You're almost right. The method you're using is called Dark Frame Subtraction. The idea is that you photography the non-random noise inherent in the sensor and then take that out of the captured images. To do this, you make an image that is completely black (i.e. body cap on the front of the camera and viewfinder cover on the back) at the same temperature conditions and for the same length of shutter speed as the image you are trying to fix. Then you add that as a layer in photoshop, subtract it from the real image, and the non-random noise disappears.
However, it is MUCH more likely that the noise you are complaining about is random thermal noise, which is not treatable via Dark Frame Subtraction. Because it's, well, random noise, it'll be different in every shot. There are several photoshop plugins that can address this issue. In my opinion, the most effective and easiest to use of them is Noise Ninja.
Though another poster claims Safari isn't affected by this, I was able to replicate the vuln in Safari 1.2.3 (v125.9). So it appears that the other posters are incorrect. Firefox is unaffected, Internet Explorer show 'http://www.microsoft.com' when the cursor has changed to the link finger but shows 'http://www.google.com' when the cursor is over the link text. Opera for Mac displays the same oddities as IE. OmniWeb for Mac also does this, however, the space in which is displays the spoofed address is only about a pixel wide. Strangely, lynx didn't seem to have much to say:)
Actually, this has been fairly common in MiniDisc players for a long time (better part of a decade?). All of the Sony MiniDisc players I've seen have had dual-format jacks. It auto-detects which kind of cable has been plugged in and goes from there.
Vacuum film backs are old hat for many things, copywork among them. Lugged one out into the field lately?
Yes, I know all about the possibilites of movements on a view camera. In this case, it seemed apparrent that a parallel planes setup was what the photographer was striving for
w.r.t aperature and diffraction, yes, I'm aware that for lenses long enough to be useful with this camera, diffraction sets in a quite small aperatures. But I've got a 13" lens marked all the way down to f/128. Diffraction is a problem at that point
No, no telescope optics, I'm a photographer through and through
Aerial films have higer resolution than something like Velvia, which is popular with many landscape photographers today. The film you mention, Tech Pan, is a document film and requires special/odd development, like the aerial film, to produce a realistic tonal scale
I was never implying that sandbagging the camera was something new, I was refuting the grandparent's idea that the length of exposure was the sole cause of concern w.r.t. vibration
I find it amusing that you check things out of the Cage. Do you happen to go to OSU? At OSU the photo check out room is known as the Cage
It's a very old thing, benefiting from an obsession with detail. As far as I've ever encountered, there's no other cameras out there doing this much in this direction. Now if the Polaroid 20x24 camera could shoot negatives....
Resolution is not necessairly limited to the smallest grain site on the film (I think this is where you're pulling the 7um^2 figure from?). The important metric is the size of the smallest recoreded object. A lower resolving film covering a larger image circle is still capable of resolving a smaller object from the world side of the lens. The film size ("sensor size") of this camera is large (>150x) compared to the size of a typical DSLR sensor. This means that the real difference in resolved details is much greater than the small difference in photosite difference between the "sensors". As far as the color information being thrown out and coming back from memory, have you ever done your own color wet-process work? The final print has a much smaller dynamic range and a much more limited color space than reality ("throws away a lot of the colour information") and the final colour pack for the print comes from the printer's judgement about what the final print should look like ("reproduces it from memory").
As far as the other "problems" you see with the use of wet-process, none of them fail to apply to digital process as well. Well, as long as you substitute "dust on the sensor" at the relevant place. If you're realy worried about what happens to the light before you see the final process, you really need to worry about (note: not a full list, I'm sleepy) the optical stability of the air, the optical clarity of the air, the optical transfer function of the lens (lump into this things like resolving power, coma, stigmatism, diffraction etc), in-camera alignment error, flare, dust within the body of the camera, film/sensor flatness, precision of focus, resolution of the recording medium (film or silicon), time stability of the recording medium, etc. For the output side of the equation, all of the optics/air considerations apply again to an enlarger, and printers bring a whole new kind of hell to the process.
Using digital or wet-process isn't some magic answer to the problems of the other. Problems don't go away, they just are different.
You're right. Nothing here is absolutly earth shattering. However, you're overlooking the extent to which the process has been taken. The film flatness is a HUGE issue at the enlargement rations at which he is working. Vacuum systems, while comercially available for medium format, are pretty much unheard of for large format cameras. The mirror alignment check is also a critical detail. Commonly used in telescopes, and within the last few years, enlargers, this is the first camera I have heard of that employs such a thing. Keeping the film plane absolutely perpendicular to the optical axis is, again, critical at these enlargement ratios because even an arcsecond of misalignment will produce visible defocus. The use of aerial film contributes greatly to the finished product. Aerial film has a MUCH higher resolution than standard films. The problem, as stated in the AP article, is using aerial film to reproduce a scene and produce a final print containing reasonable contrast and color values. This is where digital imaging comes in. The negative on the film cannot be used to make a "photo-realistic" print with conventional wet-process materials.
Oh, and it is highly unlikely that he "just stopped down the lens" At smaller aperatures, diffraction starts to become an issue and the resolving power is lowered dramatically. As for the sand bags, their purpose is likely twofold. Well, one purpose, two reasons. Obviously, they're there to reduce movement during the exposure. Part of this need is brought on from the length of the exposure time, but part of it also comes from the maximum allowable movement during the exposure. Take, for instance, the blades of grass. They're x millimeters wide d meters from the camera. From this, you can determine the degrees of arc that a blade of grass subtends. Moving to the back of the lens (inside the camera) you can work from the subtended angle and the distance to the film plane to determine the size of the blade of grass on the film. To avoid triganometry, consider that the entire vista before the camera is shrunk down to the size of the film, a small detail like a blade of grass is really, REALLY small on the film. If the film or lens moves by the size of the blade of grass on film, the blade of grass will be completly obliterated. If it moves even a small fraction of that size, it will be visibly unsharp. There's a reason holography is done on giant, sand filled isolation tables (no, I'm not implying that these photographs are resolved to somthing on the same order as the wavelengths of the light being recorded, I'm just saying thery're out there in the same freaky territory).
This camera isn't a new thing, it's an old thing taken to a place never before explored.
Well, cover your ass and ask a certified electrician. My guess would be that if the underfloor space is used to cool the server, it's probably connected to HVAC equipment somewhere and therefore counts as a plenum. If the space is just a sealed, empty void, I would guess it's probably not a plenum. Even if code doesn't mandate the use of plenum, determine if, in a fire, the smoke from it would place lives at risk (i.e. server room in a building by itself, use whatever is code; server room across the hall from the lunch room, use plenum even if non-plenum is legal). Just my thoughts, I value people more than money.
Plenums are defined to be any compartment or chamber which is connected to or a part of the air distribution system of a structure. Think things like ducts, flow shafts, and sometimes even the void above a dropped ceiling. The outer PVC jacket on normal Cat5 cable burns at a relatively low temperature and produces large quantities of highly toxic black smoke. Plenum rated Cat5 has a much higher combustion temperature and produces smaller quantites of smoke. The National Electric Code specifies that only Plenum Rated Cat5 can be run through any space connected to the air distribution system. Since air ducts are handy ways to run cable, a lot of Plenum Rated gets sold.
Your stereo achieves maximum volume at OdB because at that setting there is 0dB of attentuation applied to the signal before it gets to the gain stage(s). The numbers on a stereo, or mixing board (well, the numbers below unity at least) really ought to be specified at -XdB not XdB. So when set to 15dB, your stereo is attenuating the signal by 15dB before passing it to the gain stage.
Sound Pressure Levels (SPL), on the other hand are the measured SPL compared to a reference level defined to be 0dB. 0dB is defined to the the standardized lower limit of human hearing under ideal conditions. Interestingly, for humans with no hearing loss, this lower threshold is thermally limited. In other words, if your hearing isn't damaged and there are no other sounds, you can hear the temperature of the room. At 0dB, your eardrum is deflecting by about the diameter of a Hydrogen atom. Another fun fact to know and tell: the system of small bones that convey the vibration from the ear drum to the inner ear function as a hydraulic system with a 7000:1 ratio, which is almost exactly the accoustic impedance mismatch between air and the fluid in your inner ear. For an intersting discussion of human hearing, read the first few chapters of Master Handbook of Acoustics
The update seems to break 3rd party kernel extensions. The update unloaded all of my kexts and prevents them from being reloaded. This breaks uControl and SideTrack. Only bug found so far on deploying to a PowerBook G4 15" (Gigabit Ethernet) and a PowerMacintosh G4 450 (Sawtooth).
Way back in the day there was a movie called War Games. In it the main character, the stereotypical teenage movie hacker, had a little script that would cause his modem to sequentially dial every number in an exchange (ie 555-0000, 555-0001, 555-0002, etc.) looking for another modem to connect to. The script then logged all the #'s where a modem was found so that the protagonist could hack the computers attached to the modems at his convenience. This process became known as Wardialing. With the advent of WiFi, people saw a parallel between wardialing and driving around town logging all the APs that were available. Thus, wardriving. Eventually, people also started making chalk markings at the location of the found APs to let others know there was a network there, hence warchalking. Finally, man discovered flight, and decided to look for APs that way, thus arriving at Warflying.
Stay alert for a new Connections with James Burke on this topic.
I went through the same troubles until I noticed a stange dialog box on the screen when I got home. The QuickTime 6.4 installer prompts for user input part way through. If you're doing the upgrade remotely over ssh, the dialog opens on the remote screen. You have to physically access the machine, or use a protocol like VNC, to access the GUI remotely. AFAIK, there is no was to do this install solely through the command line. You have to access the GUI one way or another.
The phrase "under god" is not original. The original text as it was written in August of 1892 reads:
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
In 1923-24 the Pledged was ammended to:
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of American and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Finally in the 1950's the phrase "under God" was added as a response to Communism. So, if you really want to stay with the original, take out the religous bit.
Oh, and prior to WWII, the offical salute to the flag was to extend your right arm up and out, palm facing the flag. Sound familiar?
Actually, if you had ever taken a look inside the magazine you're critisizing, you have noticed that Stereophile provides EXTENSIVE quantative data for every product that it reviews. For the iPod you can see frequency response, jitter, intermodulation distortion, harmonic distortion, channel seperation, and many other measurments. And lots and lots of graphs. So next time, make the effort to understand what you're talking about before you make a fool of yourself.
The only way you could defend against it is Zone Alarm.
There are several reasons what you said was just plain wrong. There were a lot of ways to avoid the RPC (MSBlast) worm. First, you could have patched when the patch was first released. It pre-dated the worm by several weeks. Second, you could have been running the built-in XP firewall. Third, you could have been running a 3rd party software firewall such as ZoneAlarm. Fourth, you could have been behind a firewall on another box or behind a hardware firewall. Fith, you could be behind a NAT box that is set not to pass incoming connect attempts to LAN side (which is the default setting for the 3 home routers I have owned). Doing any one of these would have dropped the likelyhood of getting the RPC worm to zero or near to it (e.g. it's perfect until and infected machine is hooked up behind the firewall). How are people who took one or several of these steps lucky? I have 3 Win boxen among the computers on my home network, none got infected. Though my router was catching about 5-8 infection attempts a second.
One of the issues with copyright/patnet enforcement, is that in order for you to defend is against one person, you must defend it against everyone. This came up a year or more ago in a Slashdot story when someone was asking why Apple was C&D-ing teenagers. They had to, in order to C&D the major companies. Unfortunaly, I can't find the original Slashdot story that contained the link to the law. If anyone can find it, I'd be much oblidged.
And you condemn and judge and sound just like a dictator. Seriously, the tactics you support (SPEWS et. al) are identicle to those used by totalitarian military states. "What? He doesn't crack his eggs on the big end?!?! Kill him and every one he knows!" Or more common nowdays: "He's gay? Let's beat the shit outta him and his friends 'cause he might have infected them!"
...but what about my right to choose...
What about my right to chose? I'd like to chose to recieve email from whomever would like to talk to me, and I'd like to send email to whomever I'd like to talk to. But you, and the listkeepers, and the list users are denying me that choice. The existence of the lists and their use are de facto censorship.
... and walked onto OSU's campus, closed my eyes, and started spraying bullets around everywhere, because hey, some of them were the rioters we've all heard so much about. Yeah, I killed a few non-rioters, but, hey, it'll just make the famlies of the students I killed ask for harsher punishments of the rioters. And I didn't decide to kill anyone, ballistic physics did!
Obviously, that example is WAY over the top, but the idea is the same. Black lists are a form of informational terrorism, no more, no less. The DDoS attacks aginst the lists are a form of informational terrorism, no more, no less. Both sides of this conflict are using the same tactics to achieve the same goal (obliteration of the opposing viewpoint). Both the DDoSers and the listers are trying to sensor someone, and the people who get hurt are the people who can't do a damn thing about it and never wanted to be bothered by it in the first place.
As usual (for a pro-SPEWS poster), you've twisted the parent post to fit your facist world view. If you read carefully and without bias, you will find out that Fastmail.fm actually is extremely aggressive in killing spammers, often within seconds. Does some spam get through? Yes, up to 100 spams per account. Why? Becasue Spammers don't set the Evil Bit when they sign up for an account. So the spammers have to do something that identifies themselves as spammers. As soon as that happens, bammo! This is what I would call a zero-tolerance for spam. The statistics about valid:spam emails aren't to justify the spam that does get through. As you should have seen, Fastmail.fm kicks spam in the ass. They statistic is supposed to show the harm that the reactionary blocking lists are causing.
Actually, I was saying that a person could have an ISP that is using a blacklist and not be aware of it. If you're behind the block, all you'll see is maybe a little less mail than you might expect.
I live in a major metropolitan area. I also happen to do both my job and a large part of my schooling online. This means I have to have broadband. Due to some interesting regulatory bullshit in my Republican-dominated state, there aren't allowed to be two providers in the same area. Oh, sure, they "share" the market, but in a "you get that street, I get this on" kind of way. The upshot, if I want to change ISP, telco, or cable provider, I have to sell my house and buy another one. Tell me, how much choice in ISPs do I have again? Second case, I have relatives that live in the middle of nowhere on a island in the Bearing Strait. Their ISP is packet radio. Hmmm, looks like there's only 1 ISP for a thousand miles in any direction. I guess they can switch ISP by placing penguins in the water alternatingly on their backs and bellies (white for 1). Error correction'd be a bitch though.
Yes, I know there's no penguins there, it was the only binary animal I could come up with at 3:30am
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I find it hard to believe that GIMP can't do something that photoshop can.
You're almost right. The method you're using is called Dark Frame Subtraction. The idea is that you photography the non-random noise inherent in the sensor and then take that out of the captured images. To do this, you make an image that is completely black (i.e. body cap on the front of the camera and viewfinder cover on the back) at the same temperature conditions and for the same length of shutter speed as the image you are trying to fix. Then you add that as a layer in photoshop, subtract it from the real image, and the non-random noise disappears.
However, it is MUCH more likely that the noise you are complaining about is random thermal noise, which is not treatable via Dark Frame Subtraction. Because it's, well, random noise, it'll be different in every shot. There are several photoshop plugins that can address this issue. In my opinion, the most effective and easiest to use of them is Noise Ninja.
Though another poster claims Safari isn't affected by this, I was able to replicate the vuln in Safari 1.2.3 (v125.9). So it appears that the other posters are incorrect. Firefox is unaffected, Internet Explorer show 'http://www.microsoft.com' when the cursor has changed to the link finger but shows 'http://www.google.com' when the cursor is over the link text. Opera for Mac displays the same oddities as IE. OmniWeb for Mac also does this, however, the space in which is displays the spoofed address is only about a pixel wide. Strangely, lynx didn't seem to have much to say :)
Actually, this has been fairly common in MiniDisc players for a long time (better part of a decade?). All of the Sony MiniDisc players I've seen have had dual-format jacks. It auto-detects which kind of cable has been plugged in and goes from there.
Resolution is not necessairly limited to the smallest grain site on the film (I think this is where you're pulling the 7um^2 figure from?). The important metric is the size of the smallest recoreded object. A lower resolving film covering a larger image circle is still capable of resolving a smaller object from the world side of the lens. The film size ("sensor size") of this camera is large (>150x) compared to the size of a typical DSLR sensor. This means that the real difference in resolved details is much greater than the small difference in photosite difference between the "sensors". As far as the color information being thrown out and coming back from memory, have you ever done your own color wet-process work? The final print has a much smaller dynamic range and a much more limited color space than reality ("throws away a lot of the colour information") and the final colour pack for the print comes from the printer's judgement about what the final print should look like ("reproduces it from memory").
As far as the other "problems" you see with the use of wet-process, none of them fail to apply to digital process as well. Well, as long as you substitute "dust on the sensor" at the relevant place. If you're realy worried about what happens to the light before you see the final process, you really need to worry about (note: not a full list, I'm sleepy) the optical stability of the air, the optical clarity of the air, the optical transfer function of the lens (lump into this things like resolving power, coma, stigmatism, diffraction etc), in-camera alignment error, flare, dust within the body of the camera, film/sensor flatness, precision of focus, resolution of the recording medium (film or silicon), time stability of the recording medium, etc. For the output side of the equation, all of the optics/air considerations apply again to an enlarger, and printers bring a whole new kind of hell to the process.
Using digital or wet-process isn't some magic answer to the problems of the other. Problems don't go away, they just are different.
You're right. Nothing here is absolutly earth shattering. However, you're overlooking the extent to which the process has been taken. The film flatness is a HUGE issue at the enlargement rations at which he is working. Vacuum systems, while comercially available for medium format, are pretty much unheard of for large format cameras. The mirror alignment check is also a critical detail. Commonly used in telescopes, and within the last few years, enlargers, this is the first camera I have heard of that employs such a thing. Keeping the film plane absolutely perpendicular to the optical axis is, again, critical at these enlargement ratios because even an arcsecond of misalignment will produce visible defocus. The use of aerial film contributes greatly to the finished product. Aerial film has a MUCH higher resolution than standard films. The problem, as stated in the AP article, is using aerial film to reproduce a scene and produce a final print containing reasonable contrast and color values. This is where digital imaging comes in. The negative on the film cannot be used to make a "photo-realistic" print with conventional wet-process materials.
Oh, and it is highly unlikely that he "just stopped down the lens" At smaller aperatures, diffraction starts to become an issue and the resolving power is lowered dramatically. As for the sand bags, their purpose is likely twofold. Well, one purpose, two reasons. Obviously, they're there to reduce movement during the exposure. Part of this need is brought on from the length of the exposure time, but part of it also comes from the maximum allowable movement during the exposure. Take, for instance, the blades of grass. They're x millimeters wide d meters from the camera. From this, you can determine the degrees of arc that a blade of grass subtends. Moving to the back of the lens (inside the camera) you can work from the subtended angle and the distance to the film plane to determine the size of the blade of grass on the film. To avoid triganometry, consider that the entire vista before the camera is shrunk down to the size of the film, a small detail like a blade of grass is really, REALLY small on the film. If the film or lens moves by the size of the blade of grass on film, the blade of grass will be completly obliterated. If it moves even a small fraction of that size, it will be visibly unsharp. There's a reason holography is done on giant, sand filled isolation tables (no, I'm not implying that these photographs are resolved to somthing on the same order as the wavelengths of the light being recorded, I'm just saying thery're out there in the same freaky territory).
This camera isn't a new thing, it's an old thing taken to a place never before explored.
Well, cover your ass and ask a certified electrician. My guess would be that if the underfloor space is used to cool the server, it's probably connected to HVAC equipment somewhere and therefore counts as a plenum. If the space is just a sealed, empty void, I would guess it's probably not a plenum. Even if code doesn't mandate the use of plenum, determine if, in a fire, the smoke from it would place lives at risk (i.e. server room in a building by itself, use whatever is code; server room across the hall from the lunch room, use plenum even if non-plenum is legal). Just my thoughts, I value people more than money.
Plenums are defined to be any compartment or chamber which is connected to or a part of the air distribution system of a structure. Think things like ducts, flow shafts, and sometimes even the void above a dropped ceiling. The outer PVC jacket on normal Cat5 cable burns at a relatively low temperature and produces large quantities of highly toxic black smoke. Plenum rated Cat5 has a much higher combustion temperature and produces smaller quantites of smoke. The National Electric Code specifies that only Plenum Rated Cat5 can be run through any space connected to the air distribution system. Since air ducts are handy ways to run cable, a lot of Plenum Rated gets sold.
Your stereo achieves maximum volume at OdB because at that setting there is 0dB of attentuation applied to the signal before it gets to the gain stage(s). The numbers on a stereo, or mixing board (well, the numbers below unity at least) really ought to be specified at -XdB not XdB. So when set to 15dB, your stereo is attenuating the signal by 15dB before passing it to the gain stage.
Sound Pressure Levels (SPL), on the other hand are the measured SPL compared to a reference level defined to be 0dB. 0dB is defined to the the standardized lower limit of human hearing under ideal conditions. Interestingly, for humans with no hearing loss, this lower threshold is thermally limited. In other words, if your hearing isn't damaged and there are no other sounds, you can hear the temperature of the room. At 0dB, your eardrum is deflecting by about the diameter of a Hydrogen atom. Another fun fact to know and tell: the system of small bones that convey the vibration from the ear drum to the inner ear function as a hydraulic system with a 7000:1 ratio, which is almost exactly the accoustic impedance mismatch between air and the fluid in your inner ear. For an intersting discussion of human hearing, read the first few chapters of Master Handbook of Acoustics
After shutting the lid in disgust and coming back to the computer, SideTrack has become enabled. I have no idea why sleeping and waking fixed it.
The update seems to break 3rd party kernel extensions. The update unloaded all of my kexts and prevents them from being reloaded. This breaks uControl and SideTrack. Only bug found so far on deploying to a PowerBook G4 15" (Gigabit Ethernet) and a PowerMacintosh G4 450 (Sawtooth).
Way back in the day there was a movie called War Games. In it the main character, the stereotypical teenage movie hacker, had a little script that would cause his modem to sequentially dial every number in an exchange (ie 555-0000, 555-0001, 555-0002, etc.) looking for another modem to connect to. The script then logged all the #'s where a modem was found so that the protagonist could hack the computers attached to the modems at his convenience. This process became known as Wardialing. With the advent of WiFi, people saw a parallel between wardialing and driving around town logging all the APs that were available. Thus, wardriving. Eventually, people also started making chalk markings at the location of the found APs to let others know there was a network there, hence warchalking. Finally, man discovered flight, and decided to look for APs that way, thus arriving at Warflying.
Stay alert for a new Connections with James Burke on this topic.
I went through the same troubles until I noticed a stange dialog box on the screen when I got home. The QuickTime 6.4 installer prompts for user input part way through. If you're doing the upgrade remotely over ssh, the dialog opens on the remote screen. You have to physically access the machine, or use a protocol like VNC, to access the GUI remotely. AFAIK, there is no was to do this install solely through the command line. You have to access the GUI one way or another.
In 1923-24 the Pledged was ammended to:
Finally in the 1950's the phrase "under God" was added as a response to Communism. So, if you really want to stay with the original, take out the religous bit.
Oh, and prior to WWII, the offical salute to the flag was to extend your right arm up and out, palm facing the flag. Sound familiar?
Actually, if you had ever taken a look inside the magazine you're critisizing, you have noticed that Stereophile provides EXTENSIVE quantative data for every product that it reviews. For the iPod you can see frequency response, jitter, intermodulation distortion, harmonic distortion, channel seperation, and many other measurments. And lots and lots of graphs. So next time, make the effort to understand what you're talking about before you make a fool of yourself.
There are several reasons what you said was just plain wrong. There were a lot of ways to avoid the RPC (MSBlast) worm. First, you could have patched when the patch was first released. It pre-dated the worm by several weeks. Second, you could have been running the built-in XP firewall. Third, you could have been running a 3rd party software firewall such as ZoneAlarm. Fourth, you could have been behind a firewall on another box or behind a hardware firewall. Fith, you could be behind a NAT box that is set not to pass incoming connect attempts to LAN side (which is the default setting for the 3 home routers I have owned). Doing any one of these would have dropped the likelyhood of getting the RPC worm to zero or near to it (e.g. it's perfect until and infected machine is hooked up behind the firewall). How are people who took one or several of these steps lucky? I have 3 Win boxen among the computers on my home network, none got infected. Though my router was catching about 5-8 infection attempts a second.
Oops, looks like I was wrong, the total enforcement thing doesn't apply to patents, just trademarks. Oops. See this post for more.
One of the issues with copyright/patnet enforcement, is that in order for you to defend is against one person, you must defend it against everyone. This came up a year or more ago in a Slashdot story when someone was asking why Apple was C&D-ing teenagers. They had to, in order to C&D the major companies. Unfortunaly, I can't find the original Slashdot story that contained the link to the law. If anyone can find it, I'd be much oblidged.
You sound just like a spammer with that logic.
And you condemn and judge and sound just like a dictator. Seriously, the tactics you support (SPEWS et. al) are identicle to those used by totalitarian military states. "What? He doesn't crack his eggs on the big end?!?! Kill him and every one he knows!" Or more common nowdays: "He's gay? Let's beat the shit outta him and his friends 'cause he might have infected them!"
...but what about my right to choose...
What about my right to chose? I'd like to chose to recieve email from whomever would like to talk to me, and I'd like to send email to whomever I'd like to talk to. But you, and the listkeepers, and the list users are denying me that choice. The existence of the lists and their use are de facto censorship.
... and walked onto OSU's campus, closed my eyes, and started spraying bullets around everywhere, because hey, some of them were the rioters we've all heard so much about. Yeah, I killed a few non-rioters, but, hey, it'll just make the famlies of the students I killed ask for harsher punishments of the rioters. And I didn't decide to kill anyone, ballistic physics did!
Obviously, that example is WAY over the top, but the idea is the same. Black lists are a form of informational terrorism, no more, no less. The DDoS attacks aginst the lists are a form of informational terrorism, no more, no less. Both sides of this conflict are using the same tactics to achieve the same goal (obliteration of the opposing viewpoint). Both the DDoSers and the listers are trying to sensor someone, and the people who get hurt are the people who can't do a damn thing about it and never wanted to be bothered by it in the first place.
As usual (for a pro-SPEWS poster), you've twisted the parent post to fit your facist world view. If you read carefully and without bias, you will find out that Fastmail.fm actually is extremely aggressive in killing spammers, often within seconds. Does some spam get through? Yes, up to 100 spams per account. Why? Becasue Spammers don't set the Evil Bit when they sign up for an account. So the spammers have to do something that identifies themselves as spammers. As soon as that happens, bammo! This is what I would call a zero-tolerance for spam. The statistics about valid:spam emails aren't to justify the spam that does get through. As you should have seen, Fastmail.fm kicks spam in the ass. They statistic is supposed to show the harm that the reactionary blocking lists are causing.
As my first post clearly stated, I don't have a choice of ISPs. If I want to access the interent, I agree to their terms. Period.
Actually, I was saying that a person could have an ISP that is using a blacklist and not be aware of it. If you're behind the block, all you'll see is maybe a little less mail than you might expect.
I live in a major metropolitan area. I also happen to do both my job and a large part of my schooling online. This means I have to have broadband. Due to some interesting regulatory bullshit in my Republican-dominated state, there aren't allowed to be two providers in the same area. Oh, sure, they "share" the market, but in a "you get that street, I get this on" kind of way. The upshot, if I want to change ISP, telco, or cable provider, I have to sell my house and buy another one. Tell me, how much choice in ISPs do I have again? Second case, I have relatives that live in the middle of nowhere on a island in the Bearing Strait. Their ISP is packet radio. Hmmm, looks like there's only 1 ISP for a thousand miles in any direction. I guess they can switch ISP by placing penguins in the water alternatingly on their backs and bellies (white for 1). Error correction'd be a bitch though.
Yes, I know there's no penguins there, it was the only binary animal I could come up with at 3:30am