If you want to find out what the conspiracy theorists are thinking about, I happened upon a great method of monitoring them all:

Put the word conspiracy in the name of your website.

So, without further ado, a list of search terms including the word “conspiracy” that landed people here in 2007. Entries in bold showed up, like, a bazillion times. Note: don’t ask me what the hell most of these are about, I’m stumped. Triscuits?

• 2 pac
• 2001
• -911 movies conspiracy foil hands from floor
• airplane liquid
• american healthcare
• americorps
• americorps funding
• amtrak
• anti smoking
• at&t motorola
• atf documentary
• babar the elephant
• blood donation
• bluetooth
• brac
• casino
• cell phone companies
• cell phone evdo
• cingular
• computer servers
• d minus
• desert storm
• diet
• do not call list
• dow
• dow jones
• employment
• enfant
• fastest computer on earth
• free agent
• clark gable
• google earth
• groh
• gulf war
• health care conspiracy revealed october 6 2007 (this search was in September, so presumably it was done by a conspiracy member)
• hershey’s
• hitler
• internet
• iphone
• iphone 6pm friday timing
• ipod
• i see blue dots
• isight camera
• jesus
• no jewish conspiracy
• jewish fossil
• jews
• henry kissinger
• lincoln penny
• mac 2007
• magnesium
• magnum opus
• mccain
• scott mcclellan
• medical
• messiah college
• microsoft jim gray
• military
• musharraf
• mutilated cows
• muzak
• noaa
• nsa
• poker
• poker machine
• poverty
• powerball
• radio ipod podcasts
• red and blue
• red hair people
• theodore roosevelt
• the royalty of presidency
• donald rumsfeld
• russian
• saic
• sistine
• skype
• smoking
• superman jewish
• thailand
• theft
• time-machine
• triscuit
• videos that can be embedded
• virtual case file vcf
• war of the worlds
• weather forecast
• john williams

Inspired by a post on Avish’s new blog:

Can children of mixed Jewish/Catholic marriages give up being kosher for Lent?

Cross-posting a message I wrote today for Dave Farber’s Interesting-People mailing list. The topic is regarding ISPs and their policies towards high bandwidth applications such as BitTorrent. The thread was started by Brett Glass, owner of a small ISP in Wyoming; the entire thread is archived here, while his specific message which I replied to is here.

From: Jeff Porten
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Comments on LARIAT and Comcast not same problem

On Feb 17, 2008, at 3:11 PM, Brett Glass wrote:

The default is for [BitTorrent to take up all available bandwidth]. And how many gamers, thirsting for the latest World of Warcraft update, would change that default (if they knew how)?

I’ve used over a dozen different BitTorrent clients; most of these do not expose their defaults to the users or allow the user to modify them. The ones that do clearly differ in their default settings. So your argument is provably incorrect. There is no “the default”, and I strongly suspect that if you were to download a dozen or so BitTorrent programs, you’d find that the defaults are set rather reasonably.

Secondly, in the “unprovably incorrect” category, anyone doing a casual search on “how do I use this BitTorrent thing” — which nearly everyone has to do as the software tends towards the complex — will come across many web documents that say, “do not do X, Y, or Z, as this is bad for the network.” [1] These are usually explained in terms of “ultimately bad for your download speed”, so it speaks to user self-interest rather than trying to inspire hearts and bunnies in the user.

[1]: http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Good_Torrents

Alas, there is. Even if you throttle your BitTorrent client, your system (and your ISP) will be beaten on relentlessly with requests for the material. Day and night.

The largest swarms I’ve ever seen have about 40,000 members; the medians can range from 50 to 2,000 members depending upon whether you’re grabbing the latest hot release, or joining an older swarm. According to http://wiki.theory.org/BitTorrentSpecification#Messages , the messages in question are mostly measured in single-digit bitlengths [1], so presumably these require a single IP packet in each direction. The only large bandwidth requirements are in response to the request packets, which is precisely where the throttles come into play.

[1] Typo. I should have said bytelengths.

So I have difficulty with your characterization that your system is “beaten on”; it seems to me that a properly throttled BitTorrent client would be kinder to networks than, say, RSS readers and other glatt kosher network apps. Likewise, I note that iTunes podcast downloads and various network file transfers invariably max out available local bandwidth, and for some reason no one is complaining loudly about these — despite the fact that they are substantively similar to unthrottled torrents.

Long after your own download is done. And unless you “relent” by not doing P2P, you are still taking your ISP’s bandwidth for a third party.

No. If I am choosing to share a portion of my hard drive, that is a first party use of network resources, and I am the person paying the bills. If I choose to share these with anonymous third parties, that’s my choice — I happen to find it gratifying when a stranger reads my website, and resent an implication that if I don’t know my correspondent, he is somehow stealing my ISP’s resources.

The entire point is that your software cares not whether any network is “overloaded,” and seeks to bypass all of the safeguards against congestion which are part of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It is thus abusive to the network.

Actually, Brett, my particular software has rather sophisticated mechanisms to judge whether a network is busy. [1] Admittedly there are also instructions to avoid traffic shaping [2], which to my mind ranks up there with the global port 80 block that ISPs imposed on all users after Code Red was released. That said, and as you well should know, these are applications riding on top of the TCP/IP layer, not hacks to the TCP layer itself. If there is anything an end user can do to hack your TCP/IP layer, the fault is not with the clever or clueless user, the fault is with the programmer who left such glaring security holes in your routers and servers.

[1]: http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/ConfigAuto-Speed
[2]: http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Avoid_traffic_shaping

One of the most effective P2P mitigation tactics we’ve tried is to slow down the user’s connection to compensate for the excessive duty cycle of P2P applications, keeping the net load (in gigabits per month) imposed on the network by the user down to a reasonable level. It’s the equivalent of, say, limiting the number of plates that a customer at a buffet can fill.

Yes, and this is what so profoundly angers your educated customers. We know that ISPs have always worked on the model that a few users will make high use of their connections, but the vast majority of their users will contribute high profits with low usages. This model dates back to modem banks and dial-up.

There are two ways ISPs can respond:

1) the ethical way is to say, “due to changes in our business model, we are raising our prices/changing our policies/imposing caps.” This gives their customers a chance to review their contracted relationship and decide whether to support the ISP or leave for a better competitor.

2) the unethical way is to modify their infrastructure such that they can screw over their customers in ways that they hope won’t be noticed. I happen to run a bandwidth meter in my menu bar, but ISPs very well know that most people don’t, and that ignorance is their opportunity.

As best as I can tell, ISPs to date have overwhelmingly opted for option #2. It is my opinion that the attitude of trying to put one over the ISPs is largely due to the obviously poor relationship between provider and client.

The flaw in this scheme is that it still lets abusers take bandwidth from us for the benefit of third parties, such as Blizzard and Vuze, without compensation.

Just so I’m clear — the “abusers” are people who pay you money, yes? I want to make sure that I’m understanding the terminology you’re using for your customers.

I run two businesses, and I routinely fire my underperforming customers and clients when they are more trouble than they are worth. The difference is, I do this politely, and I don’t call them names or imply that they are thieves for using the services I have promised them.

Best,
Jeff Porten

Scalzi has a great post up on how to be a thrifty writer, which counts as good advice for budding entrepreneurs as well.

One caveat: in his segue on “buy good stuff that lasts”, he mentions the epitomé of new and shiny, the MacBook Air, as its antithesis. Fact is, I own about a dozen Macs, and with the exception of a few PowerBook 140s that I bought used in 1997, they all still work. I can fire up my PowerBook Duo 210 any time I like, although its battery life is now measurable in picoseconds. The PowerBook G3 from 1999 is still in my stable of useful computers (great monitor, decent hard drive) for anything that doesn’t require heavy duty horsepower or Mac OS X 10.4 and up.

So, just saying: if you need a computer that will last for ten years, maybe you should go with the shiny.

Brian just tagged me with another blogmeme, and seeing as how I haven’t posted for a while… what the hell?

The meme in question:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

What Brian didn’t realize is that he tagged me twice, so here are the top two books in the stack.

Ken Follett, Jackdaws: “The last thing Monty had said to Paul Chancellor, late on Monday night, had been: ‘If you do only one thing in this war, make sure that telephone exchange is destroyed.’ Paul had woken this morning with those words echoing in his mind. It was a simple instruction.”

Dan Harrington & Bill Robertie, Harrington on Hold ‘Em, Volume III: “The big blind has been active throughout this session, and likes to stick in a lot of small raises during a pot. The small raises don’t indicate anything about the strength of his hand. Your hand: Aâ™  A♣.”

Tried to pick up a terabyte drive from OfficeDepot.com that was listed on DealMac. To date, I’ve had the following wonderful experiences with the company:

1) Phone rep lied about expected delivery date.

2) Charge to my credit card applied three separate times ($963 for a hard drive; not exactly the bargain I was looking for).

3) Wait time of 5-7 business days before such charges can be reversed.

4) Ask for a supervisor, and get dumped into the Spanish language recordings. Unfortunately for them, I speak enough Spanish to navigate that. But a cute way of ditching problem callers.

Still on hold, so addenda to this post may apply.

Addendum 1: time on hold of sufficient length to look up executive customer service email on Consumerist, find all tracking numbers on my credit card account, compose three-paragraph email, and send. Not sure how long I’ve been on hold, but length of call is about 45 minutes. I’m now promised a callback later today….

Addendum 2: callback from executive customer service just now (5:30 PM Friday); no callback ever received from the standard escalation request. She was extremely friendly and her attitude by itself went a long way towards making me feel better about Office Depot. Summary: she could help me, but only with credit card details that I couldn’t give out to an incoming phone call. We decided to see if the problem resolves itself by Monday, otherwise I call her back.

Short version of this interesting article in The Atlantic: Do one thing at a time. Avoid multitasking. Technology that enables multitasking is bad; technology that encourages multitasking is horrid.

I can’t say that I can argue with the premise, especially with the neuroscience–I’m just not qualified to take that on. But my gut feeling is that what he calls the evils of multitasking is what I experience at the end of a day where I say to myself, “I was so busy today; how is it that I got so little done?”

That said, as a card-carrying technological utopian (and the card isn’t made of antediluvian paper, nosirree), I can think of several times when multitasking is not only beneficial, it is right and proper. Listening to a podcast or good music while walking long distances. Putting on just the right mix when watching the stars, the ocean, or just the world passing by. A little distraction when a poker game isn’t going quite the way you want it to, and to focus your entire attention on it will be to play badly.

I recently picked up a Palm Centro smartphone, about which I’ve been intending to write an extensive review for a month–but I’ll say in passing that the way in which it wormed its way into my life so quickly was precisely the ability it provides to grab snippets of the Internet while doing something else. An opponent asked me last night when the minting dates were of my Morgan dollar card protector; I found them out (1878-1904, and 1921) while grabbing a smoke break. That’s information I want to know, but wouldn’t have made a note to track down hours later.

Maybe it denied me the full enjoyment of that nicotine hit. Somehow, I doubt it.

My fraternity has a traditional game that’s been played for decades, called Flaming Laballa. It’s a little bit like handball, except that it’s played with a tennis ball. Oh, and the tennis ball is soaked in lighter fluid. And then set on fire.

The part about using your hands to bat around the ball, though, that’s the same.

The game is best played while drunk, and near very large snowbanks.

In that spirit, I pass along a video of a pyromaniac who clearly should be one of our members.

After where I’ve been for the past week, I found this hysterical:

If anyone can tell me what the hell Alert DC meant with today’s “emergency alert” message, I’m listening.

From: “Alert DC”
To: “Alert DC Users”
Subject: Message from Alert DC
Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:28:27 -0500

The exercise drill has ended at George Washington University (1900 block of F St., NW) and streets will be opening soon. A hot wash will also be conducted.

This probably says more about me than anyone really needs to know: I just grabbed the shuttle from my casino-hotel to another nearly identical casino-hotel, because I knew that one was a block away from the 24-hour Starbucks.