Mikkel, I was thinking mostly about spreading out bandwidth load so redirection would be the way to go - it depends on content but mostly what I was thinking about was distributing legtimately free content, mostly 6am, yeah I would envision a member type upload just make it easy so content can get out there Its good to see the feedback so shall we go for it then, Im sure some of the snugglers would be interested as well (i'll direct them over here) laterz

........ come to this ? It was better before than it is now; there was more water in the well, more fruit on the trees, less whores in the streets. i would suggest that it always has been and always will be like this, no, it has never been like this before, where there was a huge culture to feed from that has now largely been decimated. you dont have to believe me, ask anyone who was there in the past 35 years. We are in a time of desert famine in popular music, there is no doubt about it; its a quantifiable phenominon. for as long as our minds see things in a dualistic fashion ....... if by some miracle everything that anyone accomplished attained the grade of " ( insert adjective denoting great worthiness ) " we would be faced with a plateau which we would regard as boring ...... Bach. Nuff said. No one thinks that that plateau and the many others of previous generations are now boring, in fact, they are eternally inspiring and shocking. in order to experience something as interesting, exciting, out of the ordinary, whatever, we first have to denote its oppposite : we cannot have one without the other ........ this is simply not true, and in any case, we have so much crap surrounding us as whitewash, any speck of brilliance will stand out and surprise. This is what I am saying, and it is true we should embrace the fact that u2 exist for they act as a pointer to what we do not want to be ..... it is necessary that they exist in order for us to know this ....... no, we do not need them, there are enough pointers. That group only serves to pour salt on our desperation, to constantly remind us that Darwin was completely wrong and only the most useless survive. They are the worst torment, because they come from an era when they were surrounded by groups and writers who were giants compared to them, and yet, THEY LIVE. This is wrong. Terribly wrong. The opposite of right. there is no escape, there is, figuratively. there is just the facing up to the fact that you can give yourself that oxygen with really the minimum of effort ...... if that were the case there would be no cause for complaint. The fact of the matter is that everything is engineered to exclude, dissuade, quash, stifle, disrupt and break the back of any effort to reach out to ones peers so that we can defend The Good® if we spend all our time looking to others to provide what it is we think we need we'll be forever disappointed, and in grave danger of eventually finding ourselves enjoying corned beef sandwiches .. Well we certainly can't be accused of that particular sin, having spent the greater proporiton of our time on this planet doing exactly the opposite of sitting around wating for someone else to bring to our ears what we want to hear. The sound of one hand clapping is no sound at all. If we are the last dying remnants, the last witnesses of powerful times and great potential, then meet me down at the Dog & Duck to wash it all away. They say that these phenomina are cyclical. There has only been one hill in this phase; hopefully we are in a trough that will soon arc upwards. My bones tell me that if it comes it will be a long time coming. One half of a cycle is by itself is no guarantee that there will be another sweeping away of the crap; another generation of collected greatness and originality. Please, let me be wrong.

Death Wish VII

Christoph Luxenberg, a scholar of ancient Semitic languages in Germany, argues that the Koran has been misread and mistranslated for centuries. His work, based on the earliest copies of the Koran, maintains that parts of Islam's holy book are derived from pre-existing Christian Aramaic texts that were misinterpreted by later Islamic scholars who prepared the editions of the Koran commonly read today. So, for example, the virgins who are supposedly awaiting good Islamic martyrs as their reward in paradise are in reality "white raisins" of crystal clarity rather than fair maidens. Christoph Luxenberg, however, is a pseudonym, and his scholarly tome ""The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran" had trouble finding a publisher, although it is considered a major new work by several leading scholars in the field. Verlag Das Arabische Buch in Berlin ultimately published the book. [...] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/arts/02ISLA.html

How has it come to this? Some days, I point my finger at 2-dimensional, near-sighted education of the public. Through lack of funding and the over-valuing of those 3-r's (no, one of them is not resistance) I've watched programs be cut, like choir and open library. Through ignorance and fear of change, I've watched innovative art classes be shut down. To change, everyone will be challenged, students and teachers alike. Its not easy to see 1 excel and 29 suffer because they just don't get it. And it takes time and persistance and caring to create a system where everyone can succeed And see/hear/feel/experience and mostly appreciate the uniqueness of their own creation. To create your own personal aesthetic... that's challenging even when you "know" what you're doing. And with the cult of the Star dictating perfection... well, that will shut down at least 80% before they will even try. **I remember a moment, working at the open studio at the art gallery. We were teaching a simple print making process, in tandem with the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit. This woman was so damn sure that she couldn't do it. I walked her through the process, draw on here, now trace, get the ink, line up your paper. She ended up doing a double imprint, which could have been "wrong" but the effect was awesome and we were both thrilled! I feel really honoured to be volunteering in the studio, because its such a fun and accessible way for the public to experience art, and what's interesting, the gallery truly deconstructs itself there, some of the mystery of creation dissolves. The trick is getting more to come.

plan a: i got it, we dump acid (trippy kind) into the water supply in every major city worldwide. simultaneously ebombing hollywood and molotov cocktailing every virgin megastore and hmv. then we rebroadcast a u2 concert(any) and everyone will have a bad trip and freak out. and i'm sure you know the feeling after a bad trip, right? all you want to do it change everything around you. viola! an army of newly rogrammed destroyers of the old. we can continue this process until all crap is eliminated. plan b: move to woods and write manifesto

When you are suffocating under ten feet of ice in arctic water, you will breathe any bubble of air you can find, and be happy for it. Even if that bubble is the stale and fishy fart of a seal. U2 are that bubble. Watching the Grammy awards, MTV in general, MTV2 in particular and MTV Bass in the extreme, the group U2 are, to my astonishment, refreshing. And yet, I know for a fact that they are crap. They have been crap since I first saw them at Futurama 2 in 1981; how can this be, how has it come to this, that they are the only bubble of bad air for the suffocating millions? Mimi Majick says that ,"they are like an plain looking woman, who has made the best of her assets. She is plain, but she manages to pull it off and look good because she works very hard with what she has, and makes herself shine. There is none of the effortless beauty and grace that you get with a natural beauty. Thats whats wrong with U2" Yes Indeed®. How has it come to this? How did we get here, why do we stay here, and most importantly, how can we get the fuck out of here.

there is more than one way to do it: chomp($variable = \<\STDIN\>\); one day ill commit what \<\ is in html to memory

via email: Subject: in response to today's Irdial-list message I saw this and thought of you: http://www.starbuckscocacolagap.com

yes, but do you understand $_ and @_? when you love those, you have gone Super Sayan!

favorite perl function so far = chomp. gotta love it.

best done thru some client validation/authentication. a request for password etc. annon logons of any type are never a good idea. this could be very interesting if we all took some slice of the responsibility on the project. it seems we have the hardware and skills here. is anyone behind a router of there own? akin, that's nail on the head re:rosen's comments.

http://theregister.co.uk/content/54/24262.html Hollings has also adopted the industry's basic stance, that copying is primarily about piracy and only rarely about honest fair use, at one point calling the Internet "a haven for thievery." But the best expression of this comes from Recording Industry Ass. of America President Hillary Rosen, who wrote yesterday that, "surely, no one can expect copyright owners to ignore what is happening in the marketplace and fail to protect their creative works because some people engage in copying just for their personal use." The 'some people' says it all. Most people are criminals, and only a tiny minority are honest and decent, Rosen assumes. This is also the official perspective of Hollywood -- of Eisner, and Valenti, and Hollings. It is a perspective natural to a certain class of person. Consider that we all imagine others to be more or less like ourselves. Decent people expect others to be decent, just like themselves. Criminals expect others to be criminals, just like themselves. When Eisner and Rosen and Valenti and Hollings see a world populated by cheats and frauds and freeloading scum, what does that say about them?

Market Target by Mark Driver I've been targeted right out of the market. I've had it. I can't take any more advertising. Television, radio, magazines, billboards, even the Internet for Christ's sake. Everywhere. Why do they keep targeting me? I never did anything to them. I don't even buy anything! They're wasting their time! Fast food makes me feel like shit, soft drinks make me dizzy, candy is disgusting, chips make my stomach hurt, I don't smoke, and any band that has ever been advertised anywhere sucks unequivocally. I eat tortillas and vegetables, I drink tap water. I ride my $40 bike for entertainment. I buy a new pair of Dickies at the army navy store every year and I get all my other clothes at Costco in 3-packs. My car works fine, I use my Internet connection for long distance, I've had the same boots for three years and re-sole them when they wear out. As far as booze goes, well, as long as it's wet��. So why do they keep attacking me? Why are they filling every square inch of every available space in my life? Above urinals, on concert tickets, underneath the ice at hockey games, on blimps, in video games, as props in movies, plugs in rap songs, on shitty Web Sites (No, I will not visit your motherfucking sponsor. If you're not in it for the love, and you can't figure out any better way to pay for your site than by slapping some ugly, corrupted banner across the top of your pathetic work, then fucking close up shop, kill yourself, and leave the Web to non-polluters). They'd advertise on the backs of my eyelids if they could get away with it, and I can't hack it anymore. They win. I lose. They succeeded. I failed. Like Brian Wilson, I just wasn't built for these times. I fold. Here are all my cards. Keep the pot, keep my ante, keep the goddamn jacket on the back of my chair for all I care, I can get another at Costco. I'll be out in the parking lot getting drunk and yelling at cute girls because I can no longer stand the taste of tentacles. Marketing has poisoned everything worthwhile under the sun, so I'm giving it all up. Everything. But the way I figure it, there's no real loss. I've seen all of the episodes of the Simpsons 200 times each. Most of the good writing was done 100 years ago. I haven't listened to FM radio in years. I could play all my records beginning to end alphabetically and I'd be 76 years old when I got to the Zeni Geva. Online culture is a fucking yawn, only good for buying stuffed goats on Ebay and getting cracked copies of $1000 software. Movies always end up at the 99 cent video store across the street eventually, and you can fast forward through those commercials. My girlie's cute and the corner bar has Pabst on tap. What else matters? True, by shutting myself off to everything, I'm probably limiting my future potential as a 'community building' or 'bleeding edge' cog in someone's nightmarish vision of Internet profitability, but fuck, a simple read through my writing should've cured that anyway (Note to potential employers: The bidding starts at $120,000 a year with full dental). So I'm out. No more. I just feel bad for those of you I'm leaving behind. You'll be wearing your Slave Labor Nikes, sweating under a Third World Vest, listening to Everqueer or Fratboy Slim, your hair styled stupidly with gasoline and aborted pig placentas, trying to choke down a Double Meat Fuck Splattered Cow Testicles On The Slaughterhouse Floor Pus Coagulated Lactacious Secretion Yellow Dye #2 Deluxe. Man, will you be looking dumb. It makes me want to cry. You poor, oversugared demographic you. You're filling your apartments, your bodies, and your minds with useless junk. You stagger under your own weight, throwing money in random directions until you collapse and die, buried by a bunch of people who you failed to create meaningful human bonds with, who forget about you on the way home from the funeral. Maybe I'm just oversensitive, but I actually feel those fingers reaching out at me - cute little girl fingers, feeling at my face like a bind man, pulling at the loose threads all over my brain, trying to find a sensitive one, one that tweaks me. Desires to be successful, attractive to the opposite sex, spiritually satiated, or conversely, the fears of disease, dismemberment, of being outcast, of repressed homosexual desires. Herd mentality as dictated by herd mentality. A gas mask of soiled wool, worn in a steaming shower of chlorinated pond water. A lumbering culture created by profit motive, existing as window dressing to disguise the brutal cynicism of the architects, the brassy checks and balances of accountants bleating commands to the flunky tastemakers on the production line. The subversion of anything subverting. The conversion of something dangerous into something profitable. The gutting of the lion and the championing of the taxidermist. And the puffy vests, my god, the puffy vests��.. I give it one more shot. I hit that little "on" button, and immediately this little red dot appears on my forehead. I feel the barrel rising on the other side of the glass as some powersuited executive attempts to get me in his sights. His scope is the best money can buy, but my nausea and skittishness mark me as difficult prey. I make a sprawling leap over a pile of books, spilling a glass of wine and sending my cats scattering. The TV takes a shot at me. It misses, but after the smoke clears, there's a shimmering can of Pepsi on the coffee table, seductively held by a well manicured (but severed) hand. Then the Taco Bell dog is outside, scratching at my window, singing "That's Amore", the secret code that alerts Col. Sanders and Ronald McDonald to get their tumor inducing grease guns at the ready. "We have a resistor! Alert Cap'n Crunch and Mrs. Butterworth. Tell Hogan to pull that Subaru around!" And then, as the entire posse of 1-800-COLLECT goons attempt to joke their way through the front door, a helmeted uberyouth does a backflip on rollerblades against the window, almost crushing the Taco dog, thankfully getting tangled in the iron jungle of security bars designed for such a moment. The severed Pepsi hand launches itself across the room onto the stereo, turns it to HOTROCK 99.5 FM and starts dancing suggestively on the turntable. Warm, gooey songs ooze from the speakers, blurring the lines between commercial and product, product and art. The walls are running with honey, blood, and Gatorade. Limp Bizkit tries to sign me up for the Rap Metal MasterCard, but is outvolumed by a chorus of creepy NY Gap models, dead eyed and Children of the Damned style, singing nostalgic 80s songs with cool detachment, trying to sell me vests. Close inspection reveals UPC codes on the backs of their beautiful necks and a legion of bulimic girls behind them, mascara mixing with puke on ten thousand toilet bowls. Budweiser frogs are crawling out of the toilet bowls. A one-eyed, mutilated Asian girl holds a pair of new Levi's against the window with a thin, purple arm and starts screeching "It's a Small World After All" at the top of her lungs. Magic, The Old Navy dog, is sniffing butts with the Taco Bell dog, who had since bit the Asian girl on the leg and now yelling something about Gordidas. A waifish beauty suddenly appears on my bed, vying for my attention, trying to talk me into a new car, her hand slowly unbuttoning her blouse, batting her doe-ishly brown eyes, "C'mon Mark. It's only a test drive. No one ever has to know." Realizing my one escape, I yank my battered wallet out of my back pocket and pull out a twenty dollar bill. The entire scene freezes. All eyes are transfixed to the damp, smelly piece of paper. Andrew Jackson snickers and you can almost smell the cannibalized Indian on his breath. A miraculous cross breeze flows through my apartment, and I let the money go. It catches an upward draft, a hot air thermal, and is gone out the window. And then, something even stranger happens. The spokespeople, animals, models, body parts, and corporate whores all disappear in a anti-climactic 'puff' of yellow smoke, leaving a slight smell of perfumed intestine twisting through the air. My twenty freezes in mid flight about thirty feet above the ground. A helicopter drops out of the sky, and lowers a rope down to the cash. A man in a business suit slides down the rope, commando style, and captures the money in his mouth, gives a contemptuous snort, mumbling something like "sucker" under his breath. And then the helicopter is gone, vanishing somewhere behind the radio towers spiking the top of Queen Anne Hill. Everything is quiet again. I didn't just turn that TV off. I unplugged the motherfucker. http://www.blindwino.com/driverjunk15.html

Alex, yeah there are many uses - I'm on the snuggles list (supposedly the negativland fan list but wildly off topic, and all the better for it) where people are always posting music and discussions on bandwidth gave rise to some thoughts in my head - imagine a network of machines hosting (some of the) files sitting behind 1 server which redirects to a local machine/according to server load bandwidth/randomly to distribute load, automagically in a similar to the akami servers add an upload facility and automatic nightly (partial) mirroring and bingo a muisc distro system that could utilise/share bandwidth in a P2P way but have the speed/reliability/ability to link of webserving. Certainly not beyond the range of possibility, something to think about anyway. Along these lines - anyone used filepile?

if you are not sick:

gin

chocolate chip cookies

dinner at gyoza king

more gin

kissing your sweetie

gin also barrie and paul: we are planning to host a mirror over here as well. it may be a bit more time due to some machine issues and $ as i have just immigrated to canada. we are looking at may or so to start. exciting many of us will be mirroring as there may be further uses for these machines later. perhaps in a p2p sort of way; there are many possibilities open to us.

Barrie, yeah, it will probably be up for a while yet, they don't seem in any hurry to cut us off. I will be sticking it up when I do have to do the changeover its just I'm going to have to be a bit more carefull with the bandwidth. I'll post the IP here when it happens. Another mirror would be good though so we can spread the bandwidth load about a bit.

some awesome stuff here that I have'nt seen before: http://heritage.stsci.edu/gallery/galindex.html

Bbwwwahahahahhahhha!! http://www.altgeek.org/methuselah/rtfm/

For a cold, your choices are:

Liquid Ibuprofen (childrens strength).

Sliced Root Ginger, Lemon, Honey, Green Gea. (all organic)

small spoon of Crystalized Vitamin C from Solgar. (if you are REALLY sick) Of course, never to be taken in combination.

...all that is solid melts into air...

Unfortunately the mirror of the irdial mp3's I have been hosting at 193.130.125.110/irdial (a.k.a. diogenes.2bet.co.uk) will be disapearing at some point in the near future. Unfortunately the lease line it has been sitting on is going to be repalced by ADSL. I will try and bring it back up again on the new ADSL line but there may be bandwidth restrictions and early indications are that it is none too reliable. Also my own position there, always somewhat, er, irregular, may be under threat too as I have just discovered I am under investigation by the fraud departments of certain government agencies.

...and in other news...

Feedback in the New Scientist reports that the BPI is trumpeting " Sales upturn lifts UK market to new high,.. Total revenue grew by an impressive 5.3 per cent over the year. . . As has been the pattern for the last couple of years, the growth was attributable to buoyant CD album sales." As feedback notes hardly the loss of sales, due to illegal copying, that the BPI and others have been using to justify new CD copy-protection schemes.

Since we are on the subject of cold treatments here's two of mine.
Chop up 1 or two lemons pit into a jug sufficient to hold to pints of water, add 1 tablespoon each of the following herbs:
Yarrow, Hyssop, Peppermint and Elderflower.
Add a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a large piece of fresh ginger, chopped, and honey to taste. Add two pints of boiling water, cover, and leave to steep for at least twenty minutes. Strain the mixture and drink a wine glass full a regular intervals, gently warmed.

The 'sun-leaves' - i.e. the large shade leaves growing at the base of a certain plant well known for its medicinal qualities may be gathered and 'slolarized' by putting them in a clear glass container and covering with brandy (or similar) and then leaving them on a windowsill or other place where they will catch the sunlight. At the end of six weeks strain and decant into a dark bottle srored in a dark place. A teaspoon or two of this mixture, taken straight or added to a glass of the above mixture or your own favourite remedy will prove to be highly eficacious in cases of the 'flu.

Handy hints: in Mozilla 0.98 press shift+ctrl and click on a link. (You are runnnig Mozilla, aren't you.)

[posting this on my shiny new Pentium 1Ghz laptop but we've only just retired a 386 (with all of 4Mb of memory) in my house]