Glad to see I wasn't the only one who thought the same...every one of the PDAs had a glowing review. From the About Us link:
Hardware Extreme is dedicated to bringing it's readers the most comprehensive reviews available. If you have a product you'd like us to review please e-mail us. We will guarantee that the review will receive at least 50,000 page views within a few days after it has been posted.
Getting/.ed is certainly one way to ensure 50,000 hits. This isn't a "news for nerds" item, it's a shameless plug.
I choose to have my phone number unlisted and unpublished. Does this mean I will have to disclose my phone number if I'm using an e.164-enabled device? Or will I just have to sit this one out on the sidelines, confident that it will die the quick death so common with flash-in-the-pan technology?
Personally, I don't want to be ubiquitously accessible. I don't want my internet and telephone services magically tied together. This sounds like a scheme that will benefit vendors, providers, and marketers more than it will benefit consumers.
It's not as if VC++ corners the market on non-ANSI compliant C++. I don't know of any compiler that is 100% compliant. Even GCC falls short of 100% ANSI compliance. (Ever try to call the stream manipulator "fixed" in GCC 2.9x? It's an exercise in futility, because you simply won't find it.)
I'm probably the last person on earth to jump to Microsoft's defense, but let's not be so quick to deride their compiler prior to pointing out that these deficiencies exist in every C++ compiler under the sun, in one way or another.
Good C++ programmers realize that there is nothing wrong with using C constructs such as null-terminated strings and printf to get the job done. It's obvious the reviewer needs to get a dose of programming in the real world before attempting to set himself (herself?) up as some sort of C++ expert.
The orbiter was in a 57 bank at the time so the rudder would move through more arc vertically than laterally. Come on, moderators, don't believe everything you read in an angry reply.
Yaw is relative to the coordinate system of the craft, not to an outside observer. Even if the orbiter was in a 57-degree bank, rudder still controls yaw. To a pilot inside the craft, the movement of the rudder is still left to right, not up and down.
Why can't NASA develop a small tethered inspection robot?
NASA already is, you can read about it here. Just last weekend two of the Robonaut engineers gave a talk and slide show at a robotics workshop I attended in Houston. Robonaut is designed to be fully articulating from the waist up (actually, there are no legs), and designed to perform spacewalks via remote control (each spacewalk costs several hundred thousands of dollars in planning, preparation, training, and execution). The robot is able to grip and manipulate objects autonomously, without need for external input or guidance.
I am not an engineer but I would say no. The tiles probably were damaged on the left wing where the big chunk of ice hit at take off. At 12k miles an hour there is nothing you can do.
It was a piece of insulating foam, not ice, that hit the wing during the shuttle's ascent.
The rudder probably flipped voilently upward or downward due to the lack of hydro fluid which probably boiled away if the left wing really did infact overheat.
Rudders control yaw, not pitch. They move left to right, not up and down.
And this post was modded up? C'mon, people, don't be so quick to believe everything you read on the net.
The local news here in D/FW is reporting an apartment fire that broke out in Plano, just north of Dallas, at about the same time the breakup became visible over the Dallas skies. Several residents reported a loud boom or explosion, followed by a fire in the upper story of the apartment. Some witnesses reported a hole in the roof immediately before the fire began.
The reason why I bring this up is that the possibility is very real that the shuttle breakup began prior to what we've all seen on TV. Even though the flight path of the shuttle took it south of Dallas, something forcefully ejected from the shuttle at even a small angle off the trajectory would, from 200K feet, end up well off the trajectory path.
Food for thought. It will be interesting to see if the apartment fire was really caused by a piece of the shuttle. Right now, firefighters aren't being allowed into the apartments until the feds arrive.
I think Lindows is on the shortcut to loserville with the Linux community at large.
While I agree with your position that Lindows is freeloading from the work of Linux developers, it's important to note that the success of Lindows will not be determined by the Linux community. Lindows is the unfortunate byproduct of the GPL (dioxin and ricin come to mind as other unfortunate byproducts), a commercial entity that skirts the spirit of free software by riding on the backs of those who have invested sweat equity.
It's my opinion that the best way to make sure Lindows becomes a long-forgotten entity is to carefully police their distributions, and cut them off at the knees when they distribute code in violation of the GPL. It will happen; it's only a matter of time. The biggest mistake the Linux community can make is to do nothing and hope Lindows just goes away. Stable poisons like dioxin and Lindows don't go away on their own; they'll persist until something proactive is done to eradicate them.
If I let you look at my key, you won't be able to copy it; you have to have my key in your possession to make a copy.
Don't go betting all your wordly possessions on this. An experienced locksmith (or someone who knows what they are looking for) can come up with a reasonable facsimile of your key based on the key cuts and the type of lock (probably imprinted on your key as well) if given a chance to look at your key. Keys can be traced and/or photocopied as well. A good reason why you should never leave your house key on the key ring when you hand over your car keys to someone you don't know or trust (valet, mechanic, etc.)
The sentence refers to "a class of persons" rather than "all persons." That's an important difference. If one were to interpret "the people" as
being all U.S. citizens, then laws that prevented convicted, violent felons, the mentally unstable, and mentally retarded people from getting guns
would be unconstitutional.
The part of the ruling you refer to is obviously devoted to explaining why a Mexican resident isn't covered by the Bill of Rights. By no means does this further dilute the Court's premise that "the people" refers to a part of the national community, and does not refer to state-level organizations, such as militias, which is how the pro-gun control crowd interprets the concept of "militia" in the Second Amendment. Granted, the scope of Verdugo-Urquidez does not directly address the Second Amendment. However, this ruling is simply one in a collective body of rulings that directly or indirectly addresses what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they referred to "the people." The pro-gun control folks stretch their credibility to the limits when they claim that the Supreme Court has ruled that "the people" refer to a government-sponsored organization rather than individuals.
Sorry I called you an ignoramus. That was uncalled for. Your "fuck you" was well-deserved.
you failed to mention US v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), in which the Supreme Court clearly indicated that the Second Amendment protects the
right of the people, not some imagined "militia" under the guise of government.
I've read the case you cited and it does not indicate that gun ownership is an individual right.
Sure it does. Page 265, first paragraph, fourth sentence.
You might have read it, but you obviously didn't understand it. Verdugo-Urquidez upheld the legal concept that the phrase "right of the people" is used throughout the Bill of Rights to designate rights for individual citizens, not the state. Thus, the right to bear arms is, in fact, a individual right protected by the Second Amendment.
BTW, don't take my word for it. You may be interested in this link, an essay written by a prominent and published criminologist and attorney. More of Kates' essays can be found here.
Here are a couple more Supreme Court cases which assert an invidual's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment:
Presser v. Illinois (1886) Miller v. Texas (1894) US v. Miller (1939)
So much for the thread parent poster's assertion that the Supreme Court doesn't recognize the rights under the Second Amendment as an individual right.
Neither does the Constitution itself bless the right to own a firearm. You commit a common fallacy in believing the Constitution must specifically grant an individual a right before said individual can exercise that right. Nothing can be further from the truth. Check out Cruikshank v. US (1876).
The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual's right to gun ownership.
I alwasy find it interesting when the anti-freedom people spew their half-assed, poorly-researched drivel as if they were actually knowledgeable on the subject. The fact that this parent was modded up to a 5 show the general ignorance in this country when it comes to constitutional rights.
In your haste to make yourself look like an ignoramus, you failed to mention US v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), in which the Supreme Court clearly indicated that the Second Amendment protects the right of the people, not some imagined "militia" under the guise of government.
Lower courts have been divided on the Second Amendment, but the Supreme Court has consistently recognized the right to arms as an individual right in every Second Amendment case they've heard.
Finally, don't you think it kind of strange that every amendment in the Bill of Rights refers to an individual right? The courts rightly recognize that the Bill of Rights, in its entirety, addresses the rights of individuals, not the rights of governments (or their militias).
If you are going to spew propaganda, the least you can do is check your facts first.
Soundex, which uses the way words sound rather than the way they are spelled, has been widely used by the government and genealogy researchers for the past 60 years. This isn't exactly "new" technology.
Why are more and more/. articles starting to sound like corporate press releases?
I dunno...I have a pair of Bose 301 speakers pushing 20 years old that are still faithfully reproducing audio without any noticeable distortion. Let's see...I paid $300 for them in 1982...not a bad purchase for an amortized cost of around $15 a year.
Now, those funky radios they sell, maybe that's another story all together...
The story's a little overblown - Yahoo's privacy policy reads that way because they offer financial
services and the like, where they may well need financial information from you to provide the service. The reporter
needed to investigate this new software DSL users are being asked to install, and find out what sort of user tracking
it enables.
This disclaimer simply magnifies the fact that Slashdot would like to be something more than simply a headline mirror, without all the trappings that come with journalistic integrity. What, exactly, do Slashdot editors "edit" if not the stories they post? Shouldn't the stories be checked out first? And if a story is bogus (as this one seems to be), wouldn't the appropriate action be to pull the story?
I can't quite figure out what/. wants to be when it grows up (if it ever does). Neither can I, so I can sympathize.
Think of the millions who use on-line bill payment services! Talk about juicy: A company could build quite a marketable portfolio about you based upon your bill-paying habits.
Unfortunately, the masses are sucked in by the slick marketing, and never give a thought as to the middleman through which they're routing all their personal financial information.
This looks real similiar to what we used to call a "Polish cannon." You take 5 or 6 empty tin cans (you know, the ones with real seams, not the extruded stuff), cut the bottoms out, and tape them together -- tightly -- with duct tape. Take an empty coke can and poke a small hole dead-center in the bottom, and tape this to one end of your tube (the small hole is outside, the side you drink from is inside). Break out the Ronco lighter fluid, and squeeze a healthy dose into the small hole at the end. Hold the cannon facing the ground and swing in several wide arcs. Grab with both hands and have a brave friend hold a lighter to the little hole (not the big hole!). The resulting explosion would lob a tennis ball several hundred yards. If you were unfortunate enough to be standing in front of it, you were assured of a temporary hearing loss.
Oh, to be a kid again...
Cute, but impractical
on
239 MPG Car
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I would imagine the survivability aspects of a collision with this vehicle and any mid-sized vehicle would be very low. Yes, I read the article -- something about GT-class protection -- but the mere lack of weight would be the first mark against you in a collision (something about conservation of mass and energy come to mind). And although top speed is somewhere in the vicinity of 70 mph, it will take a long time to get there -- which means a lot of time spent at a great speed differential to other traffic. Again, not exactly a formula for survival in a collision scenario.
Let's face it -- the average rolling tonnage of vehicles in the US is greater than that in Europe. What works there doesn't necessarily mean it will work here. What is really needed is a rolling steel cage, truly indestructible, with lots of energy-absorbing panels. I can't imagine trading away personal safety for environmental conservation.
you remember those, folks? ah, sweet gopher. R.I.P
Actually, there's a movement underway to bring the roots of the Internet back to the forefront. For instance, gopher isn't really dead, it's just residing here, among other places, waiting patiently for the commercial Internet to implode so the good old days can return again.
Rockets are a lot more common in aviation than you might first think. The Swearingen/Fairchild Metro III, a 20-passenger twin-prop plane popular for short-haul flights, actually has a solid-fuel rocket in the tail cone. That's because, when fully-loaded, the Metro would, under some conditions, be unable to climb on takeoff if there was an engine failure. Comforting thought.
When I was an air traffic controller, we referred to them as "aluminum lawn darts," for obvious reasons.
I wish she would have elaborated on it, because most of the listeners wouldn't have understood that this means hijacking open mail servers, which is generally considered theft of service.
"Generally considered"? Who is doing the consideration here? Show me one criminal indictment for "theft of service" handed up to someone who has used an open mail relay.
Does this mean using someone's nameserver without permission is "theft of service"? What about an open anonymous ftp server? An anonymous HTTP proxy?
The line here seems to be drawn based upon a prejudicial view of the activity itself (spamming isn't exactly a poster child for corporate America), rather than facts and reasons. If any court ever determines the use of open mail relays is a "theft of service," no one who uses the Internet will be above the law, unless you can prove your activities don't take advantage of "theft of services."
TMDA offers those who want it the ability to filter e-mail through a confirmation process (or, you can generate "keyword" or "dated" addresses for temporary use in newsgroups and other high-harvester areas). My spam went from several tens of spam messages a day to zero after spending a couple of hours with TMDA.
This solution doesn't do anything about bandwidth (since you will still get the same amount of spam traffic at your mail port), but it's a fuzzy-warm feeling to be in control of your own mailbox for once.
If anything, regular programmers who would ever, for example, use PHP's fopen() for a proxy like the article described should be paid like H1Bs and school teachers -- about $35,000 a year, at the most.
Believe it or not, there are a few of us who have decided to take their $100,000 skills and work as teachers intent on bringing up a new generation of programmers for $35,000 a year. I'm one of them (yes, I've done some coding in my life, including much of the code that brings you color images from the IKONOS 1-meter satellites), and we are trying our damndest to prevent the likes of Mr. Bacarella from polluting the world of secure and robust programming with their silly views.
Slashdot Mirror
Getting
I choose to have my phone number unlisted and unpublished. Does this mean I will have to disclose my phone number if I'm using an e.164-enabled device? Or will I just have to sit this one out on the sidelines, confident that it will die the quick death so common with flash-in-the-pan technology?
Personally, I don't want to be ubiquitously accessible. I don't want my internet and telephone services magically tied together. This sounds like a scheme that will benefit vendors, providers, and marketers more than it will benefit consumers.
It's not as if VC++ corners the market on non-ANSI compliant C++. I don't know of any compiler that is 100% compliant. Even GCC falls short of 100% ANSI compliance. (Ever try to call the stream manipulator "fixed" in GCC 2.9x? It's an exercise in futility, because you simply won't find it.)
I'm probably the last person on earth to jump to Microsoft's defense, but let's not be so quick to deride their compiler prior to pointing out that these deficiencies exist in every C++ compiler under the sun, in one way or another.
Good C++ programmers realize that there is nothing wrong with using C constructs such as null-terminated strings and printf to get the job done. It's obvious the reviewer needs to get a dose of programming in the real world before attempting to set himself (herself?) up as some sort of C++ expert.
The orbiter was in a 57 bank at the time so the rudder would move through more arc vertically than laterally. Come on, moderators, don't believe everything you read in an angry reply.
Yaw is relative to the coordinate system of the craft, not to an outside observer. Even if the orbiter was in a 57-degree bank, rudder still controls yaw. To a pilot inside the craft, the movement of the rudder is still left to right, not up and down.
Why can't NASA develop a small tethered inspection robot?
NASA already is, you can read about it here. Just last weekend two of the Robonaut engineers gave a talk and slide show at a robotics workshop I attended in Houston. Robonaut is designed to be fully articulating from the waist up (actually, there are no legs), and designed to perform spacewalks via remote control (each spacewalk costs several hundred thousands of dollars in planning, preparation, training, and execution). The robot is able to grip and manipulate objects autonomously, without need for external input or guidance.
I am not an engineer but I would say no. The tiles probably were damaged on the left wing where the big chunk of ice hit at take off. At 12k miles an hour there is nothing you can do.
It was a piece of insulating foam, not ice, that hit the wing during the shuttle's ascent.
The rudder probably flipped voilently upward or downward due to the lack of hydro fluid which probably boiled away if the left wing really did infact overheat.
Rudders control yaw, not pitch. They move left to right, not up and down.
And this post was modded up? C'mon, people, don't be so quick to believe everything you read on the net.
The local news here in D/FW is reporting an apartment fire that broke out in Plano, just north of Dallas, at about the same time the breakup became visible over the Dallas skies. Several residents reported a loud boom or explosion, followed by a fire in the upper story of the apartment. Some witnesses reported a hole in the roof immediately before the fire began.
The reason why I bring this up is that the possibility is very real that the shuttle breakup began prior to what we've all seen on TV. Even though the flight path of the shuttle took it south of Dallas, something forcefully ejected from the shuttle at even a small angle off the trajectory would, from 200K feet, end up well off the trajectory path.
Food for thought. It will be interesting to see if the apartment fire was really caused by a piece of the shuttle. Right now, firefighters aren't being allowed into the apartments until the feds arrive.
I think Lindows is on the shortcut to loserville with the Linux community at large.
.
While I agree with your position that Lindows is freeloading from the work of Linux developers, it's important to note that the success of Lindows will not be determined by the Linux community. Lindows is the unfortunate byproduct of the GPL (dioxin and ricin come to mind as other unfortunate byproducts), a commercial entity that skirts the spirit of free software by riding on the backs of those who have invested sweat equity
It's my opinion that the best way to make sure Lindows becomes a long-forgotten entity is to carefully police their distributions, and cut them off at the knees when they distribute code in violation of the GPL. It will happen; it's only a matter of time. The biggest mistake the Linux community can make is to do nothing and hope Lindows just goes away. Stable poisons like dioxin and Lindows don't go away on their own; they'll persist until something proactive is done to eradicate them.
If I let you look at my key, you won't be able to copy it; you have to have my key in your possession to make a copy.
Don't go betting all your wordly possessions on this. An experienced locksmith (or someone who knows what they are looking for) can come up with a reasonable facsimile of your key based on the key cuts and the type of lock (probably imprinted on your key as well) if given a chance to look at your key. Keys can be traced and/or photocopied as well. A good reason why you should never leave your house key on the key ring when you hand over your car keys to someone you don't know or trust (valet, mechanic, etc.)
Here you can see some pictures of the FAA intentionally crashing a Boeing 720 drone...not exactly a small aircraft.
Oh, and circa 1984, I might add. Drones aren't anything new, and large drones, while rare, have been around for quite a while.
The sentence refers to "a class of persons" rather than "all persons." That's an important difference. If one were to interpret "the people" as
being all U.S. citizens, then laws that prevented convicted, violent felons, the mentally unstable, and mentally retarded people from getting guns
would be unconstitutional.
The part of the ruling you refer to is obviously devoted to explaining why a Mexican resident isn't covered by the Bill of Rights. By no means does this further dilute the Court's premise that "the people" refers to a part of the national community, and does not refer to state-level organizations, such as militias, which is how the pro-gun control crowd interprets the concept of "militia" in the Second Amendment. Granted, the scope of Verdugo-Urquidez does not directly address the Second Amendment. However, this ruling is simply one in a collective body of rulings that directly or indirectly addresses what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they referred to "the people." The pro-gun control folks stretch their credibility to the limits when they claim that the Supreme Court has ruled that "the people" refer to a government-sponsored organization rather than individuals.
Sorry I called you an ignoramus. That was uncalled for. Your "fuck you" was well-deserved.
Wow, you're touchy, aren't you?
you failed to mention US v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), in which the Supreme Court clearly indicated that the Second Amendment protects the
right of the people, not some imagined "militia" under the guise of government.
I've read the case you cited and it does not indicate that gun ownership is an individual right.
Sure it does. Page 265, first paragraph, fourth sentence.
You might have read it, but you obviously didn't understand it. Verdugo-Urquidez upheld the legal concept that the phrase "right of the people" is used throughout the Bill of Rights to designate rights for individual citizens, not the state. Thus, the right to bear arms is, in fact, a individual right protected by the Second Amendment.
BTW, don't take my word for it. You may be interested in this link, an essay written by a prominent and published criminologist and attorney. More of Kates' essays can be found here.
Here are a couple more Supreme Court cases which assert an invidual's right to bear arms under the Second Amendment:
Presser v. Illinois (1886)
Miller v. Texas (1894)
US v. Miller (1939)
So much for the thread parent poster's assertion that the Supreme Court doesn't recognize the rights under the Second Amendment as an individual right.
Constitution does not say you can own a gun.
Neither does the Constitution itself bless the right to own a firearm. You commit a common fallacy in believing the Constitution must specifically grant an individual a right before said individual can exercise that right. Nothing can be further from the truth. Check out Cruikshank v. US (1876).
The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual's right to gun ownership.
I alwasy find it interesting when the anti-freedom people spew their half-assed, poorly-researched drivel as if they were actually knowledgeable on the subject. The fact that this parent was modded up to a 5 show the general ignorance in this country when it comes to constitutional rights.
In your haste to make yourself look like an ignoramus, you failed to mention US v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990), in which the Supreme Court clearly indicated that the Second Amendment protects the right of the people, not some imagined "militia" under the guise of government.
Lower courts have been divided on the Second Amendment, but the Supreme Court has consistently recognized the right to arms as an individual right in every Second Amendment case they've heard.
Finally, don't you think it kind of strange that every amendment in the Bill of Rights refers to an individual right? The courts rightly recognize that the Bill of Rights, in its entirety, addresses the rights of individuals, not the rights of governments (or their militias).
If you are going to spew propaganda, the least you can do is check your facts first.
Soundex, which uses the way words sound rather than the way they are spelled, has been widely used by the government and genealogy researchers for the past 60 years. This isn't exactly "new" technology.
/. articles starting to sound like corporate press releases?
Why are more and more
And I thought that was an oxymoron
I dunno...I have a pair of Bose 301 speakers pushing 20 years old that are still faithfully reproducing audio without any noticeable distortion. Let's see...I paid $300 for them in 1982...not a bad purchase for an amortized cost of around $15 a year.
Now, those funky radios they sell, maybe that's another story all together...
The story's a little overblown - Yahoo's privacy policy reads that way because they offer financial
/. wants to be when it grows up (if it ever does). Neither can I, so I can sympathize.
services and the like, where they may well need financial information from you to provide the service. The reporter
needed to investigate this new software DSL users are being asked to install, and find out what sort of user tracking
it enables.
This disclaimer simply magnifies the fact that Slashdot would like to be something more than simply a headline mirror, without all the trappings that come with journalistic integrity. What, exactly, do Slashdot editors "edit" if not the stories they post? Shouldn't the stories be checked out first? And if a story is bogus (as this one seems to be), wouldn't the appropriate action be to pull the story?
I can't quite figure out what
Think of the millions who use on-line bill payment services! Talk about juicy: A company could build quite a marketable portfolio about you based upon your bill-paying habits.
Unfortunately, the masses are sucked in by the slick marketing, and never give a thought as to the middleman through which they're routing all their personal financial information.
Can you imagine posting all of your income tax information on the web? Apparently someone is willing to do this!
This looks real similiar to what we used to call a "Polish cannon." You take 5 or 6 empty tin cans (you know, the ones with real seams, not the extruded stuff), cut the bottoms out, and tape them together -- tightly -- with duct tape. Take an empty coke can and poke a small hole dead-center in the bottom, and tape this to one end of your tube (the small hole is outside, the side you drink from is inside). Break out the Ronco lighter fluid, and squeeze a healthy dose into the small hole at the end. Hold the cannon facing the ground and swing in several wide arcs. Grab with both hands and have a brave friend hold a lighter to the little hole (not the big hole!). The resulting explosion would lob a tennis ball several hundred yards. If you were unfortunate enough to be standing in front of it, you were assured of a temporary hearing loss.
Oh, to be a kid again...
I would imagine the survivability aspects of a collision with this vehicle and any mid-sized vehicle would be very low. Yes, I read the article -- something about GT-class protection -- but the mere lack of weight would be the first mark against you in a collision (something about conservation of mass and energy come to mind). And although top speed is somewhere in the vicinity of 70 mph, it will take a long time to get there -- which means a lot of time spent at a great speed differential to other traffic. Again, not exactly a formula for survival in a collision scenario.
Let's face it -- the average rolling tonnage of vehicles in the US is greater than that in Europe. What works there doesn't necessarily mean it will work here. What is really needed is a rolling steel cage, truly indestructible, with lots of energy-absorbing panels. I can't imagine trading away personal safety for environmental conservation.
you remember those, folks? ah, sweet gopher. R.I.P
Actually, there's a movement underway to bring the roots of the Internet back to the forefront. For instance, gopher isn't really dead, it's just residing here, among other places, waiting patiently for the commercial Internet to implode so the good old days can return again.
Rockets are a lot more common in aviation than you might first think. The Swearingen/Fairchild Metro III, a 20-passenger twin-prop plane popular for short-haul flights, actually has a solid-fuel rocket in the tail cone. That's because, when fully-loaded, the Metro would, under some conditions, be unable to climb on takeoff if there was an engine failure. Comforting thought.
When I was an air traffic controller, we referred to them as "aluminum lawn darts," for obvious reasons.
I wish she would have elaborated on it, because most of the listeners wouldn't have understood that this means hijacking open mail servers, which is generally considered theft of service.
"Generally considered"? Who is doing the consideration here? Show me one criminal indictment for "theft of service" handed up to someone who has used an open mail relay.
Does this mean using someone's nameserver without permission is "theft of service"? What about an open anonymous ftp server? An anonymous HTTP proxy?
The line here seems to be drawn based upon a prejudicial view of the activity itself (spamming isn't exactly a poster child for corporate America), rather than facts and reasons. If any court ever determines the use of open mail relays is a "theft of service," no one who uses the Internet will be above the law, unless you can prove your activities don't take advantage of "theft of services."
Good luck with that one.
TMDA offers those who want it the ability to filter e-mail through a confirmation process (or, you can generate "keyword" or "dated" addresses for temporary use in newsgroups and other high-harvester areas). My spam went from several tens of spam messages a day to zero after spending a couple of hours with TMDA.
This solution doesn't do anything about bandwidth (since you will still get the same amount of spam traffic at your mail port), but it's a fuzzy-warm feeling to be in control of your own mailbox for once.
If anything, regular programmers who would ever, for example, use PHP's fopen() for a proxy like the article described should be paid like H1Bs and school teachers -- about $35,000 a year, at the most.
Believe it or not, there are a few of us who have decided to take their $100,000 skills and work as teachers intent on bringing up a new generation of programmers for $35,000 a year. I'm one of them (yes, I've done some coding in my life, including much of the code that brings you color images from the IKONOS 1-meter satellites), and we are trying our damndest to prevent the likes of Mr. Bacarella from polluting the world of secure and robust programming with their silly views.
Someone has to keep fighting in the trenches...