Um, hate to break this to you, but AOL owns ICQ.--they bought out Mirabilis a while back.
Related questions: Why on Earth do I need to have two memory-hungry IM clients (AIM and ICQ, weighing in around 5-7MB usage for the former and 8-10 MB for the latter after I've been running 'em both for a while) open on two different IM networks so I can get messages from people who are on services run by the same company??
First, I'd like to say that handles or nicks are often a part of who someone really is. They often show how that person defines him or herself. I am Spartacus. I picked up the nickname about ten years ago (which, considering that I'm only 20, is a pretty damn siginficant amount of time), while ski racing. Since I went to high school with some of the same people I was racing with at the time, the name stuck. Well, it got shortened to "Sparty", but it stuck.
Why do I still use "Sparty"? A lot of people know me as Sparty--I'm now teaching Summer School at the prep school I graduated from (Internet Publishing Course), and I'm working with and/or teaching a lot of people who know me as Sparty. I've used other handles online before--Roadrunnr being the one that I remember--but Sparty, well, Sparty is who I am.
In my case, my nickname became a part of who I am, and it helps other people because it's a lot easier to remember "Sparty" than "Kevin." Do I introduce myself as Sparty? No--it's a PITA to explain it every single friggin time. Do other people sometimes introduce me as Sparty? Yep. I don't mind.
Maybe not where you live, but in local issues where I live (Bethel, ME,) and in surrounding towns, one vote can make a difference. Actually, a controversial interlocal transportation agreement (that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years, most of which would have been paid for by the taxpayers via the federal government and state government and not come out of local money; a bunch more was pledged by private biz) passed in our neighboring town, Newry, something like 19-18 at Town Meeting. One vote definitely can make a difference.
(Incidentally, the same agreement failed something like 108-90 in Bethel's Town Meeting).
And the point about millions of one votes counting: definitely. Even a few thousand can make a difference in a close election--or even in a not-so-close election, if a politician realizes that the next election will be close and he/she needs those votes.
Cyber-crime, once the domain of disaffected genius teenagers as portrayed in the movies "War Games" and "Hackers," has grown into a mature and sophisticated threat to the open nature of the Internet.
Um, does anyone else see this as an inauspicious beginning to a 50-some-odd page paper on computer security? (yes, I did go on to read the rest of it) That first sentence is one of the grossest generalizations I've seen recently. "disaffected genius teenagers" is bad enough, but as portrayed in Hackers?????
Cybercrime is the province of cybercriminals. Some are "disaffected genius teenagers", but many are not teenagers and a whole lot are definitely not geniuses.
(sidenote to above: I think that a lot of DoS attacks are probably the work of people who only meet 2/3 qualifications of that statement.)
Hackers, so far as I could tell, portrayed very little accurately. The only thing I remember as resembling the real world in any way, shape, or form, was the use of the switchhook on the telephone to dial a number.
OTOH, I agree with the second part of the sentence. I would be very surprised if the Internet could be completely destroyed by cybercrime, because I believe that it is a resiliant entity and enough intelligent people are involved. Damaged? Certainly. Disrupted for a couple of days? Definitely.
That's a good point, but perhaps part of the reason we don't bitch and moan at 2600 is that they know the distinction. We know they know it. Mainstream journalists, lawyers, et al, are more often ignorant of the distinction. If we bitch and moan at them, they might learn the distinction. We really can't force anyone to use terms correctly; we can only try to teach the correct definitions.
OTOH, perhaps we're just afraid of harrassing the 2600 people because we don't want to be 0wn3d?:^>
This came up on one of the SecurityFocus mailing lists recently (BugTraq, I think). Performance was one of the key reasons cited for not implementing such a system; economics was the other. Apparently, there are routers out there that lack the powerful (and reasonably fast) ACL routines but are significantly cheaper than their more powerful brethern; some of them are simply older and lack the features of a new router. Either way, it costs significant money to implement a system with ACL checking, and that's money that ISPs would rather spend on something most customers would notice more directly (e.g. more modem racks or more bandwidth)
Does anyone else find the Windows directory structure more of a PITA than *nix? It seems to me that/etc,/usr,/usr/local,/lib,/usr/lib/, and/home all have a fairly defined purpose, whereas %WINDIR% (whether it be C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT or whatever) tends to a black hole, there usually isn't a $HOME, the directory structure under C:\PROGRA~1 is often odd (do programs go in C:\PROGRA~1\company\proggie or just C:\PROGRA~1\proggie?), and there's a whole lot of crap in C:\, etc
Um, I may be confused here, by why does it matter if Microsoft supports Java on Win2k? I'm quite happily running JBuilder 3.5 on Win2k, which utilizes the Sun JRE and Borland's all-Java IDE. As far as I can tell, those two proggies allow me to run Java apps on Win2k just fine...and all I need to run apps is the JRE.
Yes, but NT servers use RAM like big SUVs use gas...most of the time, the same task (ie hauling the kids to school or running a moderate-volume server of some sort, whether it's WWW, FTP, or SMB) doesn't need all of the overhead that NT has. Doing the same thing with a Linux system (for example...*BSD would also apply, I think) is usually more efficient because there's less unused overhead... (the windowing system comes to mind)
Which way do you want it, Katz? Either what Metallica is doing is right (going after the people who have violated the license on their intellectual property) or Napster itself should be held liable. Intellectual property rights are being violated, so someone must be doing the violating.
So either it's the fault of the people sharing the copyright material without permission (ie the 300k people that Metallica is trying to block from Napster) or it's the fault of Napster itself. Napster provides the technological framework for sharing of MP3s both legal and otherwise. They don't watch for legality at all. I say, then, that the people trading MP3s are the ones who are committing the crime. Are they hurting anyone? I don't think so--the number of CD sales lost are, IMO, miniscule. But until either the laws change to allow no-charge trading of IP between private parties or the record companies (who own the IP) decide to change the licensing terms, that's a moot point.
How can it be possible for a jury to not be allowed to nullify? According to my understanding of the law, a judge must accept a jury's "Not Guilty" verdict. Though the jurors may choose to explain themselves, they cannot be required to do so. Therefore, the jury could just decide to hand in a "Not Guilty" verdict for any reason they so choose, including reasonable doubt, a high-priced lawyer on the defense team, and/or nullification.
Disclaimer: this is a separate argument from the point that a CS degree isn't about using specific tools; I don't disagree with that argument, I just have another point to make.
In four years of doing (mostly) unofficial tech support work for my highschool, we went from a Novell 3.11 network with a 50-user license and DOS/Win3.1 workstations, switched to Windows95 on the workstations, upgraded the server to Novell 4 (and think it's at Novell 5 now), and are now running both Win98 and NT workstations alongside 95 and a few leftover DOS/Win3.1 based machines.
What's my point? Just because technology is obsolete doesn't mean it goes away. Aside from the "hey, look what Linux (or BSD) will do on my clunker-486-beige-box", in a real world of pseudo-heterogenous computing (we actually had a few BSD and Linux boxen at the school as well, so it really is heterogenous), you need to know yesterday's technology if you want to keep stuff going. I remember a teacher coming up to me last summer and asking for help with her laptop. It had died a few months previous, and I had to reinstall the OS. It was a 486 with 8MB RAM, so 95 was out of the question. I had to remember how to get Client32, Windows3.11, and Novell's TCP/IP stack working together. That was *fun*. Oh, and I had to use a VLM-based boot disk first so I could download the files I needed from the server.
I could also list some of the other crap I did (like getting Win95OSR2 to install on machines without CD-ROMs and without having to enter the auth key, thanks to the OSR2 FAQ for help with that one), kludging Netscape 4.0 under 95 to read user data from the network home directory, etc. The point? I've learned (a) how to deal with certain technologies (esp. Win3.1 and Win9x clients on a Novell net), (b) where to look for help with solutions (ie the Microsoft Knowledge Base and deja.com), and (c) how to work around inherent limitations in the software I was using. All of those skills have come in very handy since, working on various less-than-ideal networks and in less-than-ideal situations.
1. Almost no members of any political party agree 100% with the party on every issue. Though I recognize I'm confusing big "L" and little "l" libertarians when I refer to political parties in the context of libertarians, I just want to point out that supporting a party does not necessarily mean supporting the entire platform.
2. I recognize that crack cocaine is a Bad Thing. I recognize that there are other habits that are unhealthy that people might enjoy. Guess what? I think that's their perogative as much as it is for Joe (or Jill) Schmoe to go to the store, pick up a 12 of Labatt, go back to his house, and drink it in the privacy of his home. As long as he isn't pulling the fire alarm in my dorm or driving, that is his right. If he'd rather go buy coke and snort or smoke it as appropriate for the form, the same deal stands. His perogative.
Are there aspects of government regulation that I see as benfeciary that a libertarian solution would eliminate? Yes. However, I think that the government is a crude instrument, and using it to bludgeon society to fit the way it "should be" is a messy and ineffecient way of doing things in the best case--more often, it just doesn't work.
Special thought waves? Gee, I thought they'd probably just use Wake-On-LAN or Wake-On-Ring or Wake-On-Bill-Gates-Verdict or one of the other new, wonderfully secure specs that are part of PC98 (or whatever they're calling it now).
There's also the whole glibc version issue and the general library dependency issue to deal with. Granted, both of those are bigger issues in Windows (can you say "DLL Hell")?, but they are also considerations.
You defintely can't run 2x 100BaseT on one CAT5 cable; 100BaseT, unlike 10BaseT, uses all 8 pins. This is an important note if you run cable--that snag and the bad pin x might not matter now b/c it's not a 10BaseT pin, but you'll never get 100BaseT to work unless all 8 pins are good.
I've been told by our telecomm engineer that mixing data and voice on the same CAT5 cable is bad. Apparently, you run the risk of loosing any data on the cable every time the phone rings due to the way the voltages and whatnot work out. Granted, if the phone doesn't ring very often, it'll probably just mean a few resent packets. However, it's definitely not right and you definitely won't be able to run 100BaseT on that data jack unless you repunch it (see point above).
Read bugtraq, visit packetstorm and Security Focus regularly. Keep an eye out for weird utilization on your box, read your logs, and make sure you have as much locked down as possible. If you don't need a service, don't run it.
I've had similar problems with people on campus networks. I went to a prep school with a Novell net and a T1, and I'm now at college with a campus network. Guess what? I've seen AOL installs wreak havoc with networking setup both places. For some reason, AOL can get very unhappy when you try to change network settings--even TCP/IP Ethernet settings. In one case, I had to reboot to safe mode and remove AOL before I could get the TCP/IP changes to work (had to change the setup on a friend's computer when IT installed a firewall). The computer would hang if I tried to remove AOL in normal mode, either by removing the AOL Adapter from Network properties or by using the unistall option from Add/Remove programs. It finally gave up when I removed it in safe mode. I've also seen computers that weren't seeing the network at all suddenly start working again when I removed AOL.
Bottom line: AOL does not play well with other networking components, and the AOL software engineers really need to do something about it. Or people like me will continue to laugh anytime they see aol.com at the end of an email address.
Help and menus available if you forget your key bindings
Key bindings are configurable.
Reasonable size and footprint (i.e. it fits in one package instead of a disk series, *cough*emacs*cough)
Good syntax highlighting
Available for both Linux, DOS, and Win32 (though I've had some problems under Win2k)--this is vital for those of us that work in MS-based places. One of my biggest gripes about the Win32 OS line is the lack of a good text editor anywhere. edit.com comes pretty close, but it isn't graphical and copy-and-paste gets weird (though the latter can also be a problem with the DOS version of Jed in a DOS box, the Windows version works pretty well).
If you read the story, you'll note that the bug requires pushing the power button twice in some cases. Personally, that's a bug I could deal with (and I wouldn't mind having a 700Mhz Coppermine chip in my machine, so if anyone wants to send me a defective one on the Slot 1 card...).
On the other hand, it does show that Intel still has some problems, and I'd be leery of paying full price for a defective chip because they won't mention what the root of the problem is.
the whole rec.skiing.alpine flamefest
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Usenet Gag Order
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I was a regular poster to rec.skiing.alpine for a while. However, I stopped (more or less) when the flamefest started several months ago. A brief history from what I remember:
Threats of physical violence were made and/or alleged
Lawsuits were threatened.
the signal:noise ration went from reasonable to pathetic. I hung around for about three months of crap before splitting; a lot of other regulars split even sooner.
The flamewar started to die down a month or two ago (if I remember right--my timing might be off); however, it didn't really go away
By then, most of the regulars who were still around were wearing asbestos suits and carrying pressurized gasoline.
There was also some contention over events at an actual ski trip where several RSA people met up. Part of the debate was that some people apparently got comps (ie free lift tickets) and some didn't. I don't know; I wasn't there. This seemed to be the point at which all Hell broke loose.
The bottom line? Last I checked, the group was dead compared to the way it had been the winter before all of this crap started.
Whether or not businesses should be forced to make reasonable accomodations (and whether or not the federal government is even remotely capable of defining reasonable) are questions for another time.
If a site does have crummy HTML or relies on Javascript (which I normally browse without due to security holes 1 through 3000), I will usually just go elsewhere.
Sometimes, if it's a site that features data I really want to see (ex: http://www.usskiteam.com/ has online access to national rankings, and I like to peruse them, so I have emailed the webmasters and suggest they convince using CGI instead of a half-arsed CGI/Javascript mess (using ASP, of course). No dice, but I had to try). My point, you ask?
It's worth emailing the webmaster. Occasionally they're completely ignorant and a pointer to htmlhelp.com will work wonders. If that doesn't work, going elsewhere would be my first choice.
On other occasions, I will bother to work around the problem (ex: at laxtv.com, a site that is probably down again, Javascript was required for the site to work. I read the Javascript, figured out the redirect URL myself, and went to it manually. Then I bookmarked that page, and I had access to the tv schedules and video feeds I wanted. In that case, mail to webmaster@host bounced. Gotta love professional web desgin.)
It all boils down to one key question: what is the information worth to you? Is it worth dealing with a registration scheme? Or is it only worth it if you can get in with a standard id such as slashdotid/slashdot?
Re:Male or female? (writing / grammar)
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Microsoft Cracked
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"They" is wrong for the singular due to the fact that its plural. At least to my ear, that sounds just as bad as "He or she", which is awful in and of itself.
Why is it such a big deal to use "he" by default? I know Spanish does and I'm pretty sure most other Romance langauges do, as well. It's a generic term for a single person. "She" is specific to females, ships, and some computers (though some psychoanalysts would probably have interesting comments on the last use). "He" can refer to someone or something that is definitely male (" When Alberto Thomba won his third gold metal in the GS, he proved that his career was not yet over.") or in a generic sense ("He who slings mud looses ground.").
Slashdot Mirror
Um, hate to break this to you, but AOL owns ICQ.--they bought out Mirabilis a while back.
Related questions: Why on Earth do I need to have two memory-hungry IM clients (AIM and ICQ, weighing in around 5-7MB usage for the former and 8-10 MB for the latter after I've been running 'em both for a while) open on two different IM networks so I can get messages from people who are on services run by the same company??
First, I'd like to say that handles or nicks are often a part of who someone really is. They often show how that person defines him or herself. I am Spartacus. I picked up the nickname about ten years ago (which, considering that I'm only 20, is a pretty damn siginficant amount of time), while ski racing. Since I went to high school with some of the same people I was racing with at the time, the name stuck. Well, it got shortened to "Sparty", but it stuck.
Why do I still use "Sparty"? A lot of people know me as Sparty--I'm now teaching Summer School at the prep school I graduated from (Internet Publishing Course), and I'm working with and/or teaching a lot of people who know me as Sparty. I've used other handles online before--Roadrunnr being the one that I remember--but Sparty, well, Sparty is who I am.
In my case, my nickname became a part of who I am, and it helps other people because it's a lot easier to remember "Sparty" than "Kevin." Do I introduce myself as Sparty? No--it's a PITA to explain it every single friggin time. Do other people sometimes introduce me as Sparty? Yep. I don't mind.
Maybe not where you live, but in local issues where I live (Bethel, ME,) and in surrounding towns, one vote can make a difference. Actually, a controversial interlocal transportation agreement (that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years, most of which would have been paid for by the taxpayers via the federal government and state government and not come out of local money; a bunch more was pledged by private biz) passed in our neighboring town, Newry, something like 19-18 at Town Meeting. One vote definitely can make a difference.
(Incidentally, the same agreement failed something like 108-90 in Bethel's Town Meeting).
And the point about millions of one votes counting: definitely. Even a few thousand can make a difference in a close election--or even in a not-so-close election, if a politician realizes that the next election will be close and he/she needs those votes.
Um, does anyone else see this as an inauspicious beginning to a 50-some-odd page paper on computer security? (yes, I did go on to read the rest of it) That first sentence is one of the grossest generalizations I've seen recently. "disaffected genius teenagers" is bad enough, but as portrayed in Hackers?????
OTOH, I agree with the second part of the sentence. I would be very surprised if the Internet could be completely destroyed by cybercrime, because I believe that it is a resiliant entity and enough intelligent people are involved. Damaged? Certainly. Disrupted for a couple of days? Definitely.
That's a good point, but perhaps part of the reason we don't bitch and moan at 2600 is that they know the distinction. We know they know it. Mainstream journalists, lawyers, et al, are more often ignorant of the distinction. If we bitch and moan at them, they might learn the distinction. We really can't force anyone to use terms correctly; we can only try to teach the correct definitions.
OTOH, perhaps we're just afraid of harrassing the 2600 people because we don't want to be 0wn3d? :^>
This came up on one of the SecurityFocus mailing lists recently (BugTraq, I think). Performance was one of the key reasons cited for not implementing such a system; economics was the other. Apparently, there are routers out there that lack the powerful (and reasonably fast) ACL routines but are significantly cheaper than their more powerful brethern; some of them are simply older and lack the features of a new router. Either way, it costs significant money to implement a system with ACL checking, and that's money that ISPs would rather spend on something most customers would notice more directly (e.g. more modem racks or more bandwidth)
Does anyone else find the Windows directory structure more of a PITA than *nix? It seems to me that /etc, /usr, /usr/local, /lib, /usr/lib/, and /home all have a fairly defined purpose, whereas %WINDIR% (whether it be C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT or whatever) tends to a black hole, there usually isn't a $HOME, the directory structure under C:\PROGRA~1 is often odd (do programs go in C:\PROGRA~1\company\proggie or just C:\PROGRA~1\proggie?), and there's a whole lot of crap in C:\, etc
Um, I may be confused here, by why does it matter if Microsoft supports Java on Win2k? I'm quite happily running JBuilder 3.5 on Win2k, which utilizes the Sun JRE and Borland's all-Java IDE. As far as I can tell, those two proggies allow me to run Java apps on Win2k just fine...and all I need to run apps is the JRE.
Yes, but NT servers use RAM like big SUVs use gas...most of the time, the same task (ie hauling the kids to school or running a moderate-volume server of some sort, whether it's WWW, FTP, or SMB) doesn't need all of the overhead that NT has. Doing the same thing with a Linux system (for example...*BSD would also apply, I think) is usually more efficient because there's less unused overhead... (the windowing system comes to mind)
Which way do you want it, Katz? Either what Metallica is doing is right (going after the people who have violated the license on their intellectual property) or Napster itself should be held liable. Intellectual property rights are being violated, so someone must be doing the violating.
So either it's the fault of the people sharing the copyright material without permission (ie the 300k people that Metallica is trying to block from Napster) or it's the fault of Napster itself. Napster provides the technological framework for sharing of MP3s both legal and otherwise. They don't watch for legality at all. I say, then, that the people trading MP3s are the ones who are committing the crime. Are they hurting anyone? I don't think so--the number of CD sales lost are, IMO, miniscule. But until either the laws change to allow no-charge trading of IP between private parties or the record companies (who own the IP) decide to change the licensing terms, that's a moot point.
How can it be possible for a jury to not be allowed to nullify? According to my understanding of the law, a judge must accept a jury's "Not Guilty" verdict. Though the jurors may choose to explain themselves, they cannot be required to do so. Therefore, the jury could just decide to hand in a "Not Guilty" verdict for any reason they so choose, including reasonable doubt, a high-priced lawyer on the defense team, and/or nullification.
Disclaimer: this is a separate argument from the point that a CS degree isn't about using specific tools; I don't disagree with that argument, I just have another point to make.
In four years of doing (mostly) unofficial tech support work for my highschool, we went from a Novell 3.11 network with a 50-user license and DOS/Win3.1 workstations, switched to Windows95 on the workstations, upgraded the server to Novell 4 (and think it's at Novell 5 now), and are now running both Win98 and NT workstations alongside 95 and a few leftover DOS/Win3.1 based machines.
What's my point? Just because technology is obsolete doesn't mean it goes away. Aside from the "hey, look what Linux (or BSD) will do on my clunker-486-beige-box", in a real world of pseudo-heterogenous computing (we actually had a few BSD and Linux boxen at the school as well, so it really is heterogenous), you need to know yesterday's technology if you want to keep stuff going. I remember a teacher coming up to me last summer and asking for help with her laptop. It had died a few months previous, and I had to reinstall the OS. It was a 486 with 8MB RAM, so 95 was out of the question. I had to remember how to get Client32, Windows3.11, and Novell's TCP/IP stack working together. That was *fun*. Oh, and I had to use a VLM-based boot disk first so I could download the files I needed from the server.
I could also list some of the other crap I did (like getting Win95OSR2 to install on machines without CD-ROMs and without having to enter the auth key, thanks to the OSR2 FAQ for help with that one), kludging Netscape 4.0 under 95 to read user data from the network home directory, etc. The point? I've learned (a) how to deal with certain technologies (esp. Win3.1 and Win9x clients on a Novell net), (b) where to look for help with solutions (ie the Microsoft Knowledge Base and deja.com), and (c) how to work around inherent limitations in the software I was using. All of those skills have come in very handy since, working on various less-than-ideal networks and in less-than-ideal situations.
Two points:
1. Almost no members of any political party agree 100% with the party on every issue. Though I recognize I'm confusing big "L" and little "l" libertarians when I refer to political parties in the context of libertarians, I just want to point out that supporting a party does not necessarily mean supporting the entire platform.
2. I recognize that crack cocaine is a Bad Thing. I recognize that there are other habits that are unhealthy that people might enjoy. Guess what? I think that's their perogative as much as it is for Joe (or Jill) Schmoe to go to the store, pick up a 12 of Labatt, go back to his house, and drink it in the privacy of his home. As long as he isn't pulling the fire alarm in my dorm or driving, that is his right. If he'd rather go buy coke and snort or smoke it as appropriate for the form, the same deal stands. His perogative.
Are there aspects of government regulation that I see as benfeciary that a libertarian solution would eliminate? Yes. However, I think that the government is a crude instrument, and using it to bludgeon society to fit the way it "should be" is a messy and ineffecient way of doing things in the best case--more often, it just doesn't work.
Special thought waves? Gee, I thought they'd probably just use Wake-On-LAN or Wake-On-Ring or Wake-On-Bill-Gates-Verdict or one of the other new, wonderfully secure specs that are part of PC98 (or whatever they're calling it now).
There's also the whole glibc version issue and the general library dependency issue to deal with. Granted, both of those are bigger issues in Windows (can you say "DLL Hell")?, but they are also considerations.
Read bugtraq, visit packetstorm and Security Focus regularly. Keep an eye out for weird utilization on your box, read your logs, and make sure you have as much locked down as possible. If you don't need a service, don't run it.
I've had similar problems with people on campus networks. I went to a prep school with a Novell net and a T1, and I'm now at college with a campus network. Guess what? I've seen AOL installs wreak havoc with networking setup both places. For some reason, AOL can get very unhappy when you try to change network settings--even TCP/IP Ethernet settings. In one case, I had to reboot to safe mode and remove AOL before I could get the TCP/IP changes to work (had to change the setup on a friend's computer when IT installed a firewall). The computer would hang if I tried to remove AOL in normal mode, either by removing the AOL Adapter from Network properties or by using the unistall option from Add/Remove programs. It finally gave up when I removed it in safe mode. I've also seen computers that weren't seeing the network at all suddenly start working again when I removed AOL.
Bottom line: AOL does not play well with other networking components, and the AOL software engineers really need to do something about it. Or people like me will continue to laugh anytime they see aol.com at the end of an email address.
Jed, the programmer's editor, is the best open-source editor. Why?
In case you missed the link above, the homepage is at http://space.mit.edu/~davis/jed.html.
If you read the story, you'll note that the bug requires pushing the power button twice in some cases. Personally, that's a bug I could deal with (and I wouldn't mind having a 700Mhz Coppermine chip in my machine, so if anyone wants to send me a defective one on the Slot 1 card...).
On the other hand, it does show that Intel still has some problems, and I'd be leery of paying full price for a defective chip because they won't mention what the root of the problem is.
I was a regular poster to rec.skiing.alpine for a while. However, I stopped (more or less) when the flamefest started several months ago. A brief history from what I remember:
The bottom line? Last I checked, the group was dead compared to the way it had been the winter before all of this crap started.
See Ski Grrl's Page for some RSA stuff, if you'd like to.
For a while, anyhow, Scott would post meangingful content under his real name and crap under the "Two Buddha" pseudonym.
Note: if the Australian government employee in question is Anthea, she was, I think, actively involved in the flame war. Kind of important to note.
Whether or not businesses should be forced to make reasonable accomodations (and whether or not the federal government is even remotely capable of defining reasonable) are questions for another time.
If a site does have crummy HTML or relies on Javascript (which I normally browse without due to security holes 1 through 3000), I will usually just go elsewhere.
Sometimes, if it's a site that features data I really want to see (ex: http://www.usskiteam.com/ has online access to national rankings, and I like to peruse them, so I have emailed the webmasters and suggest they convince using CGI instead of a half-arsed CGI/Javascript mess (using ASP, of course). No dice, but I had to try). My point, you ask?
It's worth emailing the webmaster. Occasionally they're completely ignorant and a pointer to htmlhelp.com will work wonders. If that doesn't work, going elsewhere would be my first choice.
On other occasions, I will bother to work around the problem (ex: at laxtv.com, a site that is probably down again, Javascript was required for the site to work. I read the Javascript, figured out the redirect URL myself, and went to it manually. Then I bookmarked that page, and I had access to the tv schedules and video feeds I wanted. In that case, mail to webmaster@host bounced. Gotta love professional web desgin.)
It all boils down to one key question: what is the information worth to you? Is it worth dealing with a registration scheme? Or is it only worth it if you can get in with a standard id such as slashdotid/slashdot?
"They" is wrong for the singular due to the fact that its plural. At least to my ear, that sounds just as bad as "He or she", which is awful in and of itself.
Why is it such a big deal to use "he" by default? I know Spanish does and I'm pretty sure most other Romance langauges do, as well. It's a generic term for a single person. "She" is specific to females, ships, and some computers (though some psychoanalysts would probably have interesting comments on the last use). "He" can refer to someone or something that is definitely male (" When Alberto Thomba won his third gold metal in the GS, he proved that his career was not yet over.") or in a generic sense ("He who slings mud looses ground.").