- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: Flaming the Clueless
by Tyler Durden 02 Feb '03

02 Feb '03

Jesus H....(I assume the 'H' was instered to avert the condemnation of blasphemy)...quite a good post. Heard and duly noted. -TD >From: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com >Subject: Flaming the Clueless >Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 09:32:47 -0800 (PST) > >It's common for those accomplished in one field to believe that ability is >confidently transferrable to another, in particular for social, political >and religious matters -- and vice versa. > >Endeavors which require close, sustained concentration and logical >methodologies seldom help with challenges which require noodling, free-form >creativity, openness to disagreement, compromise. And vice versa. > >Disaster looms when a logical minded person gains political power and sets >out to arrange a nation into a perfect society as if a machine for sharply >controlled output. And vice versa when a muddled-headed dreamer sets out to >design and manufacture physical structures. > >Yet again and again this happens: logical nuts get into positions of >political power -- left, right and center, anarcho and theological -- and >all to often millions suffer, and multi-thousands are murdered. Or an >all-loving putz so narcotizes adherents to believe heaven on earth is at >hand that mass suicide occurs, not least by letting a logical nut >annihilate the willing victims. > >Cluelessness abounds, not only on cpunks but in all fields, almost as >commonplace as clueless flaming. Flaming the clueless is perfect proof that >flamers are no wiser than those they mimic. > >Never let an over-confident thinker run anything except bath water and >never obey a beloved mush-brain calling for war. Yet here we are, flaming >the clueless at hand as if whistling is courageous deep-thinking. > >Auto-didact, heal your ignorance, to be sure, a contradiction. _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Rocket Man
by Steve Schear 02 Feb '03

02 Feb '03

"Rocket Man" By Tom Rapp (from the Pearls Before Swine album "The Use of Ashes", 1970) My father was a rocket man He often went to Jupiter or Mercury, to Venus or to Mars My mother and I would watch the sky And wonder if a falling star Was a ship becoming ashes with a rocket man inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained My father was a rocket man He loved the world beyond the world, the sky beyond the sky And on my mother's face, as lonely as the world in space I could read the silent cry That if my father fell into a star We must not look upon that star again My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained Tears are often jewel-like My mother's went unnoticed by my father, for his jewels were the stars And in my father's eyes I knew he had to find In the sanctity of distance something brighter than a star One day they told us the sun had flared and taken him inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained My father was a rocket man He often went to Jupiter or Mercury, to Venus or to Mars My mother and I would watch the sky And wonder if a falling star Was a ship becoming ashes with a rocket man inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained My father was a rocket man He loved the world beyond the world, the sky beyond the sky And on my mother's face, as lonely as the world in space I could read the silent cry That if my father fell into a star We must not look upon that star again My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained Tears are often jewel-like My mother's went unnoticed by my father, for his jewels were the stars And in my father's eyes I knew he had to find In the sanctity of distance something brighter than a star One day they told us the sun had flared and taken him inside My mother and I Never went out Unless the sky was cloudy or the sun was blotted out Or to escape the pain We only went out when it rained "Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Richard P. Feynman

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Who owns stuff that falls onto someone's property?
by Tim May 02 Feb '03

02 Feb '03

Expect the first EBay auctions of debris from the "Columbia" to be a constitutional issue soon. (Actually, the censors at fascist EBay have probably already flagged any transactions which mention "space shuttle" and "Columbia" to be illegal thoughtcrime sales.) Many tons of debris, scattered over at least three states. The FedGov is already trying to claim control over the entire debris field. (Of course, those in the know would be interested in any debris which includes artifacts from Shen Zou 4, the module left in orbit by the Chinese satellite launch, said by Jane's to be a military surveillance satellite, China's first, and said to have been a recovery mission by the three payload specialists on the classified STS-107 misison. The possibility that the Chinese set a 3-kg explosive charge to detonate under accelerometer signals is...interesting.) Janes.com: "SZ 4 left its orbital module in orbit, where it will operate as an independent satellite for six or seven months, conducting Earth observation (perhaps military as well as civil), science and technical experiments. " But, of course, such speculations are now banned under orders of HomeSec Internal Security Directorate 117-4, so I am making no such speculations. --Tim May "Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001

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Flaming the Clueless
by John Young 02 Feb '03

02 Feb '03

It's common for those accomplished in one field to believe that ability is confidently transferrable to another, in particular for social, political and religious matters -- and vice versa. Endeavors which require close, sustained concentration and logical methodologies seldom help with challenges which require noodling, free-form creativity, openness to disagreement, compromise. And vice versa. Disaster looms when a logical minded person gains political power and sets out to arrange a nation into a perfect society as if a machine for sharply controlled output. And vice versa when a muddled-headed dreamer sets out to design and manufacture physical structures. Yet again and again this happens: logical nuts get into positions of political power -- left, right and center, anarcho and theological -- and all to often millions suffer, and multi-thousands are murdered. Or an all-loving putz so narcotizes adherents to believe heaven on earth is at hand that mass suicide occurs, not least by letting a logical nut annihilate the willing victims. Cluelessness abounds, not only on cpunks but in all fields, almost as commonplace as clueless flaming. Flaming the clueless is perfect proof that flamers are no wiser than those they mimic. Never let an over-confident thinker run anything except bath water and never obey a beloved mush-brain calling for war. Yet here we are, flaming the clueless at hand as if whistling is courageous deep-thinking. Auto-didact, heal your ignorance, to be sure, a contradiction.

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Re: punk and free markets
by Tyler Durden 02 Feb '03

02 Feb '03

Tim May wrote... >Silliness. The name "cypherpunks" was a pun on "cyberpunks," a pun >suggested by Jude Milhon, a woman writer for "Mondo 2000" at the time. > >Being that there is no body which "decides" what our group is called, or >even that it _is_ a group, saying that someone's pun on top of someone >else's pun means some political ideology attached to degenerates like Sid >Vicious, the Dead Kennedy's, etc., is pure silliness. > >Whether even "cyberpunks" had anything substantive to do with the so-called >punk music scene is debatable, but cypherpunks certainly did not. The >political ideology of all musical "punks" I have met is decidedly leftist, >and not in the way libertarians often like. Rather, the leftists of British >socialism, of American Democrat statists, and of Trotskyites in general. Sometimes I keep asking myself if the author of statements like these is really pretending Guru-like to be clueless just to elicit a response. But it's obvious here that whoever "Tim May" is he's just about clueless. In the discussions about the meaning of the suffix "-punk" I don't remember seeing any suggestion that "Cypherpunks" had any connection politically or music-wise to punk music. The posts were meant to explore what quintessentially punk flavorings might be implied by the name or that may be reflected in the overall makeup of the list. And yes, I was aware of where the term originated from, and it was clear to me that the intent of the naming was to imply a sort of anti-establishment "don't give a crap we're going to code and unload crypto apps" attitude. And to some extent, the list (no, not a group, but a set of lists with the name cypherpunks) has aspects of that character. But it always pisses me off when I see the local jocks or other thoughtpolice come on out and enforce whatever ideology it is desired we bow down to. Hmmm...a song lyric comes to mind... "If you've come to fight, get outa here You ain't no better than the bouncers We ain't trying to be police When you ape the cops it ain't anarchy" (From "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" by the Dead Kennedys) _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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Encrypted hard drive enclosure for $139
by Declan McCullagh 01 Feb '03

01 Feb '03

http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php?products_id=331 http://www.del trontech.com/Enclosure/E3S/E3S.htm Interesting, but I'm confused about the "Real-time 64-bit/ 40-bit DES (Data Encryption Standard) Encryption/ Decryption with throughput of 712Mbit/ sec" Does anyone know about a stronger version of a similar device? -Declan

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Re: Shuttle Diplomacy
by Tyler Durden 01 Feb '03

01 Feb '03

Well, one little trick I learned from the natives from living in China is to see what's being denied the most vehemently. If, over the next few days, they keep saying "It's not a missle, it's not a missle", then you KNOW it's a fuckin missle. (It worked a little differently in China...if they thought Deng Xiao Peng and whoever was having a lot of political friction, they'd wait to see if there were lots of pictures in the papers of those two guys shaking hands. Then they'd know the rumors were confirmed.) Another sign to look for is the "doublethink" sign...if some theory is being discussed that seems pretty important but then a few days later there's absolutely no more mention of it, then that's a real good candidate for the truth. -TD >From: Thomas Shaddack <shaddack(a)ns.arachne.cz> >To: <cypherpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com> >Subject: Re: Shuttle Diplomacy >Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 03:59:13 +0100 (CET) > > > One of the current theories floating around has to do with a piece of >debris > > that flew off the booster rocket during take-off and collided with the >left > > wing (where the problems began). The video of the take-off was reviewed >in > > great detail and it was determined that it was innocent, considering the > > proximity of the problems and the debris there appears to be at least > > something worth investigating. > >According to Slashdot, the ground control started to lose data from >shuttle's sensors; first from the back of the left wing, then spreading >forward, then all the shuttle went dead. Sounds like a structural damage. >The takeoff damage could've been a contributing factor; one single >slightly loosened tile can be deadly in such speeds. > >I just hope they won't mothball the ISS... _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Shuttle Diplomacy
by Harmon Seaver 01 Feb '03

01 Feb '03

Interesting event, eh? Pretty well timed. They're already saying it wasn't a missle, which may be. Could have been a bomb tho -- pretty weird that it's the first problem they've ever had with a landing, and just happens to have the Israeli onboard. Over Texas too. If it weren't terrs, then it must be Allah warning the Great Satan to watch his step. Interesting too that Saddam's eldest son just warned that 9/11 would be a picnic compared to what will happen if the US invades. And then there's those 3,000 Iraqis the feebs said they were looking for.... -- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com

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Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
by Tim May 01 Feb '03

01 Feb '03

On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 07:58 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote: > I'd love to see more and better train service in the US. Great way > to > travel, work, read, watch the scenery. I don't mind at all taking a > few days, > and, unless it's a real emergency, I'm very sure at this point I'll > never fly a > commercial airline again. By the way, if this has anything to do with the security hassles of air travel (someone, maybe you, mentioned it as well a day or so ago), don't count on this difference lasting for long. Already there are calls to use "positive identification" for all train travelers. "Amtrak also requires that each person buying a ticket has photo identification. "Passengers traveling between Boston and Washington DC can no longer purchase their tickets on board the train." <http://www.wokr13.tv/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=6D384AE3-F23C- 4E18-BACD-12A5E4A2F563> Expect more such moves. Expect much tighter security if and when a train is seized in the U.S. or Europe the way peace-loving Indians have been seizing trains and killing the occupants in peaceful India. (Securing entry points to trains will be even more difficult than with airplanes, for the obvious reasons. Ditto for securing transfer of weapons onto trains--in large amounts of baggage, through open windows, when people step off trains at many intermediate "whistle stops," etc.) The police state will extend to trains. Count on it. I don't know if this is your reason for expecting not to fly commercially again, but for anyone who thinks trains will somehow be exempted from the national security police state, think again. --Tim May

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ICBM's and space programs
by Sarad AV 01 Feb '03

01 Feb '03

hi, Would countries with an advanced space program and with capilities of launching satellites have ICBM capabilities.if yes can they be sucessfully launched with the knowledge that they can successfully launch medium range missiles (2000 to 3000 km range). Regards Sarath. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com

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