I'll confirm this. I had seen the number growing and assumed it was due to higher volume, but apparently something else is happening over at Gmail. Seems like it would be noticeable if their servers were storing 2X spam (and growing daily) instead of the usual, but hey, it is Google, where all the world's information must include these messages too.
The oldest of 2050 messages I found has been there since October, just like you said:
Received: from shelf-d058.slag.nifty.ne.jp (225.202.119.7) by gl320-a841.mail.goo.ne.jp with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6824); Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:56:08 +0600 From: �X�� 从q <burdensome988@nifty.com> To: xaxisx@gmail.com Subject: ���l�� Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 10:56:08 +0400 EST Message-ID: <42700.35746.9698233799@harry-bhy61.dion.ne.jp>
Hey, you must also remember that they tried to close half down in 2004. The user base rallied to keep it open, and it is still going strong.
Half is unique in that it handles credit card payments for you, has an item catalog that looks up titles & ISBNs, has no listing fee (just a percentage of cost), and is a good way to get positive feedback, as every purchase is lumped into ebay's system. It's out there, just under the radar.
Of course they WANT you to buy their stuff. The issue is the warning box for debugging and administration- even Autodesk wouldn't turn off functionality for non-genuine files.
their products only working with signed drawings
Not true, at least yet. From EFF:
it pops up a warning dialog stating that the file was not created by an app authorized by Autodesk and might therefore result in "stability issues." (Users can disable these warnings, but they are enabled by default.)
So I can still do my work, open and save my files, regardless. I don't see why this a frivolous lawsuit. Trademarks have to be defended. I will agree with you in that the DMCA is probably not the approach they should be using, but there is a fine line between completely opening the format, something which they probably can't do simply because of the 20 years of evolution that has made it an in- house mess (and they already have the open DXF format), and suing everyone who trys to use it - a la Adobe in the early days of PDF.
I don't know, as an admin, I would welcome a simple warning for my users, especially if they are going to be getting files from consultants and other sources unknown.
Printers are so much different than an enterprise implementation of a multi-library CAD package that I don't know if the HP analogy works here. If generic ink breaks something on your deskjet, it can't be saved back to a server and cause thousands of drawings to ship with a critical fire escape symbol missing. There are many very real technological reasons to check file integrity, which is what they are really doing here.
Many on here are trying to spin to towards corporate greed, but I think this court case comes down to respect above all else.
There was a recent discussion about this case, and the central point was NOT that the open source group was reverse engineering documents. It was about the open software's representation of itself as a "genuine" file using the AutoCAD name. The equivalent to a ODT file containing the terminology "Genuine Microsoft Word file, guaranteed to work". I have my issues with Autodesk, but they aren't necessarily the evil ones here.
With the myraid tags and calls in the DWG format, any open source implementation, while well intentioned, is bound to miss a few and create problems. Ironically, the Autodesk Genuine tag was meant to assist interoperability by giving support staff a clue as to why a file might not open correctly. They weren't ever trying to stop the creation or use of DWG files by third party software, and it's likely in their best interests to keep it a de facto standard.
You may be interested in the annual Solar Decathlon, although specific passive technologies aren't the focus, there are definitely good ideas in terms of conservation, design, solar use, etc. to keep an eye on. You may also want to research the Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, who is doing very great things in the low sun angles over there.
You can also order a prefab house that uses less waste, responsible materials, and can even be LEED certified. Remember the initial cost and environmental hit of construction, and this starts to make sense. Over the long term, forgotten methods like geothermal heat pumps and rammed earth are real, yet unpopular options today.
The funny thing is that passive building was very common in the past, given the ease of doing things like orienting houses properly on a site, and the inherent efficiency of a heat pump system. Today you won't find a builder who will touch those crazy green ideas with a ten foot pole. There are a few firms if you look, but they are under the radar of the general population.
I did some quick research, and it seems you are right. The difference is in the encoding cable services typically use (QAM) versus over-the-air. I'll make sure to note the difference.
This is exactly what I do, even though I am able to get many local digital stations through the ether, with my lil antenna. In a city, this can work quite well.
To check any location, I use antennaweb.org, which is still going strong and quite accurate.
I just wanted to add to your description, for those in the market for this option, in that you will have better luck searching for "ATSC tuner". Not even the best Radio Shack staffers will understand QAM. And Comcast calls it "broadcast cable", be persistent if they give you trouble.
Coverage with all providers is so subjective. 99% of the time I get great service in Massachusetts with Verizon, except for one small part of the coast. Unfortunately, I pass through and around this dead zone frequently, and am usually on the phone at the time. So, you would look at my log and see 30-40 dropped calls a month, even though the rest of the time things are much better. I'm just glad I don't live there.
I didn't realize how connected we were to Google until that outage a few weeks ago where Comcast's DNS servers made all of G's pages unavailable. No email, maps, phonebook, the linkrolls and feeds on my startup page through Google, photos that I need to consult for work in online Picasa, and even the stupid little calculator in the sidebar stopped working. Oh, and of course no searches - I got to Yahoo and didn't know what to do for a minute. Where do I type?
It was a bit of a surprise to me, as my dependence developed so gradually - like a cocaine addiction. To pull it away like that really got under my skin. Are they the internet? Well, for some people, just maybe.
I read your posts, I even went and read your journal entry. You alluded to a few things about developers, and since I work for one, I thought I could offer a counterpoint. Lay back man.
Cities are currentlybuilt so that we can live without a car,
No, they're not, they're really, really not. Outside of NYC, Boston, and Chicago maybe, the transit system does not support a carless lifestyle for anyone not willing to go miles out of their way.
There has long been the problem of American transit being behind the rest of the world. There is sprawl in Europe, there are traffic jams, but the heart of the problem is the mentality that there just isn't another option than driving. People will make up any excuse to avoid mass transportation here. There are too many germs, it takes too long, costs are out of control, government is corrupt, etc. etc. How can we change this?
Your solution seems to me to be problematic, because it doesn't do anything to reduce growth. As a stopgap, it MAY reduce traffic, at the expense of certain property owners, but as I mentioned before, it might just offload more traffic to the rest of the day. And what about traffic on regular non-highway roads? There would be no change, as the rush to get the bus depot is still there.
Forgive the oversimplification, but you are saying that we should all be working on a rotating schedule, half the population working through the night, just so that you can have less traffic at 8:30am?
I tend to see this as shortsighted - I would rather see an effort made to condensing cities, putting more diverse zoning adjacent to each other, and working to eliminate the demand for transit in the first place. Traffic is just one of the problems we face. Diminished watershed area, empty downtowns, and a completely dysfunctional mass transit system (amtrak?) and just some issues that mass busing doesn't recognize.
it "gets people" to do *whatever* is compatible with market prices for rush hour road use
The more I think about it, your proposal is all about rush hour traffic. Wouldn't you agree that a fundamental shift of our living balance is instead necessary, either by legislation? I like the idea of the market deciding on who uses the road, but only if the appropriate incentives for moving your home/job come with it. Maybe the taxes could be used to finance moving corporations near existing or new transit lines? Or making these cities you talk about more non-car friendly? Don't jump all over me, I'm on your side, but I just don't have the same enthusiasm for entrepreneurial effects.
1. Developers don't give a hoot about density. They take the value of the land, divide by the rent a typical unit can bring (or sale price), and build that many units + X% profit. If a planning board makes them add first floor storefronts or upgrade utilities, then they might do that. Parking is dictated by zoning, so they build the minimum. In the suburbs, away from a highway, the value per lot is lower, so only enough building to make money will be put up. There is no 'developers ideology' where one would want to save the environment with tall building clusters.
2. Cities are currentlybuilt so that we can live without a car, millions of americans presently make the intentional decision to live far enough away from each other to require one, and they'll say that it's because they can have a backyard and garage. The main reason, though? Fear of the city, due to decades of marketing the suburbs as safe and pleasant. There is an abundance of habitable urban area that just isn't perceived as safe to raise a family. Fortunately, in many cities over the last 15 years, white flight has started to reverse itself, lead by the childless and empty nesters. The real issue is to reverse the notion of the child incubator label that is attached to the suburbs. Many older suburbs are becoming cities of their own, like Silver Spring MD, Hoboken NJ, Lowell MA, and have their own mass transit, and kids even!
3. Your idea of taxing driving at rush hour would likely have unintended consequences. Companies would shift their work day or move their offices even further out of the city, accessible only by country roads, their hiring pool limited to those who live nearby, and for those who can't choose where they work, they would be put in an artificial "commuting class" watching the wealthy drive by in their Lexus coupes. Furthermore, the housing stock already in place would be put in an extreme position of devaluation, upending the current balance of the housing market for the sake of easing congestion. I agree that something radical must be done, but demand side thinking only hinders those who are least able to do something about it. Growth boundaries, such as Portland's, have proven to be effective, but there is a strong opposition from developer types. I don't know what the best solution is, but getting more people on buses will be going after the wrong side of the equation.
I don't know where you are, but there is a big difference between debit-as-debit and debit-and-credit. In almost all cases, with only a few exceptions that I've ever seen, debit with a PIN number is free, because the bank pays for the transaction. If you hit "credit", then the normal Mastercard 30 cents + 3% is charged to the store. This is why we see credit card minimums everywhere, but abundant offers of "cash back" with a debit card - because it's free for them.
Are they really charging you for the right to use a debit card? I would stop shopping there, it's a scam.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the radioactive warning signs meant to be legible in 10000 years. Every one of these suggestions of digital media, electronic, or solar powered durable signals was considered, but in the end it was decided to go with architecture - simple concrete with engravings.
If nobody voted for him and he wasn't on the ballot, then why was his name listed at all?
Sounds like someone might be exaggerating the claim a little.
I was thinking about this after you mentioned it, and they do issue our design office regular "interpretations" and rulings that are actually meant to amend the code. Consistency is a difficult thing to maintain for most govt agencies, and I could see grounds for a lawsuit if one of those wasn't posted in time.
An amendment can cost a building owner a pile of dough - who do you think they would go after? In 2006, everyone involved.
I am also an architect, of the building type. You are right about the nightmares of risk management in the US. This ruling in particular, has a discord with the real world classic ADA regs.
Online, the cost of reconfiguring a web site with alt tags for the screen reader, contrasting colors, and tab navigation can easily meet or exceed the cost of the site design in whole (at least, I'd imagine based on an hourly billable sense of cost). Particularly in the case of a retrofit, I can't see how it would be cost effective to only focus on compliance. ADA for buildings works because it gave a blanket exemption to all existing conditions, and "if the work is comparable in scope to the work of bringing an entire structure into compliance" you must retrofit the structure. Typical supporting documents are invoices and estimates.
The second requirement is for spaces that are being renovated for other reasons. They must be made accessible, obviously. Further complicating matters is two sets of standards, one prepared by the gov't, and another by ANSI. So, the web could learn from our struggles with accessibility. I didn't see any reference to existing web pages, but if Target, for example, needs to bring the page up to date, preventing them from having a stop-gap non-accessible page is not the answer. The real world has budgets and deadlines. I fail to see how it can be simply 'done'.
I've heard this argument before - how nice it would be to be able to figure out how far the next exit is, and no renumbering when a new one is added. But what if you don't know the number of the next exit? You may as well list the distance if you are going to list the designation. "Exit 45 - 19 miles" Is just as simple as "Next Exit - 64" in my book.
I've always wondered why there is a push for changing, there is also the trade off of losing the ability to count exits as a reference, which is how many non-geeks tend to navigate (think of the subway, you don't keep checking your watch to find out when it's your stop, you subliminally mark each one off as they pass). On top of this, the mile-marker system breaks down when there are multiple exits in a short section of road.
Maine changed all the exits on 95 recently, and had to go back and put up a bunch of little "Old Exit ##" tags under the new ones, presumably because of complaints. So, it just creates confusion where there was none before.
gave me a dollar-quote that was a few hundred times what I paid
Not to pick on you, but I am wondering if this is what you meant to say. 10,000 / 200 = 50.
Did yo manage to find a appraised $10k loose artificial diamond for 50 bucks? If that's what these rocks are going for, I might just be the hero of the century when our next anniversary comes up.
Slashdot Mirror
The oldest of 2050 messages I found has been there since October, just like you said:
Wonder what they're up to.
Hey, you must also remember that they tried to close half down in 2004. The user base rallied to keep it open, and it is still going strong.
Half is unique in that it handles credit card payments for you, has an item catalog that looks up titles & ISBNs, has no listing fee (just a percentage of cost), and is a good way to get positive feedback, as every purchase is lumped into ebay's system. It's out there, just under the radar.
Italy? What drinking age?
Of course they WANT you to buy their stuff. The issue is the warning box for debugging and administration- even Autodesk wouldn't turn off functionality for non-genuine files.
Not true, at least yet. From EFF:
So I can still do my work, open and save my files, regardless. I don't see why this a frivolous lawsuit. Trademarks have to be defended. I will agree with you in that the DMCA is probably not the approach they should be using, but there is a fine line between completely opening the format, something which they probably can't do simply because of the 20 years of evolution that has made it an in- house mess (and they already have the open DXF format), and suing everyone who trys to use it - a la Adobe in the early days of PDF.
I don't know, as an admin, I would welcome a simple warning for my users, especially if they are going to be getting files from consultants and other sources unknown.
Printers are so much different than an enterprise implementation of a multi-library CAD package that I don't know if the HP analogy works here. If generic ink breaks something on your deskjet, it can't be saved back to a server and cause thousands of drawings to ship with a critical fire escape symbol missing. There are many very real technological reasons to check file integrity, which is what they are really doing here.
Many on here are trying to spin to towards corporate greed, but I think this court case comes down to respect above all else.
There was a recent discussion about this case, and the central point was NOT that the open source group was reverse engineering documents. It was about the open software's representation of itself as a "genuine" file using the AutoCAD name. The equivalent to a ODT file containing the terminology "Genuine Microsoft Word file, guaranteed to work". I have my issues with Autodesk, but they aren't necessarily the evil ones here.
With the myraid tags and calls in the DWG format, any open source implementation, while well intentioned, is bound to miss a few and create problems. Ironically, the Autodesk Genuine tag was meant to assist interoperability by giving support staff a clue as to why a file might not open correctly. They weren't ever trying to stop the creation or use of DWG files by third party software, and it's likely in their best interests to keep it a de facto standard.
You may be interested in the annual Solar Decathlon, although specific passive technologies aren't the focus, there are definitely good ideas in terms of conservation, design, solar use, etc. to keep an eye on. You may also want to research the Australian architect Glenn Murcutt, who is doing very great things in the low sun angles over there.
You can also order a prefab house that uses less waste, responsible materials, and can even be LEED certified. Remember the initial cost and environmental hit of construction, and this starts to make sense. Over the long term, forgotten methods like geothermal heat pumps and rammed earth are real, yet unpopular options today.
The funny thing is that passive building was very common in the past, given the ease of doing things like orienting houses properly on a site, and the inherent efficiency of a heat pump system. Today you won't find a builder who will touch those crazy green ideas with a ten foot pole. There are a few firms if you look, but they are under the radar of the general population.
I did some quick research, and it seems you are right. The difference is in the encoding cable services typically use (QAM) versus over-the-air. I'll make sure to note the difference.
And here's a link, although I don't use this one, so I can't vouch for it.
This is exactly what I do, even though I am able to get many local digital stations through the ether, with my lil antenna. In a city, this can work quite well. To check any location, I use antennaweb.org, which is still going strong and quite accurate.
I just wanted to add to your description, for those in the market for this option, in that you will have better luck searching for "ATSC tuner". Not even the best Radio Shack staffers will understand QAM. And Comcast calls it "broadcast cable", be persistent if they give you trouble.
Coverage with all providers is so subjective. 99% of the time I get great service in Massachusetts with Verizon, except for one small part of the coast. Unfortunately, I pass through and around this dead zone frequently, and am usually on the phone at the time. So, you would look at my log and see 30-40 dropped calls a month, even though the rest of the time things are much better. I'm just glad I don't live there.
I didn't realize how connected we were to Google until that outage a few weeks ago where Comcast's DNS servers made all of G's pages unavailable. No email, maps, phonebook, the linkrolls and feeds on my startup page through Google, photos that I need to consult for work in online Picasa, and even the stupid little calculator in the sidebar stopped working. Oh, and of course no searches - I got to Yahoo and didn't know what to do for a minute. Where do I type?
It was a bit of a surprise to me, as my dependence developed so gradually - like a cocaine addiction. To pull it away like that really got under my skin. Are they the internet? Well, for some people, just maybe.
Additionally, how does he use the USB drive if it is always connected to the motorcycle?!
There has long been the problem of American transit being behind the rest of the world. There is sprawl in Europe, there are traffic jams, but the heart of the problem is the mentality that there just isn't another option than driving. People will make up any excuse to avoid mass transportation here. There are too many germs, it takes too long, costs are out of control, government is corrupt, etc. etc. How can we change this?
Your solution seems to me to be problematic, because it doesn't do anything to reduce growth. As a stopgap, it MAY reduce traffic, at the expense of certain property owners, but as I mentioned before, it might just offload more traffic to the rest of the day. And what about traffic on regular non-highway roads? There would be no change, as the rush to get the bus depot is still there.
Forgive the oversimplification, but you are saying that we should all be working on a rotating schedule, half the population working through the night, just so that you can have less traffic at 8:30am? I tend to see this as shortsighted - I would rather see an effort made to condensing cities, putting more diverse zoning adjacent to each other, and working to eliminate the demand for transit in the first place. Traffic is just one of the problems we face. Diminished watershed area, empty downtowns, and a completely dysfunctional mass transit system (amtrak?) and just some issues that mass busing doesn't recognize.
The more I think about it, your proposal is all about rush hour traffic. Wouldn't you agree that a fundamental shift of our living balance is instead necessary, either by legislation? I like the idea of the market deciding on who uses the road, but only if the appropriate incentives for moving your home/job come with it. Maybe the taxes could be used to finance moving corporations near existing or new transit lines? Or making these cities you talk about more non-car friendly? Don't jump all over me, I'm on your side, but I just don't have the same enthusiasm for entrepreneurial effects.
1. Developers don't give a hoot about density. They take the value of the land, divide by the rent a typical unit can bring (or sale price), and build that many units + X% profit. If a planning board makes them add first floor storefronts or upgrade utilities, then they might do that. Parking is dictated by zoning, so they build the minimum. In the suburbs, away from a highway, the value per lot is lower, so only enough building to make money will be put up. There is no 'developers ideology' where one would want to save the environment with tall building clusters.
2. Cities are currentlybuilt so that we can live without a car, millions of americans presently make the intentional decision to live far enough away from each other to require one, and they'll say that it's because they can have a backyard and garage. The main reason, though? Fear of the city, due to decades of marketing the suburbs as safe and pleasant. There is an abundance of habitable urban area that just isn't perceived as safe to raise a family. Fortunately, in many cities over the last 15 years, white flight has started to reverse itself, lead by the childless and empty nesters. The real issue is to reverse the notion of the child incubator label that is attached to the suburbs. Many older suburbs are becoming cities of their own, like Silver Spring MD, Hoboken NJ, Lowell MA, and have their own mass transit, and kids even!
3. Your idea of taxing driving at rush hour would likely have unintended consequences. Companies would shift their work day or move their offices even further out of the city, accessible only by country roads, their hiring pool limited to those who live nearby, and for those who can't choose where they work, they would be put in an artificial "commuting class" watching the wealthy drive by in their Lexus coupes. Furthermore, the housing stock already in place would be put in an extreme position of devaluation, upending the current balance of the housing market for the sake of easing congestion. I agree that something radical must be done, but demand side thinking only hinders those who are least able to do something about it. Growth boundaries, such as Portland's, have proven to be effective, but there is a strong opposition from developer types. I don't know what the best solution is, but getting more people on buses will be going after the wrong side of the equation.
I don't know where you are, but there is a big difference between debit-as-debit and debit-and-credit. In almost all cases, with only a few exceptions that I've ever seen, debit with a PIN number is free, because the bank pays for the transaction. If you hit "credit", then the normal Mastercard 30 cents + 3% is charged to the store. This is why we see credit card minimums everywhere, but abundant offers of "cash back" with a debit card - because it's free for them. Are they really charging you for the right to use a debit card? I would stop shopping there, it's a scam.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the radioactive warning signs meant to be legible in 10000 years. Every one of these suggestions of digital media, electronic, or solar powered durable signals was considered, but in the end it was decided to go with architecture - simple concrete with engravings.
If nobody voted for him and he wasn't on the ballot, then why was his name listed at all?
Sounds like someone might be exaggerating the claim a little.
I was thinking about this after you mentioned it, and they do issue our design office regular "interpretations" and rulings that are actually meant to amend the code. Consistency is a difficult thing to maintain for most govt agencies, and I could see grounds for a lawsuit if one of those wasn't posted in time.
An amendment can cost a building owner a pile of dough - who do you think they would go after? In 2006, everyone involved.
Ah, but in Taxachusetts, we don't.
I am also an architect, of the building type. You are right about the nightmares of risk management in the US. This ruling in particular, has a discord with the real world classic ADA regs.
Online, the cost of reconfiguring a web site with alt tags for the screen reader, contrasting colors, and tab navigation can easily meet or exceed the cost of the site design in whole (at least, I'd imagine based on an hourly billable sense of cost). Particularly in the case of a retrofit, I can't see how it would be cost effective to only focus on compliance. ADA for buildings works because it gave a blanket exemption to all existing conditions, and "if the work is comparable in scope to the work of bringing an entire structure into compliance" you must retrofit the structure. Typical supporting documents are invoices and estimates.
The second requirement is for spaces that are being renovated for other reasons. They must be made accessible, obviously. Further complicating matters is two sets of standards, one prepared by the gov't, and another by ANSI. So, the web could learn from our struggles with accessibility. I didn't see any reference to existing web pages, but if Target, for example, needs to bring the page up to date, preventing them from having a stop-gap non-accessible page is not the answer. The real world has budgets and deadlines. I fail to see how it can be simply 'done'.
I've heard this argument before - how nice it would be to be able to figure out how far the next exit is, and no renumbering when a new one is added. But what if you don't know the number of the next exit? You may as well list the distance if you are going to list the designation. "Exit 45 - 19 miles" Is just as simple as "Next Exit - 64" in my book.
I've always wondered why there is a push for changing, there is also the trade off of losing the ability to count exits as a reference, which is how many non-geeks tend to navigate (think of the subway, you don't keep checking your watch to find out when it's your stop, you subliminally mark each one off as they pass). On top of this, the mile-marker system breaks down when there are multiple exits in a short section of road.
Maine changed all the exits on 95 recently, and had to go back and put up a bunch of little "Old Exit ##" tags under the new ones, presumably because of complaints. So, it just creates confusion where there was none before.
I wonder where state money is being funneled instead.
It's not our fault you used white text for all your user info.
Not to pick on you, but I am wondering if this is what you meant to say. 10,000 / 200 = 50.
Did yo manage to find a appraised $10k loose artificial diamond for 50 bucks? If that's what these rocks are going for, I might just be the hero of the century when our next anniversary comes up.