I don't think there will be that much interest, though... .
consider that the epitaph of the 'net as a playground for the geek. the masses move on to sites and services which are attractive and accessible. the geek tries to breathe new life into usenet and irc chat.
Remember, the first rule about USENET.
You don't talk about USENET..... .
Back to the Future:
Re: Wow.
"When AOL gained Usenet access people referred to it as "the September that never ended", referring to the fact that there was now a constant influx of clueless newbies"
But without new blood Usenet ages and dies
What happens if other ISPs decide that maintaining a news server for a handful of Geeks is no longer worth the trouble?
In June Roadrunner dropped USENET and the event passed with barely a rippple of protest.
Unlimited USENET in 2008 is Giganews at $30/mo with encyption.
Giganews might as well put up a banner add explaining what it is they are really selling. This isn't USENET as an open public forum. It's USENET as a distribution channel for illicit content.
The stereotypes of the geek are reinforced, he is marginalized a little more.
How do you prove that the downloads went any farther than your own system?
You aren't looking at immunity, you are looking at the geek's fair-weather friend, "plausible deniability."
Two words that can make your lawyer cringe - even after calling his wife to tell her that the new kitchen "is a go."
The story that sells to a jury isn't always the story that can be sold your neighbors or your pastor. What your wife will be thinking when she sees the search warrant can't be printed here.
Another problem with overbloated systems running simple tasks is the huge draw of electricity. How much power could we save (and, therefore, money) by using bloated systems less for simple things?
.
I am betting nothing compared to the power being consumed by the systems they monitor and control.
There is the old Maxis game SimTower.
The challenge was to efficiently manage the traffic flow within a 100 story megastructure. You could program all the lifts with your modest Win 3.1 PC.
But in the real world a single express elevator drew down a heck of a lot more power.
While not in this case, a BSOD may mean real "D" these days in a hospital.... Sad, but true...
-- and of course nothing whatever can go wrong with a *nix based platform used in the same environment.
There is also the small natter of FDA approval:
The 8-pound in-home gadget connects caregivers and patients outside of hospitals or clinic settings. It manages vital-sign collection, patient reminders, educational content, and motivational messages. The device has a 40GB hard drive. Information collected by the device is sent to the health care professional, and from there, physician and doctor can engage in video conferencing to discuss health issues. Doctors monitor and remotely care for their patients via an online interface using software called the Intel Health Care Management Suite. It currently runs on Windows XP only.
With the ability to hook up to wired and wireless monitors, such as glucose or blood pressure gauges, a caregiver can schedule times to remotely measure vital signs, or patients can check their own. The encrypted information is sent to a remote database, as long as the device connected to the Internet via broadband. The Intel Health Guide PHS6000 received FDA clearance to enter the market after years of development and research, including pilot studies in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Intel said it expects the product to be commercially available from health care providers by late 2008 or early 2009Intel's in-home health device gets FDA nod [July 10. 2008], Intel Health News
The purpose of the device is to support home care for the chronically ill. Home care is cheaper. Patients tend to remain more active, engaged and independent.
I've always wondered why it is that abandonware doesn't automatically become public domain
The geek sees only code.
The owner sees an RPG like Fallout - which he may want to return to somewhere down the road. He has a brand name to protect. He may even have a market.
He sees the tangible and intagible assets of his game as a whole.
iD has been generous in opening up aging game engines. But if you want to play the games that made iD's reputation you have to buy them. 3D Realms Entertainment
This is why legislators like Ron Paul vote against things: if they don't like the whole thing, they vote no, no matter how important any one part of the whole is.
and that is why a Ron Paul makes headlines on Slashdot and bills like FISA pass without him. to the geek, telcom immunity is everything, to Obama it is one thing.
Not only that, but America has been DESIGNED for the automobile.
Suburburban development in the U.S. doesn't begin with the automobile, it begins with the ferry, the horse-drawn streetcar and the railroad.
Brooklyn has a middle income commuter population in 1850. The streetcar [1880-1930] defined - or created - the suburban landscape the automobile requires:
Automobiles were invented around the ame time as trolleys, but had much less immediate impact on urban development in the early years of the 20th century. They were expensive, hard to store, and poorly
accommodated in urban places. Yet the streetcars began to loosen up the American metropolis so effectively that cars began to find navigating suburbs easier with each passing year. The first commercial districts to begin building parking lots were the trolley-based taxpayer strips. By the 1920s, the west side of Los Angeles began to develop fully auto-based shopping.The Six Suburban Eras of the United States {2006] {PDF]
Yes it makes for nice, clean, tidy towns, with beautiful roads, ample living space, etc. But take away the automobiles and people are screwed.
You have it backwards.
The "picturesque suburb" begins with Frederick Law Olmsted in 1857.
The move to the suburbs becomes the defining ambition of the American middle class while Henry Ford is still peddling a tricycle.
Any Americans wondering why they have a reputation for being lazy should read the quoted comment.
The last mile problem remains.
Your transportation system still has to deal with travelers of every age and physical condition.
Your transportation system has to provide safe, reliable and affordable solutions in every season of the year.
The commuter bike in our town is essentially a garage ornament from mid July through mid April. You can take it out for short runs. You can also put yourself in the cardiac ICU.
Your transportation system has to accommodate the movement of small parcels.
Pets.
Portal-to-portal is not easily surrendered.
It is never simply a question of laziness. You need to arrive at your destination on time. You need to arrive rested and presentable. There are things that need doing along the way.
Their cars are luxury ones, not aimed at the Everyman. Their customers would be able to afford the fancy technologies and pay for the investment in infrastructure.
A quick quiz for the economically-impaired:
Which early auto company was soon generating enough revenue to make substantial investments in production and technology - building factories employing thousands - Ford or Stanley?
In 1914 which company began paying $5 a day to an ordinary worker on the line?
Twice the going rate for industrial labor.
Which company was able to put 20 million cars on the road - 20 million customers for the gas station and garage?
If they can solve the problem of refueling infrastructure and sufficient mileage per refuel, there's no reason why not to go with a non-gas car.
How do you propose to do that in seven years in a world market? When your product is a luxury sedan that sees about 100,000 sales a year in the states?
You can't use this. I can't use this. But a real pro can.
I remember visiting an exhibition of very large format glass plate landscape photography from the nineteenth century. The detail and depth of field was astonishing. It was an entirely different experience from seeing even the finest modern small or "medium format" images in reproduction.
I know you're just being a smartass, but what you have actually said is literally true.
I have said it before.
The geek is libertarian only when it is convenient.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.Bill of Rights
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applies only to suppression of speech by the federal government - state governments were bound through the application of the fourteenth amendment.
Frederick Douglass had this to say about the pre-war South:
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.
What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave.Frederick Douglass: The Hypocrisy of
American Slavery [Rochester, New York, July 4, 1852]
If the Pope decrees that discussion of the ordination of women is off the table within a Roman Catholic Church - then it is off the table within a Roman Catholic Church.
He has the right to keep order within his own House.
You have no right of appeal.
No private individual or institution is legally obliged to provide you a forum.
If you are a drunken fool mouthing off at the local gin mill - and disturbing the paying customers - you won't be asked to leave, you will be booted out the door.
With the memory of 9/11 anyone trying to take over the airplane is going to be subdued, if not out and out killed, by the passengers.
Because the terrorist leader does not learn from experience and revise his strategy and tactics.
He does not trade in his box cutters for a binary nerve gas.
He does not find some excuse to get his people on board the charter flight to Orlando and Disney World, - 250 very young kids and their mothers on board - or the senior's excursion to the casinos in Atlantic City.
Because it is dead certain that leadership will emerge in a vacuum, and trivially easy to subdue a combat-trained team bent on mass murder and self-destruction.
Because passengers will remember only the heroism aboard United 93 and not its fatal crash into the fields of rural Pennsylvania.
This is why we need to limit Congress to one term in each office. Nothing gets in the way of principle like rational self-interest.
Term limits transfer power to those who are not bound by the limits.
The party leader. The president -for-life. The permanent state bureaucracy. The general. The diplomat. The lobbyist. The judge.
These are the only people who can maintain continuity in government. Develop expertise. Draft legislation. Contemplate long-term solutions.
They have staff. They have funding.
They are in constant communication with their sponsors and their peers.
The first-term legislator ends the year with a modest understanding of parliamentary procedure - and an appointment to the committee for the coastal defense of the Dakotas - where he can do no particular harm.
The American Republic was founded on rational self interest. The founders believed that principle too often leads to rigidity and excess.
In this sense, George Bush is entirely a man of principle.
Slashdot Mirror
.
consider that the epitaph of the 'net as a playground for the geek. the masses move on to sites and services which are attractive and accessible. the geek tries to breathe new life into usenet and irc chat.
You don't talk about USENET.....
.
Back to the Future:
Re: Wow.
"When AOL gained Usenet access people referred to it as "the September that never ended", referring to the fact that there was now a constant influx of clueless newbies"
But without new blood Usenet ages and dies
What happens if other ISPs decide that maintaining a news server for a handful of Geeks is no longer worth the trouble?
AOL Kills USENET Acess [posting as westlake January 25, 2005]
In 2008, I have my answer.
In June Roadrunner dropped USENET and the event passed with barely a rippple of protest.
Unlimited USENET in 2008 is Giganews at $30/mo with encyption.
Giganews might as well put up a banner add explaining what it is they are really selling. This isn't USENET as an open public forum. It's USENET as a distribution channel for illicit content.
The stereotypes of the geek are reinforced, he is marginalized a little more.
.
How do you prove that the downloads went any farther than your own system?
You aren't looking at immunity, you are looking at the geek's fair-weather friend, "plausible deniability."
Two words that can make your lawyer cringe - even after calling his wife to tell her that the new kitchen "is a go."
The story that sells to a jury isn't always the story that can be sold your neighbors or your pastor. What your wife will be thinking when she sees the search warrant can't be printed here.
.
The key words here are "few" and "hard core."
That does not make you socially significant or politically effective.
.
I am betting nothing compared to the power being consumed by the systems they monitor and control.
There is the old Maxis game SimTower.
The challenge was to efficiently manage the traffic flow within a 100 story megastructure. You could program all the lifts with your modest Win 3.1 PC.
But in the real world a single express elevator drew down a heck of a lot more power.
Some details are emerging about the Vista based "Quebec." Microsoft Readies "Quebec" Vista based embedded OS [June 6 2008]
Excel 2007 can open a spreadsheet with 16,000 columns and 1 million rows. What's New in Excel 2007
-- and of course nothing whatever can go wrong with a *nix based platform used in the same environment.
There is also the small natter of FDA approval:
The 8-pound in-home gadget connects caregivers and patients outside of hospitals or clinic settings. It manages vital-sign collection, patient reminders, educational content, and motivational messages. The device has a 40GB hard drive. Information collected by the device is sent to the health care professional, and from there, physician and doctor can engage in video conferencing to discuss health issues. Doctors monitor and remotely care for their patients via an online interface using software called the Intel Health Care Management Suite. It currently runs on Windows XP only.
With the ability to hook up to wired and wireless monitors, such as glucose or blood pressure gauges, a caregiver can schedule times to remotely measure vital signs, or patients can check their own. The encrypted information is sent to a remote database, as long as the device connected to the Internet via broadband.
The Intel Health Guide PHS6000 received FDA clearance to enter the market after years of development and research, including pilot studies in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Intel said it expects the product to be commercially available from health care providers by late 2008 or early 2009 Intel's in-home health device gets FDA nod [July 10. 2008], Intel Health News
The purpose of the device is to support home care for the chronically ill. Home care is cheaper. Patients tend to remain more active, engaged and independent.
The geek sees only code.
The owner sees an RPG like Fallout - which he may want to return to somewhere down the road. He has a brand name to protect. He may even have a market.
He sees the tangible and intagible assets of his game as a whole.
iD has been generous in opening up aging game engines. But if you want to play the games that made iD's reputation you have to buy them. 3D Realms Entertainment
Runners and cyclists are often in denial about the risks.
It has become necessary here to broadcast health and safety advisories for both.
Heat stress. Hypothermia.
That sort of thing. Sometimes they listen. Far too often they don't.
and that is why a Ron Paul makes headlines on Slashdot and bills like FISA pass without him. to the geek, telcom immunity is everything, to Obama it is one thing.
Suburburban development in the U.S. doesn't begin with the automobile, it begins with the ferry, the horse-drawn streetcar and the railroad.
Brooklyn has a middle income commuter population in 1850. The streetcar [1880-1930] defined - or created - the suburban landscape the automobile requires:
Automobiles were invented around the ame time as trolleys, but had much less immediate impact on urban development in the early years of the 20th century. They were expensive, hard to store, and poorly accommodated in urban places. Yet the streetcars began to loosen up the American metropolis so effectively that cars began to find navigating suburbs easier with each passing year. The first commercial districts to begin building parking lots were the trolley-based taxpayer strips. By the 1920s, the west side of Los Angeles began to develop fully auto-based shopping. The Six Suburban Eras of the United States {2006] {PDF]
Yes it makes for nice, clean, tidy towns, with beautiful roads, ample living space, etc. But take away the automobiles and people are screwed.
You have it backwards.
The "picturesque suburb" begins with Frederick Law Olmsted in 1857.
The move to the suburbs becomes the defining ambition of the American middle class while Henry Ford is still peddling a tricycle.
If teens are growing up without playing these games, why should they be miseed when he is old enough to vote?
The last mile problem remains.
Your transportation system still has to deal with travelers of every age and physical condition.
Your transportation system has to provide safe, reliable and affordable solutions in every season of the year.
The commuter bike in our town is essentially a garage ornament from mid July through mid April. You can take it out for short runs. You can also put yourself in the cardiac ICU.
Your transportation system has to accommodate the movement of small parcels.
Pets.
Portal-to-portal is not easily surrendered.
It is never simply a question of laziness. You need to arrive at your destination on time. You need to arrive rested and presentable. There are things that need doing along the way.
A quick quiz for the economically-impaired:
Which early auto company was soon generating enough revenue to make substantial investments in production and technology - building factories employing thousands - Ford or Stanley?
In 1914 which company began paying $5 a day to an ordinary worker on the line?
Twice the going rate for industrial labor.
Which company was able to put 20 million cars on the road - 20 million customers for the gas station and garage?
How do you propose to do that in seven years in a world market? When your product is a luxury sedan that sees about 100,000 sales a year in the states?
It surprises me that there has no mention of Arthur C. Clarke.
The early short stories are accessible and satisfying.
"Rendezvous with Rama."
I'll not complain if you take a pass on the sequels.
You also can't go wrong with comics.
This summer seems a particularly good opportunity to introduce new readers to Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Strikes Again."
I remember visiting an exhibition of very large format glass plate landscape photography from the nineteenth century. The detail and depth of field was astonishing. It was an entirely different experience from seeing even the finest modern small or "medium format" images in reproduction.
It is true that a drill site, farm or factory or might be required to open its doors to a labor union.
But usually such exceptions apply to a hermetically sealed environment - where you are effectively cut-off from almost all outside contacts.
In WWII the issue was framed around a front line soldier's right to vote.
I have said it before.
The geek is libertarian only when it is convenient.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Bill of Rights
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applies only to suppression of speech by the federal government - state governments were bound through the application of the fourteenth amendment.
Frederick Douglass had this to say about the pre-war South:
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.
What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. Frederick Douglass: The Hypocrisy of American Slavery [Rochester, New York, July 4, 1852]
If the Pope decrees that discussion of the ordination of women is off the table within a Roman Catholic Church - then it is off the table within a Roman Catholic Church.
He has the right to keep order within his own House.
You have no right of appeal.
No private individual or institution is legally obliged to provide you a forum.
If you are a drunken fool mouthing off at the local gin mill - and disturbing the paying customers - you won't be asked to leave, you will be booted out the door.
Because the terrorist leader does not learn from experience and revise his strategy and tactics.
He does not trade in his box cutters for a binary nerve gas.
He does not find some excuse to get his people on board the charter flight to Orlando and Disney World, - 250 very young kids and their mothers on board - or the senior's excursion to the casinos in Atlantic City.
Because it is dead certain that leadership will emerge in a vacuum, and trivially easy to subdue a combat-trained team bent on mass murder and self-destruction.
Because passengers will remember only the heroism aboard United 93 and not its fatal crash into the fields of rural Pennsylvania.
In the years since the Revolution, how many French governments have gone to dust?
How many Napoleons has France known? How many Communes? How many Petains? "The Receiver in Bankruptcy" some have called him.
strike one.
go to court and broadcast to the world that you are running truecrypt.
a fact to be filed for future reference.
strike two.
your laptop comes in to the police station with 20GB of free space, it leaves the police station with 20GB of free space.
plausible deniability works both ways.strike three.
if your truecrypt passwords still function, you expose to the court what remains after the five-alarm-fire in your porn stash.
The political atmosphere is poisonous.
The candidates do not need or want the boat anchor - the parting gift from a lame-president and congress.
Term limits transfer power to those who are not bound by the limits.
The party leader. The president -for-life. The permanent state bureaucracy. The general. The diplomat. The lobbyist. The judge.
These are the only people who can maintain continuity in government. Develop expertise. Draft legislation. Contemplate long-term solutions.
They have staff. They have funding.
They are in constant communication with their sponsors and their peers.
The first-term legislator ends the year with a modest understanding of parliamentary procedure - and an appointment to the committee for the coastal defense of the Dakotas - where he can do no particular harm.
The American Republic was founded on rational self interest. The founders believed that principle too often leads to rigidity and excess.
In this sense, George Bush is entirely a man of principle.