Uncontrolled The rest of the drugs, chemicals, Pepper spray...etc..
Doesn't make your point any less valid, but I should point out that some chemicals are controlled, most fall under your informally controlled category, and only a few fall under your uncontrolled category. Pepper spray might also be controlled in some areas.
If this program has no 'good' use (unlike BO2K), then the programmer would also be wrong. An example here would be the program 'crack' for cracking Unix password - a tool written exclusively for that purpose.
Interesting choice of examples. BO2K, while it has a "good" use, its "bad" use is why it was developed and distributed. That's what it was marketed as, and that's where the name Back Orifice came from. That's why BO2K was announced at Defcon. The competing tools marketed to the "good" guys (e.g. SMS) already existed.
Crack, while it has a "bad" use, its "good" use is why it was developed and distributed. That's why it's even available on ftp.cert.org of all places. Crack leveled the playing field, before it there was no widely available password cracking tool aimed at the "good" guys, just the "bad" guys. By making the tool available to the "good" guys, the usefulness of such tools to the "bad" guys decreased dramatically.
we need to let Mike Z. put his whole site up, not just the flick.
We definately need the whole site that was shut down. We're doing good by mirroring the.ram, but we're not preventing the censorship unless we are mirroring the whole site that was shut down.
Someone make it available, and I'll see to it that it is mirrored in at least 5 different countries.
(posted as AC to protect myself when I start mirroring this all over)
There may not be a law that requires you to have an SSN, but it's sure difficult to live without one.
Every time I am asked for my SSN for a new reason, I question it. I rarely am given a choice. To get a bank account, I had to give it, and proof of it. To get a job, as well (both for the I9 form and for taxes). To get a driver's license I had to show proof of it (though I was allowed to make my driver's license number different from my SSN). I had to give it up for an apartment, though I didn't have to show proof. You need a credit check before moving into some apartments - in some areas, the majority of decent ones are like this. You also need an SSN for credit cards, house and car loans, phone service, and electrical service sometimes.
It's not easy to live a normal life in the US without an SSN. You have to either go without the things that you need them for, commit some crime to get them (in some cases you may only have to be deceptive without committing a crime), or rely on other people.
It would also be a good idea if people hosting web sites that are likely to be shut down would post a link to a.tar.gz of the entire site. That way thousands of people can conveniently provide a free off-site backup. Associate a version number with it, so that the backup can be occasionally updated.
We should always be thinking of ways to use the net to protect our freedom, because it's the most powerful tool yet.
No matter where I go, I can't escape Christmas. I hate this.
All of the stores are full of Christmas decoration already. Christmas parties are already being scheduled (the boring kind, with coworkers). I go in to Best Buy the other day, and the place is covered in decorations. At least I'm safe on the net, I figure. But then it shows up here. The last refuge of sanity, or so I thought.
The best Christmas present for me (not that any of you care - it's rhetorical) would be none at all. It's a terrible time of year, and the worst part is that I can't escape it. I would have to leave the country. You have some people running around pretending their best to be happy. You have others being sad because they think everyone is happy. Businesses trying to exploit a religious holiday for all it's worth. Religious people trying to get me to care about their savior. Everywhere you go there are Christmas decorations and advertisements. Then you have the gifts! There's nothing that I want. If I wanted it, I would have bought it. If I want it and don't have it it's either too expensive or I can't find it. If it's too expensive, nobody I know is going to buy me one. If I can't find it, I've already asked all the people liable to give me a gift if they know where I can find it. I prefer to pick out my own stuff, especially with clothes and music. So, people give me gifts despite my insistance that they shouldn't, and I have to pretend I like them. (as I write this, someone who sits on the other side of the building is hanging up some Christmas-related poster-sized piece of paper outside of my cubicle). Did I mention having to buy a gift for someone? Do I even have to elaborate as to why I hate that? (No, not money).
Forget what I said about the worst being that I can't escape it. The worst is that I have to pretned to like it, or everyone will think I'm a lunatic.
But give up the whole shopping experience? Ditto for other activities that can, at least theoretically, be carried out on a future Internet?
I don't consider grocery shopping much of an experience, I imagine that most of us who'd rather not go to the store feel the same way.
If my goal is to see friends, I'll purposely seek them out. If my goal is to meet women, I'll go somewhere more suitable than the supermarket. Or, I could go to the supermarket and concentrate on that while pretending to shop. If I want something random and interesting to happen, I'll take the time I saved by not going to the store and go somewhere more fun.
If grocery stores did this, they would need no more than 24 hours notice, and could get by with much less. All they have to do is the same thing I do when I shop for myself - pick the food off the shelves based on a list, put it in bags, and bring it to my home.
The only issue I see is selection of produce - they would have to do a good job, so I don't have to go to the store and do it myself. I would also need a way to indicate what quality is acceptable, and if nothing is available, then don't give me that item. (e.g. I frequently go to the store and find that none of the tomatoes are any good).
Shopping at the supermarket is a tremendous hassle. I have to go out of my way to get to a decent one. (not a great distance, but enough to annoy me). Then I get there, and get a terrible parking spot. I first go to the produce aisle, and then stand still looking around. If I'm lucky, they havn't rearranged things in the past week. If I'm not, I have to wander about looking for everything I want. This, while pushing a cart around, surrounded by people I don't want to be near. I have to walk up and down most every aisle, navigating my cart around screaming children. I'll usally know right where something is, now that I'm familiar with the store, but I'll still have to search for some things. OK, now I've got a cart full of food, and I go to find the shortest line to wait in. Surrounded by an endless mob of people, I wait, and wait. The cashier takes forever with everything. Her nametag says she's worked there 3 years. How proud she must be. Whoops, the person in front of me was trying to buy paper towels, but nobody knows what they cost. Someone is wandering around looking for the information, while the cashier just stands there. I offer to pay for the paper towels, $5 in cash and the cashier can keep the change. Just please keep things moving. Nope, can't do that, we wait some more. Finally, my turn. This usually goes smoothly, besides taking a while. Someone bags my groceries for me most of the time. I push the cart out, load my car up, and drive home - carefully, so I don't damage anything or spill the bags. With luck it will be one trip up the stairs. Usually it's two. After all that work, I still have to put everything away.
Buying groceries wastes my valuable time. I have to needlessly spend time doing something that is neither enjoyable nor profitable.
Anyone heard of an X server for windows? that's news to me.
Actually, there's a few of them. Exceed (from Hummingbird), Excursion, XLink, MI/X from Micro Images. I also read in a slashdot discussion a while ago a mention of a free X server for Windows, but I don't remember anything about it.
I don't need a clue about business, when I have a clue about computers.
For most hardware, you will not learn anything significant about it from the interface it presents to the system. I really can't think of any situations where this isn't true. Can anyone? Where significant means would be of any real benefit to a competitor, and couldn't be determined by looking at the circuit board.
If you're trying to make a competing piece of hardware, all the information would do for you is allow you to make a compatible one. Is there any reason you would want to do that?
If I wanted to clone any hardware device, simply looking at it and bulding something just like it (no doubt violating patents) is my best bet. I'd have to copy any ROM (no doubt violating copyrights). I don't even have to know how it talks to the software if this is what I'm up to - I can use the existing drivers that my competitor wrote (no doubt violating copyrights, but I've already had to do that anyway to duplicate the device).
Take a video card. If all of the information to write drivers is available, then what? I can build a competing card that uses the same interface - but why? Don't say to get out of needing to write my own drivers - that's the easy part if I have all the information I need.
Take the pH meter. The only software that uses it is what is bundled with it. If I knew how it communicated with the meter, I could make my own software - but this won't hurt that company, as they aren't likely to start selling additional software for the meter. If you disagree, think of some examples where peripheral hardware vendors sold some hardware bundled with the software necessary for its use, and then later introduced additional software at additional cost. I'm sure that it has happened, but I'm also sure that it's rare (I can't think of any examples). Or, think of what additional features might be added to pH meter managing software that they did not include - seems they've covered everything, it's a very simple device.
Pretty much the same applies to digital cameras. And UPS management software. And NICs. And scanners.
Giving out the information makes their product more valuable to customers, and costs nothing.
Big deal. It's a movie. I have a pretty low amount of faith in people, but I still trust everyone that watches this to not think they are learning anything. They may believe whatever lies they're told when it is presented as fact (e.g. the news), but this is the least of our worries if they're going to start believing movies.
"They" being the clueless masses that will cause 99% of the y2k problems without any help from computers.
I'll put this movie on. Being a TV movie, I'm sure it will be poorly written, directed, and acted. I'm also sure it will be full of technical inaccuracies. But it may still be able to grab my attention.
Re:*BSD is hurting Open Source/Linux, time to stop
on
FreeBSD at COMDEX
·
· Score: 1
usually at least a couple of the Linux boxes would be waiting for a manual fsck.
This is not necessarily indicative one way or another of the reliability of Linux. This only indicates the design decision of what level of filesystem problems requires a manual fsck.
Honestly, I don't understand why any systems prompt for a manual fsck unless there are problems that fsck couldn't fix. Unless I'm doing something pretty strange (e.g. I edited the filesystem manually), I never say no to fsck's questions.
It's pretty easy to change your rc scripts to run fsck with the correct options to always correct the errors, and give you the message about manually fscking only on severe errors. This is probably a good idea to do on remote systems that would be very hard to get on the console of.
As in the cases mentioned in the parent article, companies make proprietary hardware with a proprietary interface that only runs with their proprietary binary which only runs on Microsoft systems. The proprietor feels that its his property, and he's done what he wants with it to recoup is investment. I understand that. But the network effect strikes again, and we're screwed.
I don't understand that. And I think I might be the only one that doesn't understand it. Maybe I'm insane.
Most peripheral hardware manufacturers sell the hardware, and bundle with it the software necessary to use it. When they advertise, they talk about the hardware, and not about the drivers or tiny application necesssary to use it. They frequently even give away the software on the net.
I can't see how those companies could think even for an instant about the issue and want to keep secret the protocol their hardware uses to talk to the software. If they released the information, they would sell more hardware. (I'm sure many of the people reading this have had to choose hardware based on what free software is available to support it). They would not sell less software, because they are not selling any software. They're giving it away to make the hardware work. They're not destroying their future chance to sell additional software - rarely does any hardware vendor start selling additional software beyond what they bundle with the hardware. (there would be no point). Giving out the information only increases the value of the hardware, at virtually no cost to the company.
Even companies who sell insanely trivial hardware think they need to keep secret the information needed to write software for it. For example, Hanna Instruments sells a $70 pH meter with a serial interface and Windows-only software. I asked them if they could give information on the protocol it uses, or source for the software, because I am not using Windows. They (of course) told me that it's proprietary, and they can't give me the information. I thought that if any company would have enough of a clue, surely one selling scientific supplies would. Sigh.
Thus, if you have a lot of processes hitting the same device, an I/O bottleneck would actually drop the load, as there are fewer processes able to use the processor.
Sorry, but processes waiting on disk IO do count against the load average. They're the ones that vmstat and top show as blocking.
Processes blocked on the network do not count against the load average.
The article says that Solaris is under the SCSL. Is this even true? I can't find any indication of that on Sun's website, and I would think that I'd have heard something about this in various places. Slashdot would have had a story, and bugtraq would have a flurry of Solaris security holes posted once the source is being looked over for holes by a few thousand people wanting to make them public, rather than a few hundred people wanting to keep them secret.
I fail to see how it is interesting that the world's oldest dated book was intended for free distribution.
It would be interesting if it included a GPL-like license, but while the GPL includes a great deal of verbiage to prevent others from restricting the freedom of the work, this just says it was made for free distribution.
Wouldn't they have moved it before putting it in safe mode, knowing that the meteor storm is coming, and that they won't have the satellite fixed in time? Surely one of the bright people at NASA would have realized this.
at least one of them should not go through the domain in question (for out-of-band communication). It's not enough to have valid telephone numbers listed:
But why? Why is the telephone number not adequate? Making a habit of doing this would require that an admin either use an off-site mail server for all of his email, or frequently check a secondary off-site mail server for mail about a DNS problem that will probably never arrive. (if rarely checked, a message would not be noticed for far too long). What a needless hassle, when in reality any DNS problem that major would affect so many people that someone would complain to the admin very fast. (If it doesn't affect that many people, then it's not that important). The contact number should be usually faster than email anyway.
I've never heard someone say that they have to check two mail accounts, or use an off-site machine for all their mail, so that they could get emails about DNS problems.
I tried to take a random sampling of domains to see how many had contacts on different networks than the domain. But I found that if I do too many whois requests too fast, I get this:
[rs.internic.net] * * Welcome to the InterNIC Registration Services Whois Server. * * Your query limit has been exceeded. *
It says: LinuxOne's InterNIC registration contained all the characteristic errors of the network amateur: Dr. Chiou was listed as the sole contact, with all DNS email contact routed through the firm's mail server (not very useful when you need to send mail about faulty name service).
Who actually worries about this? I don't know any sysadmins who have a second email account just in case they need to get mail about their DNS being broken. And how regularly is it going to be checked, when mails will very, very rarely be sent to it?
Problems like that are what the technical contact phone number is for.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't make your point any less valid, but I should point out that some chemicals are controlled, most fall under your informally controlled category, and only a few fall under your uncontrolled category. Pepper spray might also be controlled in some areas.
Interesting choice of examples. BO2K, while it has a "good" use, its "bad" use is why it was developed and distributed. That's what it was marketed as, and that's where the name Back Orifice came from. That's why BO2K was announced at Defcon. The competing tools marketed to the "good" guys (e.g. SMS) already existed.
Crack, while it has a "bad" use, its "good" use is why it was developed and distributed. That's why it's even available on ftp.cert.org of all places. Crack leveled the playing field, before it there was no widely available password cracking tool aimed at the "good" guys, just the "bad" guys. By making the tool available to the "good" guys, the usefulness of such tools to the "bad" guys decreased dramatically.
(posted as AC to protect myself when I start mirroring this all over)
Or maybe I checked the box twice by accident. I'll do it anyway though.
We definately need the whole site that was shut down. We're doing good by mirroring the .ram, but we're not preventing the censorship unless we are mirroring the whole site that was shut down.
Someone make it available, and I'll see to it that it is mirrored in at least 5 different countries.
(posted as AC to protect myself when I start mirroring this all over)
Aren't those invalid in the country you're a citizen of?
There may not be a law that requires you to have an SSN, but it's sure difficult to live without one.
Every time I am asked for my SSN for a new reason, I question it. I rarely am given a choice. To get a bank account, I had to give it, and proof of it. To get a job, as well (both for the I9 form and for taxes). To get a driver's license I had to show proof of it (though I was allowed to make my driver's license number different from my SSN). I had to give it up for an apartment, though I didn't have to show proof. You need a credit check before moving into some apartments - in some areas, the majority of decent ones are like this. You also need an SSN for credit cards, house and car loans, phone service, and electrical service sometimes.
It's not easy to live a normal life in the US without an SSN. You have to either go without the things that you need them for, commit some crime to get them (in some cases you may only have to be deceptive without committing a crime), or rely on other people.
It would also be a good idea if people hosting web sites that are likely to be shut down would post a link to a .tar.gz of the entire site. That way thousands of people can conveniently provide a free off-site backup. Associate a version number with it, so that the backup can be occasionally updated.
We should always be thinking of ways to use the net to protect our freedom, because it's the most powerful tool yet.
No matter where I go, I can't escape Christmas. I hate this.
All of the stores are full of Christmas decoration already. Christmas parties are already being scheduled (the boring kind, with coworkers). I go in to Best Buy the other day, and the place is covered in decorations. At least I'm safe on the net, I figure. But then it shows up here. The last refuge of sanity, or so I thought.
The best Christmas present for me (not that any of you care - it's rhetorical) would be none at all. It's a terrible time of year, and the worst part is that I can't escape it. I would have to leave the country. You have some people running around pretending their best to be happy. You have others being sad because they think everyone is happy. Businesses trying to exploit a religious holiday for all it's worth. Religious people trying to get me to care about their savior. Everywhere you go there are Christmas decorations and advertisements. Then you have the gifts! There's nothing that I want. If I wanted it, I would have bought it. If I want it and don't have it it's either too expensive or I can't find it. If it's too expensive, nobody I know is going to buy me one. If I can't find it, I've already asked all the people liable to give me a gift if they know where I can find it. I prefer to pick out my own stuff, especially with clothes and music. So, people give me gifts despite my insistance that they shouldn't, and I have to pretend I like them. (as I write this, someone who sits on the other side of the building is hanging up some Christmas-related poster-sized piece of paper outside of my cubicle). Did I mention having to buy a gift for someone? Do I even have to elaborate as to why I hate that? (No, not money).
Forget what I said about the worst being that I can't escape it. The worst is that I have to pretned to like it, or everyone will think I'm a lunatic.
I don't consider grocery shopping much of an experience, I imagine that most of us who'd rather not go to the store feel the same way.
If my goal is to see friends, I'll purposely seek them out. If my goal is to meet women, I'll go somewhere more suitable than the supermarket. Or, I could go to the supermarket and concentrate on that while pretending to shop. If I want something random and interesting to happen, I'll take the time I saved by not going to the store and go somewhere more fun.
If grocery stores did this, they would need no more than 24 hours notice, and could get by with much less. All they have to do is the same thing I do when I shop for myself - pick the food off the shelves based on a list, put it in bags, and bring it to my home.
The only issue I see is selection of produce - they would have to do a good job, so I don't have to go to the store and do it myself. I would also need a way to indicate what quality is acceptable, and if nothing is available, then don't give me that item. (e.g. I frequently go to the store and find that none of the tomatoes are any good).
Shopping at the supermarket is a tremendous hassle. I have to go out of my way to get to a decent one. (not a great distance, but enough to annoy me). Then I get there, and get a terrible parking spot. I first go to the produce aisle, and then stand still looking around. If I'm lucky, they havn't rearranged things in the past week. If I'm not, I have to wander about looking for everything I want. This, while pushing a cart around, surrounded by people I don't want to be near. I have to walk up and down most every aisle,
navigating my cart around screaming children. I'll usally know right where something is, now that I'm familiar with the store, but I'll still have to search for some things. OK, now I've got a cart full of food, and I go to find the shortest line to wait in. Surrounded by an endless mob of people, I wait, and wait. The cashier takes forever with everything. Her nametag says she's worked there 3 years. How proud she must be. Whoops, the person in front of me was trying to buy paper towels, but nobody knows what they cost. Someone is wandering around looking for the information, while the cashier just stands there. I offer to pay for the paper towels, $5 in cash and the cashier can keep the change. Just please keep things moving. Nope, can't do that, we wait some more. Finally, my turn. This usually goes smoothly, besides taking a while. Someone bags my groceries for me most of the time. I push the cart out, load my car up, and drive home - carefully, so I don't damage anything or spill the bags. With luck it will be one trip up the stairs. Usually it's two. After all that work, I still have to put everything away.
Buying groceries wastes my valuable time. I have to needlessly spend time doing something that is neither enjoyable nor profitable.
Actually, there's a few of them. Exceed (from Hummingbird), Excursion, XLink, MI/X from Micro Images. I also read in a slashdot discussion a while ago a mention of a free X server for Windows, but I don't remember anything about it.
I don't need a clue about business, when I have a clue about computers.
For most hardware, you will not learn anything significant about it from the interface it presents to the system. I really can't think of any situations where this isn't true. Can anyone? Where significant means would be of any real benefit to a competitor, and couldn't be determined by looking at the circuit board.
If you're trying to make a competing piece of hardware, all the information would do for you is allow you to make a compatible one. Is there any reason you would want to do that?
If I wanted to clone any hardware device, simply looking at it and bulding something just like it (no doubt violating patents) is my best bet. I'd have to copy any ROM (no doubt violating copyrights). I don't even have to know how it talks to the software if this is what I'm up to - I can use the existing drivers that my competitor wrote (no doubt violating copyrights, but I've already had to do that anyway to duplicate the device).
Take a video card. If all of the information to write drivers is available, then what? I can build a competing card that uses the same interface - but why? Don't say to get out of needing to write my own drivers - that's the easy part if I have all the information I need.
Take the pH meter. The only software that uses it is what is bundled with it. If I knew how it communicated with the meter, I could make my own software - but this won't hurt that company, as they aren't likely to start selling additional software for the meter. If you disagree, think of some examples where peripheral hardware vendors sold some hardware bundled with the software necessary for its use, and then later introduced additional software at additional cost. I'm sure that it has happened, but I'm also sure that it's rare (I can't think of any examples). Or, think of what additional features might be added to pH meter managing software that they did not include - seems they've covered everything, it's a very simple device.
Pretty much the same applies to digital cameras. And UPS management software. And NICs. And scanners.
Giving out the information makes their product more valuable to customers, and costs nothing.
Big deal. It's a movie. I have a pretty low amount of faith in people, but I still trust everyone that watches this to not think they are learning anything. They may believe whatever lies they're told when it is presented as fact (e.g. the news), but this is the least of our worries if they're going to start believing movies.
"They" being the clueless masses that will cause 99% of the y2k problems without any help from computers.
I'll put this movie on. Being a TV movie, I'm sure it will be poorly written, directed, and acted. I'm also sure it will be full of technical inaccuracies. But it may still be able to grab my attention.
This is not necessarily indicative one way or another of the reliability of Linux. This only indicates the design decision of what level of filesystem problems requires a manual fsck.
Honestly, I don't understand why any systems prompt for a manual fsck unless there are problems that fsck couldn't fix. Unless I'm doing something pretty strange (e.g. I edited the filesystem manually), I never say no to fsck's questions.
It's pretty easy to change your rc scripts to run fsck with the correct options to always correct the errors, and give you the message about manually fscking only on severe errors. This is probably a good idea to do on remote systems that would be very hard to get on the console of.
I don't understand that. And I think I might be the only one that doesn't understand it. Maybe I'm insane.
Most peripheral hardware manufacturers sell the hardware, and bundle with it the software necessary to use it. When they advertise, they talk about the hardware, and not about the drivers or tiny application necesssary to use it. They frequently even give away the software on the net.
I can't see how those companies could think even for an instant about the issue and want to keep secret the protocol their hardware uses to talk to the software. If they released the information, they would sell more hardware. (I'm sure many of the people reading this have had to choose hardware based on what free software is available to support it). They would not sell less software, because they are not selling any software. They're giving it away to make the hardware work. They're not destroying their future chance to sell additional software - rarely does any hardware vendor start selling additional software beyond what they bundle with the hardware. (there would be no point). Giving out the information only increases the value of the hardware, at virtually no cost to the company.
Even companies who sell insanely trivial hardware think they need to keep secret the information needed to write software for it. For example, Hanna Instruments sells a $70 pH meter with a serial interface and Windows-only software. I asked them if they could give information on the protocol it uses, or source for the software, because I am not using Windows. They (of course) told me that it's proprietary, and they can't give me the information. I thought that if any company would have enough of a clue, surely one selling scientific supplies would. Sigh.
Whoa, no it's not!
1159591119999/2130917 is about 544174.7
Sorry, but processes waiting on disk IO do count against the load average. They're the ones that vmstat and top show as blocking.
Processes blocked on the network do not count against the load average.
The article says that Solaris is under the SCSL. Is this even true? I can't find any indication of that on Sun's website, and I would think that I'd have heard something about this in various places. Slashdot would have had a story, and bugtraq would have a flurry of Solaris security holes posted once the source is being looked over for holes by a few thousand people wanting to make them public, rather than a few hundred people wanting to keep them secret.
If someone did make 'illegal' copies of such films, who would sue/press charges?
Sorry, you're wrong. There was a slashdot story about this. It referenced a wired story, which says that Gore said:
So far as Al Gore being relevant to its beginnings, I don't even understand what you mean by that.
I fail to see how it is interesting that the world's oldest dated book was intended for free distribution.
It would be interesting if it included a GPL-like license, but while the GPL includes a great deal of verbiage to prevent others from restricting the freedom of the work, this just says it was made for free distribution.
Wouldn't they have moved it before putting it in safe mode, knowing that the meteor storm is coming, and that they won't have the satellite fixed in time? Surely one of the bright people at NASA would have realized this.
This works in many areas, but not in NYC, where law-abiding citizens are not allowed to defend themselves.
one of them should not go through the domain in question (for out-of-band
communication). It's not enough to have valid telephone numbers listed:
But why? Why is the telephone number not adequate? Making a habit of doing this would require that an admin either use an off-site mail server for all of his email, or frequently check a secondary off-site mail server for mail about a DNS problem that will probably never arrive. (if rarely checked, a message would not be noticed for far too long). What a needless hassle, when in reality any DNS problem that major would affect so many people that someone would complain to the admin very fast. (If it doesn't affect that many people, then it's not that important). The contact number should be usually faster than email anyway.
I've never heard someone say that they have to check two mail accounts, or use an off-site machine for all their mail, so that they could get emails about DNS problems.
I tried to take a random sampling of domains to see how many had contacts on different networks than the domain. But I found that if I do too many whois requests too fast, I get this:
[rs.internic.net]
*
* Welcome to the InterNIC Registration Services Whois Server.
*
* Your query limit has been exceeded.
*
Ouch!
Who actually worries about this? I don't know any sysadmins who have a second email account just in case they need to get mail about their DNS being broken. And how regularly is it going to be checked, when mails will very, very rarely be sent to it?
Problems like that are what the technical contact phone number is for.