no reason this core group can't be open to public inspection though just so long as they can block out the interference.
I think people are looking at this project's likelihood of failing in the wrong light. Such a project doesn't have to compete with the cutting edge cards - it just has to create a core around which something can evolve. Build that core and even ATI and Nivida will feel the pressure to contribute to version 2. The best way to control such a dangerous change to their business is to embrace it. They've already seen this working in software.. they just need to see it start to work in hardware. [And yes it can, other openhardware projects exist. Just not to such a scale yet.]
Well yeah, as many opensource coders have learned, you can't just give stuff away and have much real hope of money just raining in on you. You have to make an effort to help people give back to you. If your looking for a job then posting your resume, and a statement that you're interested in job offers, is a must. If you're trying to make a business out of giving then you have to let people know that they can sponsor you, get support from you, get custom work from you, or whatever your angle is.
Just expecting people to decide to mass and send money to you is a bit naive. It'd be nice if it were that easy but people just are not used to thinking that way yet. I do think it'd be nice to sponsor an awareness project to teach people about opensource and the concept of a gift economy and to encourage them to give back - code or artwork of their own, money, or other stuff (room, food, their own services whatever they may be). The closest we really have in our society is religious groups but most of those make it a matter of God to give and they tend to make it a negative to be one of those collecting from the community resource. We need to teach that it's good to receive but it's better to give. Sounds like a project of the Christmas spirit right?
If they had an idea of who the perp was that could help prove it but I'd find it hard to imagine they could actually track you down by such a fingerprint unless you connected to a system they were already monitoring.