Re: Old rackmount equipment?
On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 03:47:39PM -0400, Ed lawson wrote: > Confess Ben. You just cannot bear to part with all that old hardware. Old? Old? Its not old. Its ah.. um... Its "mature" ... (like some of us... ;-) ) Jeff Kinz -- ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Low Power User Squeaks Up
On Sat, Aug 02, 2008 at 07:01:56AM -0400, Jim Kuzdrall wrote: > .. A lot of stuff that was very spot on.. > > Linux provides a business advantage which does not require knowledge > of its innards. But Most Especially This: > > I deal with a lot of non-computer professionals who would be happier > using Linux than their present OS and software selection - if Linux was > setup and maintained for them. > Where do we send people for that warm fuzzy feeling they get from knowing that their system will always work or will be fixed asap if it doesn't? Do we have a pool of Linux support vendors that we as GNHLUG can informally recommend? Having such a pool would be a benefit to COSIG's ability to assist people in the transition to Linux and I believe there is currently a gap in this area. (or at least in my awareness in this area.) > > Time to get back to explaining to NASA why the stronger > temperature-entropy tensor coefficient makes thermal diffusivity, not > elastic-wave propagation velocity, the critical factor in laser removal > of sub-micron particles from the mirrors of the James Webb Space > Telescope. C'mon, Jim. Everyone knows that. (yup, sure, I do... ;-) ) Jeff Kinz ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Quick DNS perfromance measurement trick
Just saw this on a DNS forum, It seems to work nicely - I hope every one tries it and reports their result here in the gnhlug list :-) found here : http://lists.oarci.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2008-July/002932.html Here is the command: dig +short porttest.dns-oarc.net TXT Here are my results: z.y.x.w.v.u.t.s.r.q.p.o.n.m.l.k.j.i.h.g.f.e.d.c.b.a.pt.dns-oarc.net. "209.244.7.43 is POOR: 38 queries in 1.9 seconds from 2 ports with std dev 0.94" It appears that "good" resolvers have lots of ports. Anyone who wants to take a whack at explaining what this means is very welcome! That IP above is not known to me - here is my /etc/resolv.conf: ; generated by /sbin/dhclient-script search hsd1.ma.comcast.net. nameserver 68.87.71.226 nameserver 68.87.73.242 Jeff Kinz ( ... OR his evil twin ) -- "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis. Don't you hate it when a prognosticator is right? ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Linux/FOSS cons?
I have nephew who is interested in attending Linux/Open Source conventions, but not the ordinary business oriented ones. He is looking for any that are organized more along the lines of a Science Fiction con. (created by and put on by the fans themselves) Anyone heard of such a thing? Thanks. Jeff. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: comcast does it again Port 25
Ben, This is very useful info and is deeply appreciated. (You can have my porcupine if you want it... :-) ) Thank you. Jeff. On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 9:59 PM, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 9:33 PM, Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I think that's right, but somebody who hasn't given up and gone with > > postfix might point out a flaw ... > > Looks good to me. > > In my SMTP configs, I don't have an "M:LOGIN" line, but I have no > idea what that does, so maybe it's needed with DynDNS, or some > distros, or maybe it's just making a default explicit, or whatever. > Presumably one should include it. > > > > like if the current init scripts don't compile anymore (used to have to > > install a sendmail-cf package and run 'm4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > > > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf'). > > One still needs the sendmail-cf package installed, but on hat-like > systems (including CentOS), one can just do: > > make -C /etc/mail > > and it will automatically build all the needed files, databases, maps, > and so on. (There's a Makefile in the /etc/mail directory, and the -C > just tells make(1) to look there.) > > > > Inbound might have to wait until tomorrow! > > Sendmail runs an MSA (Mail Submission Agent -- "SMTP lite") on > TCP/587 by default, but hat-like systems shut that off by default, > too. Their stock sendmail.mc macro config file does have a commented > out line which seems intended to turn this back on. Removing the > comment-out, it would be: > > DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=submission, Name=MSA, M=Ea') > > Run make, restart Sendmail, adjust any firewall rules, and one > should be all set. > > -- Ben > > > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ > ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: comcast does it again Port 25
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 9:35 PM, Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Comcast just nailed my port 25 access.
> > Can't telnet to port 25 anywhere that I've tried ...
>
> Inbound (to you), outbound, or both?
Both - and I've had it tested by externals scans which I have verified that
the same people who cannot reach my port 25 can still reach my port 22 and
my port 80 as well using grc.com's silly scan tool :-)
I can't telnet to port 25 anywhere I've tried, even though I can telnet to 22,
100, 587 at the same addresses. But of course, they may all have port
25 shut off.
>
> FWIW, I don't seem to be blocked on TCP/25, in or out, in Dover, NH.
>
>
> > My current inbound load is about 3MB, 400 or so emails per day.
>
> I suspect that's high enough to get on their radar.
No, thats inbound traffic and it used to be over 8 Mb a day but I
dropped off the
the LKML and Fedora lists. Inbound traffic never bothered comcast.
The two times I went over 200 small test nessages outgoing - they
noticed immediately.
>
>
> > And I can't seem to get Comcast to remove the port 25 block as it
> > is rumored some have done.
>
> The surest way to do that is to upgrade to their "business" service.
> ToS allows you to host services. In particular, TCP/25 blocks will
> be removed. Prices vary with speed, SLA, location, phase of the moon,
> etc., but in Amesbury, MA, I think we're paying $64/month for 6 down/2
> up (Mbit/sec) with one static address.
No. Never. Especially after spending an hour and a half on the phone
with their tech support manager today who basically lied to my face
over and over again. Did you know that comcast doesn't block
port 25?
I WOULD pay $64 a month to {This scenario has been classified by DHS
for strategic use at Guantanomo Bay } Comcast.
I'd rather poke my self in the arse with a gasoline soaked flaming
porcupine then pay comcast more money. (of course for some people
thats apparently some kind of foreplay... ) :-)
___
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Re: comcast does it again Port 25
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 7:30 PM, Chip Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On March 31, 2008, Jeff Kinz sent me the following: > > > I would have already gone with them except I can't figure out if I will > > be able to configure sendmail correctly to work with their system. > > (I'm surmising they require SMTP-AUTH which I know nothing about > > despite having used sendmail for years. I'm running CentOS 4.5) > > Jumping into the thread late, but I'm going to assume an outbound block > on 25 here, utilizing DynDNS's MailHop Outbound service to get around: > > http://www.dyndns.com/support/kb/mail_servers_and_mailhop_outbound.html#sendmail > (whew, right on the 80 column boundary...) > > Personally, I think switching to Postfix and configuring that for > authenticated "smarthosting" would be easier :D yes, dyndns' services are what we are discussing. However picking up and configuring a new MTA (and making sure it works with all my procmail and bogofilter tools ) is not a learning curve that Iwant to climb right now. Unless you can demonstrate that its only 15-20 minutes long INCLUDING procmail and bogofilter I'd rather stay with sendmail, crufty as it is. :-) That feeling is fading and will continue to fade the longer this goes on.. :-) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: comcast does it again Port 25
On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 6:32 PM, Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jeff Kinz wrote: > > So I am looking for reccomendation for SMTP mail relay services. > > There are some guys in Manchester who do this, and donate services to > GNHLUG. :) > >http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/relay.html >http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/outbound.html > > See if any of the ports listed on the relay page are reachable to you. > I don't know if they have any options of you're completely walled off. > UUCP?! (Just to prove myself wrong I googled 'UUCP SSL' and sure enough > it exists). So even on the HTTP(s)-only IntarWeb you might still have > options. > > Of course, cheap, reliable and with great customer service > > are always desireable (pick any one.. :-) ) > > I'm only using them for Backup MX (and domain registration) but so far I > can pick all three. Certainly paying $5/mo to them is better than any > deal Comcast is going to give you. Thanks Bill. I've been looking into Dyndns for a significant portion of the day. I already have my dynamic IP service with them and I have used them for MX backup before as well. I would have already gone with them except I can't figure out if I will be able to configure sendmail correctly to work with their system. (I'm surmising they require SMTP-AUTH which I know nothing about despite having used sendmail for years. I'm running CentOS 4.5) If I could be sure I could get it to work, I would just go ahead and sign up but the email response I got from them was to point at the fragmentary doc they have in their support area that I've had already been through. I suspect its easier than it feels at this point, but I'm feeling pretty wobbly about it all right now, and I have 450 soccer kids waiting for schedules to arrive in the coaches inboxes which I suspect adds to my anxiety. :-} Jeff. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
comcast does it again Port 25
Hi all, Comcast just nailed my port 25 access. Can't telnet to port 25 anywhere that I've tried, but port 587 seesm to be working lots of places. I am too much in love with direct control over my email to suffer being reduced to 5 emails names and a pop connection for inbound mail, as well as loathing the idea of losing the control an SMTP connection gives you. And I can't seem to get Comcast to remove the port 25 block as it is rumored some have done. So I am looking for reccomendation for SMTP mail relay services. My current inbound load is about 3MB, 400 or so emails per day. My outbound load is about 4 - 5 per day (averaged). But some days will be 20 or 30 a day with 40 or 50 cc's on each. (start of soccer season, I'm the local youth league scheduling coordinator) Of course, cheap, reliable and with great customer service are always desireable (pick any one.. :-) ) Ideas anyone? Thanks in advance. Jeff Kinz (Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord no comcast creep will walk across the street in front of my car. The temptation would be difficult to overcome... :-) ) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Laptop repair
On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 12:11:12PM -0500, Tech Writer wrote: > Can anyone suggest somewhere in the greater Southern New Hampshire area > that can perform a simple laptop repair? I've got an older HP Pavilion > that I just finished loading Linux onto. It was working great until the > dog ran by, and yanked the power cable out. The connection is now loose > and won't hold the cable. The lowest price I can get from HP repair is > almost $300! They told me that was just for shipping, handling, and > re-soldering the connector back to the motherboard. To get the whole thing > tested after was closer to $400! HMM- chrismas specials on new, more powerful laptops are available for $400.. If you have the money and just need a good reason to spend it, this could be an opportunity rather than a problem :) on the other hand $400 is a good chunk of change to not spend if you don't have to. I second the "spare parts" and "broken ebay" ideas. but dismantling the little buggers is a bit of finicky toodling. getting that back together especially. -- This e-mail was created by voice dictation using Dragon's NaturallySpeaking. There may be errors, omissions, or additions present. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Kill-a-watt devices
Hi everyone, my local electric company has what they call "test metering equipment" for appliances. I went down to their offices last week and borrowed one of these devices. Imagine my surprise when they passed over the counter to me, an actual power meter, mounted on a nice gray utility box that was bolted to a fairly thick chunk of metal with giant rubber feet on it and to thick black electrical cords hanging off with it. Altogether it weighs about 25 pounds. >From the front, the circular glass dome and funny dials and numbers, with the floppy black appendages hanging off of it in almost resembles the flying spaghetti monster. I was a little shocked, :-) but I cradled the awkward, (it's about 18 inches high by six inches wide by three inches deep not including the glass dome or the metal plate on the bottom with the dangling floppy appendages), to my chest and lugged it out to the car. This meter is a little easier to read than the old-fashioned once with the series of rotating pointers, which alternate their direction of rotation as you go from pointer dial to pointer dial. While this one has the ubiquitous spinning disk deep down in its innards, the kilowatt hours consumed are displayed on a series of cylinders which have digits printed on them. The cylinders are mounted vertically and at some time, as you consume more electricity they rotate counterclockwise. Imagine a miniature 55 gallon drum, standing on end with numbers painted around it facing a small window that you can see one number at a time through the window. So this gadget has no way to display any unit smaller than 1 kilowatt hour and, because the display is sort of an analog device, figuring out exactly when 1 kilowatt hour has been consumed is a little bit of a challenge. Even more so because the digits are not centered exactly in their windows when they come to a stop between movements. It seems to me that this gadget has a built-in read error factor based on how it displays the information. I have no way of knowing how much of the A. kilowatt hour has been produced at anytime between changes of the final digit. Right now I've been using it to measure a laptop, so far the laptop has been running for 83 hours without consuming a single kilowatt hour. For all I know we could roll over to that full kilowatt hour at any second or it could take another four days to get their. Does anyone know if the Kill-a-watt devices are able to measure consumption in smaller units than a single kilowatt hour? Any suggestions on better ways to do this? I have to assume the time it took to machine the metal and assemble the whole unit cost them more in time then buying a kill-a-watt meter itself. Thanks, Jeff -- This e-mail was created by voice dictation using Dragon's NaturallySpeaking. There may be errors, omissions, or additions present. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: Spam and mailing lists
On Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 10:22:28PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > [repling to off-list message, with author's permission] > > Baring other solutions, applying SpamAssassin to the Mailman hold > queue might be useful, and is in fact something we were doing before, > thanks to some magic by Jeff Kinz. But if rejection during the SMTP > transaction is being done, there's no hold queue to worry about. FYI: Its not Spamassasin. Its a bash script that uses Bogofilter, curl and some bash glue to process the email fragments posted to the gnhlug admin pages. Due to the new spam technique of posting "ham worded" text with image based spam ads it has pretty much reached its limits. I haven't used Spamassasin because I've always felt uncomfortable with its design. 2006 year to date the script stats are: out of 14267, Killed: 13714, Ignored: 532, Approved: 21, Killed 96% > > -- Ben > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ > ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
Re: COX blocking own users outbound email
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 04:02:25PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: Thanks for responding Ben. I was expecting you to. In my last post tried to say what I thought was needed and why it couldn't happen. As the current situation makes it very difficult to solve the problems in the ways I'm discussing here, its really neat that you are interested in discussing it. Especially (IIRC) you work inside the ISP business you are bound to have specific technical insights about why these things can't be done. > > From: Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: gnh , blug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Isn't it supposed to be poor form to cross-post controversial subjects? No. This is a long running thread that has been present in both of these email lists literally for years. But if you like I can post it separately in each list next time. I certainly discuss it both places. (and these aren't newsgroups, its germane to both lists. UNIX, Linux, Open Source and the internet are in many ways all part of each other.) > On 9/3/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Long time internet users viewed port 25 traffic as part of the inherent > > bundle of services and "internet connection" provided by any ISP should > > include. > > Some view it that way. Others say, "Hey, if I'm an operator, I get > to be in control of my network. It's not your network, it's mine. If > you don't like it, go somewhere else." The problem here is that we have a business running part of the public infrastructure. Sadly, human nature being what it is, this never works out for the best. The business never chooses to run the infrastructure in the way that is in the best interests of the people it serves. In fact officers of a public company could possibly even be sued if they did so, since it would cost money and that could be in conflict with their fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders The supposed choice implied by "If you don't like it, go somewhere else." is non existent. Its a false choice frame-up. There is no "somewhere else" to go to get away from this problem. Like most people in the USA I currently have two or fewer choices for high speed residential broadband access. Even when including dial up providers the same restrictions are in effect because of the standards created by the duopoly. They all do this so there is no real choice. " It's not your network, it's mine." Yup - Our information highway is a toll road. for now. And thats the problem The infrastructure material/physical assets are owned by the wrong entity. The tail is wagging the dog. Why do you think the cable/phone duopoly HATES Muni-Wi-Fi projects so much? :-) They could lose their monopoly! The first problem is that the network belongs to the phone/cable company. This is the most important thing to correct. The networks will have to be more like the local road system. The towns/cities/counties/states need to be the owners of the infrastructure and the ISP's need to compete to earn the opportunity to run pieces of it. (Want to keep the economies of scale We need technology companies competing to earn the right to run each part of the network just like construction firms compete to build parts of the road system. Currently the phone and cable companies can't lose their business, and their behavior reflects that. With real competition each year a company can lose the business. If they haven't done a good job or tried to milk it for too much money. For the very first time in history the phone company would actually have a direct business reason to do a good job at a low price instead of a premium price. > > > (When they took the Jews away I kept quiet because I wasn't a Jew, when > > they > > took the teachers away I kept quiet because I wasn't a teacher...) > > Can I invoke Godwin's Law here? (It was trade unionists who came > after the Jews, BTW, not teachers.) OK, unionists.. Removed from its context, doesn't respond to the point, and doesn't make any other point either? why put it in? (I mean if it was funny or something I could see it, but..) The point of the original context was that history has shown, many times, that if you let a small group of people get persecuted for unfair reasons, you are enabling the persecutors to do it to whomever they want for any reason and get away with it. While not a cataclysm like WWII, recent events, SBC stating they will charge content providers like Google, yahoo, youtube; twice for carrying their bits over the internet; show that this is happening. The duopoly does not view the internet as part of the public infrastructure, but as part of their private profit factory. As public utilities, that is not what the phone company and the ca
Re: COX blocking own users outbound email
On Sun, Sep 03, 2006 at 11:36:47AM -0400, Jeffrey Creem wrote: > Jeff Kinz wrote: > > >A few years ago there were heated discussion about whether or not ISP's > >should be blocking SMTP traffic (port 25) from dynamically assigned IP > >addresses. > > > > > > Things have really gotten out of hand. Real messages trapped in spam > filters, real spam getting through, port blocking of > legitmate useAnd the spam keeps coming.I don't know what the > right answer is, but it is not the current path that we are on. The answer is the same as it was years ago. When a user misbehaves and their connection provider doesn't take care of it, the other connection providers cut them off from the internet completely. It was called "the Internet death penalty" (IDP) and it was only used in the most dire of circumstances, when the offending ISP refused to take care of the problem. Usually the ISP (in those days the ISP were mostly Colleges and Universities) took care of the problems when other ISP's contacted them about it. What has changed since then is the way the money works. These days ISP's have to generate a profit. or at least not too much of a loss, as long as their market share is expanding when using the model "Buying market share by debt-financing", the model the cable companies have been using for years In the "old days" a college's IT department had a budget, they spent it. done. Is there room for the IDP today? The ISP's will say no, simply because such a thing would requires expensive efforts and would impact their cash flow. Further it would impact peering contracts and SLA agreements where applying the IDP would mean breaking committed, legal contract terms. The only way an IDP could work today would be for laws to be put in place requiring ISP's to enforce it under specific circumstances. Given how well legislation is written in general plus how well our representatives understand the Internet and are able to resist brainwashing by lobbyists... well, I'm not optimistic that such legislation would be effective. As a final issue, those same laws would have to be put in place on a world wide basis. Apparently we need a world wide Emperor to fix this. I am ready to serve if such a position becomes available. The ISP's could implement a worldwide IDP policy and enforcement on their own but they clearly lack the will to do so. Unsurprising considering their goal is to make money. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
COX blocking own users outbound email
A few years ago there were heated discussion about whether or not ISP's should be blocking SMTP traffic (port 25) from dynamically assigned IP addresses. Long time internet users viewed port 25 traffic as part of the inherent bundle of services and "internet connection" provided by any ISP should include. Those who worked at ISP claimed it was just the same thing a pizza delivery car that won't deliver to some neighborhoods because its too dangerous. Internet traditionalists responded that many innocent parties were being harmed by these actions. ISP techs responded "well its only a few geeks that actually want to us their own outbound SMTP on port 25" (When they took the Jews away I kept quiet because I wasn't a Jew, when they took the teachers away I kept quiet because I wasn't a teacher...) Internet traditionalists responded that the fundamental nature of this action harmed the internet because it acted as and allowed ISP's to enforce censorship. (Network information theory on the value of networks confirms this by the way). Today the damage has taken another significant step forward: http://www.wichitalinks.com/coxspam.html The cox network is deleting their own customers legitimate outgoing email, routed over Cox' own mail routers.. And isn't even telling them when they do it. This is one more brick in the wall. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] The China-Russia-US Geopolitical Dynamical System (!!!)
On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 08:17:21PM -0400, Fred wrote: > On Thursday 27 July 2006 15:23, Ben Scott uttered thusly: > > SET self-appointed net.cop mode = ON > > > > Could we take the China/US/whatever debate off-list please? > > > > SET self-appointed net.cop mode = OFF > > > > Please note that I am empowered to speak only for myself. > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- Ben > > "Sorry about that". But to bring it back "on topic", I look at geopolitics no > differently than I look at computer networks, the human body, or any other > complex dynamical system. The large human societies form transcendental sets > of immense complexity and dynamics. One of the reasons I am currently > interested in Lisp is so I can model these dynamics and see if I can pull > off a few impressive predictions that will help put transcendental sets -- > and me -- on the map. > > I have heard many in the past claim that humans can't be predicted by > mathematics. I say they're all wrong. :-) The real irony is that I wish I > were wrong, because their are far-reaching and deep implications -- all of > which scares the willies out of me -- if I'm right. You've read Asimov, right? Foundation trilogy? (Note - trilogy has become a marketing term for how many books can we sell using the same characters? :) > > Of course, I could just be a wise-ass spewing forth total BS. But I'm having > a hard time convincing myself that's the case. :-) > > -Freedom Fred > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Stupid question regarding Thunderbird and IMAP
On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 05:16:06PM -0400, Dan Jenkins wrote: > Fred wrote: > >Thanks to both you and John. It is definitely using the mbox format. I'll > >have to switch it to using Maildir, but wonder about converting the mbox to > >Maildir in the many existing folders across many existing accounts. > > > The one I've used is called mbox2maildir. But how do you know what it does? :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Stupid question regarding Thunderbird and IMAP
On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 01:28:36PM -0400, Stephen Ryan wrote: > On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 13:11 -0400, John Abreau wrote: > > Fred wrote: > > > > > Thanks to both you and John. It is definitely using the mbox format. I'll > > > have to switch it to using Maildir, but wonder about converting the mbox > > > to > > > Maildir in the many existing folders across many existing accounts. > > > > > > Fun city... > > > > > > > A while back, I found a tool to convert mbox to Maildir that worked > > well. I don't recall where, offhand; it might have been bundled with > > Courier, or dovecot. It should be easy enough to find via google. > > perfect_maildir.pl, from > http://perfectmaildir.home-dn.net/ To use tools you already may have this may work: formail -s "mailbox file" | /usr/lib/mh/rcvstore -unseen "Maildir" Didn't test, but I seem to remember having done this in the past. > > > I used this a few months ago when consolidating the accumulated cruft of > a decade's worth of email across a dozen accounts onto a single server. > > _______ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Looking for Open Source in Education resources.
On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 12:45:58PM -0400, Ray Cote wrote: > Hi Folks. > > I've had a group of educators who are putting together a school > technology plan ask me to provide them with links to some of "this > Open Source software" that's out there. > > I've gathered a few links (see below) and I know there's folks on > this list who track this sort of information. > > The people I'm speaking with are mostly Windows folks with some > Macintosh users as well. > I'm less interested in talking about the virtues of Linux, Firefox, > and applications like Moodle at the moment and more interested in > talking about the virtues of more education-specific applications. > > Any pointers and guidance are greatly appreciated. Seul/Edu Educational Application Index: SchoolForge! http://richtech.ca/seul/index.php > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: USB over ethernet
On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 12:57:02PM -0400, Jeff Kinz wrote: > On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 12:33:03PM -0400, Bruce Dawson wrote: > > Jeff Kinz wrote: > > > On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 11:22:30AM -0400, Bruce Dawson wrote: > > >>Does anyone know of any drivers that support USB over ethernet? > > >> > > > Bruce, IIRC the LTSP project implements that ability. Using their tools > > > the server is able to read and write to/from USB devices, floppies and > > > what not. > > > > Yes. LTSP appears to support only USB-storage devices (and via > > SMB/samba). This is fine for thumb drives, but not for webcams (or > > whatever those little cameras that clip onto your monitor are called). > > I'm sure there are other devices too. > > > > Its mostly samba with a bunch of glue scripts. > > No - its much more advanced than that (IIRC) they have made some > special efforts to support block devices. I think I need to re-phrase that. Its not more complicated but its now very different from that. They used to use samba with a bunch of glue scripts but now they use "fuse". A user space file system, routed through VFS. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: USB over ethernet
On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 12:33:03PM -0400, Bruce Dawson wrote: > Jeff Kinz wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 11:22:30AM -0400, Bruce Dawson wrote: > > > >>Does anyone know of any drivers that support USB over ethernet? > >> > >>I'd like to access the USB devices on a remote workstation as if they > >>were on the local system. > > > > Bruce, IIRC the LTSP project implements that ability. Using their tools > > the server is able to read and write to/from USB devices, floppies and > > what not. There is nothing to prevent you from using those same tools on > > your systems even when they are not thin clients and servers. The LTSP > > servers and clients are all just Linux boxes. The thin clients get > > the kernel they boot from an NFS mount rather than a local hard drive. > > Everything else is the same. (pretty much.. but of course, smaller. :) ) > > Yes. LTSP appears to support only USB-storage devices (and via > SMB/samba). This is fine for thumb drives, but not for webcams (or > whatever those little cameras that clip onto your monitor are called). > I'm sure there are other devices too. > > > I don't remember the exact names of the tools that do that right now but > > IRC on freenode #ltsp is a good place to ask. > > Its mostly samba with a bunch of glue scripts. No - its much more advanced than that (IIRC) they have made some special efforts to support block devices. ltsp's localdev support only requires fuse, in terms of kernel support. fuse is in mainline. But web cams are purported to be character devices and are not supported right now. > > Thanks for the info. I have a feeling its going to be a chore getting it > all to play together. > > --Bruce > _______ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: USB over ethernet
On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 11:22:30AM -0400, Bruce Dawson wrote: > Does anyone know of any drivers that support USB over ethernet? > > I'd like to access the USB devices on a remote workstation as if they > were on the local system. Bruce, IIRC the LTSP project implements that ability. Using their tools the server is able to read and write to/from USB devices, floppies and what not. There is nothing to prevent you from using those same tools on your systems even when they are not thin clients and servers. The LTSP servers and clients are all just Linux boxes. The thin clients get the kernel they boot from an NFS mount rather than a local hard drive. Everything else is the same. (pretty much.. but of course, smaller. :) ) I don't remember the exact names of the tools that do that right now but IRC on freenode #ltsp is a good place to ask. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Time sink [was Re: 3KID, is this a new operating system?]
On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 11:50:33AM -0400, Michael Costolo wrote: > Economies are grinding to a halt all across the world as I have > introduced this puzzle to a few Flickr groups... Y'all do realize that this is the memetic equivalent of the Star Trek "Computer, compute the value of pi to the last digit" trick? -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: A possible reason to prefer an open source server...
On Mon, Jul 10, 2006 at 03:16:09PM -0400, Thomas Charron wrote: > On 7/10/06, Steven W. Orr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On Monday, Jul 10th 2006 at 14:00 -0400, quoth Christopher Chisholm: > > =>woah, hang on, back it up... i think i speak for all of us when i > > wonder, > > =>what's wrong with having unprotected hooker sex? > > =>... and that's the story of how i got banned from the GNHLUG. > > It's a good thing this isn't Cambridge or else we'd be using phraseology > > like "unlaminated sex workers" or something that indicates that they're > > being kept in a downtrodden state by the krypto-fascist members of > > the social elitists of the controlled masses. > > > >I wonder, can we get this conversation ranked high on google searches? > Be funny as all hell to do a search for 'Dell SC430' and have unlaminated > sex workers end up in the result. ;-) Per Don Marti's Google juice recipe, just have everyone make a link a link named 'Dell SC430' on their web page and have the link go to that posting in the archive. The bigger question is will Dell notice? > > Thomas -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OT: email service - gmail
On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 02:42:09PM -0400, Bill McGonigle wrote: > On Jul 6, 2006, at 13:43, Ben Scott wrote: > > Indeed. It's a fair bet it is. Google isn't the only operator that > > performs backups of their systems. And besides, the NSA keeps a copy > > of everything for you, too. ;-) > > So next time I lose a mail disk I should file a FOIA request with the > NSA? :) > -Bill Hmm, We know you're joking, but... -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Educational Linux distros?
On Sat, Jun 24, 2006 at 10:48:19AM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: > I thought I remember someone mentioning an educational Linux distro a > long time ago. Does such a thing exist? I'll end up googling for > > I have a spare PIII laying around here and I thought I'd start > building it up for my kids to play with. I'd like to have some > educational games and the like for them, and since it's a PIII, I > doubt Windows is going to work on it ;) There is the k12ltsp distro which works very well, comes w/a ton of edu stuff. Its specifically designed to be a thin client server distro but it works quite well as a desktop, and you can add thin clients any time you have a spare old box with a pxe-boot NIC in it happen by. > > Thanks, > -- > Seeya, > Paul > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Last nights MerriLUG meeting, 15-June-2006
On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 05:23:50PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 6/16/06, Tom Buskey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Too bad the Alpha didn't take off. > > It's hard to take off when corporate HQ has loaded you up with > ingots of depleted uranium :-( > > -- Ben "I miss the Alpha" Scott Yeah, it even had native speech recognition (er, under MS... ) > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Last nights MerriLUG meeting, 15-June-2006
On Fri, Jun 16, 2006 at 09:04:59AM -0400, Ted Roche wrote: > Another quarterly > meeting topic: Jim Gettys presenting the MIT $100 laptop. Discussion > of where and when. If you do have a JG presenting on the $100 laptop you might need a much larger room than normal. I've never been to any NH Lug meetings but I would definitely attend that. > > Lots of good topics. Thanks all for coming and contributing. > > Ted Roche > Ted Roche & Associates, LLC > http://www.tedroche.com > > > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Dealing with multiple layers of routers
On Wed, Jun 07, 2006 at 05:03:00PM -0400, John Abreau wrote: > Bill Freeman wrote: > > The chart that I read showed the V4 to have half as much of each > > kind of memory as the V3. No other important differences. Or > > my memory (in my head) may be failing if you have to go back > > further to get a full memory WRT54G. > > Where did you find that chart? The one I looked at a few months ago > showed V5 having half the memory of V4, and V4 having the same as > V3 and earlier. John, I saw the same chart you did. I think Bill did too, but he must have used 'C' at some point in the past and mentally translated it to 0 thru 4, rather than 1 thru 5. :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
sorry
On Sat, Jun 03, 2006 at 10:14:31AM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: > Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Unable to read your email. Please do not post html email to the Gnhlug > > email lists, or any technical lists, especially Linux lists. > > Jeff, while I admire you willingness to help and share knowledge, I > think the Subject says it all: DefectiveByDesign.org Apologies to the list - Didn't intend to cc gnhlug on this - I Responded to it in the middle of getting inundated by emails and phonecalls for our local kids soccer league, and.. guess what, all the games for today need to be rescheduled and.. under distraction forgot to excise gnhlug from the cc list So I didn't see the contents of the email and since we never get spam on this list (hardly ever) I just wasn't expecting it to be spam. Sorry. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Lori Nagel has forwarded a page to you from DefectiveByDesign.org
Unable to read your email. Please do not post html email to the Gnhlug email lists, or any technical lists, especially Linux lists. This web page will show how to turn off html in your email program: http://www.kinz.org/nomime.html#programs or here: http://expita.com/nomime.html#programs On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 09:57:34PM -, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Ethan Zuckerman: Brilliant expository on OLPC
Ethan Z. (of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School) All in one article, Ethan illuminates what the differences are between the OLPC "laptop" and what we all think of as a "laptop". http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=824 This is a quick and yet very informative read that gives a very comprehensive review of what/how and why the OLPC. Worth the time. There, a whole email on the OLPC project and I never once said "textbook", oops. Doh! -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OLPC - "eaten my homework"
On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 04:13:11PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 5/31/06, John Abreau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > So you're saying someone who is knowledgeable about actual textbook > > production costs is wrong, because if you ignore the real-world > > costs he pointed out, you can imagine something completely inadequate > > for a cheaper price. > > No. I'm saying that some of the real-world costs apply to the > laptop, too -- namely the cost of the content, which I'm told is a > significant cost for most books. I'm also saying that applying > assumptions normal to textbook printing in the US to a hypothetical > project to provide low-cost textbooks to the third world is not > reasonable, jist as applying the cost of a laptop for a business in > the US to OLPC is not reasonable. In particular, US textbooks are > produced in small runs with relatively low lead times, are updated > relatively frequently, and often cary extras (e.g., CDs, curriculum > support, etc.) unrelated to the textbook itself. Hi Ben, what you say here is true for College texts but not Public school texts. They don't have the frequent updates or the media extras(yet much). > Given that > information that separates those costs from the actual cost of > printing and binding a durable book is lacking in this discussion, I > feel these are valid points. Public school texts are generally used for a decade, or until they fall apart, depending... > There's also the fact that, as someone else pointed out, it's a lot > easier to build infrastructure to print books then it is to build > infrastructure to manufacture laptops. A project to help "developing > nations" build printing operations in, coupled with royalty-free text, > might be a very practical solution. > > Jeff Kinz was correct when he emphasized the differences between the > OLPC project's "laptop" and what I can buy from Dell; I don't > understand why these hypothetical textbooks have to be limited to what > I can buy at the UNH Bookstore. I did my comparison mostly to Elementary public school texts in my last email which looks at some industry reported costs. > > I started out my involvement in this thread not really having an > opinion for or against the OLPC concept, or the printed text > alternative. If this discussion happens to mirror the assumptions of > the OLPC people (namely, assuming "It must be cheaper if it's on a > computer"), the OLPC project might not be as well considered as I > would have hoped. > > > I looked at nationalcolorcopy.com, and I see no indication that they > > produce anything as rugged as a textbook. > > I thought I made that clear when I wrote, "This isn't what it would > actually cost to print a text book". Jeff Kinz asked me to back up > what *I* was saying (reasonable); I provided that information as a > readily available demonstration that prices get dramatically lower if > you print in volume. The nationalcolorcopy.com cited price was erroneous. (way off) See my previous email. > I just realized that Jeff Kinz actually pointed me in the direction > of one bit of additional information that durable books do not need to > cost $50 or more: "[Textbooks] have stringently high costs because > their construction and content is different than anything else except > coffee table books." Some quick spot checks find examples of such > "coffee table books" for under $10 at popular online retailers. Again > (and I'll try to make this as clear as I can), THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO > SUGGEST THESE ARE EQUIVALENT TO A TEXTBOOK. This is presented only as > evidence that the question "Do textbooks have to cost so much?" is a > reasonable one. Dang - the last thing I want to do is help Ben's position! :-) Coffee books are not constructed like textbooks. What they share in common is the need for extensive layout work on the content. Even so I suspect that any large coffee table books selling for $10 are probably remainders selling at or below cost. (maybe... I could be "worng" :) ) Ding! And there's the bell for the next round, but Kinz is tired, he's moving slowly and staggering. Clearly he's in no shape for this kind of bout. Will his corner even let him go in for the next round? and now for this commercial message from our sponsors: ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OLPC - "eaten my homework"
On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 03:42:35PM -0400, David Ecklein wrote: > Has the need for expensive "rugged" textbooks been taken for granted? > Remember, we are discussing education in developing countries. > > In the Philippines (especially outside of Manila), it has been common for > teachers to be the sole possessor of such textbooks, aside from the school > library, from which it may have been borrowed. He or she then reproduces > extracts on a mimeo and passes it out to the students as the lessons > dictate. The students then have a copy of their own timely information - > rather than anyone investing in "rugged" books that get outdated after being > passed down just a few times to incoming students. By the way, everything > rots in the Philippines, even "rugged" US-made textbooks. > And your shorts too, I've heard. :-) > In modern Greece, a society somewhere between the developing world and the > most advanced industrial countries, the use of "expensive rugged" school > textbooks is eschewed. Every Greek student receives a cheaply printed > up-to-date book each year for each course. These paperback books are > personal property of the students, and are not passed down - avoidance of > multiple serial abuse plus pride of ownership are enough to keep the book in > better condition. See Alan Cromer "Connected Knowledge" (Oxford 1997). I like this idea better than the teacher being the sole owner. I don't suppose many people would keep their first year reading primer very long but what the hey, its going to rot anyway. /me shoots Dave E. for top posting.. :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OLPC - "eaten my homework"
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 07:17:03PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 5/30/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>> The cost of producing a good textbook, even if the licensing/royalties > >>> are zero, is very high. > >> > >> Source? Numbers? Hard data? > > > > Family in the biz. textbooks are a very different market that any other > > printed matter. They have stringently high costs because their > > construction and content is different than anything else except coffee > > table books., and yet their printing runs are tiny so the one-time costs > > must be amortized over a much smaller number of volumes than regular > > books. That raises the per unit cost. > > By "content", it isn't clear if you mean physical materials or > subject matter. Both > If it's the later, the costs are the same for both > printed and ebooks, as I already pointed out. That does it. I'm calling my Sister! :-) But you're not correct about that. The layout and proofing work are different for each form of media, and paper media, being far more constrictive, requires a great deal more effort. This information comes from a book development editor who works with both kinds of media. She's also my sister. :-) (My sister can out-edit your sister:-) > As I said, I've never printed a text book. But I have been involved > in support of efforts to produce low-volume copies of local manuals > and brochures, and if you do it in volume, prices can get very low. I've gotten manuals printed before too. Its not that low. Especially when you factor in the costs of the time spent by all the people who work on getting it done. Hi-tech biz'es do not track the hours that way, but publishing companies have to. > Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, ten "books" of 200 pages > each, and 500,000 copies of each. That's a total of 1,000,000,000 > (one billion pages). This is probably a big underestimate, but it > gives me some numbers to work with. Based on the price progression > seen at http://www.nationalcolorcopy.com/ (first vendor found via > Google that published prices), we can expect 0.005 (one-half cent) per > page. (I'd actually expect a better deal for a project of this > magnitude, but I wanted to cite a source.) That works out to $1 per > book before binding. Ben - There is a major error here: the price you cite here : 0.005 (one-half cent) per page is the cost of the printing and does not include the cost of the paper. The minimum cost for the paper available with that printing is 8 cents per page.. Call their 800 # and ask. That moves you to $16.50 per book, and you have no design, no proof, no layout and no binding yet. Also, textbooks are (except for grade 1-3) are typically much larger than 200 pages. On the order of 400-800 is more normal for grades 4-12. So - 400 pages instead of 200 = $33.00 per book. Another problem with your scenario is that each country will have to have the book in its own language, and sometimes each region will have its own language, like India. Add the further complication that political and religious pressures may cause each city or state in a region to require a different version of the book. This happens for the foreign country of Texas here in the US. :) Yes it is possible to produce manuals for a lower cost but manuals are not built for service in elementary public schools. The construction standards for a public school textbook are very different than that of a manual used by a single professional. Your manual will sit on the shelf most of its life. Occasionally someone may pick it up and leaf through it, read a few pages and put it down again or someone may even read through it extensively before it goes back on the shelf. Most manuals will spend their entire life in air-conditioned comfort on a shelf in an office building. No humidity, no sunlight, no dust no dogs no kids. A public school textbook on the other hand has to survive in one of the worst environments known to mankind: hostage to an American public school student! THE HORROR! OH THE HORROR! :) A public school textbook will spend most of its life being jostled about in the bottom of a knapsack or bookbag or backpack. It will be slammed, kicked, dragged, spilled upon, work as a casual weapon, and be owned by at least ten different students over the course of a decade before its life ends. During that time, the binding MUST NOT FAIL!. The paper must not warp from humidity, the pages must not rip, etc. etc. What Goes into a textbook? To reduce weight but keep strength the paper used for the pages is a thin, (to keep the weight down), high rag content, (for strength), coated paper,(resist spills, good contrast, high "inkability"). Not bible
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 11:08:01PM -0400, Bill Ricker wrote: > > Please go see "reader Rabbit" or "Math Blaster" in action with kids > > who are in Kindergarten through fourth grade. Then it will be clear to > > you. > > Right on Jeff. My daughter loved Reader Rabbit. I credit Reader > Rabbit and Harry Potter between them for my daughter being literate. You have to give her parents and teachers some credit too. :) > > Of course, this is the daughter that likes Windows XP Home and fills > the harddrive with WMA soundfiles to my shame, so there is a downside > to Reader Rabbit. Which would be solved by the $100 laptop, no MS > Windows ... You could run reader rabbit under wine, but then the wma files might work too. :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OLPC ($100 "laptop") FAQ
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 05:13:52PM -0400, Randy Edwards wrote: > > But, if you'll allow me to be selfish for a moment, one thing I like about > > the OLPC project is how much can be done with it in countries the the USA. > >I agree. Myself, I think the project's real potential is in "first" > and "second" world countries. > >Frankly, as Ben stated, I think it's pretty naive to think that laptop > wouldn't be used primarily as a source of light in that Cambodian > household They are hoping it will be. Thats one of the reasons its less likely to be sold for cash :) -- or more likely just sold for cash. This is certainly an issue, there is a lot of discussion on it in the wikki. > >But somewhere like Mexico or some "second world" country that laptop could > achieve its intended purpose. > >And here in the US, the OLPC might -- hey, I said "might"! -- work to > establish an affordable, de facto EdTech standard and break schools out of > the marketing-driven/gee-whiz/gadget-minded mode that they've been in > forever. No chance of that I'm afraid. Public school IT is driven by the need/desire/bureaucratic pressure to go for the most expensive choices rather than the most effective.. > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OLPC - "eaten my homework"
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 04:22:01PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 5/30/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Books can rot or be damaged; so can equipment. I doubt there's any > >> real data as to which would be more durable in the target environment. > >> Lacking data, we can't say one way or the other. > > > > Given the number of times I've seen USB keys ... > > A USB key isn't anything like a laptop, even a rugged laptop with > "no" moving parts (the hinge moves, and will be broken frequently, if > my experience with laptops in "safe" office settings is any > indicator). That's not data, that's a bad comparison. > > > The cost of producing a good textbook, even if the licensing/royalties > > are zero, is very high. > > Source? Numbers? Hard data? Family in the biz. textbooks are a very different market that any other printed matter. They have stringently high costs because their construction and content is different than anything else except coffee table books., and yet their printing runs are tiny so the one-time costs must be amortized over a much smaller number of volumes than regular books. That raises the per unit cost. > > While I've never printed a text book, per se, I have been near the > production of other printed matter, and with sufficiently high > volumes, costs go under a dollar, even with hundreds of pages. Of > course, I would expect a durable text book to cost more. But even if > it costs *ten times* as much, we're talking $10. Source? Numbers? Hard data? :-) > > > The virtual storage capability of the OLPC is, in some ways, nearly > > infinite. > > And, in most ways, 500 megabytes. The mesh network is a nice > concept, but I don't really see it spanning the continent of Africa > any time soon. If it manages to sustain a working network in local > communities, I think one can call that a huge success. http://www.green-wifi.org/ Why Green WiFi? A number of non profit entities focus on addressing the digital divide by providing internet access to developing areas. Green WiFi addresses one of the biggest barriers to success: the lack of reliable electricity in developing areas required to power the network. Green WiFi has developed a low cost, solar-powered, standardized WiFi access solution that runs out-of-the-box with no systems integration or power requirements. All that is required is a single source of broadband access. Green WiFi nodes can then be deployed on rooftops to form a self-healing network that hops the source signal over a virtual 802.11b/g grid. Because these nodes require no fixed installation or power tie-ins, these nodes can form an unplanned, mobile grid that can grow or be relocated as needed. Green WiFi aims to compliment and extend the power and promise of initiatives such as the UN/MIT One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, Intel's World Ahead Program and other NGO efforts dedicated to providing affordable computing capabilities to developing areas by providing critical last mile access; last mile internet access with nothing more than a single broadband internet connection, rooftops and the sun. > > I say this mostly as a reality check; as I said, the cost of the > electronic storage alone is likely to be insignificant. > > > I'd say that the break even number could possibly be a lot lower than > > 100 books. > > No offense, but that seems like pure speculation to me. It could > possibly be lower than 100 books if books are really really expensive > and laptops are really really cheap and all the good things happen for > the laptops and all the bad things happen for the books. What if we > look at it realistically? 100 text books, composed, printed, bound, distributed and delivered for about 1 dollar each. No offense but that looks very unrealistic. You stick to your speculation and I'll stick with mine. :-) > > >> Whether or not the 100 texts (printed or electronic) will actually > >> make it to the people, or actually be used if they do make it, is > >> another question. > > > > Yes, also we have no of knowing how much benefit people will get from > > software that helps teach reading, math etc, or better access to other > > knowledge and how many "book equivalents" that functionality is worth. > > There is lots of data available on CBT. (How much of that data is > unbiased (and not produced by those pushing CBTs), I don't know.) My > above comment was directed more at political issues and other > unexpected problems. For example, many people starve not because > there is no food, but because various groups and factors prevent the > food from being
Re: OLPC ($100 "laptop") FAQ
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 02:35:20PM -0400, Randy Edwards wrote: >This fundamentally is an area of economics. We've seen that all vibrant > economies since WWII have used exports to generate wealth. Japan, Germany, > the Asian tigers, Chile, China, etc. have all used exports to grow while > developing their domestic markets and keeping their foreign trade balanced > or, typically, in large surpluses. > >A Cambodian publishing industry isn't a cost per se -- it's the > development > of a domestic industry; it means domestic jobs for Cambodians in Cambodia. > Resigning yourself to importing a critical component of your educational > system (the laptops) from overseas will add to the country's trade deficit > and will make the country poorer. It simply has to be so unless there are > other offsetting exports. Hi Randy - My argument wasn't against the costs (amortized or whatever) of developing a Cambodian printing industry. They were purely about the actual costs of getting the books printed. No matter where its done its a costly proposition. The argument is that physical books are much more expensive and fragile and less sharable and less reproducible than a bits-book. >There is a theme in the OLPC writings that the new, educated students "get > the education for real jobs that take them out of poverty completely." > <http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/OLPC_myths> A wonderful thought, but where > do those "real jobs" come from? There is no direct connection other than a > theory. In reality, those "real jobs" are in Taiwan or China where the > laptops are being made. Yes, and the real jobs in China and Taiwan are being done be people with an education. Both China and India are cranking out Engineers at rates much higher than the US right now. Both of their economies are growing madly. Yes education is clearly only one factor. Bureaucratic friction and barriers to starting a business are other strong factors. No matter how an economy gets started , it needs people with skills to populate it and generate the horsepower to move it along. >Don't get me wrong, I think the laptops are just what are needed in > education (in more developed countries) and it's clear that a lot of > ingenious thought have gone into them. > >And there is a correlation between education and wealth/jobs. But a > correlation is not a cause and effect link and meanwhile you're asking poor > countries to send their money to Taiwan. Based on how other countries have > successfully developed their own economies and generated nat'l wealth, I'd be > very, very leery of that approach. I agree- this is only one factor in getting an economy working. But, if you'll allow me to be selfish for a moment, one thing I like about the OLPC project is how much can be done with it in countries the the USA. (just have to make sure that the units don't allow top-posting in email, or HTML email... :-) ) > > Regards, > . > Randy > > -- > "You know, when I was growing up, or other Baby Boomers here were growing up, > we felt safe because we had these vast oceans that could protect us from > harm's way." -- George Bush, Jan. 11, 2006. Was Bush lying again or simply > displaying that in his youth he had never heard of nuclear missiles or > airplanes that drop bombs? > <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060111-7.html> > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Why *I* want one of these "$100" Laptops...
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 02:59:38PM -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote: > On Tuesday 30 May 2006 2:38 pm, Ben Scott wrote: > > Not even that, necessarily. If a whole bunch of people buy these > > $100 laptops for $200 in the US, it would help fund the operation for > > those who truly cannot afford it. > > > That is the same rationale the drug companies use on their drugs that are > sold overseas and in Canada. Ouch! -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
OLPC - "eaten my homework"
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 02:34:56PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 5/30/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>Question: Does Cambodia really need to be spending its money on cheap > >> but > >> durable laptops imported from Taiwan? > > > > Its a heck of lot cheaper to make copies of bits than it is to make > > copies of paper. > > Neither of the above appear to be correct in their stated assumptions. > > Most of the cost of a text book (or any book, for that matter) is > outside the cost of materials and actual printing process. Royalties, > promotions, overhead, etc., is where the big cost comes from. I > believe I saw a claim that these texts would be "free" in this area. > Assuming you can get sufficient volume, cost per copy should be a few > dollars, or even less. In the even less category we have "zero" from books available in the Gutenberg project. There is also work being done on creating free curriculum texts that would be completely free of licensing costs. > Books can rot or be damaged; so can equipment. I doubt there's any > real data as to which would be more durable in the target environment. > Lacking data, we can't say one way or the other. Given the number of times I've seen USB keys make it all the way through a full wash and dry cycle, which a book can't do even once, I'd say we can rely heavily on the fact that atmospheric heat and humidity will be far more corrosive and damaging to paper than plastic and silicon. > The cost per copy for printed books is fixed for a given print run, > but will always be non-zero. The cost of producing a good textbook, even if the licensing/royalties are zero, is very high. The paper is a costly, high gloss, heavy weight and acid-free. The other components (ink, bindings, labor) must be high quality as well, otherwise the book will simply fall to pieces within a short period of time, especially if it is used in hot, humid environments. > The cost per copy for an "e-book" is also non-zero. If nothing > else, it will consume some of that flash storage, and the power to do > the copy. I expect this can be considered insignificant, though. The virtual storage capability of the OLPC is, in some ways, nearly infinite. Each user can have access to their locally stored books, the books stored on their fellow mesh-members Units, and anything they can reach across the mesh from the Internet. The user doesn't have to keep every book they ever want to use on their laptop. Since bits travel faster than physical media, not having the book nearby is no longer a barrier to having the contents of that book. > More significant is the cost of the equipment (the "laptop"). If > you only have one book, that means your book cost whatever the laptop > cost -- which is about $130, I guess. That's an expensive textbook, > even by US college standards. It isn't until you start having a few > dozen texts on a single laptop that you start to see returns. Once > you're past 100 or so texts, you should be into the "the laptop method > is actually cheaper" range. I'd say that the break even number could possibly be a lot lower than 100 books. Given the cost of the raw materials and the printing process itself, including color photo plates, I think it might be more in the range of 5 - 10 books. Perhaps even less > > Whether or not the 100 texts (printed or electronic) will actually > make it to the people, or actually be used if they do make it, is > another question. Yes, also we have no of knowing how much benefit people will get from software that helps teach reading, math etc, or better access to other knowledge and how many "book equivalents" that functionality is worth. Not to mention the possibility of two way communication with teachers/tutors in very remote locations. "Hello, I am Sudar Mahmib. I am the son of the Nigerian minister of Finance. I am writing to you because I am desperately in need of help. Rebel insurgents have eaten my homework." ;-) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OLPC ($100 "laptop") FAQ
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 12:41:34PM -0400, Randy Edwards wrote: >In reading the posted FAQ I was amazed at this line: > > > In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no > > electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light > > source in the home. So - not only can you give more books to the kids by putting them on the laptop, you provide the light to read it by and - the "books" cannot be by heat, moisture, bugs, mold, fungus, small children or dogs. :-) >Question: Does Cambodia really need to be spending its money on cheap but > durable laptops imported from Taiwan? Its a heck of lot cheaper to make copies of bits than it is to make copies of paper. >Or would the country's money be better spent buying the cheapest books > possible (which could be produced in-country) and the difference invested in > an electrical infrastructure? Since the difference would be zero dollars (it would actually cost MORE to provide the same texts in hardcopy) it would not help with building electrical infrastructure at all. > > Regards, > . > Randy > > -- > Fast fact: If the U.S. had an infant mortality rate as good as Cuba's, we > would save an additional 2,212 American babies a year. Cuba is one of 41 > countries that have better infant mortality rates than the U.S. > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
$100 Laptop MYTHS De-Mythtefied
Great reading for people who think laptops are too expensive or will break or will need electricity http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/OLPC_myths -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
OLPC Hardware specs:
From: http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php/Hardware_specification First Generation System Physical dimensions: * Dimensions: 193mm à 229mm à 64mm (as of 3/27/06âsubject to change) * Weight: Less than 1.5 KG (target onlyâsubject to change) * Configuration: Convertible laptop with pivoting, reversible display; dirt- and moisture-resistant system enclosure Core electronics: * CPU: AMD Geode [EMAIL PROTECTED] * CPU clock speed: 400 Mhz * Compatibility: X86/X87-compatible * Chipset: AMD CS5536 South Bridge * Graphics controller: Integrated with Geode CPU; unified memory architecture * Embedded controller: Based on ENE 3920 * DRAM memory: 128MB dynamic RAM * Data rate: Dual â DDR266 â 133 Mhz * BIOS: 512KB SPI-interface flash ROM; LinuxBIOS open-source BIOS * Mass storage: 512MB SLC NAND flash * Drives: No rotating media Display: * Liquid-crystal display: 7.5â Dual-mode TFT display * Viewing area: 151.6 mm à 113.4 mm * Resolution: 1200 (H) à 900 (V) resolution (200 dpi) * Mono display: High-resolution, reflective monochrome mode * Color display: Standard-resolution, quincunx-sampled, transmissive color mode * Special "DCON" chip, that enables deswizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode, while enabling the display to remain live with the processor suspended. Since we will always be running the frame buffer at 1200x900 resolution, the color resolution is lower, but exactly how this works out in effective resolution is complex. Mary Lou Jepsen is planning a document to explain the effective resolution, which is higher than if we simply reduced the size of the frame buffer and used the red, green and blue channels. Integrated peripherals: * Keyboard: 80 keys, 1.2mm stroke; sealed rubber-membrane key-switch assembly * Cursor-control keys: Dual five-key cursor-control pads; four directional keys plus Enter * Touchpad: Dual capacitance/resistive touchpad; supports written-input mode; vendor to be selected June 10 * Audio: Analog Devices AD1888, AC97-compatible audio codec; stereo, with dual internal speakers; monophonic, with internal microphone * Wireless: Marvell 83W8388, 802.11b/g compatible; dual adjustable, rotating coaxial antennas; supports diversity reception * Status indicators: Power, battery, WiFi; visible lid open or closed External connectors: * Power: 2-pin DC-input, 10 to 25 V, -23 to -10 V * Line output: Standard 3.5mm 3-pin switched stereo audio jack * Microphone: Standard 3.5mm 2-pin switched mono microphone jack; selectable sensor-input mode * Expansion: 3 Type-A USB-2.0 connectors * Maximum power: 500 mA (total) Battery: * Pack type: 5 Cells, 6V series configuration * Fully-enclosed âhardâ case; user removable * Capacity: 22.8 Watt-hours * Cell type: NiMH * Pack protection: Integrated pack-type identification * Integrated thermal sensor * Integrated polyfuse current limiter * Cycle life: Minimum 2,000 charge/discharge cycles (to 50% capacity of new, IIRC). BIOS/loader: * LinuxBIOS is our intended BIOS for production units. Environmental specifications: * Temperature: somewhere in between typical laptop requirements and Mil spec; exact values have not been settled * Humidity: Similar attitude to temperature. When closed, the unit should seal well enough that children walking to and from school need not fear rainstorms or dust. * Maximum altitude: -15m to 3048m (14.7 to 10.1 psia) (operating), -15m to 12192m (14.7 to 4.4 psia) (non-operating * Shock 125g, 2ms, half-sine (operating) 200g, 2ms, half-sine (non-operating) * Random vibration: 0.75g zero-to-peak, 10Hz to 500Hz, 0.25 oct/min sweep rate (operating); 1.5g zero-to-peak, 10Hz to 500Hz, 0.5 oct/min sweep rate (nonoperating) * 2mm plastic walls (1.3mm is typical for most systems). Regulatory requirements: * The usual US and EU EMI/EMC requirements will be met. * The laptop and all OLPC-supplied accessories will be fully UL and is RoHS compliant. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
OLPC Special Design features:
was booting on the first generation prototypes. * Component side OLPC circuit board * Back side of the OLPC circuit board * Picture of Linux running with circuit board in the lab * Picture of the screen of Linux running on the OLPC circuit board; fittingly, it shows a Chinese desktop Second Generation Design Second-generation unit will use a more power-efficient integrated Geode-based AMD chip (instead of the GX500/5536 set), presuming it is the best alternative available at the time, and probably a next generation wireless chip. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
OLPC ($100 "laptop") FAQ
(ODM) of the $100 laptop? Quanta Computer Inc. of Taiwan has been chosen as the original design manufacturer (ODM) for the $100 laptop project. The decision was made after the board reviewed bids from several possible manufacturing companies. Quanta Computer Inc. was founded in 1988 in Taiwan. With over US $10 billion in sales, Quanta is the world's largest manufacturer of laptop PCs; the company also manufactures mobile phones, LCD TVs, and servers and storage products. In addition, Quanta recently opened a new US $200 million R&D center, Quanta R&D Complex (QRDC), in Taiwan. The facility, which opened in Q3 of 2005, has 2.2 million square feet of floor space, and a capacity to house up to 7,000 engineers. How will this initiative be structured? The $100 laptop is being developed by One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. OLPC is based on constructionist theories of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital. The founding corporate members are Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, Nortel, and Red Hat. Nicholas Negroponte is chairman of One Laptop per Child and Mary Lou Jepsen serves as chief technology officer. Other principals involved in developing the $100 Laptop are: Walter Bender, Michail Bletsas, V. Michael Bove, Jr., David Cavallo, Benjamin Mako Hill, Joseph Jacobson, Alan Kay, Tod Machover, Seymour Papert, Mitchel Resnick, and Ted Selker. Design Continuum is collaborating on the laptop design. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 09:10:53AM -0400, Michael Costolo wrote: > On 5/30/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 01:26:22PM -0400, Michael Costolo wrote: > > > I've never understood why giving laptops to kids who can't read or add > > > would make them better at reading or math. > > > > Please go see "reader Rabbit" or "Math Blaster" in action with kids > > who are in Kindergarten through fourth grade. Then it will be clear to > > you. > > I never implied that kids couldn't use them to learn. But generations Michael, I never said that you implied that. You said, and I quote from above >>>I've never understood why giving laptops to kids who can't read or add >>>would make them better at reading or math. And I said: >>Please go see "reader Rabbit" or "Math Blaster" in action with kids >>who are in Kindergarten through fourth grade. Then it will be clear to >>you. For many people, children and adults, the immediate interaction and clever presentation of both concepts and skill drills available on a computer make the task of learning new things faster and easier. Why? One of the major ingredients of excellent learning software has always been the fun factor. The two examples which I listed for you above both have excellent "fun factor". > of us learned rather well with books. Books that are relatively > inexpensive, don't require power, or break when you drop them. Math > in particular hasn't really changed (nor has reading), particularly at > the grade school level, so (math, reading) books remain essentially up > to date regardless of how long you have them. Books are great things, I have a few thousand of them here in my house. Unfortunately books are not expandable, books cannot interact, books cannot teach except in the most static fashion by presentation of information. Yes generations of people have learned very well with books. And before those generations many more generations learned very well with parchment, or papyrus, or clay. Which we clearly should never have moved away from the first place. After all what's the difference between a chunk of clay, and a nice lightweight hardbound edition of Mooney's reading primer? Right off the bat the OLPC unit has an advantage over books which is insurmountable. it can carry many books simultaneously, and can present information dynamically and interactively. As for your claim that books are inexpensive, for the cost of three good technology books I can purchase one OLPC unit. And I'm willing to bet you that O'Reilly publishing will let you insert a number of their technology books into the OLPC units for free as part of their contribution to the project. However their books are probably not appropriate for the children that the project is targeted at. One aspect of the OLPC project that you are likely unaware of the curriculum/texts efforts which is trying to include educational books with the OLPC units - for ZERO cost. As for your claim that these things will drop when you break them, please go and read more about the OLPC units. These are not the same type of thing that you go down to Staples and buy off-the-shelf. It pains me to see this misconception continuously regurgitated. These units are designed from scratch for use by "children". If a ruggedized case is not the first design requirement then everyone in the project has gone completely mental. > > Laptops in particular are expensive, require power, break (often > catastrophically) when you drop them, and no one wants last year's > slow, bulky models. How uncool... $100 is expensive? Interesting. Last years model? nope - there is only one model. break? Nope, not these. > > And apparently the much less expensive desktops just won't work here? Another misconception - Desktops would be more expensive than the OLPC units. desktop= $400 OLPC = $100 (maybe $130 initially). > If these are the hoops we have to jump through to get kids to learn it > is a rather sad commentary on the state of our society. And our > ability/willingness to parent. Exactly what hoops are you referring to here Mike? Thats sounds like a criticism, but it has no content in it, just a judgmental phrase. These are not hoops we are jumping through to get kids to learn. This is a "hoop" we are jumping through to give more children the chance to learn better, or in some cases, to have the chance to learn at all. Most children in the underdeveloped regions of the world would love to be able to go to school. Many can't. Current education trends (in places where the public education is actually working) are pushing kids farther and faster than they have gone before. (sadly - this is
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
ny parts of the world. And with the typical power > > > consumption of laptop CPUs, that's a lot of hand cranking. And I don't > see > > > > > how you can keep the costs down to $100 if you have to include solar > > cells. > > > > Hand cranks or other similar alternative power options have always been > > the plan for the $100 OLPC laptops. The earlier marketing materials have > > always included pictures including a hand crank. There's ongoing > > discussion within the project as to how to accomodate the power needs of > > the laptop without depending on people to have wall sockets. > > > > Note that the laptops have no hard drives (flash only), relatively small > > screens, and are designed to run in black and white mode most of the > > time for better power consumption. > > > > Also note that these aren't PCs... > > > > I think that either you or I is completely misunderstanding the purpose > > of the project, or suffering under some similarly constricting > > misunderstanding. Care to enlighten me as to which it might be? > > > > -- > > Christopher Schmidt > > Web Developer > > ___ > > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > > > > ___ > > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > > > > > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
On Sat, May 27, 2006 at 04:32:04PM -0400, Richard A Sharpe wrote: > > I'd support this project if it were to get a laptop in every household in > the USA but third world I don't think so, let's start thinking about taking > care of our own first the rest of the world. Mitt Romney has already introduced a bill to distribute an OLPC to every schoolchild in MA. I guess you'd better start a letter writing campaign in NH right away. the OLPC project is willing to work with any agency that wants to put the units in the hands of kids. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 10:01:52PM -0400, Fred wrote: > Anyway, just to add my own $0.02, I don't see the $100 PC making much f a > difference -- unless it can connect to the Internet. Otherwise the "third > world" will be limited to whatever content and software their respective > governments will allow to be installed on those PCs. The OLPC units have built in "wi-fi mesh" capability" This only means that the units can network with each-other on a local basis. However for longer distance internet connectivity this project: http://www.green-wifi.org/ does exactly what you are looking for and is designed to work with the OLPC units. These routers come with their own Solar panel designed and built for deployment to these "more rugged" environments > > Oh, and unless these PCs can be run with a hand crank or solar cells, still > pretty useless in many parts of the world. And with the typical power > consumption of laptop CPUs, that's a lot of hand cranking. And I don't see > how you can keep the costs down to $100 if you have to include solar cells. The original design called for a hand crank but it was determined that it would stress the frame too much. Current plans call for a foot pedal to produce power. None of the power plans require more than periodic "power generation" effort. :-) > > Methinks someone has a pipe dream. I can just see it now. All of these > villagers are given these PCs, which are dead after the first hour or two of > use. But hey, I'm sure they'll find novel uses for dead PCs. Twenty years ago we had laptops that ran off double A batteries for days, (and for some people, weeks) at a time. I'm fairly certain we can do better than "two hours". Like the OLPC units those old laptops used low power display technology, miserly CPU's and used software that was much smarter about what machine resources it used and how it used them. And one more interesting parallel - neither those old laptops nor the current OLPC's used ANY rotating storage. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 09:04:14PM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote: > If my kids didn't play with the physical ones, I'd have much less > opportunity to play with that stuff myself :) And let me tell you, > it's *FUN* to build big block towers with your kids and knock them > down! [yes it is, and the older you get the bigger your blocks get too :-)] [Although we knock them down less often. Kids need physical activities [to help their brains develop just as much as they need mental ] [activity] > > > Yep. Getting computers to people in third world countries. > > Right. Benson, crazy though he is, was foolish enough to think we > should take care of people in our country before helping other > countries people who can't read and write. That whole "Charity begins > at home" thing is just so, well, un-PC :) While the emphasis for the OLPC project is third world deployment, One of the people Negroponte has had many discussion with is MA Governor Mitt Romney. Romney wants to deploy the OLPC systems to Public schools in Massachusetts. I assume this meets your criteria of taking of things at home to some degree. Should the rest of the governors in the US do the same thing? Sure. http://www.fcw.com/article90958-09-29-05-Web " A laptop for every student BY Dibya Sarkar Published on Sept. 29, 2005 Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wants every middle and high school student in the state to get a laptop computer. " > -- > Seeya, > Paul > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: One Laptop Per Child pledge
On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 01:26:22PM -0400, Michael Costolo wrote: > I've never understood why giving laptops to kids who can't read or add > would make them better at reading or math. Please go see "reader Rabbit" or "Math Blaster" in action with kids who are in Kindergarten through fourth grade. Then it will be clear to you. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Recycled computers
On Mon, May 29, 2006 at 06:37:04PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > > At Hosstraders earlier this month, the sponsors had a trailer where > > they accepted discards for a group that made money salvaging the > > donations. Does anyone recall who that was? > > No idea, but I've been told that, in the past, they had a scrap > dealer collecting stuff. Such dealers usually see this stuff as > precious metals and such to be extracted, not components to be reused. List of Demanufacturers/Recyclers/ Precious Metal Refiners in this region: http://www.epa.gov/region1/solidwaste/electronic/demanu.html -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] The Internet (that Ben says does not exist) and Net Neutrality
On Mon, May 22, 2006 at 08:33:44AM -0400, Ted Roche wrote: > On May 21, 2006, at 9:06 PM, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > > It seems clear that everyone, except the big pipe owners mentioned > > above, want the internet to stay with the traditional endpoint only, > > "You pay to get your bits onto the network and to receive bits from > > the > > network" model which we have all been using up to now. With no > > charges > > by whatever part of the network our bits happen to traverse in their > > traveling. > > I don't know all of the business arrangements, but is this an > accurate model of how the internet is set up? If I want to set up a > Contoocook ISP, I buy/lease/rent an OC-48 and bandwidth from an > upstream provider who, in turn, buys their connections to various > backbones, perhaps via another layer or more of intermediaries. At > some level (I understand there is no "center of the Internet") all > peers agree to accept and transmit bits to each other on a peering > arrangement, but that's only because their downstream customers pay > them to do so. No one is doing this out of the goodness of their > hearts; all of us pay to keep those little green LEDs blinking. Quite right, but "You" do not pay those transit charges, in the sense that you do not negotiate a price for them and you are not billed for "transit". The price model you are presented with is : Here is what it will cost you to "put bits on or get bits off" the internet. >From the price model presented to the "ends" of the internet, once the bits are on the internet they make their own way to their respective destinations. Like Magic. The rest all happens between various levels of traffic providers, right up to the peering agreements between the upper tier members. Examining what really happens to the bits once they enter the internet can consume (and does consume) several lifetimes of study. It is the fodder for many Ph-d's and much discussion among those who have an interest or a reason to care. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] The Internet (that Ben says does not exist) and Net Neutrality
The furor is based on the change proposed by some big pipe owners which "own" (provide access for lots of ) end users: Said change is "We will charge some non-customers to let their bits travel over our part of the network, to our end-customers" It seems clear that everyone, except the big pipe owners mentioned above, want the internet to stay with the traditional endpoint only, "You pay to get your bits onto the network and to receive bits from the network" model which we have all been using up to now. With no charges by whatever part of the network our bits happen to traverse in their traveling. The people attempting to "regulate" the internet are trying to preserve exactly that traditional approach, although, as Ben points out, the laws they are proposing might not do exactly that. Bizarrely, I find myself in agreement in principle with both Ben and Tom. They both seem to want the same thing - a "non-commercially-censored" Internet. Equal access to and from all legal content, leaving aside the discussion about illegal content. On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 04:30:08PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote:. > I again reiterate my position that if there is a lack of competition > due to an artificially granted monopoly, the solution is to get rid of > the monopoly, and not try to work with something which is inherently > broken. Amen to that Ben. (or Ramen if you're Pastafarian) Lastly - we know that some pipe owners already charge for bit traversal, but those agreements are mostly forms of barter that end up saying "I'll carry your bits if you'll carry mine" and this is done only to make sure that each peering point doesn't end up paying for some other peer's traffic. The new traversal charge proposals do not provide any type of peering compensation. They are a pure add-on charge for having access to end user's. On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 04:30:08PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 5/21/06, Ted Roche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Isn't it time to recognize that a company selling "internet access" > > ought to be offering some standardized service, or at least some > > baseline ... > > I point you to previous postings about unintended consequences and > such. I also ask, what should this "standard" be, and who should set > it? > > > Are or should internet providers be "common carriers?" > > My understanding is that, currently, there is no widespread > consideration of most ISPs as common carriers. > > I do think that most ISPs should have common carrier status, with > all the rights and obligations that entails. > > However, I also point out that common carriers still generally have > the right to charge whatever they want for the services they provide, > so the common carrier thing is mostly a red herring. > > > Can thedecision be "left to the marketplace" when cable companies get > > exclusive monopolies on service ... > > > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [NLC] Drip Dry Phone
On Sun, Apr 30, 2006 at 01:53:35PM -0400, James R. Van Zandt wrote: > > > > My daughter just laundered her phone. We pulled it out of the > > > washing machine just now. Is there any hope of reviving it, > > > > ...rinse them in de-ionized or distilled water... Open it up as > > much as possible and let it dry out. > > This is one of the reasons I'd like a small vacuum chamber. That > would pull moisture out of the crevices. Just curious - could subjecting a cell phone to vacuum (partial or otherwise) possibly cause things like capacitors to burst? -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Question about GPL issue.
On Thu, Apr 06, 2006 at 01:44:43PM -0400, Steven W. Orr wrote: > I do pretty well here, so I thought I'd go to the well one more time. > > I am sure that I read something somewhere (though I could be wrong) where > RMS said that he happily took other people's code and essentially changed > the names of the variables and slapped a GPL at the beginning of the file. > > I would like to do the opposite. (I can't go into details, but please > trust me when I say that there is no evil involved in this exercise.) I > want to take a small module (yes I know that size doesn't *really* count) > and swing it out of GPL using the same technique. Can anyone point me to > where RMS said this? I do remember that it was a long time ago, maybe 10 > years or so. Doing that is certainly a violation of copyright even though you probably would never get caught. To stay spiritually clean, :-) you could look in the BSD source trees for a module that does the same thing. Then you can do anything you want with it as long as you keep the notice in the comments. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Comcast, dynamic DNS service
On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 03:37:58PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote: > On 4/3/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Up on dslreports forums some people are claiming that other ISP > > complained to Comcast that C. customers where dragging down the other > > ISP DNS severs since so many were using them. > > Ummm > > http://www.zytrax.com/books/dns/ch7/queries.html#allow-query > > My experience with the dslreports forums is that they can be useful > to get one started looking for something, but ultimately distribute > more misinformation than your average Iraqi information minister... That sounds like an accurate assessment. :-) > > > They speculated that would be a reason to block or > > redirect some DNS traffic. > > The only reason I can think of to block UDP 53 would be some kind of > widespread DDoS attack against the root or GTLD servers, and even > then, that would likely be a temporary measure. (The root's briefly > blocked ping for a little due to that reason.) > > -- Ben > > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Comcast, dynamic DNS service
On Mon, Apr 03, 2006 at 02:20:28PM -0400, Ben Scott wrote:
> On 4/3/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Anybody here been getting bugged by comcast to change their DNS
> > settings to accept dynamic DNS server assigmment from Comcast?
>
> From what I've been able to gather via Google Groups for "Comcast
> DNS dynamic", this is a notification that Comcast is taking some of
> their older full-service resolvers ("DNS servers") offline. If you've
> manually configured your client resolver ("network settings") to use
> those servers, you will need to manually update your configuration as
> well. The typical customer who uses DHCP to configure their resolver
> would never notice.
>
> Since you state you're not using Comcast's resolvers at all, you
> shouldn't notice, either.
>
> Unless Comcast is planning on blocking UDP port 53. I've
> encountered ISPs who do that. Never could figure out why.
>
Up on dslreports forums some people are claiming that other ISP
complained to Comcast that C. customers where dragging down the other
ISP DNS severs since so many were using them. They speculated that
would be a reason to block or redirect some DNS traffic.
> -- Ben
>
> ___
> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
> gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org
> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
>
--
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail
___
gnhlug-discuss mailing list
gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org
http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Comcast, dynamic DNS service
Anybody here been getting bugged by comcast to change their DNS settings to accept dynamic DNS server assigmment from Comcast? They seem pretty insistent about it. Emails of course, but snail mail and a phone call? Anybody know whats going on? (I stopped using Comcast DNS a while back, waiting for two minuts to get a DNS request back seemed a bit long.) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. Speech Recognition Technology was used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: this has to be a bug...
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 02:37:36PM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote: > > From the 'More for your dollar' department: >$ sudo /sbin/ifconfig eth0:0 del 10.107.33.189 > .. > I ask to delete a non-existent interface, and instead, I get a totally > new one I didn't ask for :) Its that sudo thingey. Never ever use that. Its not safe. Just give everyone the root password instead Oh, and also - for user efficiency, give all the user's blank passwords. It saves them time logging in and you'll never get a support call on a forgotten password. See? System administration can be made much simpler with a few simple rule changes. what? oh, It's still March. Sorry, too early. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: [OT] METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 10:24:06AM -0500, Michael ODonnell wrote: > > > > s/death/slow, painful, debilitating, excruciating, grotesque death/ > > A "debilitating" death? As opposed to what?;-> umm, "non-debilitating" ? .... :-)(never mind.. ) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 10:09:45AM -0500, Drew Van Zandt wrote: > Partial solution to spam: Mandatory death penalty for convicted spammers. > ;-) s/death/slow, painful, debilitating, excruciating, grotesque death/ -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Suggestions for capturing license plate info?
On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 03:36:02PM -0500, hewitt_tech wrote: > Unfortunately my car and my daughter and her husband's car have been > vandalized by low life's who are shooting out windows with some kind of > pellet gun. They struck last night shortly after midnight shooting out 3 > windows. My car had it's rear driver side window shot out and my > daughter's Toyota (fairly new) had the back window and driver's window > shot out. The previous weekend my son-in-law had his rear window shot > out. Infrared illumination using one of the sony style handycams that does well in low light/infrared ? (or will the license plate just not get any contrast from being illuminated in infrared?) Floodlight on housecurrent pointed at the street, kept on all night. A real video camers (better resolution) running all the time, into a firewire link into a PC which captures 1 frame every 1 or 2 seconds. All pure speculation. > I believe this vandalism is random because the night my son-in-law > reported his window blown out the Manchester police said that there were > reports of twenty other vehicles damaged in the surrounding area. Last > night there weren't that many cars parked on the street but they only > damaged our cars. I couldn't sleep last night so I setup a Linksys web > cam that I have but I found almost immediately that the camera is not > effective in low light situations. Worse, no streetside window in my > house would give any kind of picture that could possibly show a license > plate. The images that I could get were pretty poor and when the camera > triggered due to motion, the passing vehicles were mostly a blur. I did > find out that if you wanted to even see anything of a passing car you > needed to set the motion detected video segment to 5 seconds (the range > allowed with the LinkSys software is 2 thru 5 seconds). I do have a 2.4 > ghz wireless black and white pin hole type camera that can be operated > off a 9 volt battery. Since the people who are doing this damage are > always driving West to East on our street in order to get a better shot > at the cars, I was thinking about setting up the tiny wireless camera on > the front dash of my Honda pointing in the direction of travel in hopes > that I might pick up the rear plates of passing cars. > > Another low tech approach I am considering is to wait up next Friday and > Saturday night and simply wait a few doors down from my house with a > very powerful light and a cheap disposable flash camera in hopes of > catching the car's license plate should they decide to return. Of course > if this is just random harassment, maybe I should just forget the whole > thing. The police don't seem to be very effective as this vandalism has > been going on in Manchester all over the city for some time. > > A friend suggested picking up a night vision scope in hopes of capturing > the license number. > > Does anyone have any other suggestions? > > -Alex > > > _______ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail Rumsfeld tells Bush, "3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq today." "Oh my Lord". says Bush. He sits with his head in his hands for a long minute and then looks up and asks: "How many is a brazillion? ba-da bing! (Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 03:07:35PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 3/12/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> You do realize that "the government" and "us" are one and the same, yes? > > > > Ben there is some overlap, but they are most definitively not the same. Ben, I've looked this over and at the thread where you previously preached at me for using "us" and "them" (I was telling stories about NSA work). I've come to the conclusion that, for some reason, you have a sensitivity about this nomenclature. I'll lay it out for you once, but I will not indulge the discussion further. Here is how I "draw the line" as you put it: My distinguishing characteristics that identify the group I label as government (in a general way) are as follows: #1 An employee of the government or #2 An elected official or representative It perfectly reasonable of me to group the various government entities [ Federal:(executive, Judicial, House)] State, county, municipal, Agencies, and Authorities (MBTA, Turnpike) together in one group and apply the label "government" to them. I know labels can be misleading and that the map is not the territory, but, being human and having only a limited time on this planet I am going to use convenient labels as needed to refer to groups of people. When I need to refer to a more specific subset of that group, I will. In the meantime please don't try to include me in the group "government". I'm not in that group. I'm part of the country. I'm a citizen, but the notion that this country is just all on big "us" works in only a few, idealistic contexts. Not the ones we have been discussing. Most of the remainder of your email dealt with how the government is "us" because the government is made up of people and people everywhere are the same, good, bad, purple etc... Thats not news, nor does it deal with the issue. The issues that generated the original threads came from the fact that any group will tend to act in its own self interest even when those actions might be harmful to the goals which the group was originally created to achieve. And even though that group might not be consciously aware that they are so doing. > Maintaining this delusion that "they" are somehow inherently > different from "us" only creates further resistance, strife, and > entropy. Understanding the differences in the interests and motivations of different groups is essential to being able to effectively manage or deal with those groups. In no way does it create greater strife. In fact it's an extremely valuable tool. Don't assume that just because I identify a group as having a particular negative characteristic that I only view that group negatively and don't assume that I judge the people within that group as somehow being "evil" or "bad" because they are part of that group. The negative (or positive) attribute is often only an emergent characteristic of the group and therefore cannot be in any way applied to any of the individuals of that group. Or used to judge an individual of the group. Emergent characteristics exist only in complex systems made up of sufficient numbers of individuals > I find this behavior especially egregious because the same thing > happens the other way. When those in government start to believe > "they" are *not* the same as "us", the time is especially ripe for > abuses of power, for lack of understanding, for bad deeds to be done > in the name of good. By perpetuating that way of thinking in "us", > you enable it for "them". Now you are talking about specific abusive individuals within the halls of power. I'm definitely not enabling them. History shows that there are always some people like this in the government. Recent history shows just how arrogant they can be. The tapes of the Watergate witnesses appearing before the Senate (I think it was the Senate..) are especially dramatic in the area where you hear people on Nixon's Staff basically saying that the people rights have been severely eroded so its OK to ignore them. Those people exist entirely without any input from me. > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 01:04:34PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 3/11/06, Fred <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Since when has the government been interested in delivering service to us at > > the lowest cost? > > You do realize that "the government" and "us" are one and the same, yes? > > -- Ben Ben there is some overlap, but they are most definitively not the same. It would be nice if it were true, but if that were the case, why did the government put itself in internment camps during WWII? -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
The Dismal Science's Freaky Side?
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 09:40:50AM -0800, Kuni Tetsu wrote: > Um. That is not the sum total. Freakonomics is hardly real science, let alone > good data. Yes, I have read it. I have also read what real economists thing > about it. That is a whole other thread and I will not bring it in here. Quoted: Being human, economists tend to envy those in their profession who achieve internal fame, but roll their eyes and mutter about those who try to communicate with non-economists. Especially galling are economists who write bestsellers (with or without help). Steven Levitt need not fear such criticisms, as his career is already quite successful and his future well-assured. He is a tenured professor at the storied economics department of the University of Chicago, and the 2003 winner of the John Bates Clark medal, biennially awarded to the nation's best young economist by the American Economics Association. Governments, politicians, and corporations routinely seek his advice. But as this book makes clear, Levitt is not your typical economic Titan. For one thing, he freely admits to mathematical deficiencies that would cripple the careers of other economists. For another, he seems to like spending time in the real world, analyzing actual problems as opposed to purely theoretical ones. Finally, he communicates those findings not only to his colleagues but to the general public. I suppose this is a bit strange for an economist, but I'm glad he does it, because someone has to. From: http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2005_07/formaini-freaky.html Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything," by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. William Morrow, 2005, 242 pages. The Dismal Science's Freaky Side? by Robert Formaini # -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Gov't , economics and technology (was Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL)
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 01:02:46PM -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote: > The book is written for the general public who are not economists or > mathemeticians. The studies which generated the conclusions discussed > in the book are real science and well enough thought of that Levitt was > given a highly sought after fellowship at Harvard. Levitt, while Wrong University: it was more likely to have been: University of Chicago. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Gov't , economics and technology (was Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL)
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 09:40:50AM -0800, Kuni Tetsu wrote: > --- Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Several paragraphs of agreement deleted :-) > > One example - still not much known today, the great crime rate drop of > > the 80' and 90's was caused not by burgeoning economic times or great > > social programs. They were caused by the women suddenly being able to > > freely obtain an abortion. (Freakonomics, Levitt & Dubner, 2005.) > > Um. That is not the sum total. Freakonomics is hardly real science, let alone The book is written for the general public who are not economists or mathemeticians. The studies which generated the conclusions discussed in the book are real science and well enough thought of that Levitt was given a highly sought after fellowship at Harvard. Levitt, while unusual, and a popular author (very unusual for an economist) is a real economist. > good data. Yes, I have read it. I have also read what real economists thing > about it. That is a whole other thread and I will not bring it in here. > > The rise of technology is definitely a factor, especially in the 90's. There, > we are at least back on a tangental thread. > > During the 90's most companies were putting computers on the desks of their > administrators, and that helped efficiency a great deal. Although is it > anathema to mention it here, add to it the fact that most of said computers > were pretty monocultured, and all had the same interface. People could now > move > from job to job or even company to company and not have to relearn a lot of > the > tools used in their jobs. As such, they significantly reduced the amount of > time it took them to spin-up to speed at their new job and thus were more > efficient. The best thing about governments use of technology is the incredibly improved productivity rates have reduced the cost of running government services so much that the government has reduced our tax rates to a minor fraction of what they used to be. Oh, excuse me, I must have been sleep-typing there for a moment. :-) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 10:32:39AM -0500, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > The quoted post that he replied to from Brian was talking about sending > through an alternate server. (Both topics were covered in this thread.) I wondered. Thanks Chris. > > Sending out mail over another port to your SMTP server is one solution > to the problem at hand, assuming you have a server to send it to. If > your only mail server is hosted on a home cable/dsl connection, I think > that you're likely making a mistake anyway: the reliability of these > connections is hardly guarenteed at the consumer level, Thats for sure. > so presumably > anyone hosting mail from home does have *some* alternative. Nope. So far (multiple years) haven't needed it. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 06:39:59AM -0500, Fred wrote: > On Tuesday 07 March 2006 21:12, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 05:52:53PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > > > On 3/7/06, Neil Joseph Schelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > This isn't something to get so bent out of shape for really. > > > > > > Sure it is. Didn't you know that Internet access is a > > > Constitutional Right? ;-) > > > > Don't laugh Ben, its already been seriously discussed. :-) > > > > "Access to information shall not be abridged." > > (Bujold, 1991, 358) > > > > And the way our technological society is moving, eventually we must > > ~somehow~ insure that everyone who wants access to the net > > can get it it even if they can't pay for it. > > > > Why? > > > > One reason: It will be cheaper to deliver many of the government > > managed services to persons in need via the web than any other way > > and since some of those services are either mandated or court ordered, > > we (The taxpaying citizens), might as well get it done at the lowest > > cost. > > Since when has the government been interested in delivering service to us at > the lowest cost? At the level of abstract goals government is interested at being efficient. The real obstacle to creating an efficient government service is that there are few, if any, rewards for efficiency to the individuals who actually supervise/do the work. For example, in the business sector, a person who is productive keeps their job and gets a raise occasionally. The general public perceives that people in civil service don't have to be efficient or productive to keep theirs jobs and get an occasional raise. (I can't speak either way on this perception as I have no data). People in business have clear incentives to change: money and jobs. > While it may make perfect sense to us, the government mind > does not think that way. Usually, the government has to be dragged kicking > and screaming into doing things more efficiently and at a lower cost. And > the *cost* of dragging the government there can itself be pretty high. Individuals have to be dragged into change unless they see a clear benefit to themselves in the change. This is a basic human trait. Change is uncomfortable, people avoid discomfort unless they perceive an advantage on the other side of the change. Remember, both change and Linux are inevitable. :-) > > > Another reason is that persons who don't have some net access will be > > (are!) seriously disadvantaged in a way that is roughly comparable to > > being functionally illiterate has been a disadvantage for the past 100 > > years. > > Having access to the Net is not the panacea for all those supposedly > "disadvantaged", if there is such a beast. Alas, one must be able to *read*, > use the technology, and find what one wants. There are many people who are > simply technology-phobic, and not necessarily in the so-called > "disadvantaged" groups, either. I personally know of one or two who would > have a hard time just using Google! The phrase was "will be". In the near future our entire society will be radically transformed by the level of connectedness and information access instantly available to large portions of humanity. Those portions which lack sufficient levels of access and connectedness will be at a distinct disadvantage economically and socially. And, as it turns out, social connectedness is a direct contributor to economic proficiency so it's a double curse. The level of the changes coming are both much more and much less radical than we can appreciate at this time. The unintended consequences will not be apparent until, or possibly much after, they have arrived. One example - still not much known today, the great crime rate drop of the 80' and 90's was caused not by burgeoning economic times or great social programs. They were caused by the women suddenly being able to freely obtain an abortion. (Freakonomics, Levitt & Dubner, 2005.) Heard from my own kids: "Daddy, what's a 'phone dial'? " "Daddy, what's a 'record player'? " Heard from my Great grandfather as he drove through the wall of the barn in 1920-something the day my grandfather was trying to teach him to drive: "Whoa!" > And talk about being "functionally illiterate", those that fall into that > category are going to have a hard time using the Internet anyway. Thats wasn't the point. The point was that the disadvantages of each are roughly analogous.. and you're wrong. Computer technology is actually going make illiteracy less of a prob
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 06:17:10AM -0500, Fred wrote: > On Tuesday 07 March 2006 16:43, Ed Lawson wrote: > > "Brian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Sending an email through your own/alternate server should not > > > be prevented. > > > > I understand your sentiment, but should has nothing to do with > > it. Should is not a > > factor. There is an agreement which specifies the service to > > which you are entitled upon payment for that service. You are > > entitled to nothing more and nothing less. > > I send my mail out to my dedicated servers all the time over encrypted > connections. SMTP has TLS and SSL options, and one of them goes across a > port other than 25. Fred, I'm not sure I understand this. The thread is talking about sending mail out from our own systems which is getting port blocked by some ISP's. You seem to be talking about sending mail out to your alternate server (from which, I assume, it is further redistributed). Are these the same things? -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: OT: Forum legalish question
On Sat, Mar 11, 2006 at 06:55:01AM -0500, Fred wrote: > On Monday 06 March 2006 23:40, Ben Scott wrote: > > Since you bring it up: I also feel that law-breaking is a poor first > > choice for effecting change,... > > Tell that to Rosa Parks. Ben said it was a poor "first" choice. You ignored that. Ben is right of course. Not disagreeing with you that civil disobedience is a valid at times but your response simply does not address Ben's point that it should not be a first choice. It wasn't Rosa's first choice either. > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:51:08AM -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote: > Today you can get a really good laptop for $100 ** Should have read: > Today you can get a really good laptop for $1000 ** Apparently I have a thing about dropping zero's. :-) > > Negroponte's project is knocking a zero off that average. > > So in a few years we can knock a another zero off the price. > > (By then $100 will be equal to today's $10. :-)) > > > > ** Yeah, I know, the $100 laptop will not be anything like what > a $1K laptop. I just enjoy the speculation and discussion. :) > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:15:17AM -0500, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 09:43:51AM -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > Now all we need are $10 laptops for general distribution. :) > > Not quite there yet, but getting closer: > > http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ Yes, that was my point. A few years ago laptops were $2k- $5K. Today you can get a really good laptop for $100 ** Negroponte's project is knocking a zero off that average. So in a few years we can knock a another zero off the price. (By then $100 will be equal to today's $10. :-)) ** Yeah, I know, the $100 laptop will not be anything like what a $1K laptop. I just enjoy the speculation and discussion. :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 08:07:35AM -0500, Tom Buskey wrote: > Many (most) public libraries provide internet access now. For some, that's > thier only access. Or through computers at school. My wife works at MCC > and needs to remind people of this all the time. Her students usually don't > have computers and can only use the college computers. Which are not > available on weekends so she sends them to the library. Yes, and there are some libraries in New England running Linux thin clients to provide more seats per $ to the public. Even better many public libraries are providing wireless access which increases the number of seats even more. Boston Public library is one of these and they don't mind when its accessed from outside their buildings. Now all we need are $10 laptops for general distribution. :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 05:52:53PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 3/7/06, Neil Joseph Schelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This isn't something to get so bent out of shape for really. > > Sure it is. Didn't you know that Internet access is a > Constitutional Right? ;-) Don't laugh Ben, its already been seriously discussed. :-) "Access to information shall not be abridged." (Bujold, 1991, 358) And the way our technological society is moving, eventually we must ~somehow~ insure that everyone who wants access to the net can get it it even if they can't pay for it. Why? One reason: It will be cheaper to deliver many of the government managed services to persons in need via the web than any other way and since some of those services are either mandated or court ordered, we (The taxpaying citizens), might as well get it done at the lowest cost. Another reason is that persons who don't have some net access will be (are!) seriously disadvantaged in a way that is roughly comparable to being functionally illiterate has been a disadvantage for the past 100 years. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL
On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 03:34:47PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > ------ > METROCAST BLOCKS RESIDENTIAL E-MAIL > ------ > > I just got off the phone with Steve Bradley of Metrocast's > (http://www.metrocastcablevision.com/) technical support. > > Metrocast, last week, started filtering packets sent by their > customers to port 25 on ALL Internet hosts. Yes, you read that right: > Metrocast is filtering ALL port 25 packets OUTBOUND from their > residential customers. I'm confused, are they : Blocking? OR Filtering? You've stated it both ways, but they don't mean the same thing to me. If they are filtering for Spam on outbound packets whose dport is 25 then I think its probably a good thing. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: What the heck is a dbus?
On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 10:51:25AM -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > IIRC dbus is used to send messages from the hald to user space. > Translated that means that dbus is a new messaging system used by the > new "hardware abstraction layer daemon" (hald) which were both > implemented as party of a new effort to make hardware devices like USB > better able to do plug and play on Linux. I don't like how I left this. I think it miss-presents the history/purpose of D-BUS to be a sub-part of project "Utopia". I don't believe that D-Bus was a part of Utopia, just something that project took advantage of. Project "Utopia" may go a long way to solving the usability issues currently preventing Linux from being used by some "Aunt Tilly's". The name is pretty ambitious: this article by Robert Love explains what's going on: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7745 -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: What the heck is a dbus?
On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 10:52:19AM -0500, Dan Coutu wrote:
> On a new installation of Centos 4.2 (a RHEL clone from source) I'm
> seeing the following error in the messages file:
>
> Mar 3 15:55:06 hanka dbus: Can't send to audit system: USER_AVC
> pid=2521 uid=81 loginuid=-1 message=avc: denied { send_msg } for
> scontext=root:system_r:unconfined_t tcontext=user_u:system_r:initrc_t
> tclass=dbus
>
>
> I've never heard of a dbus. So first of all, what's a dbus, and
Here's a good intro article:
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/003jan05/features/dbus/
--
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail
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Re: What the heck is a dbus?
On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 10:52:19AM -0500, Dan Coutu wrote:
> On a new installation of Centos 4.2 (a RHEL clone from source) I'm
> seeing the following error in the messages file:
>
> Mar 3 15:55:06 hanka dbus: Can't send to audit system: USER_AVC
> pid=2521 uid=81 loginuid=-1 message=avc: denied { send_msg } for
> scontext=root:system_r:unconfined_t tcontext=user_u:system_r:initrc_t
> tclass=dbus
>
>
> I've never heard of a dbus. So first of all, what's a dbus, and
> secondly, what does this error mean?
IIRC dbus is used to send messages from the hald to user space.
Translated that means that dbus is a new messaging system used by the
new "hardware abstraction layer daemon" (hald) which were both
implemented as party of a new effort to make hardware devices like USB
better able to do plug and play on Linux.
As for #2, it looks like, (and you probably already figured this much
out yourself), dbus isn't able to deliver a message to the audit
subsystem (whatever that is :-) )
This could be a timing issue, as in the audit service isn't up yet, but
dbus doesn't know that and is sending to it anyway?
(Just a WAG)
I'm not seeing it on my Centos 4.2 install. (Toshiba satellite laptop)
FWIW some part of these tools use some gnome libraries.. (iirc)
--
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail
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Re: OT: Forum legalish question
On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 09:18:14PM -0500, Travis Roy wrote: > I found out that he > managed to get the other board members to approve a retainer to the > district lawyer to sue me and other board members for slander and libel. He wants the town to subsidize his suing of you and other board members? Wow. Stolen from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slander "According to the American and English Encyclopedia of Law, a libel is a malicious defamation expressed either by writing or printing or by signs, pictures, effigies or the like; tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation, or to publish the natural or alleged defects of one who is alive, thereby exposing him to public hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy; or to cause him to be avoided or shunned or to injure him in his office, business or occupation." However, Political speech and Satire are both given a lot of protection under American Law. But Statements made with "malice" are not, (unless they are satire) But unbelievable statements bring no liability: (Also Stolen from same above) "In 1988, in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, (485 U.S. 46), the Supreme Court ruled that a parody .. claiming Jerry Falwell had engaged in an incestuous act with his mother in an outhouse, while false, could not allow Falwell to win damages for emotional distress because the statement was so obviously ridiculous that it was clearly not true; an allegation believed by nobody, it was ruled, brought no liability upon the author. The court thus overturned a lower court's upholding of an award where the jury had decided against the claim of libel but had awarded damages for emotional distress." So unless "Joe" is willing to say, in court that he is such an "..." that people in his own town would believe he is a dictator, or is willing to have secret police kill thousands of people, then He hasn't much to go on. (This is one possible defense) **JMO, IMNSHO, YMWV, IANAL, YANAL, MMINAL, YM > I was just looking for opinion. I haven't gotten anything official from > him or his laywer yet. He's never even asked for any posts to be removed > or edited. Trav, maybe you should run for board. :-) Final Note - Small town politics (and large as well), are rife with abuse of power and unfair play. That's part of the game apparently. Unless a person like "joe" is opposed by equally aggressive and knowledgeable persons they can often ignore process and procedures (or add them) to insure they get the outcomes they desire. I suggest you get advice from whatever older -exboard members you can and be ready to play hardball. One possible response is to apologize when actually presented with a complaint. That may be all it takes to put this issue to bed. Only you know what you have said about this guy so no one else can really know what the possible offenses are here. (Unless you've related everything there really is above) > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to mess up this e-mail ** JMO just my opinion YMWV your mileage WILL vary YANAL You are not a Lawyer MMINAL My mother is not a lawyer YM Your Mama! ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 10:56:38PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 2/26/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a > >> mirror finish. Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings > > > > Yes it was , hence the "quotes" "around" "the" "rust" > > Well, if you knew what the right term was, why didn't you use it? :-) 'Cause when I explain how a hard drive stores magnetic fields to people not in the field its just easier to say "rust", ;-) rather than "ferromagnetic material" Its a finely engineered material but at the end of the day, it does have a ferrous metal in it. Maybe even already oxidized for stabilization. > > C'mon Ben, Do you really think the NSA is going to tell us if they shred > > their drives? Then they wouldn't be able to smoke out parties trying > > recover int. from the used hard drives sold by the gov't anymore... :-) > > I gather you're being facetious, but: You seem to be operating under Not even. just having fun, hence the unquoted smilies.. Don't take it seriously. "Being paranoid, Its not just a job, Its a hell of a lot of fun! " (The obnoxious intelligence officer that dropped in on M*A*S*H) > > don't get a decoder ring or a secret handshake when you work with the NSA > > I suppose it's possible there's some super-secret level of > classification that's so secret "they" don't even tell "us" about it, > but hey, maybe I know about that too and just aren't telling "you" > about it. ;-) Can't be. You didn't get the decoder ring or the secret handshake. ;-) Don't you even want to know about the secretary who lost her job for moving her phone? :-( -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to mess with this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 07:31:28PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 2/25/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > A long time ago, working on a contract for equipment destined to be > > delivered to the NSA I heard a rumor about the procedure that you had to > > go through to remove the hard drive from an NSA building: > > > > Basically the drive was disassembled, the "rust" was sanded from the > > platters, the platters were shredded, and all of the "rust" and shredded > > platter material were placed in a crucible and melted down.the drive can > > now be removed from the building. > > Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a > mirror finish. Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings Yes it was , hence the "quotes" "around" "the" "rust" > on the platters; while not iron, I can sorta see an analogy there. Sorta? Sorta? Just for that I'm not going to tell the story about the NSA secretary who moved her desk phone 11 inches closer to her. :P ! and lost her job. > Sanitizing procedures for disks containing TOP SECRET data require > one to obliterate the recording medium. For hard disks, that means > either sanding down the surfaces of the platters, or melting down the > entire platter. Shredding doesn't really enter the picture; it's not > required in addition to that, and is not sufficient by itself. C'mon Ben, Do you really think the NSA is going to tell us if they shred their drives? Then they wouldn't be able to smoke out parties trying recover int. from the used hard drives sold by the gov't anymore... :-) "Being paranoid, Its not just a job, Its a hell of a lot of fun! " (The obnoxious intelligence officer that dropped in on M*A*S*H) -- Jeff "Don't quote me" Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to screw up this e-mail Someone tell Monica that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. ba-da bing! (Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Sat, Feb 25, 2006 at 02:40:04AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I've seen many tools for extracting data from partitions. But, has > anyone seen FOSS tools that will let you microstep a drive? You > know... move the head and record its signal, so you can recover data > that's been overwritten beware the Oracle. I have no experience with the internals of a hard drive, but I have done some low-level programming using the external interface of such devices. But it has been a while. I don't recall there being any capabilities to deliver signal information via the external interface. That doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means I didn't come across them in any of the documentation I saw. It would actually makes sense for the hard drive internals to be able to deliver information about what the analog head reads were seeing to the external interface because it would allow the manufacturer/developers, or technicians to do really deep, meaningful diagnostics on a drive. my guess is, that in order to be able to do the types of things you are describing above, you would have to wire some sensors directly into the hard drive electronics. If there are capabilities like the ones you are asking for which can be accessed through the regular external interface, then building an open source tool to access that information would be relatively easy. The most direct path to building such a tool would be to take the existing software drivers for a hard drive and add a few more functions to it that access those particular capabilities. A long time ago, working on a contract for equipment destined to be delivered to the NSA I heard a rumor about the procedure that you had to go through to remove the hard drive from an NSA building: Basically the drive was disassembled, the "rust" was sanded from the platters, the platters were shredded, and all of the "rust" and shredded platter material were placed in a crucible and melted down.the drive can now be removed from the building. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software was used to create this e-mail Rumsfeld tells Bush, "3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq today." "Oh my Lord". says Bush. He sits with his head in his hands for a long minute and then looks up and asks: "How many is a brazillion? ba-da bing! (Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: How times have changed [was Sr. Developer ]
On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 10:22:01AM -0500, Fred wrote: > > I would have to somewhat disagree with this. Whenever a group of nodes > interact in concert, that entire group can be considered a node in its own > right, with its own peculiar set of dynamics. It does not matter whether > the "nodes" are ants, computers, or people. > > When the number of interacting nodes are small, one may easily distinguish > them as separate, though they are acting as a group. When the number of > nodes are large, it's much more difficult to cull them apart. > > This is all about emergence of behavior and also a new mathematics I am > quietly (for now) working on. > > So, to differ, "organizations" DO exist -- but their efficiency to act is > inversely proportional to the number of participants. That is to say, the > "collective IQ" of the group, if there is such a thing, will always be > *less* than the IQ of individuals. The reason for this is simple: The > individuals are *not free* to act as the group can. The group itself is by > design forced to act as a unit; therefore it is a node in its own right. > > This scares the willies out of me because group nodes where it involves > humans typically become *less humane* than the individuals themselves. Fred, are you looking at chaos/complexity theory as it applies to human behavior & economics? A whole bunch of stuff came out of the Santa Fe Institute that allowed economists to actually start realistically modeling human behavior wit the same approach the physicists had started using to model complex-chaotic systems. They labeled it "chaos theory". I'm sure everyone has heard of it and it seems to be usable for a great deal more than modeling chaotic physical systems. One of the most interesting items I ran across was that there seems to be some cross-over between the chaos theory and the automata theories being advanced by Stephen Wolfram in "A New Kind Of Science". A great book, but much harder to read than "Freakonomics". Also harder to lift. :) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: HB1197 Status And Freakonomics
to secure their position within the bureaucracy by gaining control of the largest budget and the largest number of people as possible. So instead of an efficient solution the bureaucrat strives for solutions which require more resources rather than fewer. This enables them to more easily justify larger budgets and larger personnel requirements. Some will think that what I just said is far too cynical to be possible and that any bureaucrat behaving in this fashion would be so inefficient that they would quickly be replaced. That is true, but the bureaucrats realize that they have to balance their efforts to gain resources with the need of the politicians to appear to be striving for efficiency, and against the ambitions of other bureaucrats within the organization. If one bureaucrat becomes too inefficient, another will use that excess to destroy their credibility and acquire their resources or at least get their resources reassigned to someone who is an ally within the organization. If the bureaucrat in charge of IT cannot be converted to an open source mentality then the next way forward is to convince the politicians that the IT people are biased or incompetent. That is a very difficult thing to do and dangerous to attempt. At all times convincing the IT people to become open source supporters is a far better path and worth whatever amount of effort it takes to accomplish it. > > Based on this bogus report, we're going to work to have similar > legislation introduced again next year, and deal with both of these > misperceptions (I suspect someone at OIT wanted this dead on arrival, > since they never testified on it in a hearing, but worked behind the > scenes against it.) It didn't help that the Science/Tech committee > didn't get this bill to consider, either... ExecDepts didn't > understand this issue. I wonder if it might be possible to find out who was in charge of the office of information technology and start taking them out to lunch? If we cannot convince the internal technology people that open source is a better choice, then a much larger and more difficult campaign will be needed to convince the politicians that, even though their internal IT people say it's no good, open source software is better for the state. This might mean having to publicize and educate the entire voting population of New Hampshire about open source software and the fact that it is a better choice for government infrastructure. To do this will require substantial expenditure of resources. Does anyone have contacts in the state government? > > Next year, I'd love for a few dozen people to show up, and help > explain how Open Source works, the benefits (on lots of levels), and > how it would increase NH economy, etc. > Hopefully, people like Mr. Hall and others can appear and help this happen. > > Anyone interested in helping this effort, please contact me, as we can > start laying the ground work for next year... > > Seth > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: How times have changed [was Sr. Developer ]
On Wed, Feb 15, 2006 at 12:16:44PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 2/15/06, Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I really doubt the Oasis group is clueless, and even if they were Greg > > would filter that ... > > It may be that the hiring manager at the Oasis group is clueless. > > Group's are neither clueless nor clueful. People are. Groups do > not do things; individuals do. A group may contain many clueful > people doing good things (or clueless people doing evil things, or > whatever), but that does not mean one can know everything about $GROUP > or any arbitrary member of it simply by knowing something about one > or some of its members. True, but to some degree the phenomena of "groupthink" does effectively exist at some organizations generating a fair facsimile of cluelessness. > > This is part of what I call this "the myth of the organization". > Organizations are a myth; they don't exist in reality. > > -- Ben "This statement is false" Scott > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Help build the new GNHLUG Internet server
On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 11:13:03AM -0500, Steven W. Orr wrote: Whew, very long.. deleted > > Here's an example that some might find sexy: > > The goal (for me) is to end up with a list that does not allow > attachments. That way people are guaranteed to not get a virus in the > mail. some config stuff deleted (not interesting unless you know the config language) What I got from your email was that mj2 can require that each email have a plain text section (and can force html to be plaintext). This is a good thing. Can mj2 be configured to allow a pgp sig attachment and still disallow all other attachments? How about source code attachments, how can they be handled? One last question, since mj2 is object oriented, what are the performance issues? How much does it load a system down to run it? What is the underlying technology? -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Help build the new GNHLUG Internet server
On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 09:36:03AM -0500, Steven W. Orr wrote: > May I strongly urge you to not use Mailman and to instead consider > Majordomo2 (see: http://www.mj2.org) > > It is a better mailinglist manager. It suffers from not getting enough use > compared to what Mailman was able to achieve with Red Hat having been the > promoter. I use it here on syslang for the dozen odd lists I run. My > biggest list is about 800 people and it works really well. Steve, could you give up some more info about why Majordomo2 is a better maillist manager? Are there certain features we would want to use, or is it efficient in terms of machine resources, or more secure, or more spamproof? Thanks -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 11:37:42PM -0500, Fred wrote: > On Friday 03 February 2006 17:49, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 04:29:58PM -0500, Tom Buskey wrote: > > > The US Navy is trying to do (did?) it on ships. My aunt was working on > > > it. They were able to save tons of weight on each destoyer, etc by > > > converting away from paper to electronic media. That means they can > > > make the ship faster/less draft/carry more weapons & ammo. > > > > I heard about something like that, all manuals were digitized and they > > had a giant laser printer on board that would print and bind books > > on an as needed basis. Incredibly quickly. > > > > And when you were done with the manual, you just dropped it on the enemy > > to get rid of it. > > Couldn't they just download the manual to a PDA? Not that I want to make the > military even more efficient at killing people, but... This was years before PDA's existed fred, possibly decades. Now they don't print them out, they are accessed remotely and displayed on a personal "heads-up display" that they wear. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 04:29:58PM -0500, Tom Buskey wrote: > > The US Navy is trying to do (did?) it on ships. My aunt was working on > it. They were able to save tons of weight on each destoyer, etc by > converting away from paper to electronic media. That means they can make > the ship faster/less draft/carry more weapons & ammo. I heard about something like that, all manuals were digitized and they had a giant laser printer on board that would print and bind books on an as needed basis. Incredibly quickly. And when you were done with the manual, you just dropped it on the enemy to get rid of it. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 11:30:08PM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote: > Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > >> Sure, if one side is blank, then you've wasted one potential use. The > >> cure for that is 4 or 8 up, duplex as the default setting on *all* > > > > Would break the premise of the test run. Has to come out same as final > > form. > > Perhaps they just need 4-up, duplex final forms :) > > And, why can't they "print" it to a PDF and review that? Are they > actually testing the printing process? Very good. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 08:12:14PM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote: > Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > I just experienced an interesting incident involving information > > security practices. > > > > At a client's organization I recently, and very gently, urged a DBA to > > stop their practice of recycling the printouts from test runs of certain > > reports. > > > > These test runs were huge so it's understandable that they didn't want to > > just throw away all the paper. But these reports contained ALL the > > confidential information about their clients. > > Exactly how hard is it to run it through a shredder, *then* recycle it? They were usiing the version of recycle that includes re-use in it. As in use the paper for other things before throwing it away (to be re-pulped into new paper). > > Sure, if one side is blank, then you've wasted one potential use. The > cure for that is 4 or 8 up, duplex as the default setting on *all* Would break the premise of the test run. Has to come out same as final form. > your printers. If they need to print something out all pretty and > nice on 1-up, single sided, make them beg for it! > -- > > Seeya, > Paul "Have you hugged a tree today?" > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 01:04:58PM -0500, Christopher Chisholm wrote: > > > Good points. Obviously the best way to go about things is to use as > little as possible. You /do/ have to wonder why huge paper reports need > to be printed these days. Especially when you can buy a 200gb HDD at > bestbuy for $50 after rebates if you catch a good sale. In an emergency, a private caretaker institution with an international reputation and clientele needs to be able to contact geographically disparate family members and to provide all the information a hospital/medical staffer might need instantly, and without fail. Computers do not (yet) provide this capability. Examples: Rehab clinic, boarding school, Nursing Homes, private "asylums". There are probably more examples as well. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 12:38:05PM -0500, Ray Cote wrote: > At 9:21 AM -0500 2/2/06, Jeff Kinz wrote: > >Everything: Family info, age, birth date, addresses, SSN, phone #'s, > >emails, all contact phone #s and more. > > This begs the question of precisely why such a report is needed. > Why do you need a printout of all your customer's info? Well gosh Ray, I don't need it. (Also - its not my customer's info, its their customer's info) But that organization believes that it does need it. And they have their reasons. > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 11:07:45AM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > > http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=r > > Ah, yes, Penn and Teller, clearly an unbiased, subject matter expert > on materials engineering and reuse... ;-) I don't understand, the Penn and Teller article says exactly the same thing as the Wikipedia article on recycling. In fact it's the same, verbatim. Only it says it was written by Marty Meehan hmmm, uh-oh :-) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 10:44:31AM -0500, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 10:26:59AM -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > Chris, yes, the toppers ordinarily don't have confidential info on them. > > They are usually just a delivery list, nothing wrong with having toppers. > > > > In this case, the "toppers" were printed on recycled paper which > > had the confidential info on the "previously used" side of the paper. > > I understand that, but the problem is not in using recycled paper for > toppers -- that is neither an image problem nor any other kind of issue, I'm agreeing with you. I just wasn't sure I had been clear enough about how the info got out with the toppers. > and assuming proper treatment of confidential material (which is > definitely *not* the case here) is actually good business. Yup. > > My point was that using recycled paper for these kind of things is not a > bad thing. The problem is only in the fact that a list of credit card > numbers was recycled at all: Yesolutely. :) > -- > Christopher Schmidt > Web Developer > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list > gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Information security, recycling and irony
On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 10:27:48AM -0500, Christopher Schmidt wrote: > On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 10:08:08AM -0500, Fred wrote: > > On Thursday 02 February 2006 09:21, Jeff Kinz wrote: > > ... > > > The Lesson: > > > > > > Its clear that one never "really" knows how recycled materials are going > > > to be used so confidential materials must always be destroyed rather > > > than recycled. (duh) > > > > Also, if you do *test* runs, use *test* data if at all possible. In a big > > organization, I wouldn't trust every employee with sensitive, confidential > > information unless there is an explicit *need to know*. > > > > In the Boston Globe case, there is an element of professionalism amiss > > here. > > It seems to me pretty darn tacky to use test printouts for wrapping paper. > > It shows no one cares a hoot about their image there. > > Speaking as a paperboy for 4 years -- these printouts are not designed > to be seen by the customers. In my case, they were never printed on > recycled paper, but they were shoddily printed, hard to read dot-matrixy > paper with alternating green/white color bars across them. The 'toppers' > basically just had number of papers, and any complaints/adds/drops from > the customers. They're not meant for the general population, so they > have nothing to do with image. Chris, yes, the toppers ordinarily don't have confidential info on them. They are usually just a delivery list, nothing wrong with having toppers. In this case, the "toppers" were printed on recycled paper which had the confidential info on the "previously used" side of the paper. argh! -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Information security, recycling and irony
I just experienced an interesting incident involving information security practices. At a client's organization I recently, and very gently, urged a DBA to stop their practice of recycling the printouts from test runs of certain reports. These test runs were huge so it's understandable that they didn't want to just throw away all the paper. But these reports contained ALL the confidential information about their clients. Everything: Family info, age, birth date, addresses, SSN, phone #'s, emails, all contact phone #s and more. Their response was simply that the recycled paper was only being used internally so they were not risking their client's privacy. On Sunday, the Boston Globe, indulging in the same practice, released the private customer information, including credit card information, of 240,000 of their customers by using recycled internal reports for wrapping paper (topper) on delivered bundles of newspaper. Apparently I was right about this being a risky practice: :-) Irony==> My info was among that released. I have closed the account, had a new card issued, notified several auto-pay relationships and made a trip to the bank to get cash for my wife to use on a trip this coming weekend. Final step is to put a fraud alert on my record with all three major credit reporting agencies. (yes, we do have other cards we can use but our money plan calls for those accounts to be used only in case of real emergencies, and by definition if something can be avoided, its not an emergency.. :) ) If you are concerned that your info may have been released as well you can check by going here: http://www.bostonglobe.com/cclookup On that page you enter your phone # and zip, and the system will tell you if your info was released. That page appears to be the only thing the Globe has done right. The Lesson: Its clear that one never "really" knows how recycled materials are going to be used so confidential materials must always be destroyed rather than recycled. (duh) -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is madness. -- Eugene Ionesco ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
