Your scenarios are silly. I'm connected to the Internet 24/7 with
a flat-rate ISDN connection. Whether my or my ISP's sendmail is
connecting to "George"'s server doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
But that's irrelevant, because you are missing the point. I don't pay,
or at least I don't think I pay, for "Internet services".
If I wanted that, I could use AOL, no? I pay for a connection to
the Internet. If I can only send mail via to designated servers,
then I don't have a proper Internet connection. What next? Would you
support ISPs filtering packets, and only allowing the services they
think I "need"? It's the same thing. And please don't give me
bullshit about "competition": a) I'm in Germany, we ain't got none
of that there competition; b) as the players get bigger in the ISP
field, the "competition" will go away anyways. My original point
stands: I want a proper Internet host; the DUL respondes, "too bad:
fuck off and buy a T-1 line". To hell with that. Who died and made
Paul Vixie King of the Internet?
I don't mind paying for a service that's been free -- the free period
gives you a chance at least to try it out and see if it's worth
paying for. Pobox.com do this in a more honest way than most, though:
they say up front: you get a month's trial, and must pay at the end or
lose your account. A month does seem ample time to find out whether
the service is good enough to pay for. Bigfoot have always said
that there is no guarantees that their services will remain free,
but don't indicate when they are likely to introduce charges. As I
recall, so of the services -- the auto-responder is one that springs
to mind -- that used to be free are now charged for.
The real problem with all these e-mail forwarding services is spam.
Their measures against it are simply inadequate -- I stopped using
both bigfoot and then pobox because of their reliance on the MAPS DUL
(dial up list). I object to this list on principle: The DUL is only
and explicitly for the purpose of denying access based on the degree
of connection the users can afford; but it doesn't even stop a lot
of spam. The only effective anti-spam measure I've used is brightmail.
Why free e-mail provides can't simply license that technology (which
is what brightmail's business plan amounts to), I don't know.
Re:Bonobos are more than that; they're people too
on
Bonobo 1.0 released
·
· Score: 2
I'd just like to add that those little critters are damn'
tasty roasted, fried or stewed!
"What Will Happen to Rented Software When Its Publisher Sinks?"
Dunno. And who cares? If people and companies are dumb enough
to pay to be screwed like this, why should it be an issue when the
inevitable happens? OK, with today's commercial software, when a
software house sinks, the license to the software is usually snapped
up by another company. A captive user market can be quite an asset.
I presume this will continue to be the case. But smart people should
be using free software anyway, so it's a moot point.
Re:What an incoherent posting. Don't waste your ti
on
Why Community Matters
·
· Score: 2
I was just wondering, seeing as how there's an Ayn Rand account on/., if there isn't an L. Ron Hubbard acount too? Lunacy deserves
company, after all. I would go and use the search form, but I can't
be bothered.
John, you are very naive. Why the hell don't you just sell
first serial rights? If the publisher presents you with an all
rights contract, you don't have to sign it. Renegogiate!
Why shouldn't the publisher give you a cut every time they use an
opportunity to make some more money out of your article? Your attitude
is rather like being in a regular job, getting paid a salary for (say)
40 hours a week, and putting in an extra 10 or 20 hours unpaid --
oh, wait, there are people who do that...
People are working on it: see www.marssociety.org. According to
Robert Zubrin in "Mars Direct", we could go this decade if we really
wanted to.
Re:The last vestiges of irrational exuburance!!
on
Mars Odyssey begins
·
· Score: 1
Wow! Looks like some bad-tempered little geek virgin got out of
bed the wrong side this morning! Don't you like the girls, AC?
For Christ's sake, go out and get laid: she won't bite you! (Well,
not unless you ask...)
There is a project to do just that: put one or more telecommuncations
satellites in orbit around Mars, to provide 24-hour comms access
from any part of the Martian surface. The Mars Telecom Network, it's
called: more
details here.
That was no spelling mistake, but a case of Jon's unconscious taking
over. Something is clearly being said here. Let's find out what by
analysing this neologism:
demo-crap-hics
That is, the people (demo is from "demos", the people -- Jon evidently
had a Classical education) are crap (crap) hics (folks from the sticks
i.e. backward). Jon is an elitist member of the Digerati living
in New York, you see, and he's just as worried about the on-going
"AOLization" of the Net as anyone.
> I would recommend that people who care about software freedom
You are confused. Everything 2 is not a software repository, but a
sort of "encyclopaedia plus". By your standards, Project Gutenberg
is worthless for the same reason: after all, I doubt Hart would be
too happy if you decided to "improve" Moby Dick. Nothing stops you
from doing so, of course, but you won't find your changes folded back
into the main version. Don't make analogies between GPL'ed software
and writing (presumably that's what you mean by "information"):
it doesn't work. As another poster has already noted, contributors
retain copyright on Everything 2. That's because if they didn't,
the whole thing would be ripped off and made proprietary. And no,
you can't take my writing and pass it off as your own, if that's what
you mean by "freedom": do your own homework.
And, by the way, the Everything 2 code is of course under the GPL.
No story that mentions Net encyclopaedias and such would be complete
with a reference of Everything 2
in the comments to this story -- er, so here it is. Go there: it has
articles on everything under the sun, admittedly of variable quality --
so help make it better.
> Anyone that puts a single-quote in a UNIX filename needs to be shot.
Why? The single-quote is not a special character to a Unix filesystem.
It may be special to the shell, it's true. So change your shell?
Or just use the facilities in the shell for dealing with this.
I have files with single-quotes in. I don't find typing \ or enclosing
the name in double-quotes to be appallingly hard work.
The only person I see whining is you, Eric -- whining about people crticising your hero. It seems as though every time someone says something along the lines of "another bloody Katz article", one of his bum-boys pops up to say, "you don't have to read it you know, there is an option to block him...". But that isn't the case. The option doesn't exclude all Katz stuff. Of course, I don't have to read him. But then, you don't have to read the comments of those you call "whiners" -- and yet, you do. Do you know what "double standard" means? A gold start on your copybook for you if you do and can figure out how it applies in this case.
> I'd love to discuss some of Jon's points without an attack on him > personally, but like he said, that doesn't happen in the threads, only > on e-mail.
If that's the case, the solution is obvious. Why don't you and JK and co. form yourselves a little e-mail list (closed, of course), where you can chatter away to your hearts' content without the gross light of reality intruding?
Or, to state your resolve more plainly, you have decided to ignore Rob's advice in the moderation guidelines, and concentrate on moderating down those opinions that you don't agree with. Well done: you've grasped precisely what moderation is NOT supposed to be about.
"10 to 15 questions" Rob said he'd be selecting. We got 7. Those 7 that gave JK the opportunity to spout at great length (why it was felt he needed an interview to do that is anyone's guess). So, once more, here's a very simple, straightforward question that got +4 originally and was as I recall in the top 15:
Are you paid for these articles? If so, are you freelance or employed by Andover or VA or whatever we're calling them today?
Well, since you're posting as an AC, who knows what you are or where you're from? Or whether you're even the same AC? I'll stand by what I said, though, since no European could have written such drivel as the post I replied to, unless he was trolling.
I think this AC should be moderated up to five, to show the shocking state of American education: the sheer ignorance of the average American youngster when he leaves high school is a far more important issue than all this Hellmouth crap.
Slashdot Mirror
Your scenarios are silly. I'm connected to the Internet 24/7 with a flat-rate ISDN connection. Whether my or my ISP's sendmail is connecting to "George"'s server doesn't make a blind bit of difference. But that's irrelevant, because you are missing the point. I don't pay, or at least I don't think I pay, for "Internet services". If I wanted that, I could use AOL, no? I pay for a connection to the Internet. If I can only send mail via to designated servers, then I don't have a proper Internet connection. What next? Would you support ISPs filtering packets, and only allowing the services they think I "need"? It's the same thing. And please don't give me bullshit about "competition": a) I'm in Germany, we ain't got none of that there competition; b) as the players get bigger in the ISP field, the "competition" will go away anyways. My original point stands: I want a proper Internet host; the DUL respondes, "too bad: fuck off and buy a T-1 line". To hell with that. Who died and made Paul Vixie King of the Internet?
The real problem with all these e-mail forwarding services is spam. Their measures against it are simply inadequate -- I stopped using both bigfoot and then pobox because of their reliance on the MAPS DUL (dial up list). I object to this list on principle: The DUL is only and explicitly for the purpose of denying access based on the degree of connection the users can afford; but it doesn't even stop a lot of spam. The only effective anti-spam measure I've used is brightmail. Why free e-mail provides can't simply license that technology (which is what brightmail's business plan amounts to), I don't know.
I'd just like to add that those little critters are damn' tasty roasted, fried or stewed!
"What Will Happen to Rented Software When Its Publisher Sinks?" Dunno. And who cares? If people and companies are dumb enough to pay to be screwed like this, why should it be an issue when the inevitable happens? OK, with today's commercial software, when a software house sinks, the license to the software is usually snapped up by another company. A captive user market can be quite an asset. I presume this will continue to be the case. But smart people should be using free software anyway, so it's a moot point.
I was just wondering, seeing as how there's an Ayn Rand account on /., if there isn't an L. Ron Hubbard acount too? Lunacy deserves
company, after all. I would go and use the search form, but I can't
be bothered.
John, you are very naive. Why the hell don't you just sell first serial rights? If the publisher presents you with an all rights contract, you don't have to sign it. Renegogiate! Why shouldn't the publisher give you a cut every time they use an opportunity to make some more money out of your article? Your attitude is rather like being in a regular job, getting paid a salary for (say) 40 hours a week, and putting in an extra 10 or 20 hours unpaid -- oh, wait, there are people who do that...
People are working on it: see www.marssociety.org. According to Robert Zubrin in "Mars Direct", we could go this decade if we really wanted to.
Wow! Looks like some bad-tempered little geek virgin got out of bed the wrong side this morning! Don't you like the girls, AC? For Christ's sake, go out and get laid: she won't bite you! (Well, not unless you ask...)
There is a project to do just that: put one or more telecommuncations satellites in orbit around Mars, to provide 24-hour comms access from any part of the Martian surface. The Mars Telecom Network, it's called: more details here.
sed -e s/[gG]un/Penis/g \
-e s/[bB]ear/Dangle/g \
-e s/[aA]rms/Phalluses/g \
-e s/[tT]rigger/Glans/g \
< http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html
And then go read the original source: plenty more where that came from.
demo-crap-hics
That is, the people (demo is from "demos", the people -- Jon evidently had a Classical education) are crap (crap) hics (folks from the sticks i.e. backward). Jon is an elitist member of the Digerati living in New York, you see, and he's just as worried about the on-going "AOLization" of the Net as anyone.
Tell it like it is JonKatz! Right on!
You are confused. Everything 2 is not a software repository, but a sort of "encyclopaedia plus". By your standards, Project Gutenberg is worthless for the same reason: after all, I doubt Hart would be too happy if you decided to "improve" Moby Dick. Nothing stops you from doing so, of course, but you won't find your changes folded back into the main version. Don't make analogies between GPL'ed software and writing (presumably that's what you mean by "information"): it doesn't work. As another poster has already noted, contributors retain copyright on Everything 2. That's because if they didn't, the whole thing would be ripped off and made proprietary. And no, you can't take my writing and pass it off as your own, if that's what you mean by "freedom": do your own homework.
And, by the way, the Everything 2 code is of course under the GPL.
No story that mentions Net encyclopaedias and such would be complete with a reference of Everything 2 in the comments to this story -- er, so here it is. Go there: it has articles on everything under the sun, admittedly of variable quality -- so help make it better.
Why? The single-quote is not a special character to a Unix filesystem. It may be special to the shell, it's true. So change your shell? Or just use the facilities in the shell for dealing with this. I have files with single-quotes in. I don't find typing \ or enclosing the name in double-quotes to be appallingly hard work.
Whoops, make that 63.
Signals only go up to 32.
> he even bothered to take part in a discussion around here?
Don't hold your breath: Advogato: Personal info for esr
The only person I see whining is you, Eric -- whining about people crticising your hero. It seems as though every time someone says something along the lines of "another bloody Katz article", one of his bum-boys pops up to say, "you don't have to read it you know, there is an option to block him...". But that isn't the case. The option doesn't exclude all Katz stuff. Of course, I don't have to read him. But then, you don't have to read the comments of those you call "whiners" -- and yet, you do. Do you know what "double standard" means? A gold start on your copybook for you if you do and can figure out how it applies in this case.
> personally, but like he said, that doesn't happen in the threads, only
> on e-mail.
If that's the case, the solution is obvious. Why don't you and JK and co. form yourselves a little e-mail list (closed, of course), where you can chatter away to your hearts' content without the gross light of reality intruding?
Or, to state your resolve more plainly, you have decided to ignore Rob's advice in the moderation guidelines, and concentrate on moderating down those opinions that you don't agree with. Well done: you've grasped precisely what moderation is NOT supposed to be about.
> like the Jon Katz interviews (CmdrTaco is responsible for those).
It would be correct to say that said filter is fuck-all use then? But then that's the idea. Give the plebs the illusion of choice.
Are you paid for these articles? If so, are you freelance or employed by Andover or VA or whatever we're calling them today?
s/I'm not either/I am neither/
I think this AC should be moderated up to five, to show the shocking state of American education: the sheer ignorance of the average American youngster when he leaves high school is a far more important issue than all this Hellmouth crap.
Hey, it's John Wayne!