Older blog entries for mirwin (starting at number 45)

async This seems applicable to recent foolishness for the last two weeks somehow. The problem with hiring, training, sponsering, whatever it is called highly motivated self organizing and managing people is what is a suit to do?

Retrain old man, better hurry. EVERYBODY is way ahead. Maybe some will come back and visit once in a while.

The faster I hurry the quicker I hit the back of my head trying to figure out how to be a better manager. I am already fine at management. At least at self training scenarios.

I need to improve some other basic skills, polish a needed technical skill currently in demand, and/or find a project to mismanagement creatively until some rocket scientist figures out he is in charge of himself, hopefully this will be "gainful employment" so I can pay a few bills.

I guess effective managers are self training in favorate technical skills or creative skills while trying to keep confused traditional workers and managers far enough out of sight of the real workers that they can keep the engines of industry running adequately.

I guess I will stop ranting at myself soon. Meanwhile I think I will go play with bug buddy and gnumeric. Maybe I will get proficient enough to capture something useful soon.

Maybe gnumeric and gimp make a start at organising the tools useful for multimedia integration Clone. Maybe I should use curious george to mismanage the software effort in a training room somewhere obvious to everyone (even me) if I figure out how to not do it all myself.

ok, I got it all mixed up already so I forget trying diagram it head so just go screw around a little. Maybe if I enjoy myself and not take life so seriously I can get some of the people I truly know personally interested in some of these training exercises as part of a hobby or exploratory effort. T.H. knows, hearsay EE PE went into business with his brother-in-law as electrical contractor. I guess they been after me a while from various directions.

What does all this have to do with advogato? I give up. Instead of trying to negotiate or puesuade the talent the project needs with the few remaining assets (and they are thinner than some know since the I.P. that I posted copyrighted has already been given to C.L.F. with full rights to exploit, release, do whatever he want because while I paid him to do the work, we always recognized we were in it together and strived for maximum self management and freedom we could arrange.

And somebody has already implemented most of the stuff I have been trying to babble about and here I am trying to create the solution in an architucture already roughed out and waiting for improvement.

damn it is hard to shake off patterns of lifetimes

I go now to see if I can collaboratively not managed my project while managing my retraining and hopefully somebody will figure out how to get some lunch money out of the deal. rirwin pretty sharp cobber, I think we make it this time. If not I can a job within a fews months or live in mom and dad's garage for a few months or years more.

So all I have to do is go play around and contribute what I can where I can and if I can not like someone else striving along same path with different troubles then at least I can be polite. Ok tech school, unproject management, and plenty of R&R. I also need to go join the linux certification project someone is administering and goingwhere's quality program.

Then relearn scheduling and todo lists. They not so bad when the buck stops with me. Make life easier for people trying to work with me too.

mirbots away! We flyaway for a while instead of running. Good plan gizmo copter guys and ultralight copter on Southern Oregon Coast .... signs are everywhere if I am just looking and enjoying instead of scheming and panicking.

async I thank you and gilbertt for the excellent discussion. It was very helpful.

gilbertt, I believe you make excellent practical points regarding effective use of the recentlog. I do not think pragmatism should overwhelm an individual's rights. I will attempt to write a FAQ entry based upon your observations soon. This should assist the next rambling free association type like myself or mirbot that comes along. No doubt they will find something else to trip on eventually. Is there a keeper of the FAQ or a place to send a beginner's etiquette guide?

Caution should be used in the use of the word responsibility. I far as I can tell from the published guidelines I have not acted irresponsibly. I would appreciate it if you could cite particulars in the site documentation or clarify why you think it was irresponsible behavior. I do not regard personal preferences from a few community members as a binding responsibility.

I will checkout livejournal.com and use it for a technical journal to develop business plans from my datamining efforts here. Then I can link from whatever forum I wish to solicit comments.

Thank you both! I hope you both enjoyed the holiday weekend.

BTW asynch You may find this open engineering project of interest. VTLH mini test vehicle using linux derived flight control system. I recommend caution. I saw some hearsay that implied some of ERPS members may have been working recklessly with some pretty nasty chemicals several years ago. Hopefully now that they have linked with a little start up aerospace firm their safety practices are more responsibly managed.

goingware

I understand your frustration with the needless complexity. Allow me to assure you that from a technical end user's standpoint the apparent complexity to capability ratio has been steadily dropping. After I have been away from system's analyst working for while it always takes me a while to get re oriented as the details change so much. As I transition from windows to gnu/linux the excellent desktop tools installed by default in RN7.1 I find it much easier than similar transitions made in the past.

Further, I think the influence is spreading in subtle ways. I went for a walk tonight and discovered a huge completed park nearby. It had 3 separate jungle gym complexes sizes for appropriate age groups to reduce hazards. A reckless child could still get hurt but they would have to wildly out of control of the responsible adult watching them. These were built sturdy and large enough that adults could follow the children through if necessary or a companion is desired by the child. McDonald's play rooms days are numbered as these spread. They are expensive but deliver an added bonus: I also have drifted to the dreaded 250/40. Making a few pull ups and exercises in the soft loam at this site in the evenings after the kiddies and their responsible parents are at home will quickly make a large difference.

I wanted to run home and certify the equipment by make and make as super outstanding and appropriate for parks located near fire stations and similar training facilities. Then I remembered no such open engineering community is in existence yet. It is nice to have an revenue and community synergistic revenue source identified when an appropriate PE association commits to modernizing. Meanwhile I shall enjoy the jungle gym in the early evenings. A little joy that had been lacking seeped in. I not only did the dishes prior to actual necessary but I think it helped out my writing style a bit. I wish you good fortune finding additional gardening time. Apparently a little can go a long ways sometimes.

prla Good books. They get a little repetitive and grim towards the end. Unless of course one believes in majick and thunderbolts out of the blue. Sort of skipped a few hundred million manhours to keep the cast size down I guess. It might have been interesting to visit a normal school for a baseline. It would seem to me that a mass education system applying such principles under responsible management proper, engineering safeguards, and staff review procedures in place. It would be important to keep firm safe limits to play in place and encourage design of joint parent/child team activities. Probably have to train the parents first, the point is the joy and interest in learning. Some theorize play is how mammals learn and the longer play the more intelligent the animal.

The U.S. Army has done some interesting things with ID's Doom source according to some vaguely remembered browsing. Basically they put squads in a virtual arenas and wargame. This gets them through the basics of learning not to shoot each other much faster than in the field. The remaining field training is thus more effectively spent on advanced studies. Be interesting to adapt or tailor the approach to other fields of endeavor should one identify a way to make it effective and derive sufficient return from the increased training value. I really think a mud with pymath (blasted) teams might stimulate some interest from existing gangs. Whether the math education is worth the additional conditioning in violence might be a serious issue. Perhaps other future releases could involve more than just zapping. First contact negotiation. Flying races through mazes. Etc. Have to do much better but you get the idea. A lot of potential, but I have other activities of higher personal priority at the moment.

phoon Good. I am bit short on cash at the moment. I will review my college text, Lannon, Technical Writing. I believe that if I pay attention to tips and emulate some local styles as I absorb them the local gradient will be adequate to maintain certification. We shall see. It is a bit late to absorb an entire new site and get reacquainted with a spell checker.

Since we are on the subject of books.

The postscript books listed below are available from recent spring cleaning. I am thinning down and mobilizing. If anyone can apply them effectively I wish to donate them to a site auction as described elsewhere or else ship them to you, in which case you, the recipient, can forward the postage reimbursement to FSF as a cash donation.

Thinking in PostScript, Glenn C. Reid, cp 1990

Understanding Postscript, David A. Holzgang, cp 1987

Learning Postscript A Visual Approach, Ross Smith, cp 1990

Hands-on Postscript, Dr. Michael B Spring & David Dubin (floppy MIA)

Postscript by Example, Henry McGilton & Mary Campione, cp 1992

Postscript Language Reference Manual, 2nd cp1985 6th printing July 92

If these are outdated and worthless then I will toss them. Otherwise they can remain here on shelf and I can arrange mailing later if buyer arises.

Alternatively a worthy apprentice or better certified to local standards by any Advogato Master may receive them for free by emailing me a request and shipping address:lazyquasar@yahoo.com If uncomfortable with releasing physical address or a minor then I am open to escrow suggestions.

Iain Clicking on this resulted in my sending a bug buddy report to myself. I was using konqueror and had redialed 3 times to go get link bookmarks.

I will go back and make some detailed notes but .... how do I know what package?!?!? lol Damn it Jim! I will give them the tool names, detailed actions leading up the bug if it is repeatable, and hope they can sort it out.

Perhaps tommorrow I will tackle the dialer configuration again, I cannot seem to convince it and my internet account that I am in charge. OTOH A business plan crystalized on my walk tonight and I want to get it drafted tommorrow.

vc article Thanks mbp and davidw!

mikeszcz

Cool application. When I replaced your account with mine it worked great! I am uncertain that this was your intent so I will refrain from using your server.

Trying the same bookmark on my system adjusted for the localhost name with and without apache running resulted in some interesting data. This will help me out a bit. Naturally I immediately tried to spy on the leader of the kelly crusade ..... actually I shall do so now just a moment. Yep! Worked like a champ. Checked out mobius as well: mobius playing with fire in nice safe test lab

Phoon on writing styles. Thanks for the tips buddy! As a remedy, I will attempt to divide sentences by 2 or 3 for a while. Then I will parse out a basic subject, predicate, noun and verb in each fragment. Then I will review to see if a subject sentence and paragraph emerges. I will do this for a while to see if it helps. I am glad that as a valued cohort who has certified me and interacted a bit proactively and constructively you think it might. Thanks again!

Please be patient. I spent more time as a bureaucrat than at college or high school.

Interesting Times in the Trenches at the Cert Front

Obviously mobius is a master of Eric Frank Russel's diabologic. (Note the use of bold for emphasis as per recent tip. Not phoon, different tipster.) If anyone has clear evidence regarding which side of the ongoing simulated cert war mobius is actually leaning towards, we can negotiate. Please state your terms in your local diary or mail me at lazyquasar@yahoo.com. Has anyone else noticed his concern with the implications of the data? Perhaps he will soon favor free speech in its prompt release so that the troll overlords can be foiled in their proposed tyranny. (Irritated advogato masters are serving as designated suppressors of a less connected but quite vocal rebel's right to an earned place in our community via simulated cert war.) The sooner it is effectively discussed the sooner our free developers that are interested, if any, can get started designing potential improvements.

IMHO mobius is absolutely correct that the obvious ability and alleged willingness to edit my data is quite scary. What if someone with less scuples than master kelly had been scrambling my entries all along? Alas or not, depending on your interpretation of the situation, the portions I have reviewed appear intact and decryptable. What if they had been scrambling your entries subtlely? The edit is an obvious solution. I had enough trouble with it initially that I have rarely used. I edit now in mozzilla and proof in the preview for obvious errors like paragraph size links and half bold documents. I do not retreat from my stand that I can post whatever I like in my diary entries. Advisors are obviously correct that better written entries are easier for others to read. This must be traded off with the time it takes me to edit them to readability for others.

I tend to disagree with mobius's initial thought about what to do about this issue. The high decertification latency is not a problem in a dense interconnected community. Members should feel secure in utilization of their liberties and the community assets they have helped create. There have been no violations by myself of the publicly documented community mission. I have used my best judgement in application of the cert guidelines for the benefit of the community, upgrading my applied standards and the effort applied to evaluation of community members as my justly derived authority rose. A few people, no matter how well regarded, should notbe able to arbitrarily or quickly exile or downgrade community members without reasoned discourse persuasive to the vast majority of the community. That would be tyranny. It is easy enough to avoid each other if it is merely a personality clash. If the disagreement is about policy then the policy should be discussed, not the policy bearer's place in the community.

The kelly crusade should have to make its case effectively to the community and allow the community to decide. No volunteer participation of freedom loving individuals experiences high growth and productive activity under conditions of tyranny unless a clear emergency exists. Even then a fairly selected and previously designated leader is usually required to avoid a high probably of argument. Who is the leader here debates? Instead of effectively dealing with the emergency. However, we rebels are disorganized at the moment and do not have a consensus position regarding appropriate way to view the problem or possible remedies.

I believe further detailed analysis and design discussion of potential solutions should happen before any precipitious changes are made to the community structure. That is: if we are still merely a test laboratory and eager volunteer lab rats. If the community has grown past that stage; perhaps it is time to begin cautious documentation of the newer, informal community guidelines in how to use the facilities. Since several camps will obviously emerge we can then begin design of newer more robust features that can augment advogato (if its owner deems the new designed worthy) without destroying the infrastructure and database already in place. Perhaps some or all of the data can be made available if some factions choose to splinter off. Is the data open or does it belong to the individuals who created it? Do we have a policy in place or is there a de facto standard that the data belongs to the site? IIRC I think Microsoft was attempting to implement a policy involving who owned the data moving through or on its web sites. Perhaps there are some lessons that can be learned from their implementation's reception.

A problem is the classification of important community assets such as mobius describes regarding files. The issue is what file level access. Observers do not currently have write access to the articles. Clearly access can be restricted. Perhaps the diaries should be made private with an identical tool used to implement journals, project notebooks, team or interest chatter rooms etc.

Clearly no site admin wants unreliable access control to system critical files.

Just as clearly advogato masters do not want poorly polished articles or responses on the front porch. Perhaps for users below demonstrated mastery of the public article an editorial wiki could be added that allows team editing or individual correction until some master editor (at their convenience) decides that it is worthy to hit the front porch. If mirbot clones refuse to clean up their own work then the material can always be left in the editor's room or automatically deleted ..... say 1 week or 2 weeks after it comes in. Such a room might demonstrate to some why there are documentation specialists and writers rated so highly here at advogato. They are critical to various projects success and deserve equal credit as the elite hackers they work with to produce high quality results.

I believe kelly, advogato master; makes some interesting points:

Our glorius rebels, (Who are everywhere on this open system that they wish to be except, occasionally, the front page.) found this: Copy edit assistance is available. Perhaps this is still an appropriate method or prototype. Personally I liked the time tagged wiki. That is the way it goes I guess. Designers get attached to local ideas and concepts.

Aha! Great minds think alike: Kelly crusader on formal systems. Lower in the article she addresses that the cert system is clearly mixing personal prestige and the node trust metric, to trust or not to trust, that is the question originally asked and the lab room designed to answer.

IMHO More complex trust/prestige flows will work fine once we clearly distinguish some design requirements and constraints for interested designers to work with. What we have already at advogato is melding a larger community out of diverse elements of the open/free software developers scattered around the world. It has obviously accelerated the process of getting neophytes and hacker wannabes oriented and educated to contribute productively but there are improvements to be made.

We need to be able to manage common community assets by extending appropriate trust levels as well as perhaps cut down some of the noise. If observers cannot post to the article room and are not welcome to ramble or communicate in the diaries then obviously we need a guest room or reception room. If apprentices cannot exchange lengthy erroroneous design ramblings and painfully primitive code in their diaries without irritating various masters then where shall they meet each other to develop mutual respect while honing each other.

I realize project mailing lists perform some of these functions admirably. It is the browsing around looking for a team to join or finding an interesting task or application to tackle that may be deficient. Particularly for older well trained talent that were not raised or educated with internet access. Even today there are many technical people and even computer literate people with limited exposure to the Internet. It is is the best interests of us all to reduce the learning curves where we can. The infrastructure can be improved to allow interaction with playful ignorant newcomers or serious top notch hackers absorbed in design according to our current frame of mind. This will make our community a more pleasant productive place to work and play. Who among us does not believe in open/free paradigms, free speech, liberty, responsible civilized behavior in societies or communities in accordance with the established constraints and norms? Who among us does not get irritated at times when confronted with someone doing something we have done ourselves; but we are not in the mood for it at the moment in a favorate tool pursuing our own interests or leisurely socializing?

End transmission from simulated secret rebel transmitter location.

Audacious if pesky solicitation for community support for resolution of cert wars before they fade away from lack of interest. Recommend that all in favor of fast fade refrain from yelling SHUTUP! It only feeds the bots and troll lords. lol Excellent way to discretely vote for continued collection of data. Thanks for your diabolicial support:

Freely expressed personal whims/throughts by gracious courtesy of the Advogato owners and supporting organizational sponsors, if any. An excellent learning lab raph.

Please support rebel forces in pursuit of free speech and test data, if you choose to, sooner rather than later. I may be "edited" anytime. Fortunately for me the editing agency is not Adobe or U.S.G. so the impact, if any, should be much smaller.

Simulated Cert War declared as part of attempt to help completee stated Advogato mission to test trust metric. Erratic mirwinbot attempting to maintain status with existing sufficient nodes while soliciting suppport from the community. Meanwhile kelly, advogate master {possibly leading other concerned public minded citizens} is determined that allegedly confused nodes {notice refrain from use of quotes for emphasis in diabolical attempt to curry favor, I learn master!} will be informed and influenced to reduce mirwinbot's stature to insignificant level adequate to be overlooked.

If you care I recommend a quick review of advertised mission and the explanation of the trust metric provided on advogato front page. Perhaps the staunch defenders of status quo can also provide applicable reference information.

And thanks for taking time to think about these issues regardless of where you place, withdraw, or remain neutral in expressing your support of our viable community.

Daily Aphorism: "Small infractions lead to big infractions!" an anonymous coward somewhere in a job far far away and long long ago said. The investigating U.S.G Inspector General was not impressed, helpfully mentioned that he worked for the Base Commander.

Ever wonder what the Congressional and Behometh response would be if ten or twenty prosperous communities arranged to assist with legal expenses and perhaps even jail grants for family maintenance and blissful retirement to work on grant sponsored projects of choice? Clearly it not typically be first choice for elite professionals to be targeted as scapegoats intended to intimidate open/free communities and/or individuals, as a forced choice it would surely beat being in jail unable to support your family and getting out of jail a few months or years later facing get started again without personal resources or cash.

Diary tidbits

Ouch! Lost this one, unless he likes reasoning a lot. Too bad, looked like a good mentor, potentially very influential with apprentices working in appropriate areas or interests.

Good thing I have excellent hackerly things to go do soon. Perhaps if I get myAdvogato working properly (it is accessing my apache, local problem, screenshot demonstrates clearly that it will work when I get configured properly) an appropriate contribution will reduce some damage ... probably not. Unlikely to learn code fast enough to impress a clearly august master with extremely meritorious accomplishments list. Oh well! Some things got to learn sometime and local freedoms sufficient to do so at the moment. Last post today. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Malx provides influential input. Serious double ouch! First serious attempt to discuss open entrepreneuriasm (by mirwin, other discussion has gone before as I am discovering at about article 30 plus or minus 10) on front apparently casualty of cert war.

jfleck You might wish to check out www.robots.net It might generate some ideas for science projects.

ingvar Regarding your messenger concept. Do you think it could be integrated into or used by a more complicated advogato type of trust metrics to propagate specific cert information packets as per the user's settings to his local server? The idea would be to continuously update in the background the various informational categories that have an "edge" between two nodes and propagate the received information to any applicable links registered with the local machine after updating locally.

It seems to me this type of packet or message exchange could implemented in a way such that the data is transferred between peers in encrypted form if there is a secure negotiated link with applicable public/private key pairs. I am not familar with the architecture of ssh, it may be more appropriate, particularly if there are license conflicts with encryption software.

The idea would be for a group of entrepreneurs to establish a venture capital company as an online community activity committed to creating mutual opportunity and benefit while adding effectively to the commons in sectors going open.

The servers would each potentially serve as a focal point for neophyte entrepreneurs without much cash for equipment. They would establish a business system with open/free software and link into various mentor's servers to maintain community contact. The communities servers would be certified by uniquely local categories weighted to accomplish various functions in various project/class/journal rooms to accomplish the expanding community's goals.

Anyway background fuzzy seepage of information that is secure and from trusted sources. The network would not mirror the data as allow it to flow around. Some ideas.

I saw a phenomenal distributed realtime network outperforming more expensive newer systems by the simple expedient transferring small telemtry data via custom designed RS232 packets to Commodore 64s driving the CRTs in the control rooms at Edwards AFB. Similar technology was implemented by McDonnel Douglas at their inhouse data processing facility using Apples. Also quite effective.

I would be interested in your thoughts on this design approach using your messenger service to tailor the packets locally and propagate specific link formats to connected nodes where appropriate at inital link negotiation.

hacker on "IdeasForge" I believe I can speak from experience that much of it is from a new wave of people interested in open/free development but having insufficient experience to work the system at sourceforge. I have a vapor project that turned out to be way premature. Some people have now expressed interest in the idea of a subcommons of space technology. If they are technical people or enthusiasts with limited experience in software design and systems integration it will take a while to get them up to speed in setting up their design suites even where tools are available. While the existence of the software tools in the commons to build workstations and networks is obviously mature and stable, the existence of tools for disciplines is much rarer and very immature. It takes a while to implement the paradigm even after catching a clue.

After spending extensive time browsing there for engineering related tools I agree with your assessment that it is getting unwieldy. An improved search capabilty and finer categorization might help.

Another possible remedy is additional startups building derived sites for more specialized knowledge bases. I believe there is a high threshhold of skills required to get such a site up and running. There are many compents to the system and the documentation is cryptic to someone with my current skillset. Also, it is obvious that a viable revenue model must be established. While last time I downloaded the sourceforge code with fantasies of a defaulted kludge installation working well enough to learn something the project was committed to providing open source code back to the commons, there was no detailed methodology on business practices or revenue models that I could find. I realize that as a public company the overall summaries and prospectus is available to potential investors, it is usually to general to assist in tailoring a business model.

jclement Congratulations on releasing tiny task. Sometimes tiny can be very good, see above note to ingvar. Is there a specific reason you chose to create your own Bluesine Public License vs. going with one of the standards? Advertising? Reputation building? To me it appears adequately free to integrate with other packets and also fairly compliant with the standards as I understand them. It is your software and your choice I merely wish to understand the issues underlying various business practices in this area. By the way. Very nice front page. Excellent concise presentation of professional skills and experience. Perhaps I shall attempt to emulate it soon. My homepage is currently a bit ineffective for some purposes, such as gainful employment! :)

kelly

Interesting links to memes, I will trace through the link maze to see if any useful information is provided or just opinion.

I heard and understand your warning. Take your best shot after considering the following discussion.

I certainly hope your last comment is related to editing your own diary entries. I will warn you that if you choose to "edit" mine that you should delete them entirely rather than leave material attributed to me but modified by you online. I am sponsored to be here to evaluate how to use open/free paradigms effectively in pending business activities. A U.S. court might construe malicious modification of material left attributed to me as libel or vandalism since there is the potential for monetary damages.

It would be an interesting test case as it would obviously be difficult to produce sufficient evidence to prove the modification took place and you could not be compelled to testify under application of the fifth amendment even when criminally or antisocially screwing with the first amendment.

I believe you make an idle threat to edit me for the following reasons:

1. Datamining various seed's diary entries convince me that this would be counter to their personal ethics and purpose for the advogato site.

2. I doubt you control or have access to the server. I will not waste my time attempting to ascertain whether you do or do not have the power you claim to have.

3. The fact that you feel it is a creditable threat highlights some of the risks of depending on centralized servers and unsecure, unverifiable data streams and network links. This further highlights the applicability of the communications pkiforum offered to provide to the community and further justifies my certification of them.

Request for certification.

Original Entry describing the communications opportunity.

I hearby explicitly give you permission to insert any clearly marked editorial comments as originating from you in response to this challenge into my diary (also refered to as journal) entries here at advogato providing you can do so without breaking any laws or damaging any one else's property and you document in detail the methodology used and people who assisted here for the eddification of the community. Please do not delete them as I do not have them backed up and they will be convenient notes for my future data products and efforts.

If you are successful then the community will be better informed as to the merit and limitations of sites such as this. Not all all are masters of all subjects here and the clarification may well be educational and valuable to them. Once such vulnerabilities are clearly identified it will be more likely to attract effort from capable intested developers.

I do not think such a successful test will be damaging to the community fabric but you are certifed master by the community here so I defer to your judgement regarding the merit of such a test or discussing the holes you perceive in the infrastructure that make this possible for somebody less ethical than yourself.

I think my certification of you as journeyman speaks eloquently that I think you have a bit left to learn in some areas of human endeaver. As do we all.

Remember, clearly marked entries. Best to announce and point to them in your journal, that way no one will think the various incoherent entries are your work. It would be wise to consult raph or the owners of the domain and servers before engaging in this experiment. Use your best judgement and take your best shot if you do so responsibly without breaking any laws or damaging the databases or other property.

My strategy is to continue speaking freely about freedom, personal influence over results of personal participation, self organizing systems, and application of the proven successful open/free paradigms. Establishing community controlled economic activities that will provide resources to further grow online free communities dedicated to using the commons to promote human potential and contributing back to the planetary or species commons is not inconsistent with my understanding of the advogato community charter and practice.

May the best meme win. Is that appropriate useage? Perhaps you could summarize why or why not for the ignorant such as myself amongst us.

Please remember, precoordinate any test attacks on my entries with the system, domain, and database owners for permmission for your own safety and reputation. Good luck on this mission should you undertake it! It will be useful data to me regardless of the results.

Likewise the cert war or kelly crusade as I have characterised elsewhere. It will be valuable to me as resulting and testing either way it goes and I can continue my work here as an observer until working my way back up the ladder.

Finally, I have no intention of sueing should you choose a course other than one in compliance with my terms layed out above. Nor do I know law well enough to evalute all the ramifications of what you originally threatened. I recommend you consult a lawyer if intending to proceed without proper precoordination and authorization of the pertinent parties other than myself. I do not know if this would potentially include other people in the community. For myself it is easy enough to move on and unless this site chooses to evolve there is probably little point in my remaining here, obviously I can speak only for myself.

Thank you for your consideration and assistance in this matter. :)

Decertified pkiforum since their deadline is past for useful questions on cryptography as per previous committment.

For background on pkiforum's attempt to communicate with the community see: An organizational request to interact with the advogato community via the front page.

While the notice was short this attempted communication would seem in keeping with the advogato community mission provided here: Mission Statement

This temporary rating was explicitly turned down by several masters as per their diary entries .... which pkiforum's representative may have seen or may not have seen. This would depend on how active their representative is here and how well he understood the use of the recentlog.

I recall seeing at least two masters address this and querying why they should allow this certifcation.

One of which is documented mirwin journal entry here while the other was probably encountered later while browsing. Lengthy entry, skim to bottom if looking for the match that triggered the kelly crusade (tm).

Further fragments of ongoing discussion in this entry of mine A lengthy entry documenting a broken link. What else from mirwin? Try the scroll bar. Good news. Kelly has informed (and I have verified in use successfully) that multple entries are now accepted. Possibly future individual entries will be shorter. I have already verified that only the most recent appears via the recentlog.

Reasoning or Justifcation

I took it upon myself to certify them because I think cryptography and public/private key pairs will become important in virtual communities to avoid misinformation and spooling from being fed into the trust web. If trust webs are built to help regulate important information flow then they must be secure to avoid potential misunderstandings and damage possible from a spoof attack.

Unfortunately pkiforum had already given up on us by the time I certified them.

I also amused myself with a few humerous darts which may have unfortunately confused what I think is the real issue involved. I propose that we treat other issues as separate issues.

The issue brought up by pkiforum is whether communications from external agents wishing to reach the community. Should this be:

1.) Denied. Implying that advogato is a private club that does not wish to be exposed to potential spam nor wish to validate external requests somehow. Only members will be allowed to address the community in the public forum.

2.) Routed to some volunteer selected or approved somehow by the community. Possibly discussion of the issue on the front page is appropriate or we can discuss it less visibly in the diaries.

3.) A note somewhere easily accessible (maybe a FAQ or in the mission statement or an orientation page for newcomers to the community site providing a list of email contact points for action.

4.) An editorial board to review and make appropriate posts on behalf of external agents.

5.) Do nothing and allow access anytime sufficient certification points accrue to the external agents working account allow them to post directly.

It is entirely different issues as to whether I am schizophenic, off or on my meds, have a pleasant diary or journaling style, am personally worthy of certification to sufficient stature that I can unilaterally raise an external agent to article posting privalege, have an odd sense of humour, make journal (excuse me, diary, different implication entirely) entries drunk or incoherently.

What do you write in your diary? I write what I damn well please. Lately it has pleased me to begin cleaning up my writing styles and present some ideas coherently. Should this change or I have a specific personal reason for scrambling the content, either a bit or a lot, then it will probably be apparent to the discerning reader.

Point 4 above implicitly addresses whether individuals should be able to so authorize external parties.

cert updates

Reviewed all master certs carefully, downgraded the following to journerer as insufficient personal interaction to verify their activities at this level. This downgrade was applied only to accounts that have been active for the last few weeks and thus verifiabily too busy to evualaute mirwin.bots worthiness to absorb knowledge.

vab

edd

phf

{tag to neophyte and trolls only} Waste of others time.

Mozilla trivia - While the cut & paste between browser and composer does not work from the menu in composer when attempting copy link locations from brower right clicked and copy link location.

However, even though the main menu paste does not work can right click in composer work body and select paste and works like a champ. Design feature? Bug? Unimplemented interface between internal routines? Have to read manual to find out I suppose. Could be a bug report, feature request, or even code task opportunity by joining mailing list and asking a few concise intelligent questions. This is clearly not an immediate personal opportunity so feel free to verify and implement if neophyte skills are up to it, it sounds fun, and looking for some traction or entry point into community.

{end neophyte tag/filter/block}

Design question? Neophyte tag/filter/block Need to be tailored to personal certs, community certs, either as per user intent, or other? What is best approach for effective community building/management tools and efficient (figure the gray matter can absorb current community top priorities to select the efficient or intended approach, set a default for unopininated, ignorant, or unwashed masses ???? careful we do not detrimental biases built into the default installation ) knowledge cracking?

Upgraded somebody to journeyer who managed to convince a "secret military project" to allow the release of a tool their team is using internally somehow (probably training, simulation or brainstorming - Strategy game). At least I intended to. I have phoon down on my notes but upon doublechecking it is not him. Hopefully the upgrade is present. If not I will catch it in a few days when I reevaulate journerer certs for appropriateness. Extremely WELL DONE! Having worked inside the U.S. Military as a DOD civilian with various secret projects I know just how large that accomplishment was .... even if you do not. Would have made it master but you would have trouble answering criteria defined below at point 5 sufficiently to maintain master status long. Once you have delivered great results people expect you to continue delivering. Solivy!

Besides, have interesting cert war shaping up. For background see Gary, aka dirty rat, on mirwin.bot The resulting links may eventually lead you to the kelly crusade link provided above. If not, this will: kelly, advogato master on external information flows or this alternate rebel approach In retrospect it is easy to consider that a published policy of where to appropriate submissions for editorial review (if we had an acknowledged editor or review board) but the deadline was impending and felt it imperative that swift decisive action be taken to protect our community's reputation as open minded staunch defenders of the benefits of freely interacting memes for the eddification of not only our own community but in advocation of the benefits of the commons developed by our informed managers and alert participants.

Clearly from the above paragraph and my lowly status as jouneyer it would be inappropriate to presume an editorial function myself. This left the alternative of certifying to apprentice status with brief advisement of rights, responsibilities, and local standards.

I ask you. Is this a crime of magnitude sufficient for excommunication? ..... and I would like to thank fellow rebels and/or undecided(s) as well as my existing meagre buddy network for their support in this matter while we debate it. If it gets to hot, bail, if in your judgement appropriate. Runaway and preserve assets to debate another day.

I think some are about to find out effective trust flows are two way streets. As currently constituted I believe that helpful opponents will find it difficult exile me. They must convince all but a few "confused" nodes I am irredeemable while I merely have to convince a few new nodes that I am willing and able to learn and thus eventually might have something worthy to contribute. Much community building information will exchange hands before a decision is reached or the issue is allowed to subside. So I anticpate gleefully anyway. lol

Notice the crusaders have no direct links to me to threaten to withdraw. While buddies who value me standfast I cannot be arbitrarily cast out. If buddy network begins to crumble can always counterpropose we take marbles and setup elsewhere while preserving what friendly overlap is possible between linear pedantists in current local power structure and vastly improved new system we rebels can setup. Otherwise we moderate behavior to better clarified community standard and rebuild trusts webs to argue modification another day.

Notice that the rebels are possibly the ones without servers and online resources, next time we be the establishment and let others take stupid ideas and misbehavior to try out elsewhere. Could have been morely evenly divided civil dispute distributed vertically and/or horizontal (status vs. position on issue disputed) Situation is fraught with win/win potential in the longterm if we remain civilized. This is easier I suspect online than accross physical borders, cooler medium. Much of potential damage reparable assuming that economic impacts of the split are minimized by well established precedents and/or guidelines. Unlike international incidents.

Either we learn to modify existing rules to majority satisfaction of both major factions and influential mediaries on the links between them or two similar growing communities will come into existence to compete fairly for the previously common resources. Each have access to the commons resources. Each are evolving different methods of growing the commons. A effectively managed forks with civilized behavior and Microsoft et. al will find we have them where they thought we should be. Hopefully we be better establishment.

New certification of pjones as journeyer. In response to his query to the universe at large I would guess, and the following is in no particularly order, he or mirwinbot seem a bit erratic and interested in nonlinear systems with emergent behavior for reasons blathered about extensively but apparently undecipherably:

1.) Known documented merit.

2.) Social interaction indicating that potential for further interaction to mutual benefit may be feasible.

3.) Subversive hiaku(s) that may or may not include actual useful algorythms which may or not result in useful code but which will certainly result in useful education of anyone enticed into studying anything to resolve the issue to resolution sufficient to self applied standards of interest.

4.) Qualifications or interests demonstrating a potential ability to participate effectively in planned or imagined near or far term personal projects and/or interests.

5.) Adequate response to the market/community/society (s) well known standard applied to consultants specifically, knowledge workers frequently, and sometimes even everybody almost fairly which is: "What have you done for me lately?"

Incidentally this is that standard that will undoubtedly apply to online virtual communities as well as developer's wishing to acquire resources for free/open/transparent/visible/commons paradigmed projects. It is good that some of our local informed masters are implicitly/explicitly teaching this to less experience community members via the local pedogogical resources.

Very smart allowing the apprentices and unrated neophytes train themselves after setting up and programming the system. With occassional interaction from productively playful masters and grandmasters when they can use a break from high level fun.

Excellent mutual leverage of community resources! Fortune 1000 in the USA will pay big bucks should we get organized effectively to fairly compensate and govern ourselves while maintaining and increasing the value of the commons.

6.) The ability to ask an intelligent question.

7.) Others - Better that they not be revealed in this public forum, potentially very damaging to plan to thwart to evilthinks plans via the mobius inversion techniques derivable ..... never mind. Discuss later over secure encrypted comm link validate by trust web sufficiently fractally interlaced in key areas to avoid premature revelation to little pitchers.

Possible paydirt

The link below was sent to me in response to a usenet posting titled Space Entrepreneurialism and Open Engineering

"A friend sent me your post to sci.space.policy. The intro to your statement sounded a lot like the goals for SOFA. see http://www.innertransit.net/SOFA/open/index.html also see http://www.innertransit.org (homebase for collaborative engineering on the web)"

Checking their site out finds some broken links and a rough front porch. Clearly they are also just getting started. Bet they could use a successfully prototyped business model to raise money for application to projects. I think they may be slightly ahead of themselves in some ways.

I may be wrong. When the link to sign in for an account is functioning I may find a thriving community. I got two emails so there are multiple people involved already (or dishonesty but this matters not, cheaters do not prosper until proper billion dollar foundation is laid and infractions overlooked).

They have a charter that looks interesting. Unfortunately it is vague and needs some work unless there is further material inside currently inaccessible to me.]

Also, an odd reference to picking up a cookie for four hours of online work and then picking up another when it expires and you wish to continue.

Example charter for small non profit Legal? Who knows? Not me, we shall have to check. I checked for copyright, who would think they would care but people are funny.

Articles of Purpose and Intent for Unincorporated Nonprofit Association

(snip name for brevity)

Purpose

To create, hold, operate, and license intellectual and physical property paid for by the association or donated by members and nonmembers for the purpose of space colonization and exploration.

{This sounds pretty good. Need modification obviously for our business (perhaps that should be revenue source, we may be NPA too for community purposes while individuals run their own businesses in association somehow) model prototyping. Upon a second look I begin to remember our own local OSI/SPI controversy and reduced functionality just on verge of huge success.

Better check on how the Board is selected and managed.}

Scope

Membership and operation locations of this association are unrestricted.

Board of Directors

There shall be from four to twelve members on the board of directors.

Their purpose is to direct the affairs of the association, amend the Articles of Purpose and Intent, and provide oversight of and appoint the Officers of the association.

All decisions of the board require a three fourths majority to pass.

The Board of Directors shall keep a record of their meetings, proposals, and decisions that shall be available to members.

{visibility}

New directors shall be appointed by the existing Board of Directors.

{Uh oh! Obviously initial conditions or seeds are critical in this organization. Also notice no recovery from a corrupt board can be forced from outside. Any work donated to this organization is completely outside personal sphere of influence.}

Directors may be removed from the board by the rest of the Board of Directors.

{Reasonable? Could add to our concept of community disqualification. If arbitrary board action by a quorum removes other directors the community can always vote no confidence. Seriously shuffling should not happen too often in a viable community. I would expect a fork as more likely than a responsible board having to eject a member. Unsatisfied board members can always take individual board member problems to the community by asking right questions or putting right data into the publicly published proceedings.}

Members

Members are defined as anybody who participates in the activities of the organization and is on the rolls of the organization.

{ This is good but I think we can add cert related constraints. Organization open to anyone that participates and convinces influential minority of community that contribution is worthy of certifcaton. Even poor producers such as myself or people with limited resources can participate to a level commiserate with their volunteered or self managed resources and in accordance with appropriate standards of the community as determined by the weighted cert process}

Officers

The officers consist of a President, Vice President, and Treasurer with the normal responsibilities for each.

The officers are responsible for the day to day operation of the association.

The officers may be paid or unpaid depending on the will of the Board of Directors.

{ok for startup, generate detailed position descriptions, procedures and guidelines as we go. Sooner the better then modified as appropriate in response to best judgement of the community. Remember, there will be informed masters and alert others amongst our community or we are doomed to failure. }

Dissolution

In the event that this association is dissolved, all property and rights shall be passed to an appropriate corporation or association with the same or similar purpose as decided by the Board of Directors.

{ Works with a decent board. Personally I prefer an explicit detailed exit strategy so there are no messy litigious situations. By definition if the organization has failed there is already a lot of stress and non cooperation all around. No need providing gasoline for a match. Someone will be pissed if the work is given to Boeing or NASA for nothing. If they were developing their existing IP there would be no need for grassroots evolving better methods.}

Conversion

In the event that the Board of Directors decides to change the form of this association to a corporation or other legal identity, the articles defining that identity shall state the same or similar purpose as defined in this Articles of Purpose and Intent.

{Works for us. If low cash startups evolve to point we wish to spend a few thousand on incorporation and the manpower on the additional periodic paperwork then we should have a functioning community controlled Board. At least we will if I am still around ... so it is someone else's problem to fix this if better wording is available. lol}

Jurisdiction

This association shall operate under the laws pertaining to an unincorporated nonprofit association in the United States of America, Texas, Tarrant County.

{Wow! Maybe getting started paperwork not as bad as I thought. Wherever the treasurer resides (and thus the checking account) we can pick up local law from county courthouse or state and make sure we are in compliance.}

If you review these guys web sites notice how desperately they need computer assistance. lol shaking head ... engineers doing geekie web stuff ... maybe we get them to open engineer us some useful products for web trinket store via community base cottage manufacturing in exchange for our community maintaining their web site.

Important to plan for success. If they get going we can talk to them. Talk is cheap. Move on nothing until they have credibility they can perform. This is the constraints others put on us. Non community member, stranger, dangerous, be cautious. There is a reason we evolved as we did.

Now I need to go write a nice response and point out that their links and account login structure is broken somehow. I will provide them a link to this bookmarked location so they can consider modifications to their articles.

Hope they do not mind my writing style too much. Good donated work is so damn hard to find! So I assume, good help was hard to find to pay but could be and was done.

Business plan outline - Generic knowledgebase centric community based coop. Getting started

Assumptions: Low cash, low risk, low initial capital, participation in small increments desirable, self organizing, self governing, growth potential desired, no exit strategy - community is intended as long societal asset that new stakeholders rotate through as old stakeholders move on, easily tailerable, easily emulated by stakeholders in new/other ventures with different focus.

All of the above required to allow widespread utilization of prototype in delivery of economic benefits localized and weighted by participation and active contribution rather than concentrated in absentee overlords unto the nth generation.

Required: Internet, mucho elso

Possible portion of solution space:

Coop ebay. Community based recycling of local scrap that can be valuable resource elsewhere in the community. Community sponsers and maintains automated transaction advertising and negotiation until all conditions are met for a successful physical transaction. Participants may be donors, sellers, buyers, sponsors, sponsorees, brokers (certified by community as virtal or even physical (although runs up shipping costs, avoid if possible, miscreants take trust hits and they add up fast, brokers primary function is to avoid having honest mistakes destroy the community)).

Community takes profit off of resold donations and cut of any peer to peer negotiation brokered and audited by the community "volunteers" or staff.

Advantages:

1. Can start very small and work up as resources become available to improve processes and directtly compensate staff rather than relying on volunteers.

2. Each transactions builds community, trust, capabilities, etc. beyond the obvious trickle of chump change into the community co-op treasury.

Disadvantage:

1. Need sufficient trust, momentum and community participation to get started.

2. Someone must either do all research to setup small charity fund and all cashflow be audited through donation to appropriate places ..... or someone must track the revenue as personal income and pay taxes on it. Individual participants are not a problem. The central coordination authority is obvious target for IRS and must be organized quickly with all appropriate regulations and reporting complied with.

3. Needs to be good agreement up front from community on organizational methods, procedures, intent, etc. This could be as simple as we will figure it out for the benefit of the community if sufficiently dense sub net of the trust web exists or as complicated as getting bogged down in IPO negotiations to raise sufficient funds that professionals can be paid to dictate to community how to implement duplicate of current methods prevalently in use.

Obviously in the first case things must get sorted out rather quickly and submitted back to community for evaluation and consenus building. Also obviously the weighting methods for consenus building and final decision or at least deciding who will make the final must be in place.

Personally I favor an Board elected by the community on a weighted basis of certification initially and then combined with input from various other stakeholders as method can be openly devised and put in place by agreement of both the board and the community. Board members to automatically step back into the community at large when weighted assessment of the community is against them and drops them back from board to mere Whatever. This implies a standing pool of qualified volunteers or candidates from which a new board member can quickly be selected.

Getting started: I have been sponsored by rirwin to study the open/free paradigm with a view towards tailering it to effective open business and engineering practices. This means I have some time that can applied to this prototyping effort. Undoubtedly more for the next 6 months than many active contributors to other projects. There is only so much partime volunteer effort to go around and there are myriads of good causes and fun needed software projects out there.

I know basic accounting and I have a couple of QuickBooks licenses I have experience with shipping books back and forth between offices via a manual token system. If I am doing the books then it might be effective to start with Quickbooks and upgrade to the free/open package of our choice when there is time and it is appropriate.

As initial accountant/bookkeeper it would be my job to receive the email transactions, match them up and when all processes completed (specified goods shipped, verification by buyer recieved working goods, verfication from treasurer received payment, verification from seller received payment (shipping costs), authentication by auditors that are parties are trusted and transaction negotiated .... that goes first ... etc.) to level procedurally required, to enter them in the books.

I have a cash drawer I can ship to the treasurer (who must be a separate trusted agent for natural checks and balances to avoid appearance of conflicting interests or ability to cook the books) if they desire it. Probably will work primarily with a checkbook and checks initially. Later if process growth sufficient to justify and resources are available can look into online funds transfers.

Basically the treasurer knows cash on hand and audits and cerifies (along with accountanting team)the monthly or quarterly balance sheets and profit and losses statements are reconciled to this. Transactions eventually stored online and accessible to trusted community members and possibly even the pubilc. We have an open business plan and nothing to hide. If someone else sets up a better open collaborative business community then we can always improve our methods to remain competitive or members can float to community of their preference. Free as in informed and free.

Initally with no assets this is a nonissue. If the growth I think is feasible materializes then we will have to get formal procedures nailed down and in place to community satisfaction or risk going in the direction OSI and SPI seem to be headed.

I just verified with Ray (twin brother) that he has the following he is willing to donate:

4 Synoptics LattisLink 2800A 10base-T (RJ-45, cat 5 10Mb) 16 port Ethernet hubs, half slot footprint, standard under 2" X 19" rack mountable. No mounting hardware included. Free standing metal enclosure, fine for shelf or desktop.

Estimated new price 3 years ago $2,000 Condition known to be working but to be tested prior to shipping, he will assist me if necessary. Estimated value on the market, $50ea if proper buyer(s) located. Recommended sales price to community member shipping & handling plus $5 or $10 bucks.

8 Synoptics LattisNet Model 2800, 10base-T (RJ-45, cat 5, 10Mb) 12 port Ethernet hubs, full slot footprint, standard under 2" X 19 rack mountable, No mounting hardware included. Free standing metal enclosure, fine for shelf or desktop.

Financials approximately same as above.

Issues, to be auctioned or markedup and resold? All particulars to be prenotiated close loop before initiating physical transfers of cash and materials.

Anticipated revenue to prototyping community $40 to $80 dollars on a typical auction day. With generous patrons involved in auction, who knows?

Keep in mind this is a single transaction and is being done manually more for the procedure prototyping than the cash to the community. What are good procedures? Once they are known how can they be automated to reduce community resource consumption in delivering the transaction to the public/community? How should the organization be set up to protect all participants from potential liability, fraud, waste (thought it was good, shipped, had to throw away as bad.... shipping costs, and disposal costs, plus time and hassle, potential trust damage, etc. for all involved .... bad transactions are very damaging to a going concern and must be managed to minimize damage while learning what went wrong and improving processes to avoid future problems.

Notice large market in U.S. for recycled scrap. Green environmental groups like this, will purchase, donate, support, help publicise, etc. Also become friendly markets for our knowledge based products.

Distribution - Got wrinkles regarding distribtion we can talk about another time if any interest. For now to get started let us focus on short term profit despite potentially large shipping costs. Consider that simms, dimms, and cpus are cheaper to ship than boxes. Of course it is also currently dirt cheap, except obsolete components soon be unavailable (out of production on in small lots, expensive) to maintain or upgrade existing "obsolete" systems. Basically distribution nets are subject to same analysis methods as packets. Substitute email and server for packet routers and add a large nationwide organization such as kiwannas, red cross, etc. and we may be able to lower transporation via volunteers. Have to split the resulting revenue with the other organization for their charitable purposes. Efforts such as this might be sponsored by various Foundations or Companies via grants for system/software development. This brings professional work to community members who need it, to further augment our knowledgebase in the commons.

As a further incentive to consider I will loan $100 cash upfront for shipping which I will trust to be returned if feasible. If prototype fails, solivy. Nothing ships until we have enough interest and agreement to make this appear feasible at this space time location.

Unless of course someone else refines the idea and implements without any necessary buyin from me.

Notice propose generic prototyping with results published.

What do we need to get started, my shortlist:

1. An experienced open project manager that can operate sourceforge systems and work effectively with other volunteers to get site tools setup and information flowing effectively.

2. Some participants willing to help refine organizational concepts and methods and document the same in sufficient clarity to allow operations to get started.

3. Sufficient trust or daring to participate a bit and see what happens. Everybody else is busy too so like any free/open volunteer project whatever form assistance takes is welcome or ignored as the other participants choose.

4. A location where specific transactions can be negotiated. Public classifieds (sourceforge?) and mailing list might be sufficient.

5. accountant/bookkeeper, treasurer, buyers, sellers or donators, pm, mailing list manager?, ??

6. Agreement on what to do with funds on hand if prototyping effort shutdowns. I propose that if we fail to achieve a thriving prototype associated with some established online communities then we send the funds on hand to robots.net to help sponsor ambitious site project there to build a humanoid robot to participate in a walkathon for ... a debilitating disease research. Do not recall which one.

7. Many others, we can discuss it if anyone interested. I prefer public forum such as here in diaries, mailing list via sourceforge or equivalent, etc. for later documentation of what I think might become an excellent project people wish to emulate and improve.

Anyone else have specific transactions that might be profitable to such a project are welcome to analyze transaction in diary here for our eddification. Please do NOT commence any physical transactions intending to be place in the prototype project without an effective skeleton process in place. It will only complicate the bookkeeping and accounting and look suspicious to external auditors. Feel free to negotiate terms or simulated transtions just be aware that until minimum infrastructure is in place we should not be incurring liabilities and potential problems.

Thanks for your attention. Sorry for poor format. I do a little better with a collaborative audience and accustomed tools. Or else an effective community will have someone else do it and ignore me and/or the idea. Eventually I will clean it up enough for effective presentation to discerning audience somewhere. For now thanks to the local community for the workspace.

Ouch! Ray's microsoft proxy has the phone line. I shall just pontification a bit more while waiting for dailup access. Oh yeah, forgot to update email will do today. Mail drop works at lazyquasar(at)yahoo.com, I guess, no external contact or spam as of couple days ago. Better check it tonight.

Microloan proposal: I may have a extra RJ-45 crimp tool ...... never mind. Only have two, second is hot standby in case break first outside normal business hours.

Microbusiness draft concept. Advise not invest until do a survey and negotiate a cut with the Board in exchange for the communities marketing efforts on your behalf. Also a commoditity business so margins thin. May be best restricted to voluntary participation in generating revenue for fledging business prototype.

Need crimp tool: Aproximately $50 at any electronic supply house.

Cheap RJ-45 and RJ11 connectors. Buy in semi bulk as same supply house as above at semi retail. Prices probably range from a nickel a connectors to a quarter. Fancy stress relief neato but not necessary, another quarter to $.50 per cable end.

Cable - Can be bought new and I advise this for 100Mhz capability. Also need to study solid techniques with 100Mhz, if you mess up the twists in the cable the capacitance changes sufficiently never get decent reliability out of 100 Mhz connections, cards, and hubs.

For 10Mhz cables find supply of used cable being pulled from commercial buildings and nets during refits. It is not worth most businesses labor costs to do anything besides stash a little for rainy day and throw most away.

Cable testing device nice (approximate $100 to $500 depending on style, brand, and various capabilities in "buzzing" cables) but not strictly necessary. Plug the cable into a hub and a test computer and transfer a file. If it works for you it likely work for customer.

Ziploc bags work fine for keeping multiple coiled cables separated nicely when you ship. If want after get established you can print nice color paper labels and staple up "professional" looking packages with name and phone number. Personally the margin is thin enough I think wise to start with low everhead and move up only if market insists by buying overpriced competitors packaging and product.

What makes this a feasible partime business with little or no risk? An existing community market of potentially thousands that would just as soon buy yours or the from the community web trinkets shop and wait a couple days for mailorder delivery as get in car spend gas going downtown to purchase and install today. Active participants in the community are there because of perceived benefits and self interest. It is to their advantage to help finance the communities greater capabilites (online capacity and bandwidth); knowledgebase expansion; depth, density and reach of fractal intangible webs that help deliver benefits back to the community as well as the general public at large.

If interest were shown in the above detailed documentation and kit designs could be evolved that anyone could use for their own purposes and even business external to the community.

An established web store might eventually get to ordering and keeping a minimum stock. Watch trade credit flows! Could start generating internal economic boom bust with poor managenment similar to big guys on Wall Street.

Ah! Dialup is back, gotta go. Wish me luck. Trivial cgi install of myAdvogato for some fun. No telling what I may have to learn before this actually works. fxn makes it sound easy twice but due to my ignorance it sounds difficult both times and different. Clearly my understanding is deficient to follow his explanations. I will understand better next after this succeeds or fails! : )

P.S. Has just informed he will be upgrading existing in house 8 port hubs sometime in next 6 months, this will make 8 port hubs available for donation for resale. Estimate new price $50/hub local new. Might be nice $10 or $20 addition to home office or college dorm. Might be good community sponsorship for project people developing peer to peer applications to support easier local testing.

Notes, not particularly legible

Search keys: {signal cracking}{bubble rooms}

Article 27 Excellent discussion of self moderated discussion forums. Applicable to online technical journals. Perhaps could develop weighting system based upon:

1.) Tested technical competencies. The community would first have to develop/implement tests and methods but at least a revenue stream lies at the end of effort if community seriously develops its reputation as store of trusted technial competence and certification.

2.) Curricula vitae (track down and learn this phrase, many concise summaries of credentials are beginning to appear online under this term)

3.) Peer Certification levels in various categories applicable to the article/information.

4.) Correctness proofs. Feedback from credibility of related articles or critiques. Highly debated points between teams of roughly equal scientific weight are clearly ambiguos and require scientific field testing or further precision in analysis methodology.

Editorial comments inserted by board of masters regarding specific content? With intentionally inaccurate or false data disqualifying the article from the forum and/or invoking ...... what? Relegation of Einstein to the troll room until he can explain things in terms the forum's experts and community can understand? May be acceptable as long as multiple competing forums exist to avoid stagnation of entire society segments.

28 Is fascinating and if representative of the early days in advogato certainly demonstrates why slashdot.domis so unwanted with the resulting noise.

Back to previous issue of moderation. What if an author selected criterion filter were embbedded. Let us suppose that a mythical entity such as alleged mirwin.bot decided to recover high school writing skills from the quagmire inspired by years of governmentese procurement and odd sense of humor combined with do not give a damn. Regardless of rating mirwin.bot could set the writing quality required to stay on front page threads (this could even be secret from readers). When the readers rating of the understandability or clarity drops to below specified point then the article is filtered down the ladder for serious datamineers or compulsive readers or personal aquaintenances or people following links. Anywhere but the public front porch. Obviously the system can simultanously be applying conditions set by the peering rating system. Content in which mirwin.bot is rated apprentice or lower or unrated could start at the bottom by system initial conditions and then rise if appropriate by forum level raters.

Excellent! This is starting to approximate the fractional distillation column where the material is rising or sinking as per content user feedback. Other restrictions might be useful. Perhaps raters with direct links to author could be automatically disqualified in raising the material's status while they could always sink it. Also it is clearly possible for linked associates to modify link rating based upon the content they stumble accross. Hopefully it is time tagged effectively regarding date or origin and edits. A cvs system would be nice but I have no idea how you would maintain integrity of the links pointing to the material. Perhaps this is difference between draft and published materials. Diary, journal, public article, reference data, etc.

29 Turns into a nice little web discussion of hacking, hacker values, and pragmatic guidelines on getting started. Interestingly it appears to have been initiated by 22 which various links eventually loop back to. This would seem to imply that advogato is meeting its stated and implied (or perhaps assumed future) purpose. The article 22 appears to have solicited effective response from an apprentice/journeyer (time code tags unavailable, source data is dynamic and mutates) who in turn has assisted with education of this neophyte. Lon-linear response systems often deliver surprising results with small peturbations.

Related issues to adresses: preservation of some time tagged information such as cert modifications and document modifications might improve feedback loops and data mining activities. Might not. Can try sometime and find out.