Noisetraffic Game Boy Music, You heard it here first, thanks to the BLOGDIAL uesrs. This shit ROCKS!

MENTASM 5 in Stoke, in cool, *in*.

We regret to inform you that Flooz.com, Inc. has ceased operations. The offices are closed and the company will file for bankruptcy protection. Flooz.com has been adversely affected by dramatic changes in capital markets and the general slowdown in the economy. Flooz.com had been in merger discussions with a number of companies but was unable to find a suitable partner. We wish to thank all of our customers, merchant partners, service providers, employees and investors for their support. The idea of online currency is not flawed; what IS flawed are the perceptions of people; they have no imaginations, and don't understand that the paper in thier pockets is IDENTICAL (and ultimately inferior) to a chaumian online currency. This is the first generation of companies; the next generation will probably get the public education right, and create some very rich people...

Sydney Morning Herald July 12, 2001 A Star Wars story that won't end happily

"AbandonWare" A petition that urges software makers to release their obsolete titles into the public domain as freeware. http://mivox.com/essays/text/petition.html

In an interview with John Lydon: Does it depress you that ultimately you changed nothing and British culture in the 21st century is now the essence of tedium, banality and mediocrity? Oh, I disagree, I changed everything and then it all went back. That isnt my fault. Its for the next lot to come up with their stuff. I'm not waving no big flag for you all to stand behind. I'm not the leader; there are no leaders. We all lead ourselvs individually. Life is bad when you don't do fuck all about it. But somethihng will come out of it, I dont know what. I hope so at least, and if it doesnt, its tough tits because I've done my bit and now its your turn mates. You can't just leave it all up to just one bod, or a group of people. That's selfish and lazy. Followers are the very people, from the Sex Pistols onwards, that I dislike the most, because they're sheep. They're living their lives through you and thats wrong. Respect what I do, but dont bloody live in it or copy it, imitate it. From the new "year zero" magazine

Culled from a private music scandal sheet:

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Aphex Twin has just bought that strange silver building
in the middle of the Elephant & Castle roundabout.
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A212 ver. 2 325 Songs, 1:06:27:39 total time, 1.60 GB >>>The new version of A212 is now available.<<< You can get it like this: Refer irdial list to five of your friends by clicking here. Send three blank CDRs in thier original packaging. Send enough postage for us to return the CDRs to you, in UK stamps or International Reply Coupons. Send us a 10 donation to the server fund (optional) Post everything in a recyclable Jiffy bag. Love us unconditionally. The new A212 comes with an HTML interface, newly ripped items from the venerated Irdial-Discs catalogue and newly crafted artists biogs. Upgrade your old version of A212 If you have a previous version of A212, you can get an upgrade disc. This disc contains the new rips, HTML and directory structure so that you can fuse the old version with the new version. To get an A212 upgrade disc, send one blank CDR in its original packaging, IRCs or return postage post everything in a recyclable Jiffy bag, with a 5 donation to the server fund (optional). If you have any problems, questions you can always email us....

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*** August 16, 2001 � Beverly Hills, CA Do your kids know what a UFO is? Have they ever seen one? Have you ever briefed them on the subject of your investigations? Let best-selling children�s book author Eric Elfman do it for you. Elfman�s new book, ALMANAC OF ALIEN ENCOUNTERS, just published by Random House, outlines the fascinating history of UFOs in a chronological overview that kids will find gripping. The Almanac of Alien Encounters is an in-depth, thought-provoking look at classic unsolved sightings and close encounters with extraterrestrials, along with other related phenomena such as ancient astronauts, crop circles, the Face on Mars, cattle mutilations, and much more. The book also details the U.S. government�s official response to UFO reports, as well as a look at science�s more cautious approach to alien encounters: SETI, the on-going Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. �I have never seen a book on the young adult level which provides so much information to the young reader in such a simple, yet adult-like, manner. The book gives an excellent overview of the early flying saucer sightings, from prehistory right up to the present. Having a section on what to do if you see a UFO is encouraging to us UFO investigators.� -- Raymond W. Cecot, Organizational Director, IRAAP Whether your kids are dedicated skeptics or True Believers--and from his visits to schools, Eric has found that kids span the spectrum--they�ll find something in the Almanac to make them think, make them laugh, send a shiver down their spine, and spark their curiosity about the universe around them. And most important of all, this book is sure to get even the most reluctant readers reading! The Almanac of Alien Encounters is available at all major bookstores, as well as from www.amazon.com. It has been published both in paperback and in a more-durable hardcover �library binding�. Eric Elfman is the author of eight books for children and young adults, including three X-Files novelizations and the award winning �Almanac of the Gross, Disgusting & Totally Repulsive.� He has written for television and film, and currently has several TV projects in the works. His website, www.elfmanworld.com, describes his books in more detail, and also contains lots of gross facts, scary stories, and other fun and educational material for kids. Eric is available for interviews, conferences, on-line chats, and can provide kid-friendly articles for your newsletters and websites. Please feel free to contact him if you have any questions or comments at eric@elfmanworld.com.

Say hi to Terrence & Philip and Brett Hart for us ay john :]

nyc smile on me....as i'm leaving!!! off to canada today for good. bye bye imperalist pigdogs! as soon as i cross the peace arch i plan to shoot the finger right back east at washington. thank god i no longer have to feel the embarressment of being american. and for those of you still in the states beware the coming fall of the empire. i can gaurentee you it won't go down without kicking and screaming....or worse.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0133/meyers.php NYC Village Voice Week of August 15 - 21, 2001 Motley Crew Beams No-Cost Broadband to New York High Speed, Freed by Peter Meyers "This is why I love New York," says Anthony Townsend, standing in the middle of Washington Square Park, holding his laptop computer like a butler's tray and scanning the adult playground the place becomes on hot summer evenings. Where else, he asks, can you walk around with a computer, surf the Web, and go utterly unnoticed? As if to prove his invisibility, or perhaps to demonstrate that he belongs, he hoists his machine like some digital prayerbook and begins chanting: "Jesus! Jesus! Thank you!" No one�not the guy playing the Ramones on acoustic guitar, not the tonguing teenage lovers�notices this modern miracle worker or the cybernet he has cast around them. Along with some 30 other volunteers in a group called NYCwireless, Townsend's on a crusade to set up wireless Internet access zones: small areas, often called free networks, where people can tap into high-speed connections, without cables or phone lines, at no cost. Call it a marriage of the Web and pirate radio, forged even as big telecom interests bicker over the rights to wireless-spectrum licenses. Last week, the White House announced it would ask the Supreme Court to uphold the seizure of licenses from Next-Wave, which bought them at auction but failed to make payments. Meanwhile, the Washington Square network already exists�thanks to a homemade setup Townsend rigged in late July in his nearby office at NYU, where he's a fellow at the Taub Urban Research Center. Townsend, 27, used an antenna to broadcast his connection a few hundred feet out into the park. So far only a handful of these networks have been activated in New York. But if the group has its way, zones like these will soon be springing up everywhere, spreading Net connections like streetlamp light to anyone willing to put a cheap plug-in card into a computer. Aside from the opportunity to perform evangelical chants, why, you might ask, would Townsend and his friends do this? For starters, they have an earnest desire to share, a hacker's love of all things jury-rigged, and an almost quixotic yen to make connections�human links, as it were�in an impersonal city. Yet the simplest explanation is that they do it because they can. Building a free network requires some expertise, but using one is almost easy. Those who wish to log on simply need to slip a "WiFi" card�which contains a mini-antenna, costs about $100, and is available at computer shops�into a slot on their machine and enter a few basic settings. Then they can cruise the Internet and send e-mail as they normally would. The NYCwireless Web site, www.nycwireless.net, lists a handful of the currently active networks. Sharing resources like this is a longstanding tradition within the technology world, from kids swapping music to programmers teaming up to improve Linux. That's what attracted Terry Schmidt, an independent consultant, who joined forces with Townsend this spring. Schmidt, 25, says he wanted to contribute his know-how to a group effort. "I wanted to give something back," he says. But free things draw suspicion these days, now that share-the-wealth movements like Napster have acquired the taint of the mass-looting spree. Schmidt, who along with Townsend acts as an informal spokesperson for NYCwireless, firmly rejects the Napster comparison and says his group is simply giving the bandwidth they pay for to anyone who happens to be nearby. "I'm sharing it with people," he says. "I'm not selling it. I'm not making a profit off it." Which doesn't make Internet service providers any happier. Though most broadband companies don't seem much aware of free networks, a Time Warner Cable spokesperson says such sharing could violate the terms of its residential- subscriber agreement. In any case, Schmidt says he spends lots of time attempting to explain that this is not some new dotcom business idea, that there is no commercial hook beneath the giveaway lure. At a recent tech convention in Las Vegas, he tried again. "They would ask, 'What's the business model?' " he recalls, "and we'd say, 'There is no business model. It's free.' " Those in the free-network community, both in New York and elsewhere, treat the project mostly as a hobby. Part of this reluctance stems from wanting to avoid the responsibilities of running a business. If no one gets charged, then no one can complain when things don't work. And by not charging, they're much less likely to draw the attention of those supplying the bandwidth they're sharing. But it's also evident that a communitarian impulse powers their most ambitious vision, of a city blanketed with public Internet access. "I want to make it an attractive thing for everybody to use. I want to make it easy," says Schmidt, who thinks broadband connectivity is close to becoming as necessary as water or electricity, and as such should be in public places, as available as drinking fountains. On May 3, Schmidt got the first NYCwireless network up and running in a coffee shop near his Upper East Side apartment. "Basically, that was a nightmare," he says, sounding as genuinely disturbed as a horror movie fan spooked by a scary flick. Convincing the shop was not a problem. As he told the management, the project would cost them nothing, require no work on their part, and enable their customers to surf the Web for free. The problem was that between Schmidt's place and the caf�a distance of about 100 feet as the crow flies�stood several 16- inch-thick brick walls and enough curves to exhaust even the strongest radio wave. First, Schmidt experimented with a variety of powerful antennas and signal amplifiers, all of which, given unobstructed views, can be used to propel a signal many miles. No luck. Then the brainstorm hit. The handiest solution to the wireless network, he realized, was to run a wire. Off he went to Home Depot, where he bought 250 feet of Ethernet cable to pipe the broadband connection from his apartment to an access point in the coffee shop, which would in turn distribute the signal. After securing permission from his landlord�who also owned the coffee shop's building�he set about finding a means to get the cable through those walls. Enter Schmidt's friend who works as a metal fabricator. He customized the bit needed to bore a slender channel through such thick walls, leaving only the matter of drilling the actual hole. For this Schmidt used a hammer drill, which is kind of like a jackhammer for the do-it-yourself crowd. Schmidt was then able to run the cable from his apartment to the shop, where he snaked it into a Rubbermaid container that held the miniature broadcast antenna. In some ways that's when the real work started, as group members were forced to grapple with the question of what their wireless network might evolve into and how it might be used. Townsend, the urban planner, has visions of location-based services delivering information to people according to where they are. But he admits to not knowing exactly how a large-scale system of free networks will function. "What we're doing is building an infrastructure," he says, confident that once it's in place people will figure out things to do with it�especially once they start carrying handheld computers with wireless connections. Creating a truly widespread system will take more than a handful of volunteers. The most optimistic members of NYCwireless talk of a "cloud" of free WiFi networks filling the skies of New York City with Internet connectivity. As it turns out, thousands of private corporate networks already exist, having been designed to give employees wireless broadband connections. Those in NYCwireless know this is so because a member recently went out "war driving," a method for detecting active WiFi networks that involves outfitting a car with global positioning technology, a hood-mounted antenna, and a suite of special software. The term comes from "war dialing" (popularized in the Matthew Broderick movie War Games), in which phone number after phone number is automatically dialed in the search for a modem. War driving is of interest to the free-network movement for two reasons: It helps demonstrate the ubiquity of WiFi networks and exposes the security problems that need to be addressed for the networks to be secure and, potentially, more popular. The drive through Manhattan, which covered only a portion of midtown, identified approximately 1400 WiFi networks. Though many of these networks were inaccessible to the average WiFi card- carrying computer user, anyone with a little networking savvy could likely break in. Security flaws are as much a concern to free-network operators as they are to their corporate counterparts, since network abuse�sending out spam or threatening e-mail�could lead to their being shut down. War driving helps raise awareness within the tech community that these networks are not yet secure. Ultimately, a more pressing question is whether ordinary people will start using these free networks. According to Schmidt, three months after establishing the access point, only about one person per day taps the connection. Hooking up, after all, requires someone with not only the wherewithal to buy a wireless card but also the desire to play with what many people see as a work tool. Whether these free zones flourish remains to be seen. But by another measure the effort is already a success. Adam Shand, a Portland, Oregon-based advocate of the movement, observes that "computers are fundamentally an isolating technology." Because the Internet helps connect people at a distance, the computer-dependent have spent less time hanging around each other. Wireless free networks�both because of the work required to build them and the signal's limited range�could bring back the fun of being together. Rather than seeking an escape from 24/7 Web access, people could leave their desks and wander out to the digital commons, no longer isolated. Back in Washington Square Park, Townsend's just happy everything checks out. He tests the first live feed of streaming video. It's of a teenage girl on CNN, talking about what Ecstasy did to her. "I didn't care about anything except doing X," she says. "I didn't want to wake up unless it was to do X." Townsend stares at the screen. "This is fucking cool," he says. "This is better than 3G"�the high-speed network cell phone companies are hyping. "That's not even half the speed of what we're getting. And it works."

This looks pretty awesome... http://www.cncd.fi/aeeben/

Dont upgrade to IE5.5 SP2 This concerns Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2. For those of you who don't know: "SP" is Microsoft lingo for "service pack", which is their stupid code phrase for upgrade. This is different from IE 6 (which is currently in beta). Short version: with no warning to the dev community, MS is covertly dumping support for any plugins that do not support their own proprietary model -- which is a lot of damned plugins. Quicktime is perhaps the most prominent one but, as you can see from the last paragraph below, this also impacts some database applications and other mission-critical implementations of online tech. Methinks other problems will also be discovered before long. It's obviously part of their endgame strategy to finally kill Netscape, Mozilla and other browsers. --- from http://www.macfixit.com/ IE for Windows blocks QuickTime Robin Walker found that Internet Explorer 5.5 SP2 for Windows is incompatible with QuickTime: "It will not play QuickTime movies, or work with any other function that requires the QuickTime plug-ins. QuickTime plug-ins play QT movies in other versions of MSIE up to and including MSIE 5.5 SP1, but SP2 just gives a blank frame or broken graphic icon. This has been verified here with Win98, WinME, WinNT, and Win2K. The same problem with QuickTime is reported to be present in the previews of MSIE 6.0 for Windows. The QuickTime plug-ins continue to function correctly in Netscape and other browsers." In addition, MacNN has posted an item which appears to confirm Robin's observation. It states that "A note from Apple engineering staff to the QuickTime VR mailing list says that 'IE 5.5 SP2 [for Windows] will not use the QuickTime plug-in no matter what you do.'" Update: Jim Gaynor writes: "IE 5.5 SP2, apparently, isn't singling out QuickTime. It seems that Microsoft dropped support for plug-ins written to the Netscape standard, and is now only supporting ActiveX plug-ins. Here at the University of Washington, several groups have been told not to upgrade, as certain plug-ins that are used for our in-house databases break under IE 5.5 SP2."

All you what got "post more" emails: post whatever you want here. fire and forget fire in the hole fire in the belly you dont have to do anything here you have nothing to fear and nothing to answer no obligation to anyone or anything just post at least once a week

I'm the cream of the great utopian dream.

holy geez!!!

House music causes impotence

Italian psychologists House music causes temporary impotence, Italian researchers claim. Research conducted by psychologists at the Help Me association in Rome found 66% of Italian youngsters suffer sexual problems after listening to the music. The survey was conducted on 500 Italian clubbers aged 16 to 24. Psychologist Willy Pasini told the News 2000 website: "The strong rhythmic component, and the almost total lack of melody do not inspire sexual thoughts in one's mind." The researchers claim house music cause "mental impotence" because it doesn't leave room in the brain for sexual desire. "Music heard in the clubs causes an alternate state of consciousness, which distracts the brain from taking care of its vital functions", researcher Chiara Simonelli said. Claus, I HAD to post this; its just TOO FUNNY!

I spoke to a fruity cellular telephone company today about integrating SMS into P2PQ. When I got through to the switchboard, the woman said to me; "Can you tell me what SMS is? I've only been here two weeks" I then was put through to another woman, who, after putting me on hold three times, gave me the free number that is used to sign up to Orange!

**** **** MAJOR PROTON EVENT IN PROGRESS **** ****

A category S2 (Moderate) Solar Radiation Storm is in progress.  This
event began with high energy proton flux above event levels at 7:05
p.m. Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) on August 15, 2001.


Current proton fluxes are at a level equivalent to S2 (Moderate) on the
NOAA Solar Radiation Storm scale.  Effects may include, but are not
limited to, single-event upsets on satellites in earth orbit, and
degradation of high frequency radio communications at polar latitudes,
also known as Polar Cap Absorption (PCA).  The NOAA S-scale is defined
by the lower energy proton flux (10 MeV), but because this event also
includes a significant higher energy flux component (100 MeV), other
effects are also possible, including increased radiation exposure for
manned space flight operations, more widespread radio communication
effects, and a wider range of potential impacts on satellites, such as
"snow" in imaging systems and degradation of satellite components due
to radiation exposure.


Major proton events generally follow energetic x-ray flares from active
sunspot regions on the visible side of the sun.  This event was
somewhat unusual in that no notable x-ray enhancement was seen on
satellite monitors prior to its occurrence, suggesting a more unusual
"backside" event, from a sunspot region that has rotated beyond the
side of the sun facing Earth.


Subsequent imagery received from the LASCO instrument on the SOHO
satellite, operated by NASA/ESA, confirm that a major coronal mass
ejection (CME) emerged from a backside source starting at about 5:54
p.m. MDT on August 15th.  Proton enhancements were first observed on
the SOHO SIS instrument at 6:25 p.m. MDT, indicating that these
particles were ejected from the sun at a velocity near 30% of the speed
of light.  By 7:05 p.m. MDT, the flux of energetic protons observed on
the NOAA GOES-8 satellite had risen to the threshold for a major proton
event (as determined by 100 MeV proton flux).  A second threshold for
lower energy protons (10 MeV proton flux) was reached at 7:35 p.m. MDT.
An associated Polar Cap Absorption (PCA) began at 8:10 pm MDT.


The last S2 (Moderate) event with flux levels similar to the one in
progress occurred on 18 April 2001, and lasted for about two days. 
Interestingly, that event was also caused by a backside CME.