... such as a station's transmission power and modulation limits. This is needed for international cooperation/coordination of frequency bands.
Having it regulate content and insuring "wholesome standards" of broadcast content should be beyond its scope. If we (the USA) are to be anal retentive enough to regulate content, this should be done by a separate agency, perhaps the [cringe] "Communicastions Security Agency" (analogous to the Transportation Security Agency)... perhaps it's better not to regulate content at all, and let each listener/viewer decide appropriateness.
"Viewer discretion is ALWAYS advised."
The problem with Cap-Schlock is it's where the Ctrl key was on the AT keyboard and most all 'standard' terminal keyboards before then. I almost never use it, not even to type an all-caps word like FORTRAN. Maybe if I really want to be a jerk and shout on Usenet I'll use it. All my assembly and other case-insensitive code is in lower case.
But the alt key? I've always used alt-F4 [it's really hard to TYPE that instead of using it] to close Windoze apps, and after popup windows started showing up on non-pron sites, (when was that, three or four years ago?), I became very adept and speedy at alt-F4.
The PS/2 keyboard really changed things, and it really sucked when it came out because IBM had finally got it right (I felt at the time) with the AT keyboard.
Gimme all the GUI you want, just as long as I can control it with my keyboard [Ctrl-ESC for "Start" then arrow keys to navigate, then enter to select... I can't stand using a mouse unless I'm doing CAD, and even then I often type in numerical coordinates]
... of about 15 years ago? Everyhing that carried a low-frequency electric and/or magnetic field - power lines, electric wiring in buildings, CRT monitors (vertical and horizontal deflection yokes) - were all sources of low-frequency electromagnetic fields, and were supposed to increase one's cancer risk. Did any statistical studies find any such increased risk? The one study I recall was on women who worked on utility poles (and so allegedly spent more than the average amount of time near power lines), who had a LOWER incidence of breast cancer than the whole population of women.
Unless and until a study is done that shows an increased risk of disease around a computer, I'm not going to worry about it. I would much rather breathe "computer dust" than breathe vapors from driving in traffic that I KNOW are bad for people(yet people decide to do it every day), and that's not even considering the chances of being in a serious auto accident.
You have to evaluate risks rationally, and this one may be immeasurably low. What if one person per ten million per year died from "computer dust" - how could you be sure the death was because of this? You couldn't. The death could be caused by innumerable other environmental factors.
Here are some things that I have no doubt are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more important to your health than staying away from computer equipment:
Fasten your seat belt.
Quit smoking.
Lower your fat and calorie intake.
Exercise.
Don't sleep with the wife or daughter of a gun owner.
"...let's make that computers that print out the soy-based ink letters out of soy, too."
So you think those $50 ink cartridges for your $90 scanner/printer are expensive NOW, wait till they're filled with soy-based inks. If organic vs. comventional food price comparisons hold (approximately 2 to 1), a new printer will cost LESS than a new "soy-based" print cartridge.
is to enter a unique, long, hard-to-generate (8+ random characters) address to each "opt-out opportunity," keeping a record of what address you entered where, and then sit back for a year to see which addresses get spam. Yes, none of these addresses were actually used in the original spams, but at least you could see which "opt-out" sites eventually used or distributed the addresses to others. I've entered uce@ftc.gov into several spammers' "opt-out" webpages, and they all come back with "Thank you. uce@ftc.gov has been removed from our list." Yeah, right. I had a work address from 1994 to 2000 - it got spam starting in 1995 (from a Usenet posting), I learned to read headers and report spam in 1997, and by vigorous reporting of every spam I got, I reduced my spams from about 60 per month to about 2 or 3 per month. I suspect my address ended up on a list of "vicious antispammers" and most (of the 'smarter') spammers filtered their lists against such "do-not-spam" lists. They certainly didn't stop using the '67 million emails' CD's just because I was reporting spams...
A truly legitimate unsubscribe system would say: "You've been sent an unsubscribe email with a unique token. You must reply to the email with the token to complete the unsubscribe process. This his is to prevent unscrupulous persons from unsubscribing others without their permission." and it should say that whether the address is in the system or not. If the address is in the list, the email with token will be sent, otherwise it will be ignored.
Of course, the only systems that will implement this are ones where significant "unsubscribe" abuse has happened, such as yahoogroups.com (which hosts a large number of email lists).
I agree absolutely with cmowire - just because someone at a convention gives you a business card with an email on it, that doesn't even mean the card belongs to the person who gave it to you. In ALL cases where an address is added to your list you should send ONLY a confirmation message telling something about the list with a unique tag. If you don't get a response (in a reasonable time such as three days, but you can tell them how to request another confirmation if they've been on vacation for a week), you need to delete the email as if you had never entered it into your system (or at best save it in a "failed to confirm" file for auditing purposes only).
It's much too easy to add "someone else's email address" to uncomfirmed lists like yours - you can mean well but still be an unintending source of spam and mailbombing.
I'm on (many) fully connfirmed discussion lists - one went several months without a message and then someone sent something and a discussion started, but even in that list someone screamed "I never signed up for this list! Stop spamming me or I'll sue!" They can scream all they want because the list owner has kept all the original confirmation responses over the years where they added themself[1] to the list. It's possible the original subscriber cancelled the address and someone else got a new account with the address, but it's more likely the person forgot they subscibed.
1. Yes I know that's a very odd word I used in an attempt to not use "himself or herself." Has English yet evolved so there's a cleaner way to do that?
'My' email address as far as they are concerned is singlepoint@mydomain.com
If they send me garbage, I just block mail to that address.
Downside is that any rare babies are chucked out with the ocean of bathwater
If they send you "legitimate" email after spamming you, that's THEIR loss, not yours.
I'm going to plug a great simulator for you all, and that is
Orbiter. You'll learn a ton about astrophysics just by starting the program up and trying to get into orbit your first time, and it won't quit from there.
Nanotech obviously has enough 'promise' to have funding, but that doesn't necesarily mean Drexler's and others' glowing predictions will come true. There have been billions (?) of dollars spent over the past four decades on "controlled nuclear fusion" or "fusion power generation." There was supposed to be fusion-powered electric power plants by 1970 or so, but this 'simple engineering problem' of using fusion for energy generation has been a lot harder than first thought. I feel confident that in the next several decades some of the predictions of Nanotech proponents will come true, but not neccesarily through what Drexler calls "molecular nanotechnology," rather, many will arrive through small [but geometric] advances in current technology, continuing at rates close to Moore's Law.
I post to Usenet with [firstname]_nospam_[lastname]@myisp.com. I created that address as an email alias, and also created the following aliases as well: [firstname]__[lastname]@myisp.com (two underscores) [firstname]_[lastname]@myisp.com (one underscore) The two-underscore address was NEVER posted or used anywhere, yet I've received spam to ALL THREE of the above addresses, though few compared to my main account. So yes, it appears many harvesting bots either demung or don't use addresses with "nospam" in them, but some spammers just spew to whatever addresses they harvest.
Slashdot Mirror
This is funny? It's dissapointing! I was wanting to play, or at least see the log. Did anyone save the log and can put a mirror up? Puh-lease?
Why are we so fascinated at such obviously crude technologies (LED's and CAPS-LOCK keys)?
... such as a station's transmission power and modulation limits. This is needed for international cooperation/coordination of frequency bands.
Having it regulate content and insuring "wholesome standards" of broadcast content should be beyond its scope. If we (the USA) are to be anal retentive enough to regulate content, this should be done by a separate agency, perhaps the [cringe] "Communicastions Security Agency" (analogous to the Transportation Security Agency)... perhaps it's better not to regulate content at all, and let each listener/viewer decide appropriateness.
"Viewer discretion is ALWAYS advised."
... is post on slashdot telling how I select my password(s) ... Sheesh, I can't believe what I'm reading here, of all places.
The problem with Cap-Schlock is it's where the Ctrl key was on the AT keyboard and most all 'standard' terminal keyboards before then. I almost never use it, not even to type an all-caps word like FORTRAN. Maybe if I really want to be a jerk and shout on Usenet I'll use it. All my assembly and other case-insensitive code is in lower case.
But the alt key? I've always used alt-F4 [it's really hard to TYPE that instead of using it] to close Windoze apps, and after popup windows started showing up on non-pron sites, (when was that, three or four years ago?), I became very adept and speedy at alt-F4.
The PS/2 keyboard really changed things, and it really sucked when it came out because IBM had finally got it right (I felt at the time) with the AT keyboard.
Gimme all the GUI you want, just as long as I can control it with my keyboard [Ctrl-ESC for "Start" then arrow keys to navigate, then enter to select... I can't stand using a mouse unless I'm doing CAD, and even then I often type in numerical coordinates]
... of about 15 years ago? Everyhing that carried a low-frequency electric and/or magnetic field - power lines, electric wiring in buildings, CRT monitors (vertical and horizontal deflection yokes) - were all sources of low-frequency electromagnetic fields, and were supposed to increase one's cancer risk. Did any statistical studies find any such increased risk? The one study I recall was on women who worked on utility poles (and so allegedly spent more than the average amount of time near power lines), who had a LOWER incidence of breast cancer than the whole population of women.
Unless and until a study is done that shows an increased risk of disease around a computer, I'm not going to worry about it. I would much rather breathe "computer dust" than breathe vapors from driving in traffic that I KNOW are bad for people(yet people decide to do it every day), and that's not even considering the chances of being in a serious auto accident.
You have to evaluate risks rationally, and this one may be immeasurably low. What if one person per ten million per year died from "computer dust" - how could you be sure the death was because of this? You couldn't. The death could be caused by innumerable other environmental factors.
Here are some things that I have no doubt are ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more important to your health than staying away from computer equipment:
Fasten your seat belt.
Quit smoking.
Lower your fat and calorie intake.
Exercise.
Don't sleep with the wife or daughter of a gun owner.
"...let's make that computers that print out the soy-based ink letters out of soy, too."
So you think those $50 ink cartridges for your $90 scanner/printer are expensive NOW, wait till they're filled with soy-based inks. If organic vs. comventional food price comparisons hold (approximately 2 to 1), a new printer will cost LESS than a new "soy-based" print cartridge.
I've entered uce@ftc.gov into several spammers' "opt-out" webpages, and they all come back with "Thank you. uce@ftc.gov has been removed from our list." Yeah, right.
I had a work address from 1994 to 2000 - it got spam starting in 1995 (from a Usenet posting), I learned to read headers and report spam in 1997, and by vigorous reporting of every spam I got, I reduced my spams from about 60 per month to about 2 or 3 per month. I suspect my address ended up on a list of "vicious antispammers" and most (of the 'smarter') spammers filtered their lists against such "do-not-spam" lists. They certainly didn't stop using the '67 million emails' CD's just because I was reporting spams...
A truly legitimate unsubscribe system would say:
"You've been sent an unsubscribe email with a unique token. You must reply to the email with the token to complete the unsubscribe process. This his is to prevent unscrupulous persons from unsubscribing others without their permission."
and it should say that whether the address is in the system or not. If the address is in the list, the email with token will be sent, otherwise it will be ignored. Of course, the only systems that will implement this are ones where significant "unsubscribe" abuse has happened, such as yahoogroups.com (which hosts a large number of email lists).
I'm on (many) fully connfirmed discussion lists - one went several months without a message and then someone sent something and a discussion started, but even in that list someone screamed "I never signed up for this list! Stop spamming me or I'll sue!" They can scream all they want because the list owner has kept all the original confirmation responses over the years where they added themself[1] to the list. It's possible the original subscriber cancelled the address and someone else got a new account with the address, but it's more likely the person forgot they subscibed.
1. Yes I know that's a very odd word I used in an attempt to not use "himself or herself." Has English yet evolved so there's a cleaner way to do that?
'My' email address as far as they are concerned is singlepoint@mydomain.com If they send me garbage, I just block mail to that address. Downside is that any rare babies are chucked out with the ocean of bathwater
If they send you "legitimate" email after spamming you, that's THEIR loss, not yours.
Isn't all the picotech, femtotech and attotech money alredy going to Superstring researchers? Sorry to steal your thunder.
Nanotech obviously has enough 'promise' to have funding, but that doesn't necesarily mean Drexler's and others' glowing predictions will come true.
There have been billions (?) of dollars spent over the past four decades on "controlled nuclear fusion" or "fusion power generation." There was supposed to be fusion-powered electric power plants by 1970 or so, but this 'simple engineering problem' of using fusion for energy generation has been a lot harder than first thought.
I feel confident that in the next several decades some of the predictions of Nanotech proponents will come true, but not neccesarily through what Drexler calls "molecular nanotechnology," rather, many will arrive through small [but geometric] advances in current technology, continuing at rates close to Moore's Law.
"Do you want MSN Internet Service or a cell phone with that?" This is almost as annoying.
I post to Usenet with [firstname]_nospam_[lastname]@myisp.com. I created that address as an email alias, and also created the following aliases as well:
[firstname]__[lastname]@myisp.com (two underscores)
[firstname]_[lastname]@myisp.com (one underscore)
The two-underscore address was NEVER posted or used anywhere, yet I've received spam to ALL THREE of the above addresses, though few compared to my main account. So yes, it appears many harvesting bots either demung or don't use addresses with "nospam" in them, but some spammers just spew to whatever addresses they harvest.