I sort of liked the concept of buying a few shares of freedom infringing or patent offending companies to give one a voice at the shareholder meetings.
20K as a starter fund would give one a lot of flexibility to do just that, and with many companies at once. A lot of influence (or at least input/intelligence) could be had for just a few dollars. And, the money remains yours - it could even turn a profit. All while contributing to the community and protecting freedom.
In any case, I agree with many posters here, you should definitely seek some sort of financial advice from (tax?) professionals in addition to whatever you might glean from here.
Please let us know what you decided to do so we can collectively give a/. pat on the back.:)
Ya don't know what you're dealin' with. No, you never did. Ya don't know what you're lookin' at, But that's tough titty, kid! ... I'm just a mean green mother from outer space, Gonna trash your ass! Gonna rock this place! ... You can keep the thing, Keep the it, Keep the creature, they don't mean shit! ... You better move it out! Nature calls! You got the point? I'm gonna bust your balls! ...
When the song played on the Academy Awards show, they had modified the lyrics significantly. I don't remember exactly what the modifications were, but IIRC they eliminated each of the allegedly objectionable words above.
I remember this clearly because it pissed me off that they sold out and censored this content in advance by going to the trouble to rewrite the song. The question stands... was the song heard on the show even the same song as was nominated?
I agree that the song as written is what was nominated. If it is changed, then it's no longer the song that was nominated. I hope that Matt and Trey hold their ground on this one. Let ABC bleep it.
And I hope that the Washington Post checks their facts a little closer.
I think this is a wonderful story and these folks are definitely Getting It Right (tm). I do agree with one of the other/. posters that the downside is that this kind of environment is not available at more schools.
And there is a danger...
Too much publicity of this fine school doing The Right Thing (tm) and M/$ will swoop in with an offer millions of dollars in hardware and free M/$ junkware if they agree to get rid of what works (and works well) and adopt an M/$ only policy.
All for the sake of FUD and the publicity machinery.
They'll use the excuse that PERL and open source will not prepare these students for the "real world", only M/$ products can do that.
While I'm sure that the teacher in charge of the technology would tell M/$ to blow, school district board members have a history of not being quite so discerning when being offered money or goods.
I suppose it could be one of those battles that, if the school holds it's ground, could be good for our side. And more importantly, good for the kids.
Perhaps they can resist assimilation at the hands of the M/$ Borg.
This sounds surreal, just like the Monty Python/Dead Parrot sketch. And I thought that strange kind of behavior was limited to England... now I see that it has spread to Ireland as well. I hope we can at least confine it to Europe.
(Disclaimer for the clue-impaired: This is supposed to be humorous.)
(Disclaimer for Queen's English spellers: I omitted the extra "u"'s in behavior and humorous because I am American and to save bandwidth.)
Sounds like just the thing for me. I'm a 'not so strict' vegetarian, but my choices are still pretty limited. It's nice to have this option. I'll give them all a try anyway.
And Newton, NJ? Well, that's a helluva nod to Apple, huh? Especially for a discontinued product.:)
I think I see a pattern here... Newton, Apples, Macintosh, Healthy Burritos from Scott Adams, hmmm...
I think I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader...
In any case, they've gotta be better than 'Penguin Patties' (TM):)
Was anyone else annoyed by the mouse trail effect with the little "k"'s on their front page?
I turn that off for the duration when I work on someones laptop and this page bothered me enough that I emailed them asking to reconsider the "feature".
Oh well, I'm probably a little off-topic, but it does look like a cool box. I don't know if I could get used to paying a subscription service to listen to music.
I used to teach Introduction to the Internet classes at a community college where I also ran the open student lab. I would tell the students that they should not send anything in email that they wouldn't want to see in the headline of tomorrows newspaper. If I'm having a private email conversation with a friend about a third party, there may be information that I don't want the third party to know I said and information I don't want made public.
Assume I am a psychiatrist consulting with a colleague in another place about a client. I wouldn't want anyone but the intended recipient to see the information about the patients condition.
Just these facts are enough to make encryption worthwhile for me.
And what about business plans? If I was working on developing a new product, the exposure of that information could give someone else (with more money - like M/$) the idea to develop before I could get all my ducks in a row.
Other than that, is just simply the fact that I have a right to be secure in my possessions and particulary, my information. That was the whole point to forming this country (USA). For my government to force me to give them the encryption key to data is the same as demanding that I incriminate myself (also prohibited by the US Constitution.)
I realize the article is about the law in the UK, but the encryption issue is truly international.
Governments are chipping away at our rights to privacy (at whatever level) in many countries around the world. If we don't stop it now, nothing about our private lives will be beyond the reach of Government, and then corporations as they further lobby the Government (become the Government?)
My computer uses a Microsoft operating system and you know how unreliable those are. It seems that my computer running Windows 95 crashed last night and I lost all the data on my hard drive. So sorry.:(
This is un-fscking believable! Reagan spent us into a 4 trillion dollar national debt and near bankruptcy to beat the "evil empire" (USSR, now Russia and assorted components) and now we have adopted the same governmental intrusions and lack of freedom that we tried to eliminate.
You may be absolutely sure that I will not be flying this airline and I will let them know exactly why.
You know, I was going to write a post here something like this:
Any congressperson could take the slash tools, most specifically the poll engine, and set it up on their site to get an idea of the pulse on an issue. Granted this method is not perfect, and it would be biased on the side of more technically oriented people, but it does limit to one poll vote per IP so that would keep down the ballot box stuffing, and they wouldn't have to respond to individual email.
But right at that moment, my previous disgust with the American political system (which had already turned to amusement), shifted further into apathy.
I think I'm trailing the pack on this one. Our national voter participation has dropped significantly over time and only the most vocal and obnoxious people are seen pushing issues.
We, The People, have seen over time that the process of our governance has turned from Statesmanship to a pure money-making venture. Even if there are those who might choose to go into politics to try to effect actual change, the 'barrier to entry' is exclusively money and set so high that one has to already *be* independently wealthy or be beholden to those who have contributed the money to make one's election possible.
And now, with this article and affiliated posts and links, we have even further confirmation that our voices do not count a single whit. My voice does not count unless I speak while handing over a large check. I begin to wonder what happens to my actual vote on election day as the information travels from my local polling place to a counting center through the rest of the reporting process. After all, I have a tendency to vote against the moneyed interests.
And I *do* vote. In every election, for every issue, I educate myself about the issues, the candidates and the events surrounding both. And the really depressing part is that I am forced to cast those very important votes for the lesser of the evils I am presented with.
Despite my best efforts at fulfilling my civic duties, my elected officials here in Arizona are proposing some of the most backward, unenforceable and probably unconstitutional laws I continue to see.
1. As reported on/. a few days ago: Rep. Jean McGrath wants to require filtering software on all school computers up to and including University level, restricting the rights of adults. She also wants to prevent persons of the opposite sex from visiting each others dorm rooms. I hope this will fail after I ask my representatives if they are supporting Rep. McGrath's Homosexual Rights and Privacy Bill.
2. An anti-choice anti-abortion bill to require parental consent for minors, a waiting period for all and force doctors to go into a long-winded spiel about the dangers and show pictures of fetal development. (Ed:"Don't like abortion? Don't have one.")
3. And the capper... A bill to *require* that, in addition to information about evolution, the schools *must* teach the 'scientific facts refuting evolution'!?!? Tough duty for the teacher, there *are no* scientific facts refuting evolution.
So, I do my part, but without money, and my concerns get ignored, my State slips backward toward the Middle Ages, and we all get fsck'd.
And now I have information that anything I try to do to convey my desire to *my employee* regarding my governance is being ignored.
Apathy? Yup.
I guess I'll just do my part next time around and vote against the bastards... if I can get up the energy to go to the polls... after all, what's the point?
Disclaimer: The above is a statement of *my* feeling in this matter, is not intended to speak for others, and is *not* flamebait.
It's time that those of us interested in freedom pool our resources and purchase an island somewhere in international waters. It's sole purpose would be to provide an extranational haven for information such as this which is acquired legally, but still prosecuted in this manner.
The only thing resembling a police force on the island would be that which is there to prevent other countries from agressing against us and attempting to confiscate our physical posessions and/or data. No cooperation with any other country on prosecution of someone placing data on the servers would be allowed by it's charter.
There is a great need for a physical space which is truly out of the reach of over-reaching, intrusive and confiscatory corporations and nations.
Come on folks, let's put our resources to work. I have read posts in this forum from what seem to be some of the most educated and intelligent individuals with which it is my pleasure to read and associate. In addition to our techie orientation, we come from all walks of life and backgrounds. I have seen people post who are lawyers, nuclear physicists, and doctors. Even with those who are not in these occupations, we are the cream of the crop, we are, collectively, a highly intelligent entity. And we have a tendency to be in the upper scale of income.
Let's put that intelligence, creativity and dollars to work to protect our freedom. Churches function on the premise that the members donate/tithe for the common good. The entire free software movement is based on contributing to the whole. And some of us have even had massive windfalls recently through the major IPO's. Not me, of course, but I am still willing to contribute time, what dollars I can, etc. to insuring that my freedom remains. Many of our predecessors have fought physically and died for this, we can throw a little money at it.
How about it ESR?:) You said in your story after the IPO that you had most of what you needed, how about contributing a small Carribean island in international waters to protect the Bazaar?
And while Eric (or any other individual) may choose to make a significant contribution of this type, all of us must make a effort to protect what we hold dear. I realize this is a massive concept and project, but we are a powerful force. If we feel impotent to affect the outcome of these legalistic events, how about we behave like the net we love and 'route around the damage' by creating a physical place free from that damage.
Whattya think folks? Good idea, or am I just talking through my hat?
I was a Novell 4.x admin for 4 1/2 years before changing jobs and ending up in an NT assimilated state organization. I have also done a lot of time as a *nix power-user/sysadmin. Personally I'm a Mac/Linux guy.
NT shouts it FUD, and Novell quietly tells those that will listen about it's better product. And Novell continues to improve both the product itself and it's interoperability. 4 or 5 years ago, when the first Novell 4.0 came out, it was good, but I had a few frustrating problems with uptime and data corruption. By 4.01, they had it fixed and it was rock solid. I have more problems with NT 4.0 on a daily basis than I ever did with Novell 4.0's first release.
Coming from the Novell side to NT, I was struck by how much of a joke NT was, a baby Network OS. It didn't have the reliability, it didn't have the granularity to manage users and permissions that Novell did, didn't have the scalability, and there was a bunch of resource wasting GUI right on my server! God damn it, lock the server in a room and manage it from somewhere else. If you're gonna serve stuff (that's what a server is for, right?) put all that GUI somewhere else so the server can concentrate it's resources on what it supposed to be doing. Then maybe you dont have to run a PIII-800 with a Gig of RAM just to serve some files.
If there were employment options here where I choose to live (that being my first priority) that could get me back into a Novell or, even better, a *nix environment, I'd be on the move in a minute. Even leaving the frightening permanence of state service.
Bottom line: in every field there are better products, better ways of doing things, and solutions with great stability that are applicable. But in most cases, it's the liars, the charlatans, the snake oil salesmen - in short, those that shout the loudest - that end up winning. Yes, this is a sad state of affairs and depressing, but we just have to keep plugging away, trying to educate people.
Those of us who are educated, think critically and make good choices as a result will continue to experience the better products and the reduction in stress that comes with the use/management of them. Those who remain uneducated and naive, and listen to 'man behind the curtain' will be forever lost in pits of NT^H^H hell burning and rebooting day by day... unless we can educate them and remove their naivtee'.
It seems that Novell is trying to do this now, they just need to take out a lot more full page ads and plant some employees to post to groups and handle reporters.:) Or is that precluded by the fact that they speak the truth?
The Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, and scientist.
Born on July 9/10, 1856 in Smiljan, Lika (Austria-Hungary) Died on January 7, 1943 in New York City, New York (USA)
Inventions: a telephone repeater, rotating magnetic field principle, polyphase alternating-current system, induction motor, alternating-current power transmission, Tesla coil transformer, wireless communication, radio, fluorescent lights, and more than 700 other patents.
How many of us have our jobs, hobbies and/or avocations without the inventions of this man? He should also go on the all-time hackers list as well. I just wish he could have gotten that transmission-of-electricity-through-the-air thing working.:)
Something looks a little hinky here. Is it just me, or do these thing not seem to match:
"he exploited a buffer overflow in proftd. since the machine was a ppc, no one could use the pre-written expliots... the winner rewrote the exploit in ppc assembly." -comment by elixir
> Just out of curiosity, How long will it be before everyone forgets how to write?
Very good question...:)
Palm and the Grafitti language are giving us a good start on that very possibility. Eventually, there will be further divisions between those who can write, those who only write grafitti, and those who can not write at all.
In Neal Stephenson's book "Diamond Age", he makes reference to "mediaglyphs." I assume them to be iconic references for common items or concepts, sort of like the international symbols of today. While this can be beneficial, it sure represents a great opportunity for further "dumbing down."
My Newton MessagePad taught to write better cursive (BTW, with practice I was getting 98% accuracy), my Palm is teaching me to write Grafitti. (And don't forget, Grafitti was available as a third-party product for my Newton years ago, so I could use either then.)
How long before everyone forgets how to write? Just keep an eye on the handwritten work that teachers receive in school. When it starts turning up interspersed with Grafitti, we'll know we're on the way.
Hopefully, the technology can catch up quickly enough to give us acceptable cursive recognition (sorry to be so Anglo-centric). I would love to see Apple GPL the code for their Newton recognition stuff. It's not perfect, but with the increase in hand-held processor capability and speed in the last few years and a bunch of talented Open Source programmers working on it, it could be whipped in shape in no time.:)
Are you listening, Apple? Hey Steve, maybe you can write it off as a tax break...
I remember reading a.sig file a while ago that said:
"There is a special place in hell reserved for people who use html email."
(Sorry, I can't remember who it was, but I believe it was a/. reader. Credit where credit is due.)
My sentiment exactly. I read everything in a shell with pine. Ain't no cookies going anywhere there... unless I missed something? Of course thats the personal mail. At work, I'm forced to use Outlook, but I am behind a firewall.
Email is text... and maybe attached files. It you want to imply bold, * * it.
No damn font changes, inline pics, none of that crap, that's why it's 7 bit.;) (No flames please about the real legacy reasons that it's 7 bit, I know.)
The purpose of email is to convey information. Text does that just fine for me. If you send me html formatted messages, pine can't read them, I'm not going to go to the trouble to save and view them, and you have failed to convey your message... so sorry. Now I find out that it's a nice security benefit as well. I always knew I was on the right track.
It's sorta like web pages that are all filled up with Java and the like, I can't see them in lynx, so I can't get your content. Again, sorry, but you have lost a visitor.
How do you suppose Bill will leverage this one to force the OS to be wince? (Oops, 'Windoze powered...':)
Will we be seeing warnings like:
"I'm sorry, but I've patented sight, you'll need to pay a royalty everytime you open your eyes."
"What do you want to see today?"
"MSEyes have detected a change in your field of vision. You must reboot for these changes to become visible."
"You must now install the new 'Eye patch 2.0' Service Pack. Please stare directly at your monitor while the next web page loads."
Will M/$ force a browser to be integrated?
Does BSOD become BEOD? Blue Eyes Of Death? (I've known some women who already have this capability.)
Will it be compiled by "Visual See++?"
Additional Function?:
Make the infrared receiver a transceiver with input from the muscles around the eye so that you can change the channel on your TV or turn the stereo volume up and down with a blink.
Does this mean that I can reprogram it with my Palm IIIx?
You know, WinCE has been around for quite a while (never doing very well, but been out a while) and they never had a problem with the name.
I may be dense, but it was only recently that I saw a post pointing out the "wince" moniker and had a good chuckle at something I hadn't recognized before. Has this reference been around a long time, or has it recently become more popular? Has the mainstream media never picked up on it before?
Perhaps we slashdotters/techies/geeks/truly intelligent beings have more power than we think. If our use of the term has the potential to bring it into use in the mainstream... could this be the reason for this change now? The desire to do some revisionist FUD and try to head off this allegedly derogatory reference at the pass?
Well, it will always be "wince" to me.:) And I hope to all of the rest of us thinking beings... You can change the name, but the truth will tell. Although the truth often has a difficult time against M/$ FUD...
Of course it's still called "Boulder" Dam to me, not Hoover. And, damn it, I learned to spell Czechoslavakia in the 5th grade (could do it in my sleep the way the teacher drilled us), what am I going to do with that little piece of now useless knowledge?
A friend of mine works in a research lab of an educational institution. They got one of these things and I got to play with it for a while.
My friend told me that they had spent considerable time training the thing to walk and to react by praising (pressing and holding the large button on it's head) it when it did something right or desirable and punishing (tapping the same button) it when it did something undesired.
It walks and if it falls over (or is pushed;) it stands right back up. This one will put one paw in the air as if waving, it stretches and sits and lies down. I will react to people and things in it's environment, although we couldn't get it to play with it's little pink ball. Of course, as the FAQ's for the dog say... "Q: AIBO won't play with his pink ball. A: Maybe AIBO doesn't *want* to play with his pink ball."
It appears to have some level of intelligence and does appear to learn as it goes. If money were no object, I would love to have one of these. It's fun. When you don't want to play with it, you don't have to feel guilty. And it's a wonderful chick magnet.;)
The next version will be even cooler as when it's battery begins to run down, it will seek and go to it's charging base to recharge itself.
It's an interesting toy for now, but too expensive. I do agree that 10 to 20 years from now, this will be very common in peoples homes.
As a public figure, we can say whatever we like about him, as long as it's not a lie and it's not malicious. Allegations are fine. As long as we have no evidence that the allegations are *untrue*, and we bear no malice other than not wanting him to represent us in government. then we can assert these allegations without being in violation of the law.
This applies to journalism. As the web has made us all journalists, it applies to all of us.
If this were not true and proven in law many times, the National Enquirer, et. al. could not and would not remain in business.
Add to this the aspect that it is satirical, and there is a double legal whammy that should stand in court if this country is still free and following the law laid down over many years.
However, since G. W. seems to believe there should be limits to our freedoms and he wants to be the one to place them, maybe we are not as free as we would like to believe.
Especially when he has successfully supressed so much anti-G. W. Bush sentiment already.
1. Campaign staff buy up all adverse domain names in one of the worse squatting incidents.
2. Somehow, congress put off the cyber-squatting law. I don't know the particulars, but if a former republican president were to urge current republican members of congress to put this on hold, especially if it would help elect a republican president, they would probably listen.
3. He successfully supressed a book that was uncomplimentary by calling into question the character of the author and convincing the publisher to recall and destroy 700,000 copies of what would have been a best selling book simply because of the advance publicity.
4. He arrogantly assumes a lead in the polls and "skips" public debate events with other republican candidates.
This is to say nothing of the allegations in the aforesaid book, of earlier events in his life which parallel these types of current events.
The allegation is that used cocaine, then pulled political strings to get a light sentence and and have his record illegally purged.
And on and on and on...
Microsoft tried to claim they were not a monopoly by pointing to individual components of their practices that they claimed were not monopolistic. When it fact it was their "*pattern* of behavior" that proves their monopolistic practice.
Looking at G. W. Bush and his documented behaviors and statements, *I* observe a pattern just like that of M/$. While he may win on individual battles, I sure hope he loses this war. This is not an individual I want leading my country.
Say what you like about Bill Clinton... he may have gotten blown by an intern and lied about it, but he didn't try to take away *my* rights, and he didn't put business above environmental concerns.
How about we mirror the hell out of this? If M/$ or Parker Bros. wants to shut it off, lets make it as difficult and costly as possible.
I see 200+ mirrors on sites in as many countries as possible. If we start now, we might be able to keep it available.
I would follow rde's suggestion and bookmark the site for a later game, but in these litigious times, one has to mirror the entire content of any site that might be the littlest bit offensive to *anyone*. Especially big corporations.:) Or at least take a peek before it goes away...
It seems the only way to keep the web free is a little peaceful civil disobedience.
I currently use an old two button Kensington Turbo-mouse trackball. I first started using it in about '90 or maybe earlier, don't remember. I had a bit of adjustment, but after learning to use it (years ago), I love it. Bear in mind, this is on a Mac. I do the Linux thing, but have stayed at the CL for now and have never used X.
The driver on the Mac allows me to set an acceleration curve and define actions for each button and a chord.
At work on NT (ick), I use a standard mouse on the desktop and the J-mouse (what I've always called the pencil eraser joystick embedded in the keyboard) on a Toshiba Laptop. I have also used Trackpads and the Mini-trackball on Apple Laptops (using the Trackpad right now.) Oh, and the light pen on the Commodore 64.:) (Anyone else remember that one?)
The regular mouse is ok. I really like the J-mouse on the laptop over any of the other laptop options. Although, I got the chance to play with an iBook the other day, and it's Trackpad is much improved and I would consider it.
A friend has a Logitech mouse with an interesting ergonomic design which fits my hand exactly. The curve on top (right-handed), plus a slight recess for my thumb allow my hand to stay in exactly the right position. There are 3 buttons on top and one at the bottom of the thumb recess. I have never really gotten a model or name on this little rodent, but it's USB and if I didn't have the Trackball, I'd probably use it.
Well, that's just my 2 little round copper objects.
Slashdot Mirror
I sort of liked the concept of buying a few shares of freedom infringing or patent offending companies to give one a voice at the shareholder meetings.
/. pat on the back. :)
20K as a starter fund would give one a lot of flexibility to do just that, and with many companies at once. A lot of influence (or at least input/intelligence) could be had for just a few dollars. And, the money remains yours - it could even turn a profit. All while contributing to the community and protecting freedom.
In any case, I agree with many posters here, you should definitely seek some sort of financial advice from (tax?) professionals in addition to whatever you might glean from here.
Please let us know what you decided to do so we can collectively give a
Just my 2 little copper coins...
Russ
In 1986, the song Mean Green Mother From Outer Space from the movie Little Shop of Horrors starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Green was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
Some of the original lyrics went like this:
When the song played on the Academy Awards show, they had modified the lyrics significantly. I don't remember exactly what the modifications were, but IIRC they eliminated each of the allegedly objectionable words above.
I remember this clearly because it pissed me off that they sold out and censored this content in advance by going to the trouble to rewrite the song. The question stands... was the song heard on the show even the same song as was nominated?
I agree that the song as written is what was nominated. If it is changed, then it's no longer the song that was nominated. I hope that Matt and Trey hold their ground on this one. Let ABC bleep it.
And I hope that the Washington Post checks their facts a little closer.
Russ
I think this is a wonderful story and these folks are definitely Getting It Right (tm). I do agree with one of the other /. posters that the downside is that this kind of environment is not available at more schools.
And there is a danger...
Too much publicity of this fine school doing The Right Thing (tm) and M/$ will swoop in with an offer millions of dollars in hardware and free M/$ junkware if they agree to get rid of what works (and works well) and adopt an M/$ only policy.
All for the sake of FUD and the publicity machinery.
They'll use the excuse that PERL and open source will not prepare these students for the "real world", only M/$ products can do that.
While I'm sure that the teacher in charge of the technology would tell M/$ to blow, school district board members have a history of not being quite so discerning when being offered money or goods.
I suppose it could be one of those battles that, if the school holds it's ground, could be good for our side. And more importantly, good for the kids.
Perhaps they can resist assimilation at the hands of the M/$ Borg.
Russ
This sounds surreal, just like the Monty Python/Dead Parrot sketch. And I thought that strange kind of behavior was limited to England... now I see that it has spread to Ireland as well. I hope we can at least confine it to Europe.
(Disclaimer for the clue-impaired: This is supposed to be humorous.)
(Disclaimer for Queen's English spellers: I omitted the extra "u"'s in behavior and humorous because I am American and to save bandwidth.)
Russ
Sounds like just the thing for me. I'm a 'not so strict' vegetarian, but my choices are still pretty limited. It's nice to have this option. I'll give them all a try anyway.
:)
:)
And Newton, NJ? Well, that's a helluva nod to Apple, huh? Especially for a discontinued product.
I think I see a pattern here... Newton, Apples, Macintosh, Healthy Burritos from Scott Adams, hmmm...
I think I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader...
In any case, they've gotta be better than 'Penguin Patties' (TM)
Russ
Was anyone else annoyed by the mouse trail effect with the little "k"'s on their front page?
I turn that off for the duration when I work on someones laptop and this page bothered me enough that I emailed them asking to reconsider the "feature".
Oh well, I'm probably a little off-topic, but it does look like a cool box. I don't know if I could get used to paying a subscription service to listen to music.
Russ
He's at it again, that damn trickster Loci. He makes trouble wherever he goes. And now the FBI has 13 of him... boy are they in trouble.
I used to teach Introduction to the Internet classes at a community college where I also ran the open student lab. I would tell the students that they should not send anything in email that they wouldn't want to see in the headline of tomorrows newspaper. If I'm having a private email conversation with a friend about a third party, there may be information that I don't want the third party to know I said and information I don't want made public.
Assume I am a psychiatrist consulting with a colleague in another place about a client. I wouldn't want anyone but the intended recipient to see the information about the patients condition.
Just these facts are enough to make encryption worthwhile for me.
And what about business plans? If I was working on developing a new product, the exposure of that information could give someone else (with more money - like M/$) the idea to develop before I could get all my ducks in a row.
Other than that, is just simply the fact that I have a right to be secure in my possessions and particulary, my information. That was the whole point to forming this country (USA). For my government to force me to give them the encryption key to data is the same as demanding that I incriminate myself (also prohibited by the US Constitution.)
I realize the article is about the law in the UK, but the encryption issue is truly international.
Governments are chipping away at our rights to privacy (at whatever level) in many countries around the world. If we don't stop it now, nothing about our private lives will be beyond the reach of Government, and then corporations as they further lobby the Government (become the Government?)
Why is cryptography so terribly important?
Those reasons are enough for me.
Russ
My computer uses a Microsoft operating system and you know how unreliable those are. It seems that my computer running Windows 95 crashed last night and I lost all the data on my hard drive. So sorry. :(
This is un-fscking believable! Reagan spent us into a 4 trillion dollar national debt and near bankruptcy to beat the "evil empire" (USSR, now Russia and assorted components) and now we have adopted the same governmental intrusions and lack of freedom that we tried to eliminate.
You may be absolutely sure that I will not be flying this airline and I will let them know exactly why.
Russ
You know, I was going to write a post here something like this:
/. a few days ago: Rep. Jean McGrath wants to require filtering software on all school computers up to and including University level, restricting the rights of adults. She also wants to prevent persons of the opposite sex from visiting each others dorm rooms. I hope this will fail after I ask my representatives if they are supporting Rep. McGrath's Homosexual Rights and Privacy Bill.
Any congressperson could take the slash tools, most specifically the poll engine, and set it up on their site to get an idea of the pulse on an issue. Granted this method is not perfect, and it would be biased on the side of more technically oriented people, but it does limit to one poll vote per IP so that would keep down the ballot box stuffing, and they wouldn't have to respond to individual email.
But right at that moment, my previous disgust with the American political system (which had already turned to amusement), shifted further into apathy.
I think I'm trailing the pack on this one. Our national voter participation has dropped significantly over time and only the most vocal and obnoxious people are seen pushing issues.
We, The People, have seen over time that the process of our governance has turned from Statesmanship to a pure money-making venture. Even if there are those who might choose to go into politics to try to effect actual change, the 'barrier to entry' is exclusively money and set so high that one has to already *be* independently wealthy or be beholden to those who have contributed the money to make one's election possible.
And now, with this article and affiliated posts and links, we have even further confirmation that our voices do not count a single whit. My voice does not count unless I speak while handing over a large check. I begin to wonder what happens to my actual vote on election day as the information travels from my local polling place to a counting center through the rest of the reporting process. After all, I have a tendency to vote against the moneyed interests.
And I *do* vote. In every election, for every issue, I educate myself about the issues, the candidates and the events surrounding both. And the really depressing part is that I am forced to cast those very important votes for the lesser of the evils I am presented with.
Despite my best efforts at fulfilling my civic duties, my elected officials here in Arizona are proposing some of the most backward, unenforceable and probably unconstitutional laws I continue to see.
1. As reported on
2. An anti-choice anti-abortion bill to require parental consent for minors, a waiting period for all and force doctors to go into a long-winded spiel about the dangers and show pictures of fetal development. (Ed:"Don't like abortion? Don't have one.")
3. And the capper... A bill to *require* that, in addition to information about evolution, the schools *must* teach the 'scientific facts refuting evolution'!?!? Tough duty for the teacher, there *are no* scientific facts refuting evolution.
So, I do my part, but without money, and my concerns get ignored, my State slips backward toward the Middle Ages, and we all get fsck'd.
And now I have information that anything I try to do to convey my desire to *my employee* regarding my governance is being ignored.
Apathy? Yup.
I guess I'll just do my part next time around and vote against the bastards... if I can get up the energy to go to the polls... after all, what's the point?
Disclaimer: The above is a statement of *my* feeling in this matter, is not intended to speak for others, and is *not* flamebait.
*Constructive* ideas and/or criticism is/are welcomed.
Russ
Enough is enough!
:) You said in your story after the IPO that you had most of what you needed, how about contributing a small Carribean island in international waters to protect the Bazaar?
It's time that those of us interested in freedom pool our resources and purchase an island somewhere in international waters. It's sole purpose would be to provide an extranational haven for information such as this which is acquired legally, but still prosecuted in this manner.
The only thing resembling a police force on the island would be that which is there to prevent other countries from agressing against us and attempting to confiscate our physical posessions and/or data. No cooperation with any other country on prosecution of someone placing data on the servers would be allowed by it's charter.
There is a great need for a physical space which is truly out of the reach of over-reaching, intrusive and confiscatory corporations and nations.
Come on folks, let's put our resources to work. I have read posts in this forum from what seem to be some of the most educated and intelligent individuals with which it is my pleasure to read and associate. In addition to our techie orientation, we come from all walks of life and backgrounds. I have seen people post who are lawyers, nuclear physicists, and doctors. Even with those who are not in these occupations, we are the cream of the crop, we are, collectively, a highly intelligent entity. And we have a tendency to be in the upper scale of income.
Let's put that intelligence, creativity and dollars to work to protect our freedom. Churches function on the premise that the members donate/tithe for the common good. The entire free software movement is based on contributing to the whole. And some of us have even had massive windfalls recently through the major IPO's. Not me, of course, but I am still willing to contribute time, what dollars I can, etc. to insuring that my freedom remains. Many of our predecessors have fought physically and died for this, we can throw a little money at it.
How about it ESR?
And while Eric (or any other individual) may choose to make a significant contribution of this type, all of us must make a effort to protect what we hold dear. I realize this is a massive concept and project, but we are a powerful force. If we feel impotent to affect the outcome of these legalistic events, how about we behave like the net we love and 'route around the damage' by creating a physical place free from that damage.
Whattya think folks? Good idea, or am I just talking through my hat?
Russ
The truth is spoken in a whisper.
:) Or is that precluded by the fact that they speak the truth?
I was a Novell 4.x admin for 4 1/2 years before changing jobs and ending up in an NT assimilated state organization. I have also done a lot of time as a *nix power-user/sysadmin. Personally I'm a Mac/Linux guy.
NT shouts it FUD, and Novell quietly tells those that will listen about it's better product. And Novell continues to improve both the product itself and it's interoperability. 4 or 5 years ago, when the first Novell 4.0 came out, it was good, but I had a few frustrating problems with uptime and data corruption. By 4.01, they had it fixed and it was rock solid. I have more problems with NT 4.0 on a daily basis than I ever did with Novell 4.0's first release.
Coming from the Novell side to NT, I was struck by how much of a joke NT was, a baby Network OS. It didn't have the reliability, it didn't have the granularity to manage users and permissions that Novell did, didn't have the scalability, and there was a bunch of resource wasting GUI right on my server! God damn it, lock the server in a room and manage it from somewhere else. If you're gonna serve stuff (that's what a server is for, right?) put all that GUI somewhere else so the server can concentrate it's resources on what it supposed to be doing. Then maybe you dont have to run a PIII-800 with a Gig of RAM just to serve some files.
If there were employment options here where I choose to live (that being my first priority) that could get me back into a Novell or, even better, a *nix environment, I'd be on the move in a minute. Even leaving the frightening permanence of state service.
Bottom line: in every field there are better products, better ways of doing things, and solutions with great stability that are applicable. But in most cases, it's the liars, the charlatans, the snake oil salesmen - in short, those that shout the loudest - that end up winning. Yes, this is a sad state of affairs and depressing, but we just have to keep plugging away, trying to educate people.
Those of us who are educated, think critically and make good choices as a result will continue to experience the better products and the reduction in stress that comes with the use/management of them. Those who remain uneducated and naive, and listen to 'man behind the curtain' will be forever lost in pits of NT^H^H hell burning and rebooting day by day... unless we can educate them and remove their naivtee'.
It seems that Novell is trying to do this now, they just need to take out a lot more full page ads and plant some employees to post to groups and handle reporters.
In either case, I wish them luck.
Russ
You can't forget HH The 14th Dalai Lama.
He advances the Open Souce versions of politics, religion, and spirituality.
Russ
From http://www.neuronet.pitt.edu/~bogdan/tesla/index.h tm:
Another site: http://www.apc.net/bturner/tesla.htmHow many of us have our jobs, hobbies and/or avocations without the inventions of this man? He should also go on the all-time hackers list as well. I just wish he could have gotten that transmission-of-electricity-through-the-air thing working. :)
Russ
I haven't administered Novell boxen for about a year and a half, but with Intranetware 4.1, my uptimes were on the order of hundreds of days.
Novell 4.0 was a buggy damn thing that I had trouble keeping up for a week, but with 4.02 and later Intra 4.1 they got the stability thing down.
I haven't had any experience with 5.0, but I would hope they can do as well.
I wonder why we don't see any uptime info for Novell at this site.
Russ
Something looks a little hinky here. Is it just me, or do these thing not seem to match:
"he exploited a buffer overflow in proftd. since the machine was a ppc, no one could use the pre-written expliots... the winner rewrote the exploit in ppc assembly." -comment by elixir
"meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage Express 2.0"" -from attrition.org mirror of cracked page
Is it odd that one who is capable of writing in "ppc assembly" would use FrontPage.
IANAP (I am not a programmer), but I do write all my HTML by hand. This sounds funny. Am I wrong... or missing something?
This is an honest question, not intended to be a troll.
Russ
> Just out of curiosity, How long will it be before everyone forgets how to write?
:)
:)
Very good question...
Palm and the Grafitti language are giving us a good start on that very possibility. Eventually, there will be further divisions between those who can write, those who only write grafitti, and those who can not write at all.
In Neal Stephenson's book "Diamond Age", he makes reference to "mediaglyphs." I assume them to be iconic references for common items or concepts, sort of like the international symbols of today. While this can be beneficial, it sure represents a great opportunity for further "dumbing down."
My Newton MessagePad taught to write better cursive (BTW, with practice I was getting 98% accuracy), my Palm is teaching me to write Grafitti. (And don't forget, Grafitti was available as a third-party product for my Newton years ago, so I could use either then.)
How long before everyone forgets how to write? Just keep an eye on the handwritten work that teachers receive in school. When it starts turning up interspersed with Grafitti, we'll know we're on the way.
Hopefully, the technology can catch up quickly enough to give us acceptable cursive recognition (sorry to be so Anglo-centric). I would love to see Apple GPL the code for their Newton recognition stuff. It's not perfect, but with the increase in hand-held processor capability and speed in the last few years and a bunch of talented Open Source programmers working on it, it could be whipped in shape in no time.
Are you listening, Apple? Hey Steve, maybe you can write it off as a tax break...
Russ
I remember reading a .sig file a while ago that said:
/. reader. Credit where credit is due.)
;) (No flames please about the real legacy reasons that it's 7 bit, I know.)
"There is a special place in hell reserved for people who use html email."
(Sorry, I can't remember who it was, but I believe it was a
My sentiment exactly. I read everything in a shell with pine. Ain't no cookies going anywhere there... unless I missed something? Of course thats the personal mail. At work, I'm forced to use Outlook, but I am behind a firewall.
Email is text... and maybe attached files. It you want to imply bold, * * it.
No damn font changes, inline pics, none of that crap, that's why it's 7 bit.
The purpose of email is to convey information. Text does that just fine for me. If you send me html formatted messages, pine can't read them, I'm not going to go to the trouble to save and view them, and you have failed to convey your message... so sorry. Now I find out that it's a nice security benefit as well. I always knew I was on the right track.
It's sorta like web pages that are all filled up with Java and the like, I can't see them in lynx, so I can't get your content. Again, sorry, but you have lost a visitor.
Russ
How do you suppose Bill will leverage this one to force the OS to be wince? (Oops, 'Windoze powered...' :)
:)
Will we be seeing warnings like:
"I'm sorry, but I've patented sight, you'll need to pay a royalty everytime you open your eyes."
"What do you want to see today?"
"MSEyes have detected a change in your field of vision. You must reboot for these changes to become visible."
"You must now install the new 'Eye patch 2.0' Service Pack. Please stare directly at your monitor while the next web page loads."
Will M/$ force a browser to be integrated?
Does BSOD become BEOD? Blue Eyes Of Death? (I've known some women who already have this capability.)
Will it be compiled by "Visual See++?"
Additional Function?:
Make the infrared receiver a transceiver with input from the muscles around the eye so that you can change the channel on your TV or turn the stereo volume up and down with a blink.
Does this mean that I can reprogram it with my Palm IIIx?
Just some points to ponder...
Russ
Constructive criticism noted. :)
:)
I guess I cant spell Czechoslovakia in my sleep after all.
That will teach me to type and proofread before I am truly awake. Maybe my future posts should occur later in the day.
Russ
You know, WinCE has been around for quite a while (never doing very well, but been out a while) and they never had a problem with the name.
:) And I hope to all of the rest of us thinking beings... You can change the name, but the truth will tell. Although the truth often has a difficult time against M/$ FUD...
;)
I may be dense, but it was only recently that I saw a post pointing out the "wince" moniker and had a good chuckle at something I hadn't recognized before. Has this reference been around a long time, or has it recently become more popular? Has the mainstream media never picked up on it before?
Perhaps we slashdotters/techies/geeks/truly intelligent beings have more power than we think. If our use of the term has the potential to bring it into use in the mainstream... could this be the reason for this change now? The desire to do some revisionist FUD and try to head off this allegedly derogatory reference at the pass?
Well, it will always be "wince" to me.
Of course it's still called "Boulder" Dam to me, not Hoover. And, damn it, I learned to spell Czechoslavakia in the 5th grade (could do it in my sleep the way the teacher drilled us), what am I going to do with that little piece of now useless knowledge?
Enough of changing the names of stuff.
Russ
A friend of mine works in a research lab of an educational institution. They got one of these things and I got to play with it for a while.
;) it stands right back up. This one will put one paw in the air as if waving, it stretches and sits and lies down. I will react to people and things in it's environment, although we couldn't get it to play with it's little pink ball. Of course, as the FAQ's for the dog say... "Q: AIBO won't play with his pink ball. A: Maybe AIBO doesn't *want* to play with his pink ball."
;)
My friend told me that they had spent considerable time training the thing to walk and to react by praising (pressing and holding the large button on it's head) it when it did something right or desirable and punishing (tapping the same button) it when it did something undesired.
It walks and if it falls over (or is pushed
It appears to have some level of intelligence and does appear to learn as it goes. If money were no object, I would love to have one of these. It's fun. When you don't want to play with it, you don't have to feel guilty. And it's a wonderful chick magnet.
The next version will be even cooler as when it's battery begins to run down, it will seek and go to it's charging base to recharge itself.
It's an interesting toy for now, but too expensive. I do agree that 10 to 20 years from now, this will be very common in peoples homes.
And just think, Asimov was right again...
Russ
Is G. W. Bush a public figure?
Yes.
As a public figure, we can say whatever we like about him, as long as it's not a lie and it's not malicious. Allegations are fine. As long as we have no evidence that the allegations are *untrue*, and we bear no malice other than not wanting him to represent us in government. then we can assert these allegations without being in violation of the law.
This applies to journalism. As the web has made us all journalists, it applies to all of us.
If this were not true and proven in law many times, the National Enquirer, et. al. could not and would not remain in business.
Add to this the aspect that it is satirical, and there is a double legal whammy that should stand in court if this country is still free and following the law laid down over many years.
However, since G. W. seems to believe there should be limits to our freedoms and he wants to be the one to place them, maybe we are not as free as we would like to believe.
Especially when he has successfully supressed so much anti-G. W. Bush sentiment already.
1. Campaign staff buy up all adverse domain names in one of the worse squatting incidents.
2. Somehow, congress put off the cyber-squatting law. I don't know the particulars, but if a former republican president were to urge current republican members of congress to put this on hold, especially if it would help elect a republican president, they would probably listen.
3. He successfully supressed a book that was uncomplimentary by calling into question the character of the author and convincing the publisher to recall and destroy 700,000 copies of what would have been a best selling book simply because of the advance publicity.
4. He arrogantly assumes a lead in the polls and "skips" public debate events with other republican candidates.
This is to say nothing of the allegations in the aforesaid book, of earlier events in his life which parallel these types of current events.
The allegation is that used cocaine, then pulled political strings to get a light sentence and and have his record illegally purged.
And on and on and on...
Microsoft tried to claim they were not a monopoly by pointing to individual components of their practices that they claimed were not monopolistic. When it fact it was their "*pattern* of behavior" that proves their monopolistic practice.
Looking at G. W. Bush and his documented behaviors and statements, *I* observe a pattern just like that of M/$. While he may win on individual battles, I sure hope he loses this war. This is not an individual I want leading my country.
Say what you like about Bill Clinton... he may have gotten blown by an intern and lied about it, but he didn't try to take away *my* rights, and he didn't put business above environmental concerns.
Russ
How about we mirror the hell out of this? If M/$ or Parker Bros. wants to shut it off, lets make it as difficult and costly as possible.
:)
I see 200+ mirrors on sites in as many countries as possible. If we start now, we might be able to keep it available.
I would follow rde's suggestion and bookmark the site for a later game, but in these litigious times, one has to mirror the entire content of any site that might be the littlest bit offensive to *anyone*. Especially big corporations.
Or at least take a peek before it goes away...
It seems the only way to keep the web free is a little peaceful civil disobedience.
Russ
I currently use an old two button Kensington Turbo-mouse trackball. I first started using it in about '90 or maybe earlier, don't remember. I had a bit of adjustment, but after learning to use it (years ago), I love it. Bear in mind, this is on a Mac. I do the Linux thing, but have stayed at the CL for now and have never used X.
:) (Anyone else remember that one?)
The driver on the Mac allows me to set an acceleration curve and define actions for each button and a chord.
At work on NT (ick), I use a standard mouse on the desktop and the J-mouse (what I've always called the pencil eraser joystick embedded in the keyboard) on a Toshiba Laptop. I have also used Trackpads and the Mini-trackball on Apple Laptops (using the Trackpad right now.) Oh, and the light pen on the Commodore 64.
The regular mouse is ok. I really like the J-mouse on the laptop over any of the other laptop options. Although, I got the chance to play with an iBook the other day, and it's Trackpad is much improved and I would consider it.
A friend has a Logitech mouse with an interesting ergonomic design which fits my hand exactly. The curve on top (right-handed), plus a slight recess for my thumb allow my hand to stay in exactly the right position. There are 3 buttons on top and one at the bottom of the thumb recess. I have never really gotten a model or name on this little rodent, but it's USB and if I didn't have the Trackball, I'd probably use it.
Well, that's just my 2 little round copper objects.
Russ