Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Links We Wish We Hadn’t Followed Dept.

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

One of the dangers of spending a lot of time online is that sometimes you will follow a link to something that you really wish you hadn’t.

So don’t say I didn’t warn you, that only two clicks away (I’m not linking to it, I’m just linking to a page that links to it), is one of the most evil mind-rotting videos I’ve had the misfortune to see … well, since whenever I last saw Bush speak, and possibly much longer. You really don’t want to view this, and if you do you will be sorry.

Don’t click. Really, don’t click. It will upset you.

And if you do, don’t blame me.

Update: Youtube.com, which hosts this video, appears to be down. Karma! [further update: the problem seems to be in the Bellsouth DSL network]
Update3: Bellsouth is up, YouTube is down, at least from here…

Posted in Internet | 3 Comments

One More Reason I Should Switch to WordPress

Posted on June 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Six Apart, creators of Movable Type and, more recently, owners of LiveJournal, have decided to harrass LiveJournal users whose default icons depict breastfeeding.

Private censorship is a pain, but we can vote with our pocketbooks. Public censorship is much worse — voting with your feet is much harder (and meanwhile they cart you off to jail).

Posted in Civil Liberties, Internet | 2 Comments

Dreamhost Lightens Up on CPU

Posted on June 1, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Since I’ve posted before on Dreamhost’s unfortunate CPU-throttling measures, it’s only fair that I note their announcement relaxing the policy,

Well, we’re sick and tired of people being sick and tired of getting disabled for “cpu minute” overages! ESPECIALLY when we don’t even have any real set “cpu minute” levels for plans, or a tab on our web panel where you can track your usage.

So “guess” what?! We’ve changed our “cpu minute” “policy” “for the better!” We no longer HAVE any limits on “cpu minutes”. Maybe it’s just semantics, and maybe it’s just “crazy overselling”, but as long as your site or scripts aren’t causing problems with the server, you are IN THE CLEAR!

Let’s say you’re not IN THE CLEAR though.. don’t worry! We’ll work with you! We’re adding a BUNCH of new servers to help “get” the average load per web server down, and we’ll work with high-load people to get their usage down or their butts onto a new server that can handle it.

… although according to the Unofficial DreamHost Blog, exactly how this will work in practice isn’t 100% clear. I hope this isn’t just a PR gloss on the same old policy, but since they told me I was stressing the server when I ran into the CPU limits…

Posted in Discourse.net | 1 Comment

Win for Sanity

Posted on May 31, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

The US Dept. of Commerce just killed, or at least referred to a committee, a set of dumb and restrictive proposals for changes to our rules on the export of technology and ideas. You can read about it at Secrecy News, “Deemed Exports”: Commerce Department Retreats.

Not only did we have a proposed restatement of the current (not-enforced) rule that an “export” occurs when I teach a class here in Miami that has a foreign student in it, but also an attempt to stop giving full faith and credit to foreign naturalizations (which isn’t unconstitutional but seems dubious under international law and treaty obligations) .

Commerce proposed that “access restrictions should be based on an individual’s country of birth rather than on his current citizenship.” This wasn’t a proposal to discriminate among naturalized US citizens (which would be thoroughly unconstitutional) but rather to discriminate among, say, naturalized Canadians depending on where they came from. A record-keeping nightmare for US universities, and probably a foreign-relations nightmare too. Good riddance.

Posted in Cryptography | Comments Off on Win for Sanity

Student Discipline Latest

Posted on May 31, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Picketline Blog has an informative Update on Disciplinary Action Against UM Students. The key point is that the charges have been reduced from “major” to “minor” status — so it appears that no one is going to be thrown out of school.

This is a very positive development!

Posted in U.Miami: Strike'06 | Comments Off on Student Discipline Latest

Awful, Terrible, Horrible Joke

Posted on May 31, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Q. What is Iraq’s national bird?

Continue reading →

Posted in Completely Different | Comments Off on Awful, Terrible, Horrible Joke