Ahhh. the sweet sound of the dialup connection. As a contingency if cox@home tanks, I configured one of the Linux boxes at home to dial in to my university's PPP (free for me!), so I can continue downloading pr0n at the blazing speed of 28.8.
Interestingly, though, of the 4 working computers on my home network, only one actually even has a modem in it.
--
As you know, Excite@Home has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection,
and it is currently in the midst of bankruptcy court proceedings. On
Friday, the bankruptcy judge is expected to rule on a motion to
determine whether Excite@Home has the right to shut down service to its
customers. We are actively negotiating with all parties involved to
come to an agreement before Friday. We are hopeful that we can reach an
agreement before the court ruling, which would mean that this ruling is
a non-issue.
In the event that we do not reach an agreement before Friday, then we
will look to the judge for a ruling on if Excite@Home has the right to
shut down service. If the judge rules that Excite@Home does have this
right, we will take all possible legal actions, such as filing an appeal
and asking for a stay, which is essentially a hold on any action.
In addition, we have service contingency plans to address all possible
outcomes, and we will keep you informed on developments as we have more
information. Please know that your satisfaction is our first priority,
and we are taking all necessary steps to ensure ongoing, reliable
high-speed Internet service for our customers now and in the future.
--
I don't know all of this legal jibber-jabber, but could Cox actually force @home to stay alive until they can get their own service running?
Yep, I'm giving my report at 2:00 a.m. (MST), and you wouldn't believe what I saw and heard. A drunk smashing his truck into everything (heard), and wow! a few stars. I think I saw a few bright lights flashing across the sky, too. One looked like a 737, maybe a 757, and a few commercial craft too.
What always impresses me about these pictures is remembering the guy, Harold Edgerton, who came up with this technology as well as side scan sonar. What a guy.
I think limiting information provided by WHOIS services would be a bad bad thing. When I check my firewall logs, I routinely use WHOIS to find out exactly who pinged/attempted entry/etc. to check for security leaks.
If anything, a WHOIS search should offer more information, including not simply the ISP "owner" but the actual connection of the "offender" for attempts at illegal access. In other words, a more improved WHOIS search could provide information about the time a hacking/cracking attempt occured and would provide information useful to the ISP, but useless to me.
Any thoughts on this? ------------
I had my new $1500 486SX/25 computer that shipped with an amazing 1MB of RAM. (Upgradable to 4MB!)
It came with MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1. It had no modem, soundard, or CD-ROM. There was no such thing as an ISP where I lived.
When I moved, I learned I could get Internet access on my own computer...from my apartment! But I needed a modem. I bought a $100.00 14.4 Modem and I was on top of the world.
Eventually, I got Mosaic running on the system. Imagine. Images, instantly appearing on my computer coming from somewhere else! What is this whole "World-Wide-Web" and Internet thing about?
There's a point to this. Using Mozilla (free) on a Linux machine (free) and being amazed that everything works (for free) reminds me of when I recognized that the WWW was for innovaters trying new things, experimenting and all that.
For me, Mozilla 0.9 on RH 7.1 crashes about 1/10 the time that NS6 does, supporting my belief that the Internet belongs to independent innovaters, not the AOL-Time-Warner-CNN-Microsoft-Amazon.com conglomerate that claims to own it.
There's an old adage out there: "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear."
So if I'm just a guy in a store, looking around, not interested in stealing anything, should it bother me that all of my movements are being watched?
I guess if I knew that my movements were being "watched" by nothing other than an electronic data processing machine, I would have no problem.
Even if I, for some reason, have suspicious eye movements in a store cuz I'm on a caffeine rush, and they put me in a national database, that's a little freaky.
In other words: If I'm a criminal, add me to the database. If I'm not, then leave me alone.
You move it. No you move it. No you move it! No you move it! Well if the really needed it they'd have already moved it! Seal it up boys, Time is Money!
If this were the case, can you blame them? The old HP/G50 server I have sitting around weighs 130 pounds and took a lot of effort to get it up the stairs. Heck, I'd drywall it in too if I didn't have to move it. ------------
We don't have much information about the physical layout of this very robust Server's location.
If you've been in a room with several servers, the noise can be deafening. You might hear a beep somewhere, but the acoustics and the combinations of fans, drives, etc. will mask its location. ------------
I like the subversion that Napigator offers since it still uses the Napster program for its main interface. Windoze users, take note! (If you haven't already!). It rocks.
For Linux users, I've had great success with Gnapster which uses many of the same Musiccity servers.
Free music for everyone! ------------
The new equivalent to Napster will have to be P2P as much as possible. I agree that it will have to be as simplistic as possible (college students who think AOL is cool are among are target audience), but there are the requisite security issues.
IP filtering: what can be done to make sure that IP addresses aren't shared?
Firewalls/Proxy: Can we come up with an easy utility for users to work through these things?
Linux: Goddam, if I only had a Napster client on my Linux box.
------------
Wow we've done a number on these guys. I don't know whether to celebrate or cry. Of course, anyone offering such large files should have a more robust server, IMO. ------------
I guess the convenience they provide is undeniable. However, the convenience provided by these devices seem to supercede many of the common qualities of "getting along" in any society.
My complaint with the increasing convenience of mobile phones is that many citizens who adopt these devices quickly tend to forget their place in the world:
1. Why would I want to make my private conversation public?
2. Do I even care about what people around me think of my conversation?
3. What happened to those telephone booths, anyway?
As an example: while waiting at the office to upgrade my parking pass, the person in line before me was talking on his cell phone and was interrupted by the secretary waiting on him, when she said:
"Excuse me, could you please lower the profanity in your conversation. There are other people waiting here who don't want to hear that."
I thought that was great, but when the guy complained to his recipient, he merely complained (with profanity) about why he had to hang up.
I agree that mobile phones do provide a wonderful opportunity for increased connectivity between individuals; however, there is a time and a place for everything, and as such devices invade the public domain, users need to consider their impact upon those around them.
I think the "Paper cell-phone" as a disposable commodity is analogous to the disposable conversation conveyed on them.
------------
Since I ditched my cell phone a few months ago, I've saved some $30.00/month (so I could get a Cable Modem) and I can avoid being hypocritical.
Interestingly, I still keep the old thing around since I discovered through AT&T:
1. You can always dial 911
2. You should always be able to dial the Highway Patrol *55 in an emergency
3. It can be activated at any time if the reason exists.
Thus, mobile phones' most useful application, I believe is in emergency situations, not "Honey, which kind of ice cream should I get" when I'm at the grocery store.
I think its common knowledge that many people have little concept of cell phone etiquette, and unless we establish that, I'll consider them evil.
Hey...remember telephone booths? That provided privacy for both user and passersby.
------------
The fact that mobile/cellular phones are as commonplace and annoying as they are, it's good to see a guy at this school finally took things into his own hand!
This really reminds me of this classic old spam (easily debunked here, courtesy of http://www.snopes.com
The comparison would be amusing, if AT&T's plan weren't reality!
---------------------------
Dear Internet Subscriber:
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email: The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the Government of the United States attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet.
Under proposed legislation the U.S. Postal Service will be attempting to bilk email users out of "alternate postage fees".
Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt to charge a 5cent surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. Washington D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law.
The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of email is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign "There is nothing like a letter". Since the average citizen received about 10 pieces of email per day in 1998, the cost to the typical individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference. If the federal government is permitted to tamper with our liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who knows where it will end. You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureacratic efficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States. One congressman, Tony Schnell (r) has even suggested a "twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and beyond the government's proposed email charges.
Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story, the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of email surcharge "a useful concept who's time has come" (March 6th 1999 Editorial) Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away!
Send this email to all Americans on your list and tell your friends and relatives to write to their congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P.
Kate Turner
Assistant to Richard Stepp
Berger, Stepp and Gorman
Attorneys at Law
216 Concorde Street,
Vienna, Va. ------------
I still remember putting a carton of milk on the back of a ZX80 to keep it cool...
Now there's the first version of "liquid cooling technology!"
Actually, I remember during hot summers (with no A/C in our house...crazy), loading and playing games on my C-64 required a fan aimed directly at the external power supply or the machine would tank.
At any rate, if I had the dough, imagine what a RAID would look like with a bunch of Zx80s around. (And yes, you could put Linux on it!!)
One cannot deny the fact that there are plenty of programmers (like myself) and/.ers (like myself) who got their first taste of programming via basic. I mean, I still remember the exhilerating sensation of 5th grade on an Apple ][+ writing programs that *did* something (or I thought at the time!).
I guess what I'm saying is that there continues to exist a strong nostalgia for the BASIC programming language, and while I agree it encourages bad habits, the majority of people who are going to incorporate something like KBasic have all of the more conventional standards at hand.
In other words, is Joe User on his Windows ME:) box going to say, "Golly gee, I think I'm goin' to write some programs, boys!"
------------
Re:Deceptive site name?
on
Typosquatting
·
· Score: 1
I teach a course on computers and writing, and I recently used these websites as examples of how anyone can make a website that seems honest and unbiased--even manipulating the name of the site to that end:
Essentially, it seems like the whole "I've got a good looking domain name" philosophy is easily obtained and used to manipulate uneducated computer/Web users (probably using WebTV).
So as long as there are suckers out there who view vitriolic/false websites as legitimate sources of information, there will be the capitalists ready to make use of them. Oh I almost forgot. IMHO. So there.
During my college astronomy courses, we went out to the telescope a couple of days using a filter that got rid of the nastiness of UV light, etc.
The sun is literally covered with these "dark areas" which we call sunspots--it was really cool to see!
So yeah it will produce a lot of weird disturbances to our electromagnetic field, but it won't be anything like the global catastrophe that was Y2K(-1)! ------------
While Logo's happy turtle had its merits, I still prefer the "Smiley Face" icon featured on early versions of IBM PCs. Imagine the increase in programmer and worker productivity if that smiley face appeared instead of an "Illegal Operation."
===========
Your code looks great, but there's too many brackets
It looks to me like most people seem to be zealots regarding their O/S or simply look for the right tool for the right job.
What I'm saying is that lots of people choose an O/S that they configure...just for the heck of it. Lots of us change our own oil, fix our own toasters, etc. etc. So what's wrong with the simple pleasure of tweaking the O/S? My first O/S experience was Windows 3.1, then Unix. I mean, even in 3.1 you still got the chance to mess with DOS files just to get the thing working! (Ooh! And jumpers, too). Many users/administrators not only like but demand having that control.
The Win95/98/2000/OS9/OSX Mentality seems to be "shut up...we know what's good for you." Which, in most cases, is true. But some of us weirdos like saying: "wow...I'll bet I can compile my own version [application x] that will work better."
Sorry, sometimes personal preferences can't be forgotten! Tweak your O/S! Use the command line! Reconfigure your toaster!
Slashdot Mirror
Ahhh. the sweet sound of the dialup connection. As a contingency if cox@home tanks, I configured one of the Linux boxes at home to dial in to my university's PPP (free for me!), so I can continue downloading pr0n at the blazing speed of 28.8.
Interestingly, though, of the 4 working computers on my home network, only one actually even has a modem in it.
It's amazing how quickly one gets spoiled.
BTW: 22:30....@home still working
Here's my recent email that I got from Cox:
--
As you know, Excite@Home has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection,
and it is currently in the midst of bankruptcy court proceedings. On
Friday, the bankruptcy judge is expected to rule on a motion to
determine whether Excite@Home has the right to shut down service to its
customers. We are actively negotiating with all parties involved to
come to an agreement before Friday. We are hopeful that we can reach an
agreement before the court ruling, which would mean that this ruling is
a non-issue.
In the event that we do not reach an agreement before Friday, then we
will look to the judge for a ruling on if Excite@Home has the right to
shut down service. If the judge rules that Excite@Home does have this
right, we will take all possible legal actions, such as filing an appeal
and asking for a stay, which is essentially a hold on any action.
In addition, we have service contingency plans to address all possible
outcomes, and we will keep you informed on developments as we have more
information. Please know that your satisfaction is our first priority,
and we are taking all necessary steps to ensure ongoing, reliable
high-speed Internet service for our customers now and in the future.
--
I don't know all of this legal jibber-jabber, but could Cox actually force @home to stay alive until they can get their own service running?
You know already unless you live in a coffin ....
Well, I don't know so I guess I live in a coffin.
Proud to be an American who's not a slave to popular culture. Harry who? Couldn't find the man page for that, sorry.
Yep, I'm giving my report at 2:00 a.m. (MST), and you wouldn't believe what I saw and heard. A drunk smashing his truck into everything (heard), and wow! a few stars. I think I saw a few bright lights flashing across the sky, too. One looked like a 737, maybe a 757, and a few commercial craft too.
I hate living in the city.
What always impresses me about these pictures is remembering the guy, Harold Edgerton, who came up with this technology as well as side scan sonar. What a guy.
I think limiting information provided by WHOIS services would be a bad bad thing. When I check my firewall logs, I routinely use WHOIS to find out exactly who pinged/attempted entry/etc. to check for security leaks. If anything, a WHOIS search should offer more information, including not simply the ISP "owner" but the actual connection of the "offender" for attempts at illegal access. In other words, a more improved WHOIS search could provide information about the time a hacking/cracking attempt occured and would provide information useful to the ISP, but useless to me. Any thoughts on this?
------------
This was 1993.
I had my new $1500 486SX/25 computer that shipped with an amazing 1MB of RAM. (Upgradable to 4MB!)
It came with MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1. It had no modem, soundard, or CD-ROM. There was no such thing as an ISP where I lived.
When I moved, I learned I could get Internet access on my own computer...from my apartment! But I needed a modem. I bought a $100.00 14.4 Modem and I was on top of the world.
Eventually, I got Mosaic running on the system. Imagine. Images, instantly appearing on my computer coming from somewhere else! What is this whole "World-Wide-Web" and Internet thing about?
There's a point to this. Using Mozilla (free) on a Linux machine (free) and being amazed that everything works (for free) reminds me of when I recognized that the WWW was for innovaters trying new things, experimenting and all that.
For me, Mozilla 0.9 on RH 7.1 crashes about 1/10 the time that NS6 does, supporting my belief that the Internet belongs to independent innovaters, not the AOL-Time-Warner-CNN-Microsoft-Amazon.com conglomerate that claims to own it.
Nuff said
------------
There's an old adage out there: "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear."
So if I'm just a guy in a store, looking around, not interested in stealing anything, should it bother me that all of my movements are being watched?
I guess if I knew that my movements were being "watched" by nothing other than an electronic data processing machine, I would have no problem.
Even if I, for some reason, have suspicious eye movements in a store cuz I'm on a caffeine rush, and they put me in a national database, that's a little freaky.
In other words: If I'm a criminal, add me to the database. If I'm not, then leave me alone.
------------
You move it. No you move it. No you move it! No you move it! Well if the really needed it they'd have already moved it! Seal it up boys, Time is Money!
If this were the case, can you blame them? The old HP/G50 server I have sitting around weighs 130 pounds and took a lot of effort to get it up the stairs. Heck, I'd drywall it in too if I didn't have to move it.
------------
We don't have much information about the physical layout of this very robust Server's location.
If you've been in a room with several servers, the noise can be deafening. You might hear a beep somewhere, but the acoustics and the combinations of fans, drives, etc. will mask its location.
------------
I like the subversion that Napigator offers since it still uses the Napster program for its main interface. Windoze users, take note! (If you haven't already!). It rocks.
For Linux users, I've had great success with Gnapster which uses many of the same Musiccity servers. Free music for everyone!
------------
The new equivalent to Napster will have to be P2P as much as possible. I agree that it will have to be as simplistic as possible (college students who think AOL is cool are among are target audience), but there are the requisite security issues.
IP filtering: what can be done to make sure that IP addresses aren't shared?
Firewalls/Proxy: Can we come up with an easy utility for users to work through these things?
Linux: Goddam, if I only had a Napster client on my Linux box.
------------
Wow we've done a number on these guys. I don't know whether to celebrate or cry. Of course, anyone offering such large files should have a more robust server, IMO.
------------
My complaint with the increasing convenience of mobile phones is that many citizens who adopt these devices quickly tend to forget their place in the world:
1. Why would I want to make my private conversation public?
2. Do I even care about what people around me think of my conversation?
3. What happened to those telephone booths, anyway?
As an example: while waiting at the office to upgrade my parking pass, the person in line before me was talking on his cell phone and was interrupted by the secretary waiting on him, when she said:
"Excuse me, could you please lower the profanity in your conversation. There are other people waiting here who don't want to hear that."
I thought that was great, but when the guy complained to his recipient, he merely complained (with profanity) about why he had to hang up.
I agree that mobile phones do provide a wonderful opportunity for increased connectivity between individuals; however, there is a time and a place for everything, and as such devices invade the public domain, users need to consider their impact upon those around them.
I think the "Paper cell-phone" as a disposable commodity is analogous to the disposable conversation conveyed on them.
------------
Interestingly, I still keep the old thing around since I discovered through AT&T:
1. You can always dial 911
2. You should always be able to dial the Highway Patrol *55 in an emergency
3. It can be activated at any time if the reason exists.
Thus, mobile phones' most useful application, I believe is in emergency situations, not "Honey, which kind of ice cream should I get" when I'm at the grocery store.
I think its common knowledge that many people have little concept of cell phone etiquette, and unless we establish that, I'll consider them evil.
Hey...remember telephone booths? That provided privacy for both user and passersby.
------------
http://www.statepress.com/columns/hepp/index.html
------------
------------
The comparison would be amusing, if AT&T's plan weren't reality!
---------------------------
Dear Internet Subscriber:
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email: The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the Government of the United States attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet.
Under proposed legislation the U.S. Postal Service will be attempting to bilk email users out of "alternate postage fees".
Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt to charge a 5cent surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. Washington D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law.
The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of email is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign "There is nothing like a letter". Since the average citizen received about 10 pieces of email per day in 1998, the cost to the typical individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference. If the federal government is permitted to tamper with our liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who knows where it will end. You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureacratic efficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States. One congressman, Tony Schnell (r) has even suggested a "twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and beyond the government's proposed email charges.
Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story, the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of email surcharge "a useful concept who's time has come" (March 6th 1999 Editorial) Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away!
Send this email to all Americans on your list and tell your friends and relatives to write to their congressman and say "No!" to Bill 602P.
Kate Turner
Assistant to Richard Stepp
Berger, Stepp and Gorman
Attorneys at Law
216 Concorde Street,
Vienna, Va.
------------
Now there's the first version of "liquid cooling technology!"
Actually, I remember during hot summers (with no A/C in our house...crazy), loading and playing games on my C-64 required a fan aimed directly at the external power supply or the machine would tank.
At any rate, if I had the dough, imagine what a RAID would look like with a bunch of Zx80s around. (And yes, you could put Linux on it!!)
------------
I guess what I'm saying is that there continues to exist a strong nostalgia for the BASIC programming language, and while I agree it encourages bad habits, the majority of people who are going to incorporate something like KBasic have all of the more conventional standards at hand.
In other words, is Joe User on his Windows ME :) box going to say, "Golly gee, I think I'm goin' to write some programs, boys!"
------------
www.algore-2000.org
------------
http://www.algore-2000.net
http://www.gwbush.com
http://www.bush-cheney.net
Essentially, it seems like the whole "I've got a good looking domain name" philosophy is easily obtained and used to manipulate uneducated computer/Web users (probably using WebTV).
So as long as there are suckers out there who view vitriolic/false websites as legitimate sources of information, there will be the capitalists ready to make use of them. Oh I almost forgot. IMHO. So there.
------------
During my college astronomy courses, we went out to the telescope a couple of days using a filter that got rid of the nastiness of UV light, etc.
The sun is literally covered with these "dark areas" which we call sunspots--it was really cool to see!
So yeah it will produce a lot of weird disturbances to our electromagnetic field, but it won't be anything like the global catastrophe that was Y2K(-1)!
------------
While Logo's happy turtle had its merits, I still prefer the "Smiley Face" icon featured on early versions of IBM PCs. Imagine the increase in programmer and worker productivity if that smiley face appeared instead of an "Illegal Operation."
===========
Your code looks great, but there's too many brackets
What I'm saying is that lots of people choose an O/S that they configure...just for the heck of it. Lots of us change our own oil, fix our own toasters, etc. etc. So what's wrong with the simple pleasure of tweaking the O/S? My first O/S experience was Windows 3.1, then Unix. I mean, even in 3.1 you still got the chance to mess with DOS files just to get the thing working! (Ooh! And jumpers, too). Many users/administrators not only like but demand having that control.
The Win95/98/2000/OS9/OSX Mentality seems to be "shut up...we know what's good for you." Which, in most cases, is true. But some of us weirdos like saying: "wow...I'll bet I can compile my own version [application x] that will work better."
Sorry, sometimes personal preferences can't be forgotten! Tweak your O/S! Use the command line! Reconfigure your toaster!
What the hell is wrong with my Windows Box now?!?