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Journal Journal: Simply because I follow the chicken. 1

Reported on squte.com in the comp.misc.news.internet group. There's a bizarre court record of a cross examination here

Q: Do you have a separate business that you have incorporated ... or is this something you do just in your own name?

Comment Why a blood moon? (Score 1) 146

This is an unusual event because its part of a series of 4 lunar eclipses in a row (in subsequent 6 full moon cycles), a tetrad which occurs once per 33 years on average. The term 'blood moon' is sometimes used for a lunar eclipse, but it's been popularised for this tetrad by John Hagee to promote his book and claim that it means the end of the world.

Comment post apocalyptic is not medieval (Score 3, Insightful) 737

someone capable of swinging a sword and lopping the heads off marauders intent on dragging off the young women and torching the village.

I doubt a post-apocalyptic world will be much like the mediaeval times portrayed in Game of Thrones. In fact the medieval world wasn’t much like that.
Swords were very expensive and used only by the nobility. The peasants use staffs or slings - i.e. sticks and stones, or long bows at certain periods.
As others have pointed out, there can be expected to be plenty of rusting machinery available, so the economy & warfare would be different. It's a lot cheaper to get iron by melting a car engine block - no matter how rusted - than smelting it from iron ore.
So maybe weapons would be different, too. Perhaps with more metal available everybody would have a metal bow, or perhaps with fewer forests and less firewood, metal would be more expensive and nobody would have swords.

Comment It's all the prawn shop sells? (Score 2) 116

If everybody else in the world was vegan, would you still be insisting that it's 'normal' to eat animal products?

Err, no, because it wouldn't be - by definition.
In fact I'm not sure what your point is.
If everybody went around with their face painted blue and said "I've traveled from 1983 to say this" before every sentence, that would be normal. But it wouldn’t make it a good idea.
Perhaps your saying that 'normal' isn't the same thing as 'natural', but since societies where the unnatural (painting your face blue) is normal are the exceptions, it's a good approximation to it.
This isn't a good argument for veganism, because most societies throughout most of history have eaten meat. So meat eating is normal and therefore likely natural.
Another possibility is that you don't know the meaning of the word 'normal' and think it actually means 'natural'. In the west that level of ignorance is ... normal.

Comment domain != dyndns (Score 5, Informative) 242

There is a little confusion here. Dynamic DNS means the domain record is constantly updated to point to the correct IP address. Its completely independent of domain registration. godaddy does not offer a dyndns service. Most dyndns services do not offer domains.
DynDNS is useful if you want to be able to always contact a box on a domain, but it's got a dynamic IP address - i.e. typically for running a server on a home box. I use it to ssh into home when I'm away, I just do ssh mydyndomain.org and don't need to worry about IP addresses.
I have had domains with godaddy in the past, but I've always used dyn.com as well.
It is possible to use a script to update your A record through your registrar's web interface, but this will break every time they update the site.
P.S. I recommend not using godaddy.

Comment federated social networks (Score 2) 218

federated social networks will go the same way e-mail has gone: yes, there's tons of minor e-mail servers, but a few large companies control a very large fraction of e-mail traffic (espeically for personal use) because running a server is hard.

For a federated system based on an open protocol, it should be possible to have a desktop client which installs in a few clicks. You can install a mail server yourself, of course, but the main barrier to this is needing a domain name pointing to it. For a desktop 'node' of a P2P system, either it is always on, or you have a name resolution system built into the protocol, or you have to have a domain name and a static IP (or use a dyndns service). All of these have downsides. A workaround is to use the email system as a transport layer. Email servers then effectively act as proxies.

Another problem with a p2p service is that p2p networks require more processor and network usage than centralized services, so they make poor applications for mobile devices.

Well, with the federated model you would just visit a website. If the protocol allowed it, you could use a desktop app on your PC and a website on your mobile with the same account.

Comment p2p social messaging system (Score 2) 218

Perhaps there is already someone doing this?

Yes, there are a number: diaspora, Friendica, and an emerging system based around RSS, this type of thing is usually called the federated social web. This is my own overview.

meta data and messaging data is spread around different peers as encrypted chunks

This is my proposal for exactly that

Comment separate metric (Score 1) 183

Yes, I understand it is a simplification.
As soon as you have a separate 'trust' factor, you have to start rating the moderation i.e. have meta-moderation.
This is more complex, which can put off users getting involved. So since the simpler algorithm works for me, I'll stick to it for now.
The problem with using neural nets is you may get 'overfitting' to the initial moderators prejudices, leading to an amplified filter bubble

Comment compared to forums (Score 5, Interesting) 183

This is fascinating. I run a website that applies a user reputation system to Usenet - a medium notorius for flame-wars (it's where the words 'troll' and 'flame' come from, after all) - so I'm aware of some of the theory, but it seems games have gone further than forums.
The algorithm I use is much simpler, the 'trust' metric is identical to the user Karma, presuming that users who act sensibly will also moderate sensibly. It works very well and filters out >95% of flames and trolls.
To those who ask how to stop reporting being abused, it's actually simple:
* weight reports by the number of reports. If a user only reports one other person per thousand the reports carry more weight than if they report every other user.
* as you said, have a 'trust' factor that weights the reports. In the case of my site, this is just their Karma score - if they get reported a lot as an arse, they are more likely to be an arse in the way they themselves report.
* Make reporting really easy. The more data you have from legit users, the more your algorithm can work on.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Updates to squte.com

I have made some updates to the site. As well as minor bug fixes and UI changes, the big change is 'notifications'. You can 'subscribe' to posts in particular groups, or to other posters, tags, etc and be emailed when there are new posts. As always, I am relying on you to tell me of any bugs you find. If I don't know about it, I can't fix it!
All notifications are off by default, so you shouldn't be bothered by any spammy emails about new content you're not interested in (as is the case wi

Comment productivity (Score 1) 91

There's a neat answer to this in the first ever 'time management' book how to live on 24 hours a day. It's about the work week, but if you get your projects done then, you can have the weekend to yourself anyway.
Basically, as has since been confirmed by scientific research, we are at our peak productivity in the afternoon - when we're at work - and our lowest energy levels in the evening, which is typically the time when we try to do our personal projects.
People then can't summon the energy to do their stuff, just want to chill, so blame themselves for not having the willpower.
The solution is so simple it's silly: You go to bed as soon as you get home, without even eating anything. you can then get up about 6 hours before you have to go to work.
Your peak energy levels are then when you are at home. uninterrupted, you can work on your projects for a least 2-3 hours before work and still have free time.
Your low productivity is on your employers time (after your lunchtime 'supper').
If you do this you'll get so much done you can enjoy your weekends guilt-free.

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