Re: [SLUG] slug webblog

From: Derek Glidden (dglidden@illusionary.com)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 14:49:22 EST


On Wed, 2002-12-11 at 14:08, Aaron Steimle wrote:
> Was this something that people would be interested in. If so, I was going to
> get some space at phpwebhosting. I would have no trouble putting something
> like that up. I might need help actually setting it up. I wouldn't mind
> doing it as long as people would use it.

I have very mixed feelings about this. I think if people want to have
their own web-diary thing (I hate the terms "weblog" and even more,
"blog". Don't use them around me in person unless you feel like being
punched...) they should go set up their own or find someone to host it.
I don't particularly like the idea of trying to tie something like that
to the SLUG list. I like mailing lists, I dislike web-based discussion
methods, and I would be concerned that discussion would move off the
list, or that a large amount of the discussion would turn into "I have a
question. check my latest entry at... http://blahblahblah/ " as the
entirety of the message.

I'm going to quote (yet another :) of my own rants about web-based
message systems I posted once to a different list (not quite as appropos
to this specific topic but virtually):

"I think web forums are one of the most horrible side effects of the
Internet explosion for a few reasons:

* A web browser "textfield" is an extremely sucky editor. Everyone has
their favorite email clients, but there is (except for extremely rare
exceptions) only one interface to the web forum and you MUST use the one
given to you whether you like it or not. (and personally, I've NEVER
seen a web forum interface that I didn't at least marginally dislike;
most are really despicably horrible.)

* Invariably the forum messages are going to be stored in some
proprietary format with proprietary access methods (i.e. stuffed into a
database that can only be gotten to through the forum) and in a central
location with no hope of having your own local copy to browse offline or
search with your favorite email client or even tools like "grep". (And
with one central repository, if there is ever a drive crash and no
backups, that's all gone forever.)

* A web forum REQUIRES that you perform an action to participate - you
MUST visit the website to read anything; it doesn't just magically show
up in your INBOX as with a mailing list, where you can then choose to
ignore/file/delete or reply/participate as you might feel at that
particular moment. If you don't click on it regularly, you are no
longer able to even passively participate.

* Web forums are subject to the whims of the Internet - if your route to
the server at that particular moment is down, you can't do anything, and
you have to either sit there clicking "Reload" waiting for it to come
back or give up and hopefully remember to come back later. Email will
queue up until the connection comes back - you might not get it
immediately, but you WILL get it eventually through no extra effort on
the part of the recipient.

Forgive the semi-rant, but I simply don't understand the fascination so
many people have today with using web forums instead of a simple mailing
list."

-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;$t=255;@t=map
{$_%16or$t^=$c^=($m=(11,10,116,100,11,122,20,100)[$_/16%8])&110;
$t^=(72,@z=(64,72,$a^=12*($_%16-2?0:$m&17)),$b^=$_%64?12:0,@z)
[$_%8]}(16..271);if((@a=unx"C*",$_)[20]&48){$h=5;$_=unxb24,join
"",@b=map{xB8,unxb8,chr($_^$a[--$h+84])}@ARGV;s/...$/1$&/;$d=
unxV,xb25,$_;$e=256|(ord$b[4])<<9|ord$b[3];$d=$d>>8^($f=$t&($d
>>12^$d>>4^$d^$d/8))<<17,$e=$e>>8^($t&($g=($q=$e>>14&7^$e)^$q*
8^$q<<6))<<9,$_=$t[$_]^(($h>>=8)+=$f+(~$g&$t))for@a[128..$#a]}
print+x"C*",@a}';s/x/pack+/g;eval 

usage: qrpff 153 2 8 105 225 < /mnt/dvd/VOB_FILENAME \ | extract_mpeg2 | mpeg2dec -

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/ http://www.eff.org/ http://www.anti-dmca.org/



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