It's really amusing how often I find out about Slashdot stories from places other than Slashdot itself (the classic case being Bruce Sterling's Viridian Design Manifesto story, where I either was sent the manifesto itself or a link to the Slashdot story by, among others, Bruce himself, Warren Ellis (a raving mad comic book writer and fellow member of the Viridian Movement), and about 30 random people) and it just happened again with this story.
I'm on the Resnet mailing list as a result of work I've done here at Oberlin College (as a student) on DHCP registration crap, so I've been hearing carping about Napster for a while now. This story first popped up earlier today or yesterday, and then, lo and behold, someone mentioned that Slashdot picked up on it. heh. If you're potentially interested in seeing why this is being done, and how they think they'll get it to stick, take a look at thi s, a canned search for the words "napster" or "slashdot" in the Resnet mailing list archive.
Also, after first reading this most recent furor, I wandered over from my cubicle to chat with my boss, the college's chief sysadmin, and asked her how we were acting in regards to Napster. Her reaction? "It's not that much bandwidth. Big deal. If someone gets caught doing something the RIAA doesn't like, we'll yell at them. It's not that big a deal." Kind of refreshing, I thought...
I think it's very, very hard to not include Gibson's Neuromancer. It may not be 100% original, Stephenson may or may not be better, but Gibson's the one who got read and sold books. Neuromancer is, in my opinion, just about the most important novel of the last 20 years, let alone just Internet-related.
Also, Bruce Sterling's magnificent Hacker Crackdown. It brilliantly depicts the first few years when the hacker culture went from phreak-centric to Internet-centric...and it's one of the first significant books of modern times to be released free on the 'net. =)
Slashdot Mirror
It's really amusing how often I find out about Slashdot stories from places other than Slashdot itself (the classic case being Bruce Sterling's Viridian Design Manifesto story, where I either was sent the manifesto itself or a link to the Slashdot story by, among others, Bruce himself, Warren Ellis (a raving mad comic book writer and fellow member of the Viridian Movement), and about 30 random people) and it just happened again with this story.
I'm on the Resnet mailing list as a result of work I've done here at Oberlin College (as a student) on DHCP registration crap, so I've been hearing carping about Napster for a while now. This story first popped up earlier today or yesterday, and then, lo and behold, someone mentioned that Slashdot picked up on it. heh. If you're potentially interested in seeing why this is being done, and how they think they'll get it to stick, take a look at thi s, a canned search for the words "napster" or "slashdot" in the Resnet mailing list archive.
Also, after first reading this most recent furor, I wandered over from my cubicle to chat with my boss, the college's chief sysadmin, and asked her how we were acting in regards to Napster. Her reaction? "It's not that much bandwidth. Big deal. If someone gets caught doing something the RIAA doesn't like, we'll yell at them. It's not that big a deal." Kind of refreshing, I thought...
I think it's very, very hard to not include Gibson's Neuromancer. It may not be 100% original, Stephenson may or may not be better, but Gibson's the one who got read and sold books. Neuromancer is, in my opinion, just about the most important novel of the last 20 years, let alone just Internet-related.
Also, Bruce Sterling's magnificent Hacker Crackdown. It brilliantly depicts the first few years when the hacker culture went from phreak-centric to Internet-centric...and it's one of the first significant books of modern times to be released free on the 'net. =)