I'm not sure there's an issue here. There are ton of VPS providers out there that you can build anything you want on. Odds are, anyone who wants specialized services (or the broad range of services) you do needs to build his own server anyway, since you have to set up and config each service.

I wanted something unusual - a news server delivering NNTP - plus some other stuff. I got it at http://www.rockvps.com/. They offered me a network address, a bunch of monthly bandwidth, and a bare FreeBSD server I could do (almost) anything with.

How is what I wanted different from what you want? Sounds like if you want to build out a server with some special demands, you need to search for a good VPS (there are dozens, if not hundreds out there) and go for it!

Not sure there's a crisis here. Unless YOU are working for the NSA and this is actually a devious scheme to get us to help flesh out your database, ha ha ha.

Haw, haw, haw. If you're appalled by the gall, the outrageousness, the cojones then you've been duped: this kind of stuff is happening all over the place. When I researched and wrote the Dictator's Handbook: a practical manual for the aspiring tyrant in 2012 I found dozens of examples of this kind of stuff. In the words of an expert, "it's not the vote that counts, it's the count that counts." Have a look at chapter 11 covering elections for some other good examples, including Russia, the Dominican Republic, North Korea, and elsewhere. Hell, there are even some good examples at home, but why bother citing them when the NSA is watching me type?

I'm not going to say democracy is flawed, it's in fact probably the strongest of systems that attempt to bring order to a flawed species. But democracy is a game that's too easily manipulated, which makes dictators of the sort that read my book all-too-capable of having some fun to keep power. Welcome to the real world.

That reminded me to go have a look at Foxit, which is a great little PDF reader and more for Windows. They used to have a version for Linux (unless I'm remembering wrong?) but just went to their website and saw no trace of it.

Did they give up trying to sell to us freetards that don't want to pay for software? If so, too bad, it's a pretty good little PDF renderer. I'm using Okular, and like it too. Evince I'm not a big fan of.

Cool demonstration. The last time I had a similar experience (except for the low bandwidth and latency) was about ... yesterday, when I used Lynx. It's still a great browser in my opinion. I prefer text, and it's fast on sites like nytimes.com or linuxtoday.com which both spend so much time loading crap and analytics when using a regular browser that they're almost unusable in my low bandwidth environment.

I still like Lynx and don't care that I don't receive all the pics and javascript shininess and flash advertisement and crap. I just want to read the damn articles. Even Slashdot on Lynx is decent.

You guys both have it slightly wrong.

The last time this happened, everyone was split into two groups: "essential staff" was required to come to work, but for no pay because even in absence of a budget it was dangerous for them to not perform their duties (the guys who fix broken traffic lights, for example, and others). The other grou was "non essential" and sent home with no pay.

After the budget was resolved, everyone came back to work and was paid for those days. But the essential staff complained that although everyone got paid, the "non-essential staff" basically got a free vacation and were paid for it, while the 'essential staff' had to work for their money.

The economists agreed it was basically unfair. So while at some point the political folks can make a decision about whether to pay back-pay or not, there's no guarantee. In fact the fair thing to do is not pay back salary for the non-essential staff, since they did not perform their duties.

Point is: they have to decide what to do, and there's no guarantee anyone will be paid for their time, which sucks.

Well, it's a democracy, and the people voted. That's good. But they voted in a bunch of Tea Party imbeciles. That's bad. Congress debated competing budget proposals. That's good. They were all politically-driven, ideological dreck more intent on sinking Obamacare than on reaching a deal. That's bad. The government is closed! That's bad. But security ops are still funded. That's also bad. But it's still a democracy! That's, uh, aaaa, hang on a sec, that's go- I mean b- that's, well, hell, I don't know if that's good or bad. Can we hand it over to a strongman tyrant now, so we can do away with the endless debate over nothing and actually get something done. Maybe this book would be of some use to the new guy?

Oh my God, Gopherpedia is the coolest thing to catch my attention in years. This is awesome - truly a spectacular project.

I used gophernet at Cornell back from '89 to about '93 and for some reason, retain a strange nostalgia for it.

I sympathize with the submitter: dude, your situation sucks. I know of a similar case. Why do so many women decide to have a kid before deciding they're lesbian? That sucks.

On to the phone: I've got young kids, and I'd personally choose the cheapest price (read: easy to replace) and strongest build quality possible. I'm thinking of something like a $20 Samsung clamshell. Put speed dial on the keys, so your kid long-presses "5" to reach you and "6" to reach grandma and "7" to reach social services (kidding, that last one, ha ha). 4 year olds are perfectly capable of understanding this.

On the other hand, that phone is going to get sand in it from the sand box, fall out of a pocket from the swings, and get peanut butter and jelly on the screen. It's going to fall into the bath tub and/or toilet approximately once a week, etc. My kids are 5 and 3 and you'd be amazed the things they do to electronics.

I'd not get the kid a smart phone, even if it has fun games. You want games, get him/her something else like a fun kid's tablet or an Xbox or something. Keep the phone a phone, so he/she can talk to you every day.

Bonus points: don't give the ex-wife the number. "I'm not a misogynist. I don't hate all women: I only hate YOU!"

So that's what happens when you have a government run by intelligent, largely science-friendly people interested in judiciously using government resources while improving the conditions for its people.

Sounds great - can I have a government like that? Mine is too busy spanking it while reading my email, trying to undo medical benefit plans, throw doubt on the benefit of vaccination programs, regulate every moment of a woman's reproductive life, and threatening to shut down, to be of much use at the moment. Oh yes, and Senator Ted Cruz.

Hey Kiwis, can I get a long-stay visa for the next 20 - 30 years? I'll be good, promise!

I have a Nexus 7 and like it, so after a year of playing with an Android tablet, I figured I knew what all tablets were like. Then a friend let me try his Kindle and I was bewildered how locked down and confusing it was.

It was great for downloading books and movies from Amazon but from no where else, and I wasn't overly impressed by its other features. It was also freaking HEAVY.

I concluded it was simply a window/screen through which you send your money to Amazon, and not good for much else. Give me a stock Android tablet any day. On my Nexus I've got a Nook app, but I've also got several other ebook readers (Aldiko is great). And I guess I could put a Kindle app on it if I wanted.

Amazon has a great book store and lots of other media too. But if the new Kindle is just a better version of their last Kindle, they can keep it - give me stock Android and a choice of apps any day of the week over a device that's been locked down to be a simple content consumption (hate that word) device.

As far as I'm concerned, Ubuntu's only purpose is to create the (very fine) basis for Bodhi, which is the Ubuntu platform with E17 Enlightenment instead of Gnome3 and none of that other, special, Canonical weirdness. Damn it's a great distro.

I'm not sure "anybody" has to "do anything" at all - there are many models for communication and people can - for the moment, anyway - use whichever ones they like.

I'm an old Usenet fan, but am perfectly aware the ability to nymshift led to a culture of spamming and verbal harrassment that are basically unacceptable and that helped kill Usenet as a communication platform (not totally; I'm still on it, as are others, but it's a shadow of its former self).

Slashdot allows a pseudonym and if you want to advertise your website or Twitter feed, you can do so. You can also be anonymous if you like.

Reddit allows pseudonyms and even throw-away accounts, and many people think that's been a big part of its success. On the other hand, Facebook requires you to use a real name. At first, that kept people honest, but now we've seen it's not that hard for spammers and scumbags to set up fake accounts and Facebook is somewhat powerless to stop it. So that did or did not work.

My point is just that there are many existing models, and they compete for attention. If your transgendered lawyer wants to run a podcast, s/he'll decide whether to do it under her own name on Facebook or using a pseudnym elsewhere. The platforms compete. Bloggers who want to get name recognition can use their name; bloggers who want anonymity can blog under a fake name.

There's a good debate waiting about the merits of the different platforms. And it's essential Netizens fight against any effort to do away with anonymity at the policy level. But for the moment I'm not convinced there's a crisis of any sort, or any need for people to "act now" to "save the internet."

No, the naming scheme is in reference to self-identified groupings of American politicians.

Mavericks refers to John McCain and Sarah Palin, who considered themselves renegade "maverick" politicians unbeholden to traditional power structures.

The next OS Release will be OS X "Wankers" featuring American politicians who went off the deep end with sexual and/or other humiliating exploits, ie. Spitzer, Weiner, and that Idaho guy soliciting gay sex in a gas station restroom.

Look for OS X Teabaggers in 2015, featuring the crew that helped tank the American economy through gross ignorance and populist pandering, not to mention wanton obstructionism.

Finally, about 2017 we can enjoy OS X Convicts, featuring Rod Blagajevitch from Chicago, and those other former pols doing hard time, usually for trafficking of influence, narcotics evations, money laundering, and all those other things that add salt and pepper to democracy.

Well, that and he called his opponents simpletons. Name-calling doesn't tend to win friends and influence people.

Well, that explains the state of Usenet.

I'm generally in favor of giving users the right to anonymity - it doesn't represent the real world, people say, but hell, isn't that one of the benefits of the internet? But that said, I'm not sure it's worked out perfectly.

I've spent a lot of time on Usenet recently, for several reasons. And holy crap, Usenet is a festering cesspool of vile, antagonistic, hostile, offensive ad-hominem attacks. Yes, anonymity allows you to discuss sensitive subjects while remaining protected. It also subjects you to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (GIFT) (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory).

Maybe this says more about current Usenet denizens than it does about the benefits of anonymous discussion, but it seems Usenet has become a platform for aggressively launching personal attacks against other readers. Just one of the nails in Usenet's coffin, I think. So much for civil discourse!