Acidus wrote:
] A great way to protect all types of transactions. The Credit
] Card companies refuse to adopt it because it anonymizes people
] and their transactions, and thus they would no longer be able
] to sell the data.
]
] Hashing is your friend

I need to vent.

This sounds interesting, however I can't open the documents. The HTML protocol description isn't that helpful for getting the big picture, and the word documents crash my copy of MS's OSX Word. MS's formats are not cross platform, even using their own products on both platforms. I have the same problem with some WMA using OSX Windows Media Player. All this MS crap simply DOES NOT WORK.

Are PDFs that hard to make? Seriously. There is a place for non-editable formats, they remove complexity and platform dependent issues that causes problems. A few weeks ago, I had someone talking my ear off with shit about how Postscript is evil. News flash! Postscript works, there is a place for it, this is it. At least I can read the document on every platform, and have it display properly without having all the same fonts installed as the person who authored it. I'm not saying that editable formats shouldn't be distributed also, that's asinine. However, something I can display on all platforms would very helpful in situations like these.

Update: This is similar in some ways to the problem posed by source only licenses. You can lay the argument on me all day about how having (and knowing how to build from) the source empowers the user, but its just a flawed argument. The user is concerned with the app working, and that's it. The developer is who you need to empower. As long as the only thing that differentiates a user and a developer is a decision and another download, its all good.

RE: Secure Electronic Transaction Specification

] Pork Roll is a true New Jersey sophisticated flavor trend
] that can only be described as savory, distinctive,
] extraordinary, & delicate in comparison to ham, sausage
] or bacon... there is no other taste like it! Now others
] can experience the taste sensation that we here in New
] Jersey have known about for years! For breakfast, lunch,
] dinner or even as a snack... you decide!

I am Pork Roll deprived in San Francisco!

Hmm.. Pork Roll.. Cheese.. Kaiser bun..

Once I'm past the beginning of the month lack of cash, I'm going to order one off the 3lb rolls, go into this one breakfast place by where I live, and make them aware of this wonderful meat's existence. Pork Roll MUST make it to the west coast.

I can't take it any longer!

Pork Roll - New Jersey's Best Kept Secret

I really, really, really, really wish that I could get pork roll in San Francisco.

I think about this every day. Every single time I am in the Safeway by my house, I check the section of the store these would be in. I walk over to it with my fingers crossed. I know I'm never going find them there.. [cry]

Pork Roll - Jersey Taylor Ham

dopey wrote:
] you guys dont even know half the tragedy of brad's death. part
] of that being it was his first hit of dope in 8 years. and
] part of it was that he had had a death sentence on him once,
] back in the early 90s, when he was a solid user and had come
] so far and done so much with his life since leaving all that
] behind. but i didnt come on here to bring some kind of downer,
] i just wanted to share grief with you guys who seem to have
] actually been his friend. ive known brad since 1984, hung out
] with him every weekend for 8 years in a park where all the
] stoner and punk kids use to hang. i want to share with you a
] poem brad wrote on the back of his algebra homework on the
] 10th of January 1986, which oddly enough, we buried him on the
] 1/10/2004. this poem was passed around a circle of 20 grown up
] park kids while the body was lowered into the grave. this poem
] is so brad(from backthen mind you) that we all began to wail
] and laugh at the same time. im sure the old folks were trippin
] on us, but i wouldnt have changed a thing, other than wishing
] they coulda shared the moment with us...

Thanks for sharing this with us..

] the force of time has no limit. time plays the
] ultimate part in our lives. time affects us at every moment.
] time cannot be stopped except by the end of time. the end of
] time will be when time's force wears thin, in some distant
] generation, and time slows and eventually stops. imagine time
] stopping and all past times converging on the same plane. that
] will be the ultimate end.
] the ultimate end will be like someone turning a
] television set off. it(everything) will all just suck into the
] giant vacuum of the space of nothing. all life & non-life will
] just dissolve, except for one ozzy osbourne record which will
] stand as a memorandum of our race...because...ozzy rules
] eternally...even beyond the ultimate end.

:)

] as we drove out of the cemetery, my best friend(also an
] ex-park kid) put in some black sabbath and we sat back for the
] cold quiet ride back to the city. brad touched alot of folks
] here, but i truly feel like ive lost a brother. im glad you
] got to know him, whoever all you guys are, and whereever you
] are.

I just put on Planet Caravan, and tried to do this in my own way.

I'm glad I got a chance to know him too. I'm glad a piece of him was recorded here, and will never be lost. Even if its only a very small piece.

Ozzy Rules Eternally

lclough wrote:
] Wow. The underlying data would be really valueable for anyone
] doning social-network research.
]
] MemeStreams seems small. Is this a result of the interface or
] is it really small? It would be interesting to see graphs of
] usage over time for the frequency with which folks read,
] recommend, and post. Even better would be summary data in a
] tabular form that one could crunch.

MemeStreams is still small. We are growing, but we are still small. The main page has a fair amount of readers and we get tons of referrals from Google, but there are only a handful of active users who post frequently.

After we get the next version of MemeStreams up, we plan to expose XML based interfaces for querying link data. This will not only allow people to access the data for research, but also to support other visualization tools such as Touchgraph.

] A philosophical question. Is MemeStreams going to be a single
] community where everyone reads more or less the same set of
] posts, or a community with multiple foci of interest? How
] will the new developments support the one versus the other
] approach?

Nothing about MemeStreams design limits it to one group of people. Nothing about our intent for the site limits it to one group of people. Quite the contrary actually. We feel that the fact MemeStreams is only one group of people is a sign of its youth and immaturity. It is one community. One young community. Someday, there will be many communities present here. We have not created the architecture necessary for this to happen yet, so it hasn't. :)

The main page (which Decius and I usually refer to as the "democratic view") has whatever is most popular on the system, but the Reputation Agent is completely different for every person. The Agent's content is based on the system's understanding of the social network present, in relation to the user or a specified group.

One thing that I don't think most people realize: There are no "admin accounts" on MemeStreams, or anything like that. Decius's account, my account, your account, etc, are all the same. No one has any more power to make links appear on the front page then anyone else..

While on this topic.. I wish I never made the "most recommended users" page at the root of the Social Network section of the site. That page seriously misleads people. That list doesn't really have any bearing on anything.. That's built by totaling up a number of metrics, that are never actually totaled in that way, anywhere other then that page. Decius, Jeremy, and myself will always be at the top of that list. It wouldn't be possible to nock us from the top spots.. We have been actively using the system since day one, so someone would have to post and be recommended a truly insane amount to make up for the fact we have several years of system usage on them. In the year in graphs, you are seeing lists built on the same metrics, but with a timeframe taken into account so its in context.

RE: MemeStreams - The Year in Graphs 2003

] This collection of web pages documents Brad's activity on
] the system and the people who's lives he effected, from
] the first day he logged on MemeStreams to the day he
] passed on.

I had just finished the Year in Graphs when we heard of Brad's overdose. The idea of putting this together came to me immediately.. However, it took me about a week to get my shit together enough to actually do it.

I'm not sure what to say about it. I wasn't sure what to write on the intro/index page either. I spent a good afternoon of staring at a blank copy of VIM trying to come up with something. Then it dawned on me that the community could speak for itself, so I just started cut and pasting whatever made sense. It felt like that was a copout at the time, and it still does now..

However, I still can't think of anything to say about the matter. I can think of a few things I want to scream.. Really fucking loudly.. All of them at Brad.

For now, I'll say I miss him.

... and stay away from Heroin.

Brad

] Is that our productivity is up but we aren't producing enough.

Tom on deficits, labor and otherwise..

The Problem...

] Police believe one or two young men, possibly teenagers,
] are responsible for issuing obscenities and insults to
] customers at a Troy Burger King drive-through window.
]
] "You don't need a couple of Whoppers. You are too fat.
] Pull ahead," Officer Gerry Scherlink said is an example
] of what the hackers are telling customers at the
] drive-through speaker.

Those systems use different frequencies for transmitting and receiving in order to be full duplex. That means you can speak to either the person inside taking orders or the people in the car, without the other knowing. Oh my, the evil fun that can be had. (/me knows nothing about any of this, and never did anything evil when he was a kid.)

You want #@$* with that? Hackers serve unhappy meals

] Some pictures of Brad Blines (aka CrankyMessiah)

I've been working on something for Brad. It should be online soon..

Brad Blines Pictures

] The "trap" is to get sucked into this cycle of tweaking,
] configuration, tinkering, hacking, figuring out how to
] make thing work, which files go with which daemon or
] application, ... and be happy about it. While such
] pursuits are noble an academic in their own right, the
] sense of accomplishment you get from doing thiscould be
] misleading - even false! There is a very thin line
] between doing something worthwhile (whether it be for
] yourself or others), or just believe that you are, but it
] is possible that your time, talent, and creativity could
] be better used elsewhere.

There is some great truth here.. This is why I don't waste my time doing systems tinkering anymore then I have to anymore. That used to be all I did.

A Psychological Trap?