With respect, I disagree: I don't feel that children in developing nations need a chance to learn about computers nearly as much as they need encouragement to dream of and plan for ways to improve their society using their ideas and their heritage.
Perhaps the "Great White Hunter" metaphor isn't the best choice, but no matter how it's expressed, the fact remains that computers are a product of, and therefore cursed by, the legacy of an industrial economy that wants people to buy things whether they need them or not. I don't think that "we" (the all-knowing, tall, white guys like you see on TV) have any right to tell the rest of the world that an abacus isn't just as good as a computer for counting.
The Western nations might desire "cheap (computer literate) labor", but what we need is visionary talent willing to risk new and different ways of solving our problems. Genius doesn't come cheap, no matter where it's from, but it's always cheaper than trying to convince the rest of the world to copy us and our way of looking at the world.
I think this is good news. As others have pointed out, poor people with computers will be tempted to hire themselves out as turing-testable spammers, sleezing URL's and keywords into blogs and comment pages and bulletin boards the world over.
Better to invest the money in basic infrastructure: the $100 laptop is not a key to education, but rather a cargo-cult curse that encourages developing countries and their citizens to expect pre-packaged solutions from the Great White Hunters.
Speaking in general, without reference to any specific individual or corporation, I'll add these comments about the adware/spyware industry:
The reason adware companies do everything they can to make it difficult to remove their software is because they're in a hurry: they are making a lot of money very quickly, and they know that what they're doing will be illegal soon. When that happens, they want to be both rich and gone.
Many whom use P2P software shrug of adware as the cost of getting "free" songs or movies, but it's not just copyright infringement that's going on. These are not victimless crimes: the adware vendors are commiting commercial fraud!
The ads some companies create on users' computers are not intended for the user! They're intended to artificially inflate the hit counts of the server that they come from, so that the server's owners can charge their advertisers more.
When an infected machine visits a site like Amazon.com, the adware can popup an Amazon ad in a way that makes Amazon think the operator "clicked through" from an affiliate. The result? The adware company gets a cut of everything you buy!
They rely on children's innocence and gullibility to make their money:
Most adware I've removed was installed by teenagers and not adults, and I'd bet the adware companies count on that. Adults have a pretty good carp filter, after all: if somebody tries to sell me a pistol for two dollars, I've lived long enough to know that it's not a good bargain, but children will just click yes without thinking of consequences.
They're counting on the parents' indiference to perpepuate their scheme: too many adults will look the other way when their children install P2P software and start trading music, without thinking of the lessons they're giving their children in the process.
The cost of removing their product from your PC is what an MBA calls an externality: it's not their pocket that gets picked, it's yours.
Long story short: adware is peddled by vicious and unprincipled businesses, and it works because it takes advantage of the worst habits in both children and adults. Those who cash the checks aren't concerned about the mess that they leave for you and me to clean up!
It's time to put a stop to it, for the simple reason that Heinlein was right - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!
If this rumor is true, it'll mean major sweeps of the spam underworld and many of its hangers-on: Ralsky has been behind bars before, and I doubt he's willing to go back.
According to the Spam Daily News -
(http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/FBI_raid_shu ts_down_world_most_prolific_spammer.asp)
However, Ralsky acknowledges that his success with spam arose out of a less-than-impressive business background. In 1992, while in the insurance business, he served a 50-day jail term for a charge arising out of the sale of unregistered securities. And in 1994, he was convicted of falsifying documents that defrauded financial institutions in Michigan and Ohio and ordered to pay $74,000 in restitution.
Of course, this could bode well or ill for prosecutors: Ralsky has been in jail, perhaps for just long enough to be scared of it. The question is: did he get hard enough to stare them down?
My bet is that he'd do the deal: he's a con artist, after all, but he's shared a bunk with real hardened felons, and that's likely to be the kiss-of-death for his co-conspirators when push comes to shove.
This change in Microsoft's policy is a left-handed complement to open source: the success of Linux and other open-source projects (cough*Firefox*cough) has broken the business model that was, until now, Microsoft's secret weapon in the war for world domination.
Let's consider:
A monopolist always gets paid sooner or later.
Microsoft wants you to pirate their software, because the company knows that, sooner or later, users who have learned to use Microsoft products will go to work for a company which will pay for it.
It's not about revenue: it's about denying it to your competition
A monopolist knows that he'll never get 100% of the market, and he doesn't want it anyway. The trick is not to keep 95% of the market: the trick is to prevent your competitors gaining ground. Consumers buy software (and almost anything else) based on price, and if little Johny needs a word-processor for school when Word costs $200 and WordPerfect costs $20, WordPerfect wins: unless, of course, Word is "free", in which case Microsoft wins because WordPerfect loses.
It's not about revenue, it's about controlling costs
The one thing about pirated software that nobody thinks about is, paradoxically, its most important aspect: pirated software isn't entitled to support! Recall that the Microsoft Office suite used to have a dual-use license, which allowed users to take a copy home, thus denying revenue to Microsoft's competitors. However, that license was amended when Microsoft figured out that it could eliminate support costs for home users simply by looking the other way when users "stole" the software.
The window of opportunity is small, but it's there
(Yes, pun intended). Here's where we stand now: Microsoft is seeing open-source gain market share, and the company is in a panic because, given widespread knowledge of a free-as-in-speech alternative, consumers will have an attack both of conscience and common sense, and will abandon Microsoft's sleezeware paradigm in favor of software their kids can learn and use without shame. Redmond's finest are betting that their existing user base - the parents who learned on Microsoft software - will pony up the bucks for a "legal" copy just because it's the easy thing to do.
The question is if open-source advocates can get enough users converted in time to prevent the new generation learning nothing from the old one's mistakes.
IMNSHO, this law was written to prevent community networks, or any other free wireless access. It's a FUD tactic to intimidate business owners into closing all open hotspots and thus force all the rich laptop users in Westchester to pay for access. I'll bet T-Mobile and the other players made a campaign contribution.
The main point here is one we often forget when talking about the net and our jobs: online writing is always different from person-to-person communication, and it's often impossible to avoid giving offense to someone, especially HR folks who sometimes don't have enough experience with Usenet's vocabulary to judge it with perspective.
This is nothing new: the need to balance personal privacy against our urge to debate with and convince others is as old as parchment, and everyone knows that although Big Brother may not be watching you, he's damned sure reading what you wrote. If your opinions are different than your employer's, your union's, or your loved ones', it's sometimes necessary to publish them without attribution. The most common solution for this problem is to publish anonymously or with a pen name: many of America's most famous authors have done so, and that's what I've been doing for years(1).
On the one hand, having a pen name gives you anonymity for purposes of Google searches, and you can even build a reputation separate from your own under the pen name. Be careful with your other hand, though: not having your name online can backfire when an employer is looking for someone with "street cred" in online circles. As other posters have pointed out, experienced internet users are now climbing the corporate ladders and are making decisions about hiring and promotion: decisions that will be influenced by your online reputation as well as your meatspace personna.
What this boils down to is a short question you should ask yourself: "Am I a nice guy on the net"? You might think the answer is "Of Course!", but a few days of research will often change your self image, just as it did mine, and I made up my mind to be a lot more polite after I read some stuff I'd written years before.
If you're concerned about potential employers knowing too much or too little about you, the first thing to do is look at your own posts, especially old ones you've forgotten about, and ask yourself "If I heard this guy saying this into a cellphone while I'm on the subway, would I look forward to going to work with him"? In other words, you have to read what you've written with a stranger's eyes, and see if the words take on a new meaning.
We all know how easy it is to start flame wars or otherwise give offense, deliberately or not, and that's a fact of online life that I hope future managers will learn to account for when they read things I've written in the past. With that said, I'll also say that there's something about a keyboard and not being face to face that brings out the worst in a small percentage of Netizens: I don't know why, but some Internauts seem to think that the online world is the perfect place to vent their frustrations. This is understandable when you consider the alternatives: many Usenet posts would be grounds for dismissal if seen in a company newsletter, and grounds for divorce if seen by your wife!
Long story short: if you use the net as a safe place to play at being nasty and mean, keep your identity a secret. On the other hand, if you're proud of your writing and of your contributions to the net, by all means sign your name.
1.) In my case, there's a special reason involving a developmentally-dalayed child I don't choose to have potential employers aware of.
As other/.'s have pointed out, this has been covered before. Here's the condensed version IMNSHO:
It's not about the last mile, it's about the last 100 feet.
Electric companies are already equipped to work on poles in the open air. What they are not ready to do is work inside your home. Their technicians aren't trained for it, their insurance doesn't cover it, and their business model won't stretch around it. BPL allows them to mail you a modem and a CD and shunt your support calls to India, thus providing a quick and dirty way for them to leverage the existing lines. In the bargain, the power company avoids any union unrest: pole workers are in a different local than "inside wiremen", and having outside wiremen inside a home would lead to labor problems that they're anxious to avoid.
Ham operators don't have a champion at this table.
Amateur radio used to be a major training ground for the military services; so much so that ham radio message networks are patterned exactly after the military model. But noone uses Morse Code anymore, and the military electronics are so advanced and so secret that field technicians can only plug circuit boards into custom-made test devices. Green light, go; red light, put in a new one. No hams needed, ergo no preasure from Uncle Sam to encourage ham radio by protecting it from BPL.
Pilots are scared to death of BPL
The aircraft navigation and voice communications system still uses AM: it was the first technology available, and that's what they stuck with. BPL will inevitably leak signals into the aircraft navigation and voice bands, causing risks to life and limb that BPL's champions have been able to pooh-pooh. Don't think that technology will solve this problem: even the top-of-the-line Blaupunkt radio in a Mercedes-Benz still gets interference to the AM stations when it's going under high-tension wires, because there's no way to prevent it.
Aircraft radios work well now because the aircraft bands have been rigorously protected from interference: if you file an application for a broadcast license, the FCC requires you to supply copies of the same instrument approach plates that pilot's use during stormy weather, so that they can judge if there's even a chance the broadcast signal might interfere with aircraft. Expecting BPL to coexist with AM radios in a life-or-death situation is like trying to run a VW Bug in the Indianapolis 500: it would only work if only VW Bugs were allowed to enter.
This has little to do with meter reading
Even though the electric company's PR flacks like to trot out the "remote meter reading" argument, it doesn't stand close examination. Power companies have been using drive-by readers and WiFi technology for a while now, and BPL costs way too much for it to be cost-effective just to replace a few drivers. They don't need instant power usage data anyway: that's already available from pole-top transmitters and power distribution is controlled by area, not house. Direct reporting from meter to control-center is much too fine-grained a usage for what is, after all, a pretty low-tech service, and it would require either new meters (right after they're paid for the WiFi-capable ones), or a WiFI-equiped BPL modem that would cost more than keeping the drivers. Meter reading is a red herring, used as a word game to make BPL sound like it has something to do with power delivery.
The electric companies get to externalize all the secondary costs.
If every aircraft and every control tower and every radar control center in the world has to get brand new microwave radios, navigation instruments, and antennas the electric company doesn't pay for that! Of course, the utility company executives won't even allow themselves to think about the dead, burnt bodies that this (excuse the pun) power grab might cause.
All those years of struggle and hard work will pay big dividends, now that the Morse Code I learned is coming back into vogue!
Speaking as an Extra (ahem) class Amateur Radio Operator, I can attest to the superior intelligence, natural good looks, and Savoir Faire of we (ahem) elites.
Those of you - and you know who you are - whom did not put in the effort to raise your code speed to the level required by we Olympians will now sit on the sidelines, moaning and lamenting the opportunities you had and did not pursue.
On the other fist (pun inteneded), we of the upper crust will join our brothers in the new Telegraphers' Union and offer our services to desparate fumble-fingered cell users on every streetcorner.
BPL is an attractive technology for the only reason that the MBA's understand: it solves the nasty, "last mile" problem, i.e., it relieves them of the need to pay all those expensive, well paid, well covered, and well trained technicians to visit their customers' homes. It's the next best thing to the "virtual corporation" that has been the MBA's wet dream for years.
Cable and the Baby Bells are the only other outfits with connections already in the home, and BPL competes solely on the basis of low installation costs: they'll send you a modem in the mail, shunt your tech support calls to India, and do everything possible to avoid providing any customer service. Since most power providers made very bad investment choices in the dot-com boom, they're looking at BPL to keep them out of receivership. In other words, they think of BPL as "free money" that doesn't require them to pay their (unionized) workers any overtime, and which relieves them of the oh-so-unpleasant task of admitting the corner that their greed painted them into.
As for the vendors of this equipment, they're fully aware of the problems BPL will create, the costs that their customers will incur after installation, and probably of the lives it will cost. They don't care: this travesty can't go forward unless the government is for sale, and the coming elections will cure that problem, so they're in a hurry and they're desperate to cash in now.
As for the future: that's not their concern - it's ours. When it breaks, they intend to be rich and gone.
Neither the FCC nor the Armed Forces make telecommunications policy in the way you infer. Both get their marching orders (pun intended) from Washington, and BPL has a lot of lobbying behind it.
Please don't assume that the military will be able (or even inclined) to shout "Halt!" before the BPL onslaught: if they have to buy brand new radios to replace the single-channel paradigm they've been using for most non-critical traffic, then that's just another line item in a multi-billion dollar budget. That's what an industrialist would call a "Win, Win Situation", and any General officer would call a "battle not worth fighting".
BTW, although the Armed Forces make heavy use of the spectrum between 30 and 70 MHz, their assignments are limited in the U.S. so as not to interfere with other users of that band: notably, TV channels 2, 3, and 4, and the public safety services others have mentioned.
The 3 to 30 MHz (i.e., shortwave) bands haven't been used for primary communicaitons for years: satellite is prefered for over-the-horizon traffic, and even the lowliest dogface has access to email when in barracks, so the MARS system that used to carry phone calls in the shortwave spectrum isn't a big factor now.
In other words, 3-70MHz is not the primary band used by the military in the U.S., so I don't think they've got a cock in this fight.
"Trunked systems are different than Spread Spectrum systems.
Trunked systems share a group of frequencies amoung a pool of users: each transmission can be on any one of the frequencies, but once started, the transmission stays on the trunked frequency it started with. It doesn't change so long as the speaker holds the mike button down.
Spread Spectrum, OTOH, does hop around during the transmission, and it's a different technology.
It is almost as easy to jam a trunked system as a single-frequency radio: only spread spectrum radios offer greater immunity from interference, and the trunked systems used by police, fire, ambulance, transportation, Civil Defense, and many other services will receive interference from BPL.
If this "new" technology is safe, why isn't Toshiba showcasing it in Japan? Are they afraid that the showcasing might not be thick enough to protect their countrymen if an "incident" occurs?
I think this Japenese company should do its proof-of-concept with Japenese test subjects. I don't think Americans should risk their lives to provide more glory for the Rising Sun, especially in a place like Alaska: slashdot readers might be a little young to consider this, but some of the Alaskan Inupiaq and Yupik, and probably the Inuit, were the subjects of nuclear testing during the work on United States nuclear weapons.
We (the privileded whitebread suburbians sitting in front of computers in air conditioned rooms thousands of miles away from any risk) owe the Native Alaskans more than can be repaid, and most of all we owe them, and all of Alaska, the decency to tell Toshiba to find one of the emperor's own backwaters to buy and victimize.
By the way: fear is a lot easier to create than is electricity, so "Environmentalists" are entitled to comment only if they live within the danger zone of one of these nice little Japenese wonders. Since most "experts" that think this is a neat idea compared to Diesel power live about sixty degrees South of Alaska, I invite them to either shut up or move to the hamlets that are being measured for this dubious "benefit".
We don't have to sink to the spammers' level in order to fend them off: we can fight them successfully without stooping at all.
Go to http://www.samspade.org, and get the investigation tools that'l help you track the chickenboners down.
Always complain! Don't let a single piece of spam pass your inbox without sending a spam report (including all headers) to -
The ISP that owns the IP address it came from.
The ISP that owns the spamvertised site.
Any intermediaries (e.g., redirect pages)
If it's spam for drugs or anything else that is government regulated, complain to all the state and federal agencies that regulate the industry involved.
Monitor news.announce.net-abuse.email and the SPAM-L mailing list, to leverage your efforts with those of others and avoid wasted time.
Demand that your ISP install and keep up-to-date anti-spam software. That means blockading all "dynamic" IP ranges (which kills 90% of open proxies and zombies) and using the RBL and/or SPEWS.
Fighting spam is easier than it seems, and a lot more satisfying than bitching about it. I get about one piece of spam a week: I'm on so many "don't email this guy!" lists that I have to use sock-puppet addresses to get spam to fight!
You can get around the port blocking: there are lots of "dynamic dns" services available, and some will perform port translation in addition to mapping your domain to a "dynamic" IP address.
This feature is usually free if you use their domain (e.g., homelinux.org), or available for a modest fee if you have them point your own domain.
... we can just strap an electric outlet to my son's head: he's got enouch energy to power a small city.
But seriously, if you've ever done "hot" composting, you know that this really can work - there's an astonishing amount of energy in a pile of grass clippings or a little cow manure.
You know, I think the Amish have it right - they don't use electricity unless there's no other way to do a job, and even then they won't rely on the power grid (it requires people to work on Sunday).
Biomass is just one way to (excuse the pun) take back power from the megacorps that dole it out in the current system. We can return to the Edison model of local power plants, local consumption - small scale, small bills.
Assuming, that is, that we're all willing to go on a power diet.
Actually, your boss doesn't expect 15 hours a day: he knows that's impossible, but it's his job to pretend that it is, and to shame you into doing ten or twelve hours instead.
The hidden agenda is that he expects you to fail doing ten/tweleve hours/day. His boss expects it, too.
The only way they'll be sure you're working at "peak efficiency" is if you miss some deadlines, and then they'll back off - to about 70% of the point where you failed.
There is nothing new here. It's as old as the hills.
Bellhead
Re:A wicked thought...Open Source Censorware
on
Kid Clicks For Sale
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· Score: 1
This is a great idea! The best part is that we already have censorware built into Linux: it's called ipchains. We don't need to develop it, just point out the advantages it offers:
It's OPEN: there can't be any hidden agenda buried in proprietary code, like one flavor of censorware that blocks access to sites on womens' rights, gay/lesbian issues - and anybody that criticizes them.
It's locally controlled: ipchains can have either a banned list or an accepted list, and if parents are willing to do the work of pre-screening sites, then the list can be used to fence off any part of the net if that's what the local community wants.
It will encourage a healthy debate about what should and shouldn't be banned. Commercial censorware can only offer vague marketdroidspeak as to what is and isn't allowed, but a public ipchains ruleset will help to achieve consensus on what should and should not be banned.
Linux runs very well on the older hardware that school have in abundance: even if the local school doesn't have a spare 486, the chances are very good that several parents will.
The benefits are many, the costs very small. This is a good idea, so if your child's school district puts out a bid for censorware, feel free to submit Linux as the low cost alternative.
I spent a few years doing PL/I in a mainframe application that bills about $6,000,000,000/year, so please believe me when I say I know how you feel.
Long story short: been there, done that, should have bought the T-shirt... and very nearly got fired. I learned the hard way that they don't pay you to make it look pretty or even to make it run more efficiently. THEY PAY YOU TO MAKE THE DATE.
Trust me: this is the kind of medicine that it's best to take in very small doses: I know how frustrating it can be to have to wade through a mess that someone else left behind, but try to stay detached and avoid the temptation to reinvent the wheel. As other have pointed out, you can improve small sections of the code, one release at a time, and you'll have 80 percent of the possible improvement done in 20 percent of the time a rewrite would take.
Here's some free advice: the next time the urge strikes, just take a walk around the floor, and remember that everyone else has felt the same way at one time or another. Then, get back to work and make your date, because that's what pros do, and it's all anyone will ever remember.
Then, go home on time, help your kids with their homework, and rest assured that you're doing a lot more to make the future better than you could ever do trying to re-re-rewrite some piece of spaghetti. As for the rest: that's what optimizing compilers are for, you know?
For a publication of the Economist's reputation, I was very surprised to see such a poorly written piece. I am very surprised at the bias they showed.
The article (correctly) points out that Windows-based products cold be optimized to work with the netcentric paradigm, but ignores both the maturity of other players in the game (Larry Ellison isn't going to stand still for this) and the fact that such a change would be a perfect opportunity for companies to consider other applications. Corporate IT directors, already smarting from the exorbitent M$ licensing fees for W2K, might revolt at a subscription based structure for desktops as well.
After a breezy piece on how M$ will shift its application software to a subscription-based network model (without a word about the massive network infrastructure growth that would be needed to support such a change) the Economist takes a vicious swipe at Linux:
In addition, although Windows is a foundation stone in the current vision of.NET, there is no reason why.NET services should not also work on other operating systems in future. So even if Microsoft is not broken up,.NET provides a good insurance policy against the rise of the popular open-source Linux operating system, which is maintained and distributed free by enthusiasts on the Internet.
This has "censored by the Sales Department" written all over it: even while talking about profit warnings, the writer takes care to paint a picture of a future where M$ is the only possibility, where Linux is for hobbyists, and where Gates wins again.
This is a tough debate, made all the more tough because the spammers have gotten so good at cloaking themselves in the rhetoric of free speech while they make everybody else pay for their PA system.
I wish this issue wasn't so convoluted: not because I shy away from conplicated issues, but because it brings up the age-old problem of putting into words what everybody knows is right.
Any society has to have some shared values, and Cyberspace is no different: if we can't agree on this issue, what can we agree on?
Consider an analogy: assume that a wino is giving out ads for a pornographic bookstore in front of the local highschool.
The chances are that this is legal: even if it were not, the supply of winos is inexhaustable.
If this offends you, your choices are to:
Sue the wino.
Sue the bookstore.
Boycott the bookstore.
Boycott the bookstore, the other stores in the same building, the owner's other firms, the other store owner's other firms, etc.
I'll take the last option. It does no good to say that the other stores aren't invovled, because they are: the fact is that the other owners in the building benefit from the porno store, either because they receive a reduced rent to tolerate its presence, or are able to sell related merchandise - Playboy comes to mind - as an adjacency to their regular trade for those whom shy away from the green door. Now, you may not feel this is "fair", but I'm a common working man, and I can't afford to sue anybody. I'm going to get the biggest bang for my boycott buck that I can, and use every lawful method I can to put preasure on the bookstore owner.
Here's the sticky part: let's assume my hypothetical addict is promoting only one book out of the thousands in the store. Is the bookstore owner entitled to sue me for my boycott? Do you think it proper for another author to obtain an injunction on the basis that what he's doing is legal, and that he isn't involved with the ads?
If you do, I pity you. Spam cheapens the vital discourse of the net in the same way that pornography cheapens the innocence of youth and the mature love of married couples. I know this, but I can't explain it with words: to say that a person selling spamware is uninvolved with spam is like saying that a pimp in univolved with prostitution.
What, then, is an ISP owner to do? I know that spam is wrong, and I'm entitled to act on my belief. I won't stand by and let a wino hand out leaflets in front of the high school, and I won't allow Media3 to cloak themselves in first-amendment rhetoric in order to take advantage of the internet connection I pay for, the computer I pay for, the infrastructure I pay for, and (most importantly) the time they steal from me. If my ISP subscribes to the RBL, I accept the fact that hunting rats requires use of a shotgun.
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With respect, I disagree: I don't feel that children in developing nations need a chance to learn about computers nearly as much as they need encouragement to dream of and plan for ways to improve their society using their ideas and their heritage.
Perhaps the "Great White Hunter" metaphor isn't the best choice, but no matter how it's expressed, the fact remains that computers are a product of, and therefore cursed by, the legacy of an industrial economy that wants people to buy things whether they need them or not. I don't think that "we" (the all-knowing, tall, white guys like you see on TV) have any right to tell the rest of the world that an abacus isn't just as good as a computer for counting.
The Western nations might desire "cheap (computer literate) labor", but what we need is visionary talent willing to risk new and different ways of solving our problems. Genius doesn't come cheap, no matter where it's from, but it's always cheaper than trying to convince the rest of the world to copy us and our way of looking at the world.
FWIW. YMMV.
Bellhead
I think this is good news. As others have pointed out, poor people with computers will be tempted to hire themselves out as turing-testable spammers, sleezing URL's and keywords into blogs and comment pages and bulletin boards the world over.
Better to invest the money in basic infrastructure: the $100 laptop is not a key to education, but rather a cargo-cult curse that encourages developing countries and their citizens to expect pre-packaged solutions from the Great White Hunters.
Bellhead
Long story short: adware is peddled by vicious and unprincipled businesses, and it works because it takes advantage of the worst habits in both children and adults. Those who cash the checks aren't concerned about the mess that they leave for you and me to clean up!
It's time to put a stop to it, for the simple reason that Heinlein was right - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!
Bellhead
According to the Spam Daily News - (http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/FBI_raid_shu ts_down_world_most_prolific_spammer.asp)
Of course, this could bode well or ill for prosecutors: Ralsky has been in jail, perhaps for just long enough to be scared of it. The question is: did he get hard enough to stare them down?
My bet is that he'd do the deal: he's a con artist, after all, but he's shared a bunk with real hardened felons, and that's likely to be the kiss-of-death for his co-conspirators when push comes to shove.
Bellhead
The question is if open-source advocates can get enough users converted in time to prevent the new generation learning nothing from the old one's mistakes.
Bellhead
Don't talk with your mouth full!
IMNSHO, this law was written to prevent community networks, or any other free wireless access. It's a FUD tactic to intimidate business owners into closing all open hotspots and thus force all the rich laptop users in Westchester to pay for access. I'll bet T-Mobile and the other players made a campaign contribution.
Now, open your wallet and let them in!
Bellhead
This is nothing new: the need to balance personal privacy against our urge to debate with and convince others is as old as parchment, and everyone knows that although Big Brother may not be watching you, he's damned sure reading what you wrote. If your opinions are different than your employer's, your union's, or your loved ones', it's sometimes necessary to publish them without attribution. The most common solution for this problem is to publish anonymously or with a pen name: many of America's most famous authors have done so, and that's what I've been doing for years(1).
On the one hand, having a pen name gives you anonymity for purposes of Google searches, and you can even build a reputation separate from your own under the pen name. Be careful with your other hand, though: not having your name online can backfire when an employer is looking for someone with "street cred" in online circles. As other posters have pointed out, experienced internet users are now climbing the corporate ladders and are making decisions about hiring and promotion: decisions that will be influenced by your online reputation as well as your meatspace personna.
What this boils down to is a short question you should ask yourself: "Am I a nice guy on the net"? You might think the answer is "Of Course!", but a few days of research will often change your self image, just as it did mine, and I made up my mind to be a lot more polite after I read some stuff I'd written years before.
If you're concerned about potential employers knowing too much or too little about you, the first thing to do is look at your own posts, especially old ones you've forgotten about, and ask yourself "If I heard this guy saying this into a cellphone while I'm on the subway, would I look forward to going to work with him"? In other words, you have to read what you've written with a stranger's eyes, and see if the words take on a new meaning.
We all know how easy it is to start flame wars or otherwise give offense, deliberately or not, and that's a fact of online life that I hope future managers will learn to account for when they read things I've written in the past. With that said, I'll also say that there's something about a keyboard and not being face to face that brings out the worst in a small percentage of Netizens: I don't know why, but some Internauts seem to think that the online world is the perfect place to vent their frustrations. This is understandable when you consider the alternatives: many Usenet posts would be grounds for dismissal if seen in a company newsletter, and grounds for divorce if seen by your wife!
Long story short: if you use the net as a safe place to play at being nasty and mean, keep your identity a secret. On the other hand, if you're proud of your writing and of your contributions to the net, by all means sign your name.
1.) In my case, there's a special reason involving a developmentally-dalayed child I don't choose to have potential employers aware of.
Aircraft radios work well now because the aircraft bands have been rigorously protected from interference: if you file an application for a broadcast license, the FCC requires you to supply copies of the same instrument approach plates that pilot's use during stormy weather, so that they can judge if there's even a chance the broadcast signal might interfere with aircraft. Expecting BPL to coexist with AM radios in a life-or-death situation is like trying to run a VW Bug in the Indianapolis 500: it would only work if only VW Bugs were allowed to enter.
This has little to do with meter reading Even though the electric company's PR flacks like to trot out the "remote meter reading" argument, it doesn't stand close examination. Power companies have been using drive-by readers and WiFi technology for a while now, and BPL costs way too much for it to be cost-effective just to replace a few drivers. They don't need instant power usage data anyway: that's already available from pole-top transmitters and power distribution is controlled by area, not house. Direct reporting from meter to control-center is much too fine-grained a usage for what is, after all, a pretty low-tech service, and it would require either new meters (right after they're paid for the WiFi-capable ones), or a WiFI-equiped BPL modem that would cost more than keeping the drivers. Meter reading is a red herring, used as a word game to make BPL sound like it has something to do with power delivery. The electric companies get to externalize all the secondary costs.All those years of struggle and hard work will pay big dividends, now that the Morse Code I learned is coming back into vogue!
Speaking as an Extra (ahem) class Amateur Radio Operator, I can attest to the superior intelligence, natural good looks, and Savoir Faire of we (ahem) elites.
Those of you - and you know who you are - whom did not put in the effort to raise your code speed to the level required by we Olympians will now sit on the sidelines, moaning and lamenting the opportunities you had and did not pursue.
On the other fist (pun inteneded), we of the upper crust will join our brothers in the new Telegraphers' Union and offer our services to desparate fumble-fingered cell users on every streetcorner.
Eat your hearts out! HA!
I tried to visit froogles.com, and Norton AV quarantined bloodhound.exploit.
Someone else, please verify and notify froogles.com if true.
BPL is an attractive technology for the only reason that the MBA's understand: it solves the nasty, "last mile" problem, i.e., it relieves them of the need to pay all those expensive, well paid, well covered, and well trained technicians to visit their customers' homes. It's the next best thing to the "virtual corporation" that has been the MBA's wet dream for years.
Cable and the Baby Bells are the only other outfits with connections already in the home, and BPL competes solely on the basis of low installation costs: they'll send you a modem in the mail, shunt your tech support calls to India, and do everything possible to avoid providing any customer service. Since most power providers made very bad investment choices in the dot-com boom, they're looking at BPL to keep them out of receivership. In other words, they think of BPL as "free money" that doesn't require them to pay their (unionized) workers any overtime, and which relieves them of the oh-so-unpleasant task of admitting the corner that their greed painted them into.
As for the vendors of this equipment, they're fully aware of the problems BPL will create, the costs that their customers will incur after installation, and probably of the lives it will cost. They don't care: this travesty can't go forward unless the government is for sale, and the coming elections will cure that problem, so they're in a hurry and they're desperate to cash in now.
As for the future: that's not their concern - it's ours. When it breaks, they intend to be rich and gone.
Neither the FCC nor the Armed Forces make telecommunications policy in the way you infer. Both get their marching orders (pun intended) from Washington, and BPL has a lot of lobbying behind it.
Please don't assume that the military will be able (or even inclined) to shout "Halt!" before the BPL onslaught: if they have to buy brand new radios to replace the single-channel paradigm they've been using for most non-critical traffic, then that's just another line item in a multi-billion dollar budget. That's what an industrialist would call a "Win, Win Situation", and any General officer would call a "battle not worth fighting".
BTW, although the Armed Forces make heavy use of the spectrum between 30 and 70 MHz, their assignments are limited in the U.S. so as not to interfere with other users of that band: notably, TV channels 2, 3, and 4, and the public safety services others have mentioned.
The 3 to 30 MHz (i.e., shortwave) bands haven't been used for primary communicaitons for years: satellite is prefered for over-the-horizon traffic, and even the lowliest dogface has access to email when in barracks, so the MARS system that used to carry phone calls in the shortwave spectrum isn't a big factor now.
In other words, 3-70MHz is not the primary band used by the military in the U.S., so I don't think they've got a cock in this fight.
"Trunked systems are different than Spread Spectrum systems.
Trunked systems share a group of frequencies amoung a pool of users: each transmission can be on any one of the frequencies, but once started, the transmission stays on the trunked frequency it started with. It doesn't change so long as the speaker holds the mike button down.
Spread Spectrum, OTOH, does hop around during the transmission, and it's a different technology.
It is almost as easy to jam a trunked system as a single-frequency radio: only spread spectrum radios offer greater immunity from interference, and the trunked systems used by police, fire, ambulance, transportation, Civil Defense, and many other services will receive interference from BPL.
Me, too: both IE and Netscape give the same error message. Anyone else blocked?
If this "new" technology is safe, why isn't Toshiba showcasing it in Japan? Are they afraid that the showcasing might not be thick enough to protect their countrymen if an "incident" occurs?
I think this Japenese company should do its proof-of-concept with Japenese test subjects. I don't think Americans should risk their lives to provide more glory for the Rising Sun, especially in a place like Alaska: slashdot readers might be a little young to consider this, but some of the Alaskan Inupiaq and Yupik, and probably the Inuit, were the subjects of nuclear testing during the work on United States nuclear weapons.
We (the privileded whitebread suburbians sitting in front of computers in air conditioned rooms thousands of miles away from any risk) owe the Native Alaskans more than can be repaid, and most of all we owe them, and all of Alaska, the decency to tell Toshiba to find one of the emperor's own backwaters to buy and victimize.
By the way: fear is a lot easier to create than is electricity, so "Environmentalists" are entitled to comment only if they live within the danger zone of one of these nice little Japenese wonders. Since most "experts" that think this is a neat idea compared to Diesel power live about sixty degrees South of Alaska, I invite them to either shut up or move to the hamlets that are being measured for this dubious "benefit".
Bellhead
We don't have to sink to the spammers' level in order to fend them off: we can fight them successfully without stooping at all.
Fighting spam is easier than it seems, and a lot more satisfying than bitching about it. I get about one piece of spam a week: I'm on so many "don't email this guy!" lists that I have to use sock-puppet addresses to get spam to fight!
Why not join the war?
Bellhead
You can get around the port blocking: there are lots of "dynamic dns" services available, and some will perform port translation in addition to mapping your domain to a "dynamic" IP address.
This feature is usually free if you use their domain (e.g., homelinux.org), or available for a modest fee if you have them point your own domain.
HTH.
Bellhead
... we can just strap an electric outlet to my son's head: he's got enouch energy to power a small city.
But seriously, if you've ever done "hot" composting, you know that this really can work - there's an astonishing amount of energy in a pile of grass clippings or a little cow manure.
You know, I think the Amish have it right - they don't use electricity unless there's no other way to do a job, and even then they won't rely on the power grid (it requires people to work on Sunday).
Biomass is just one way to (excuse the pun) take back power from the megacorps that dole it out in the current system. We can return to the Edison model of local power plants, local consumption - small scale, small bills.
Assuming, that is, that we're all willing to go on a power diet.
Bellhead
As of 23:31 UTC 29 May, http://www.nullsoft.com/free/waste/
returns a "not found" error.
Has WASTE been pulled?
Bellhead
Actually, your boss doesn't expect 15 hours a day: he knows that's impossible, but it's his job to pretend that it is, and to shame you into doing ten or twelve hours instead.
The hidden agenda is that he expects you to fail doing ten/tweleve hours/day. His boss expects it, too.
The only way they'll be sure you're working at "peak efficiency" is if you miss some deadlines, and then they'll back off - to about 70% of the point where you failed.
There is nothing new here. It's as old as the hills.
Bellhead
This is a great idea! The best part is that we already have censorware built into Linux: it's called ipchains. We don't need to develop it, just point out the advantages it offers:
The benefits are many, the costs very small. This is a good idea, so if your child's school district puts out a bid for censorware, feel free to submit Linux as the low cost alternative.
Bellhead
I spent a few years doing PL/I in a mainframe application that bills about $6,000,000,000/year, so please believe me when I say I know how you feel.
Long story short: been there, done that, should have bought the T-shirt ... and very nearly got fired. I learned the hard way that they don't pay you to make it look pretty or even to make it run more efficiently. THEY PAY YOU TO MAKE THE DATE.
Trust me: this is the kind of medicine that it's best to take in very small doses: I know how frustrating it can be to have to wade through a mess that someone else left behind, but try to stay detached and avoid the temptation to reinvent the wheel. As other have pointed out, you can improve small sections of the code, one release at a time, and you'll have 80 percent of the possible improvement done in 20 percent of the time a rewrite would take.
Here's some free advice: the next time the urge strikes, just take a walk around the floor, and remember that everyone else has felt the same way at one time or another. Then, get back to work and make your date, because that's what pros do, and it's all anyone will ever remember.
Then, go home on time, help your kids with their homework, and rest assured that you're doing a lot more to make the future better than you could ever do trying to re-re-rewrite some piece of spaghetti. As for the rest: that's what optimizing compilers are for, you know?
Bellhead
The article (correctly) points out that Windows-based products cold be optimized to work with the netcentric paradigm, but ignores both the maturity of other players in the game (Larry Ellison isn't going to stand still for this) and the fact that such a change would be a perfect opportunity for companies to consider other applications. Corporate IT directors, already smarting from the exorbitent M$ licensing fees for W2K, might revolt at a subscription based structure for desktops as well.
After a breezy piece on how M$ will shift its application software to a subscription-based network model (without a word about the massive network infrastructure growth that would be needed to support such a change) the Economist takes a vicious swipe at Linux:
This has "censored by the Sales Department" written all over it: even while talking about profit warnings, the writer takes care to paint a picture of a future where M$ is the only possibility, where Linux is for hobbyists, and where Gates wins again.Bellhead
I wish this issue wasn't so convoluted: not because I shy away from conplicated issues, but because it brings up the age-old problem of putting into words what everybody knows is right. Any society has to have some shared values, and Cyberspace is no different: if we can't agree on this issue, what can we agree on?
Consider an analogy: assume that a wino is giving out ads for a pornographic bookstore in front of the local highschool.
The chances are that this is legal: even if it were not, the supply of winos is inexhaustable.
If this offends you, your choices are to:
I'll take the last option. It does no good to say that the other stores aren't invovled, because they are: the fact is that the other owners in the building benefit from the porno store, either because they receive a reduced rent to tolerate its presence, or are able to sell related merchandise - Playboy comes to mind - as an adjacency to their regular trade for those whom shy away from the green door. Now, you may not feel this is "fair", but I'm a common working man, and I can't afford to sue anybody. I'm going to get the biggest bang for my boycott buck that I can, and use every lawful method I can to put preasure on the bookstore owner.
Here's the sticky part: let's assume my hypothetical addict is promoting only one book out of the thousands in the store. Is the bookstore owner entitled to sue me for my boycott? Do you think it proper for another author to obtain an injunction on the basis that what he's doing is legal, and that he isn't involved with the ads?
If you do, I pity you. Spam cheapens the vital discourse of the net in the same way that pornography cheapens the innocence of youth and the mature love of married couples. I know this, but I can't explain it with words: to say that a person selling spamware is uninvolved with spam is like saying that a pimp in univolved with prostitution.
What, then, is an ISP owner to do? I know that spam is wrong, and I'm entitled to act on my belief. I won't stand by and let a wino hand out leaflets in front of the high school, and I won't allow Media3 to cloak themselves in first-amendment rhetoric in order to take advantage of the internet connection I pay for, the computer I pay for, the infrastructure I pay for, and (most importantly) the time they steal from me. If my ISP subscribes to the RBL, I accept the fact that hunting rats requires use of a shotgun.
Bellhead