Kicked out of school for 'Nethacking'?!
Alex Krupp
to the network and check my email. I notice my network drive had been
completely deleted. 4 years of essays and powerpoint presentations,
all of my homework and programs for CompSci, and yes, nethack. I
figure the network must just be having a problem, so I log off and try
again a few hours later. This time when I try to log in I get the
message "Your account has been permanently disabled" after I type in
my username and password. I go to speak to the computer admin people
and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
and creating a serious security breach, and that I will be called to
principals office, where I will probably be either suspended or
expelled (which incidently means I would probably be kicked out of the
college I was accepted at). He won't listen to any of my explanations
and kicks me out of the room. I haven't been called to the principals
office yet, but I have been told he has been called and I will be
called in tomorrow?
So, what should I tell them? What should I do about all of my work
schoolwork which has been deleted, some of which was cumulative to be
handed in at the end of the year for large portion of our grade? I
know that by living in the U.S. I don't really have any constitutional
right to privacy on a school computer, but this is a little bit
creepy. I could just tell them nethack is an open source game that I
was using to teach me how to programming, but then I could still
potentially be in trouble for having a 'game' on my computer and
wasting school resources. Of course, half the school has Quake 3 or
Unreal Tornament installed on their networked drives, but I digress.
Anyway, has anyone ever had any type of confrontation over 'Nethack'
before?
Moving to Canada,
Alex Krupp
Yoshi348
[facing possible expulsion for "Nethacking"]
> So, what should I tell them? What should I do about all of my work
> schoolwork which has been deleted, some of which was cumulative to
> be handed in at the end of the year for large portion of our grade?
Wow. Perhaps I'm giving out advice too readly, as I'm in "spoiler
reference" mode, but I guess the best policy would be to tell the
truth. Sounds sappy, but you could point them to nethack.org or
something. If you still get kicked out, you could possibly sue the
schools, as you have a very good case. As for the work, your teachers
might understand, depending on their arse factor. Unfortunately, that
arse factor averages very high in public schools.
> drives, but I digress. Anyway, has anyone ever had any type of
> confrontation over 'Nethack' before?
I've heard the story here at least once (posed as a YAFM), but not to
this degree. I sincerely hope you can win this one.
--
-Aaron Davidson
Latest attempt at greatness failed miserably:
34 1972 Yoshi V-Val-Hum-Fem-Law died in The Dungeons
of Doom on level 5. Killed by a
hallucinogen-distorted kobold shaman. - [56]
rekrutacja
> So, what should I tell them?
Seems pretty seriously.
First of all think about which teacher may help you, and go to
talk to him now. I would also write an email to admin. Probably
your teachers will ask him (not you) about security and the rest.
Be as polite as possible. Use words "misunderstanding", "sorry
for inconvinence" (however we spell it...) etc. Try to make him
undarstanding what Nethack is. Use words "C language", "clasical
piece of programing art". Mention Gnu/Linux, and maybe Stallmans
name. If you will be lucky he will understand, and will help you.
If not - prepare for serious talk with officials. Learn Nethack
history from the web, print out some comprehensive info to give o
read, and (in Poland that works usually, and i think it's
universal) ask for specified, written description of all their
decisions.
This is what i would try, but maybe your situation is different
than i think about it.
wish you luck
rekrutacja
--
Serwis Usenet w portalu Gazeta.pl -> http://www.gazeta.pl/usenet/
Mike Stevenson
Krupp) wrote:
>my username and password. I go to speak to the computer admin people
>and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
>and creating a serious security breach, and that I will be called to
I truly hope you can get this cleared up. There are a number of
articles that have been written regarding the history of nethack and
its impact on modern computer games. here are a couple of links,
there are others (including these) on the official site's main page
near the bottem. hth:
http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/01/27/nethack/index.html
http://www.gamespy.com/legacy/halloffame/nethack_a.shtm
Robin Schoonover
>
Everyone's ideas so far seem good...but here are a few other ideas...
Mention rogue...roguelikes...show them the NetHack history, etc (via
the V key...)
Mention this newsgroup. Mention this newsgroups faq
(http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/nh/rgrn-FAQ.txt ...esp section
2.1). Mention the rec.games.roguelike.nethack Cretinz Advisory
(http://rgrnca.cjb.net/).
Mention (show them?) the source code for NetHack (I'd say print it out,
but you'll need -a lot- of paper.)
Show them the game. (via a NetHack public server perhaps)
If all else fails, starting babbling about your latest YASD. And
explain strategy. And spoilers.
--
Robin Schoonover (aka End)
# Just think -- blessed SCSI cables! Do a big enough sacrifice and
# create a +5 blessed SCSI cable of connectivity.
# -- Lionel Lauer
James Brady
> and creating a serious security breach, and that I will be called to
> principals office, where I will probably be either suspended or
> expelled
Are you in trouble for having games on your drive or are the authorities
under the impression that Nethack has something to do with cracking?? An
easy mistake to make for a knuckle-dragger...for them, net and hack in the same
sentence deserves a warning: in the same word, well, you're lucky to be
alive!
If, as you say, other people have Quake 3 etc on their drives, I very much
doubt you would be in this much trouble for running a much less resource
intensive, and obviously better, game. For such a huge response, your
perceived misdemeanor must be much greater. In this case, all you have to
do is convince them that nethack is harmless. And then tell the papers.
About getting your files back - if the SysAdmins are any good, they won't
have 'rm -rf /home/<you>', but moved your files somewhere safe, as
evidence and for analysis later. If the mess is sorted out, you *might*
get them back. If not, there must be special dispensation for people in
your situation, who have lost all their work through no fault of their
own.
HTH
Jim
--
"Education isn't everything, for a start, it's not an elephant"
Spike Milligan
Tor Inge Johannessen
> About getting your files back - if the SysAdmins are any good, they
> won't have 'rm -rf /home/<you>', but moved your files somewhere safe,
> as evidence and for analysis later. If the mess is sorted out, you
> *might* get them back. If not, there must be special dispensation for
> people in your situation, who have lost all their work through no
> fault of their own.
I think they are either backed up on tape, and/or put in a zip/tar for
evidence. Unless they have realized that they have a very thin case, and
deleted all the evidence. :)
Good Luck, Alex. I've been to a similar situation, but at that time the
sysadmins was on my side. (This was not about nethack though.)
Tor Inge
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Bwooce
> So I wake up this morning and go to my high school, and try to log on
> to the network and check my email. I notice my network drive had been
> completely deleted. 4 years of essays and powerpoint presentations,
> all of my homework and programs for CompSci, and yes, nethack. I
> figure the network must just be having a problem, so I log off and try
> again a few hours later. This time when I try to log in I get the
> message "Your account has been permanently disabled" after I type in
> my username and password.
Well, I doubt your files are gone. Disabling an account does not
normally include permanent removal of the contents of that account.
Standard behavior for a user deletion program is to take all that
information and back it up before removing/disabling the account.
I doubt the administrators at your school are the particular
combination of stupid and smart that would allow them to delete your
files outright.
> I go to speak to the computer admin people and they say I have been
> permanently banned for Nethacking the network and creating a serious
> security breach, and that I will be called to principals office, where
> I will probably be either suspended or expelled (which incidently
> means I would probably be kicked out of the college I was accepted
> at). He won't listen to any of my explanations and kicks me out of the
> room. I haven't been called to the principals office yet, but I have
> been told he has been called and I will be called in tomorrow?
You should not be suspended or expelled. Expulsion proceedings
generally involve people more important than your principal and place a
burden of proof on your school administration.
Your network admins are idiots, sure. Let's hope your principal is not.
All it takes is one person smart enough to allow you to explain yourself
to nip this whole thing in the bud.
> So, what should I tell them? What should I do about all of my work
> schoolwork which has been deleted, some of which was cumulative to be
> handed in at the end of the year for large portion of our grade? I
> know that by living in the U.S. I don't really have any constitutional
> right to privacy on a school computer, but this is a little bit
> creepy.
Read your user agreement. There must be one somewhere. Find out
exactly what they're allowed to do.
> I could just tell them nethack is an open source game that I
> was using to teach me how to programming, but then I could still
> potentially be in trouble for having a 'game' on my computer and
> wasting school resources.
So fucking what? Tell them. What will they do about you having a
text-based game in your account? They'll give you detention, which, I
guarantee, will mean nothing a week from now. First and foremost,
disabuse them of the idiotic notion that you were doing anything that
could threaten security.
--
Bruce Labbate | There was blood on every step
shiftless layabout | for as far back as I could see.
| There's a moral there, somewhere.
| - Roger Zelazny
Laurent
>
> Anyway, has anyone ever had any type of confrontation over 'Nethack'
> before?
>
This happened to me once. But I took my nicest face, I explained quietly
that it was a game, and I was allowed to keep it.
Now some people in my high school play with me, and I have a teacher not
bad at Angbang.
--
Lau
BlackShift
> Anyway, has anyone ever had any type of confrontation over 'Nethack'
> before?
Indeed..
I've been summoned to my sysadmin twice for playing nethack, but nothing
nearly as bad as your case. The first time I installed nethack on my
personal drive space on the university (unix/linux) and quickly got my
fellow students hooked. Since the game ran suid (to share the highscore and
avoid save scumming) every game was ran under my name. Sadly there was some
kind of bug (3.3.1 I think) which resulted in the game to occasionnally
crash and take 100% cpu time of the server while the original user already
was logged off.
Therefore the sysadmin saw a program called 'nethack' ran by a fellow
student under my name, and therefore assumed something could be wrong (like
me hacking the other guys pw or something). Learning from the mistake (of
not being allowed to use 100% server time..), I
set up a semi public nethack server at home (some YAAPs have been posted
here I think). But for them I logged in more then once a day with username
'nethack' on some external machine, which seemed to be very suspicious to
my sysadmin also...
Luckly I'm on a fairly good standing with my faculties computer people
(they are great people, also very small faculty) so I could explain it to
them before they did something like they did with you.. I'm wondering how
someone can become a sysadmin without knowing about a game like nethack,
but that's beside the point. What was realy new for me is that appearantly
they do scan us for words like 'hack', I suspect this even this post is
being monitored by some program somewhere at my college. Although it is
probably nescecary for the security of the system, it realy felt like a
privacy breach. (Probably because they didn't tell us at all to what extend
we are being whatched.)
But for some advice of what to do, you can be very certain they will never
ever admit that they made a mistake. Chances are that you probably know
more about computers then them which realy scares them. Therefore it might
be better to tell them that you were the one that was wrong, in running a
game on the schools system. Explain that although the name may make it seem
like it, that the game doesn't have anything to do with 'hacking' of any
kind. Tell them that you could/should be punished for running a game, but
that this treatment is much to harsh, especially with everyone running more
resource (space/network/cpu) demanding games already. They probably will
(should) have backups of your work (as should you!). Or better, compliment
them, tell them that you really appreciate their care in the savety of the
system and that they can better be save then sorry, but that you did not do
anything to compromise it. Although I like vincent mcconnells solution also
:-).
Groetjes,
BlackShift
Philipp Lucas
> On Tue, 06 May 2003 00:07:05 GMT, ro...@nospam.optonline.net (Alex
> Krupp) wrote:
> > So, what should I tell them?
>
> Mention the rec.games.roguelike.nethack Cretinz Advisory
> (http://rgrnca.cjb.net/).
Pointing them to a site where people associating NetHack with malicious
hacking are labelled "cretins" might yield unfortunate consequences.
--
Philipp Lucas
phl...@cs.uni-sb.de
Jakob Creutzig
I agree. The rgrn FAQ is much more polite, IIRC. And you should
print it out, older people somehow tend to trust printed messages
more than the same messages on their screen.
Best,
Jakob
steve
dSb
rekrutacja <rekru...@gazeta.pl> wrote:
> Alex Krupp wrote:
>
> > So, what should I tell them?
>
> First of all think about which teacher may help you, and go to
> talk to him now. I would also write an email to admin. Probably
> your teachers will ask him (not you) about security and the rest.
Agreed...go and talk to your CompSci teacher and at the very minimum, show him
the www.nethack.org page, as well as any that have been listed by others on
this group so far. If the prof isn't totally under the administration's thumb,
then he or she may be willing to go to bat for you on this.
You definately need to get a teacher on your side - as a student, you have
little to no rights in the matter. Talking with your parents about this one
would also be a *really* good idea. I don't know ANY parent that wouldn't go to
bat for their child over a misunderstanding that has blown up to this caliber.
It also couldn't hurt to go to your local news service and talk to them about
it. I'm sure that a story on the 6 o'clock news about the faculty's
misconception regarding your situation would put some pressure on them to listen
to you, especially if you explain their unwillingness to hear out your side of
the story, if not at least garner some public interest in your proceedings.
As a note though, I WOULD NOT go to the news unless your shared drive at the
school is as clean as the preacher's sheets, otherwise this will turn on you in
an instant. Tell the reporters about the faculty and administration not
listening, as well as (at best) freezing your account and keeping you from
accessing vital work that is due next week, etc....
More than likely they tarballed your home directory for forensic evidence and
have some halfwit sysadmin probing through your computer science programs and
papers for anything that could be used as "evidence". I've been in a few
student vs. adminstration situations before, and believe me, you have no rights.
Prepare your defense, and exploit the public if you want to see justice done.
Afterall...you just want to get everything back to normal, right?
dSb
--
"When devils awake you from deja-vu dreams | afterthefall @
at four in the morning, you know where I'll be - | entropy.muc.muohio.edu
out running red lights, asleep at the wheel." | AIM: hybridsoul
Jakob Creutzig
> As a note though, I WOULD NOT go to the news unless your shared drive at the
> school is as clean as the preacher's sheets, otherwise this will turn on you in
> an instant.
Additionally, going public is _not_ advisable before one is convinced
that no cooperative approach is possible any more. If you point with
fingers on them, they'll become as uncooperative as they...
Wait a minute. Could this possibly be a bait? The story
sounds a little too perfect, IMHO.
Best,
Jakob
dSb
Jakob Creutzig <ja...@hydra.mimuw.edu.pl> wrote:
> dSb <aftert...@entropy.muc.muohio.edu> writes:
>
> > As a note though, I WOULD NOT go to the news unless your shared drive at the
> > school is as clean as the preacher's sheets, otherwise this will turn on you
> > in an instant.
>
> Additionally, going public is _not_ advisable before one is convinced
> that no cooperative approach is possible any more. If you point with
> fingers on them, they'll become as uncooperative as they...
That could go either way, but still, any press is good press. The
administration will probably end up paying for Alex's scholarships once they
realize how much recognition the school and school district get on a public
forum, thus meaning more attendance, more school levies.... Besides, if the
school administration is already *not* going to listen to reason, Alex needs to
get a larger reasoning force behind him - the idiot masses. :oP
> Wait a minute. Could this possibly be a bait? The story
> sounds a little too perfect, IMHO.
I'd just make sure that I knew exactly why my account was frozen first - then
I'd go to the news. When you consider that not all sysadmins know about the
wonderful world of text-based games, it isn't hard to see the confusion. Most
likely the sysadmin for the school was an AOL script kiddie that has been all
grown up and graduated now, and who's idea of a classic game is Doom II.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>I go to speak to the computer admin people
>and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
>and creating a serious security breach, and that I will be called to
>principals office, where I will probably be either suspended or
>expelled (which incidently means I would probably be kicked out of the
>college I was accepted at). He won't listen to any of my explanations
>and kicks me out of the room. I haven't been called to the principals
>office yet, but I have been told he has been called and I will be
>called in tomorrow?
The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now. Speak
to your parents, and get legal advice. You should *not* be meeting with
administrators on your own at this point; at a bare minimum, your
parents should be with you (but I'd prefer a lawyer).
No, it's not cheap, but with the potential damages here . . .
At the *very* least, spend the $100-$200 to have a letter written. It's
truly amazing how fast unreasonable positions tend to get dropped when
confronted with an attorney's letterhead and blunt words . . . (I've
written many of those)
hawk, esq.
--
Richard E. Hawkins, Asst. Prof. of Economics /"\ ASCII ribbon campaign
doc...@psu.edu Smeal 178 (814) 375-4700 \ / against HTML mail
These opinions will not be those of X and postings.
Penn State until it pays my retainer. / \
Mike Stevenson
<t...@skallebank.com.invalid> wrote:
>evidence. Unless they have realized that they have a very thin case, and
>deleted all the evidence. :)
that would be pretty foolish, even for a school network. if evidence
was thin, why would they destroy what little they had?
David Damerell
>So, what should I tell them? What should I do about all of my work
>schoolwork which has been deleted,
What makes you think this is the case?
>creepy. I could just tell them nethack is an open source game that I
>was using to teach me how to programming, but then I could still
>potentially be in trouble for having a 'game' on my computer and
>wasting school resources.
Now you have told the world that you're in this situation, you're really
forced to tell the truth - which would be no bad thing anyway. Stick to
the facts; it's a game, it's not cracking software, having a copy isn't a
copyright violation.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Sam Dennis
> [nethack, of course]
> it's a game, it's not cracking software, having a copy isn't a
> copyright violation.
Nor would it be even if it was, although the system administrator would
likely be less forgiving.
--
++acr@,ka"
Kyle
>I haven't been called to the principals
>office yet, but I have been told he has been called and I will be
>called in tomorrow?
>Moving to Canada,
>Alex Krupp
If things start looking bad at the principals office, immediately
scribble "Elbereth" on the floor.
rekrutacja
> You should have a lawyer--now.
If we speak about legal aspects:
Learn what you are allowed to do, and what you are not.
I found a webpage with "Internet Acceptable Use Policy", i
believe the one you have to follow.
There is _nothing_ about games. Point for you.
Read it, learn it, have a copy with you wherever you go ;-)
rekr
Raisse the Thaumaturge
> If things start looking bad at the principals office, immediately
> scribble "Elbereth" on the floor.
That only works if he's & instead of @.
Raisse, killed by a master mind flayer
--
ir...@valdyas.org LegoHack: http://www.valdyas.org/irina/nethack/
Status of Raisse (piously neutral): Level 8 HP 63(67) AC -3, fast.
Seraph
news:b98i2m$1p42$6...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu:
> In article <3eb6fa1c...@news-server.optonline.net>,
> Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>
>>I go to speak to the computer admin people
>>and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
>>and creating a serious security breach, and that I will be called to
>>principals office, where I will probably be either suspended or
>>expelled (which incidently means I would probably be kicked out of the
>>college I was accepted at). He won't listen to any of my explanations
>>and kicks me out of the room. I haven't been called to the principals
>>office yet, but I have been told he has been called and I will be
>>called in tomorrow?
>
> The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now. Speak
> to your parents, and get legal advice. You should *not* be meeting
> with administrators on your own at this point; at a bare minimum, your
> parents should be with you (but I'd prefer a lawyer).
>
> No, it's not cheap, but with the potential damages here . . .
>
> At the *very* least, spend the $100-$200 to have a letter written.
> It's truly amazing how fast unreasonable positions tend to get dropped
> when confronted with an attorney's letterhead and blunt words . . .
> (I've written many of those)
>
I agree with Hawk here. I had a similar problem at school that would have
resulted in me not getting credit for a class I needed to graduate due to
somoene loseing my final. It was amazing how quickly their additude
changed from "Your screwed, retake the class if you want to graduate" to
"We'll work something out thats good for you" when a Lawyer got involved.
If your school is anything like mine was, it has two priorities.
1) Don't get sued.
2) Don't look stupid.
Your currently running into #2. Admitting that they suspended your
account over a game would look stupid. However if you bring #1 into the
picture they'll probably change their minds.
--
Most people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough
features yet.
Adam Trace Spragg
: and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
: and creating a serious security breach, and that I will be called to
Ok... You've gotten lots of advice, but I'll add my two cents.
It sounds like you're in trouble for "hacking" rather than just having
a game installed. When I told my parents about "nethack", my dad said
"that sounds illegal". Duh.
Explain to them it's a game. They won't belive you. Tell them to
search Yahoo or Google themselves for "nethack" and they'll see for
themselves. Beg, plead, cry that they do this.
Then apoligize profusely for having a game on the system. You knew it
was against the rules, but you figured a lot of other kids were doing it
too, so you didn't think it was too bad.
In other words, get away from the "hacking" aspect and veer towards the
(much less serious) game-playing aspect.
Post and let us know what happens!
adam
fish...@conservatory.com
Is the problem a misunderstanding about the name "Nethack", or
is it a problem that you violated some school rule for installing
or playing unauthorized games on a computer which was school property?
>know that by living in the U.S. I don't really have any constitutional
>right to privacy on a school computer, but this is a little bit
>creepy.
Depending on where you are, you might have a right to a hearing,
not just an unaccountable decision by one individual, but an actual
decision rendered under a judge's order. You are a juvenile, but you
are in a situation where you need the advice of an attorney.
--
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http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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Laurent
>
> On Tuesday 06 May 2003 20:59 Kyle wrote:
>
> > If things start looking bad at the principals office, immediately
> > scribble "Elbereth" on the floor.
>
> That only works if he's & instead of @.
>
Ever seen a human principal?
--
Lau
Raisse the Thaumaturge
Frankly, yes; the principal of my high school and the woman who
succeeded him after I'd graduated (she was my class supervisor, so I
know her well enough to at least suspect that she's human). But then
neither of *those* would have needed keeping away.
Raisse, killed by a werewolf
David Damerell
>David Damerell wrote:
>>[nethack, of course]
>>it's a game, it's not cracking software, having a copy isn't a
>>copyright violation.
>Nor would it be even if it was,
Well, it might be. Cracking software is not always under a nonrestrictive
license. But you've misparsed this; I meant that _this_ game, unlike the
no doubt dodgy copies of proprietary games that infest other people's
filespaces, is perfectly legitimate.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
David Damerell
>Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>>I go to speak to the computer admin people
>>and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
>>and creating a serious security breach,
Now I _know_ you're an American.
This is a simple misunderstanding. It doesn't need a lawyer. And, from my
experience as a sysadmin in academentia, if some bloody idiot pulled in a
lawyer over something like this, we'd look very carefully at the published
rules, find the ones they'd breached (they always have), and shit on them.
Explain that it's just a game, he's fine. Bring in a lawyer, and look, the
letter of the rules prohibit games. Bang.
Seonggi Cho
Please forgive me for quoting my own post (yet another nethack poem),
and posting something silly in lieu of quite a serious situation;
Bin gar keine Hacker, stamm' aus Internet, echt nethackisch
Your situation reminds me of a jam I was years ago in high school. Let
me make it clear that I am not proud of what I did, rather I am
ashamed of. I just relate it because it would show how things work in
real life.
In this situation, I did something real bad, out of rage to math
teacher who called me stupid in front of class for doubting his
solution of a problem. (I was right in that particular problem.)
I organized a classwide cheating ring, and everybody in my class got
perfect score for math finals. Soon I was called by the teacher. Even
when I did something real bad and inexecusable, the teacher was a
person who came to me on knees. Why? I scored near the top in College
entrance and that small high school could not afford to lose one of
"top college" kid. Another thing was that he would look quite foolish
if he make it public that he was cheated by a kid. So actually he was
helping me out of the jam. Our class get a new test and I got A for
math. He told me not to talk, and I didn't, until now.
The reason I tell you this story is to correct a very widespread
common mistakes. "Being right" and "being truthful" will make your
life easier, but it does not always pay. I, being the bad guy, could
got away scot free beause of the political situation.
Especially you did not do anything as bad as me, I think you can be
fully justified in using whatever strategy that can help you out of
the jam.
My practical advice is the same as others; look up for all possible
power sources, such as your parents, attorney, your favorite teacher,
and so on.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>>>I go to speak to the computer admin people
>>>and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
>>>and creating a serious security breach,
>>The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now.
>Now I _know_ you're an American.
:)
>This is a simple misunderstanding. It doesn't need a lawyer. And, from my
>experience as a sysadmin in academentia, if some bloody idiot pulled in a
>lawyer over something like this, we'd look very carefully at the published
>rules, find the ones they'd breached (they always have), and shit on them.
I've seen these misunderstandings before. I've dealt with them--and
with administrators attempting retaliation :)
>Explain that it's just a game, he's fine. Bring in a lawyer, and look, the
>letter of the rules prohibit games. Bang.
Bang, the school is dead. When it is a clear pretense, and the
widespread use of games is well known, they don't get to hide behind
the rules--but the damages increase.
hawk
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
<fish...@conservatory.com> wrote:
>In article <3eb6fa1c...@news-server.optonline.net>,
>Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>Is the problem a misunderstanding about the name "Nethack", or
>is it a problem that you violated some school rule for installing
>or playing unauthorized games on a computer which was school property?
>>know that by living in the U.S. I don't really have any constitutional
>>right to privacy on a school computer, but this is a little bit
>>creepy.
>Depending on where you are, you might have a right to a hearing,
He's in the United States, facing suspension/expulstion by a state run
school (I presume it's a public school). Due process applies, and the
administrative decision *IS* subject to judicial review.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>>Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>>>>I go to speak to the computer admin people
>>>>and they say I have been permanently banned for Nethacking the network
>>>>and creating a serious security breach,
>>>The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now.
>>Now I _know_ you're an American.
>:)
No smiley. No other nationality could possibly think that would be a
sensible idea.
>I've seen these misunderstandings before. I've dealt with them--and
>with administrators attempting retaliation :)
You seem proud of your ability to exacerbate a situation that could be
resolved by a simple explanation. Try some more socially useful career,
like aggressive begging or telesales?
>>Explain that it's just a game, he's fine. Bring in a lawyer, and look, the
>>letter of the rules prohibit games. Bang.
>Bang, the school is dead. When it is a clear pretense,
It's not. They've noticed this, and it's against the rules. They aren't
aware in general, because they don't (and, in general, you don't)
preemptively trawl people's filespaces, because that would require you to
take action against all male undergraduates for porn, and so forth.
Teemu O Hautala
> from my experience as a sysadmin in academentia, if some bloody idiot
> pulled in a lawyer over something like this, we'd look very carefully
> at the published rules, find the ones they'd breached (they always
> have), and shit on them.
I doubt the letter of rules simply prohibit games in any computing
center. For example, I minor in computer science in my school, and one
assignment of mine I completed was to write a game in Java.
And Alex did say that he could reasonably explain the connection of an
open source program to his studies.
I suspect the rules of any computing center simply prohibit use
unrelated to studies. So it isn't that simple to shit on anybody. Rules
bend both ways. For example, I have visited several ice hockey websites
over the years in my computing center. Being a math student, you think
you got me for breaching the rules? Wrong. I'm minoring in statistics,
and writing something or other on... linear regression of ice hockey
stats. Best way for me to learn linear regression!
Visiting porn sites could be quite relevant to studies as well. Not
maybe for a math major like me but throw in a lawyer and let us see what
we come up with.
And if all else fails, complain to the bosses of the sysadmins. And their
bosses. And their's. There's always some stupid bastard up there afraid
of exposure.
P.S. Why am I posting to Usenet from my school's account in the late
night? Brushing up my drunken English of course!
dSb
Hautala replied...
> I doubt the letter of rules simply prohibit games in any computing
> center. For example, I minor in computer science in my school, and one
> assignment of mine I completed was to write a game in Java.
I think the assumption is that Alex is in high school, which would explain
the rediculous response to seeing 'nethack' on the process list - only a
high school would overreact in such a way. I actually have nethack
installed on my shared university drive, as well as my home drive on our
Solaris mainframe. Most of the compsci professors have at least heard
of nethack, if they are not already addicted.
> And Alex did say that he could reasonably explain the connection of an
> open source program to his studies.
Shouldn't really be necessary. It's just a game.
> And if all else fails, complain to the bosses of the sysadmins. And their
> bosses. And their's. There's always some stupid bastard up there afraid
> of exposure.
Ehh, people don't take it too well when you break the chain of command.
It's there for a reason.
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>from my experience as a sysadmin in academentia, if some bloody idiot
>>pulled in a lawyer over something like this, we'd look very carefully
>>at the published rules, find the ones they'd breached (they always
>>have), and shit on them.
>I doubt the letter of rules simply prohibit games in any computing
>center.
You would be wrong, then. I am aware of at least one where they are
strictly prohibited.
[However, it doesn't have to be _that_ rule.]
>And if all else fails, complain to the bosses of the sysadmins. And their
>bosses. And their's. There's always some stupid bastard up there afraid
>of exposure.
I have always been amused by the story of a bank trying this on a
prominent researcher at the Computer Laboratory in Cambridge only to be
directed to the Chancellor of the University. Who is, of course, Prince
Philip.
David Damerell
>The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now.
My first response to this was hasty and badly thought out.
It might have been interpreted as humorous in intent, for one thing, when
I was deadly serious. This is without a doubt the worst piece of bad
advice I have ever seen on rgrn.
Currently the situation is that there has been an unfortunate
misunderstanding and some guy had his account suspended. Now, this may not
have been handled very diplomatically, but it's the only thing that _can_
be done; it's better to err on the side of caution and inconvenience one
user than to err on the side of recklessness and inconvenience all your
users a week later.
Now, the approach any remotely sane person would take is to resolve the
misunderstanding. Once that is done the worst consequences will be a
mild rap over the knuckles for playing games when he's not meant to. It
strikes me as vanishingly unlikely that his filespace has actually been
deleted without possibility of retrieval, but if it has no number of
lawyers will bring it back; and if you proceed like a reasonable human
being you grasp the moral high ground and can then easily get whatever
exemptions are needed to rectify the situation.
Or you could speak to a lawyer. Now, even if you "win" - ie, you succeed
in ensuring that the majority of money transferred from decent people to
lawyers used to belong to someone other than yourself, presumably to the
taxpayers of the relevant state - you've just turned the relationship
between the institution and yourself from a co-operative one into an
adversarial one, which is no way to go about being educated.
Jeremy Gray
>
> Or you could speak to a lawyer. Now, even if you "win" - ie, you
> succeed in ensuring that the majority of money transferred from decent
> people to lawyers used to belong to someone other than yourself,
> presumably to the taxpayers of the relevant state - you've just turned
> the relationship between the institution and yourself from a
> co-operative one into an adversarial one, which is no way to go about
> being educated.
The main problem with this being that American school districts and
maybe even some individual schools keep lawyers on retainer and often
have no problem employing them in misguided attempts at disciplining
students for real and imagined offences. Coupled with the growing use
of "zero tolerance" and other excessive punishments, advising a high
school student to retain a lawyer is sound, especially since we don't
know how much authority the admins have or how much influence they exert
on the administration.
Unfortunately, this system is insane. People should be able to
reasonably handle disputes like this without getting a lawyer first, but
I have yet to determine an easy method to cover one's ass while not
proliferating lawyer abuse.
--
Jeremy A. Gray
gr...@metacomet.net
"Remember the Pueblo." -- the Fourth Law of Marvin
Iain D Broadfoot
> It's not. They've noticed this, and it's against the rules. They aren't
> aware in general, because they don't (and, in general, you don't)
> preemptively trawl people's filespaces, because that would require you to
> take action against all male undergraduates for porn, and so forth.
taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
Thing imo - the amount of awfulness i see on my colleagues screens
appalls me.
iain
--
wh33, y1p33 3tc.
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is
not shared." -St. Augustine
David Damerell
>David said something about Re: Kicked out of school for 'Nethacking'?!:
>>It's not. They've noticed this, and it's against the rules. They aren't
>>aware in general, because they don't (and, in general, you don't)
>>preemptively trawl people's filespaces, because that would require you to
>>take action against all male undergraduates for porn, and so forth.
>taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
>Thing imo
You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against 99% of
male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible process.
[No, I'm not just pulling these numbers out of thin air.]
Personally I really don't care if students, in the privacy of their own
rooms, look at smut (it's another matter in shared space) - what matters
is the bandwidth for non-academic purposes, not exactly _what_ the
non-academic purpose is.
My favourite example of the conflict between technical and political goals
is that from a purely technical point of view, if universities wanted to
reduce bandwidth bills, a highly effective solution would be to maintain a
large library of pornography in-house.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
David Damerell
>The main problem with this being that American school districts and
>maybe even some individual schools keep lawyers on retainer and often
>have no problem employing them in misguided attempts at disciplining
>students for real and imagined offences.
That's an unfortunate escalation, but the solution to that isn't to
pre-emptively escalate the situation oneself! Then they'll _all_ do it
_all_ the time, and the net effect will be the employment of yet more
lawyers.
Nephi
> It strikes me as vanishingly unlikely that his filespace has actually
> been deleted without possibility of retrieval, but if it has no
> number of lawyers will bring it back;
Oh, I don't know. Given enough lawyers and typewriters ... wait,
that's monkeys, isn't it. But lawyers could subcontract the job to
the monkeys.
--
Nephi
"You are covered with rice."
Check out my patches at http://www.geocities.com/zindorsky
updoc
> You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against 99% of
> male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible process.
> [No, I'm not just pulling these numbers out of thin air.]
Then from where?
Brandon
--
David Damerell
From my personal experience as a university sysadmin. And as a male
undergraduate, come to think of it. :-)
[99% is an exaggeration, to be honest - more like 90-95%. If this figure
seems high, remember that if we were going to be strict, we'd be talking
about _one_ incident - admittedly one clear enough that it wasn't just
finding some URL replaced with a page of smut popups, which can happen to
anyone - in their entire time as students.]
Raisse the Thaumaturge
> updoc <gte...@prism.gatech.edu> wrote:
>>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against
>>>99% of male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible
>>>process.
>>>[No, I'm not just pulling these numbers out of thin air.]
>>Then from where?
>
> From my personal experience as a university sysadmin. And as a male
> undergraduate, come to think of it. :-)
Heck, *I* have porn on my computer. A few LOTR slash stories that I
wanted to read on the train :-)
Raisse, killed by a succubus
Iain D Broadfoot
> Iain D Broadfoot <ibro...@cis.strath.ac.uk> wrote:
>>David said something about Re: Kicked out of school for 'Nethacking'?!:
>>>It's not. They've noticed this, and it's against the rules. They aren't
>>>aware in general, because they don't (and, in general, you don't)
>>>preemptively trawl people's filespaces, because that would require you to
>>>take action against all male undergraduates for porn, and so forth.
>>taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
>>Thing imo
>
> You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against 99% of
> male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible process.
action doesn't need to be taken against all of them, just one at a time.
the rest will take the hint, sooner or later.
Darshan Shaligram
> David said something about Re: Kicked out of school for 'Nethacking'?!:
> > Iain D Broadfoot <ibro...@cis.strath.ac.uk> wrote:
> >>taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
> >>Thing imo
> > You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against
> > 99% of male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible
> > process.
> action doesn't need to be taken against all of them, just one at a
> time. the rest will take the hint, sooner or later.
Do you by any chance work for the UK equivalent of the RIAA? :-)
(Also, would you mind not trimming last names from your attributions?
You could make room for it by kicking out the repetition of the Subject
header.)
--
Darshan Shaligram dars...@aztec.soft.net
Iain D Broadfoot
i thought we were talking about _storing_ pr0n on a machine - viewing it
on the web is almost unavoidable these days...
the deliberate storing of pornography on a machine that doesn't belong
to you is A Bad Thing.
Iain D Broadfoot
> Iain D Broadfoot <ibro...@cis.strath.ac.uk> writes:
>> David said something about Re: Kicked out of school for 'Nethacking'?!:
>> > Iain D Broadfoot <ibro...@cis.strath.ac.uk> wrote:
> [...]
>> >>taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
>> >>Thing imo
>
>> > You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against
>> > 99% of male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible
>> > process.
>
>> action doesn't need to be taken against all of them, just one at a
>> time. the rest will take the hint, sooner or later.
>
> Do you by any chance work for the UK equivalent of the RIAA? :-)
not at all - i don't work atm. :D
>
> (Also, would you mind not trimming last names from your attributions?
> You could make room for it by kicking out the repetition of the Subject
> header.)
done, i had been fiddling with slrn's settings ages ago and left it in a
bad state. :S
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>>>Alex Krupp <ro...@nospam.optonline.net> wrote:
>>>>The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now.
>>>Now I _know_ you're an American.
>>:)
>No smiley. No other nationality could possibly think that would be a
>sensible idea.
That would truly shock me. Just for openers, any other standard Common
Law country . . .
>>I've seen these misunderstandings before. I've dealt with them--and
>>with administrators attempting retaliation :)
>You seem proud of your ability to exacerbate a situation that could be
>resolved by a simple explanation. Try some more socially useful career,
>like aggressive begging or telesales?
Huh? First of all, I'm a recovering lawyer; it's been nine years since
I've sued anyone.
Second, it's not a matter of exacerbation. Though are rules are not as
harsh as the British system we inheritted (we abolished a lot more writs
and formalities), when the state abuses its power, it is more easily
stopped early, rather than late. He *could* say something at the
informal meeting you suggested that would be later held against him. He
*could* have an obligation to raise an issue or defense at this time.
He's clearly not dealing with a rational opressor at this point. A
simple appearance or letter (which is what I suggested) can stop these
*before*, rather than after they get out of hand.
Third, stomping out nonsense such as this early, rather than after he's
been suspended and is trying to reverse it, *is* one of the few socially
useful things that most lawyers get a chance to do. Bullies deflate
easily; they won't fight someone prepared to fight back.
>>>Explain that it's just a game, he's fine. Bring in a lawyer, and look, the
>>>letter of the rules prohibit games. Bang.
>>Bang, the school is dead. When it is a clear pretense,
>It's not. They've noticed this, and it's against the rules. They aren't
>aware in general, because they don't (and, in general, you don't)
>preemptively trawl people's filespaces, because that would require you to
>take action against all male undergraduates for porn, and so forth.
Huh? They willfully overlook resource intensive games, and then choose
to prosecute a much smaller game as retaliation? Come to think of it,
"selective prosecution" may be a nineteeth century american defense
rather than ancient common law; I have no good way of checking at the
moment. Nonetheless, it won't get past judicial review in our system.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
Raisse the Thaumaturge <rai...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>On Thursday 08 May 2003 18:45 David Damerell wrote:
>> From my personal experience as a university sysadmin. And as a male
>> undergraduate, come to think of it. :-)
>Heck, *I* have porn on my computer. A few LOTR slash stories that I
>wanted to read on the train :-)
*hobbit* porn??? *now* I'm getting scared . . .
"Ooh," she murmured, as he carressed her furry feet . . .
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
>> [99% is an exaggeration, to be honest - more like 90-95%. If this figure
>> seems high, remember that if we were going to be strict, we'd be talking
>> about _one_ incident - admittedly one clear enough that it wasn't just
>> finding some URL replaced with a page of smut popups, which can happen to
>> anyone - in their entire time as students.]
>i thought we were talking about _storing_ pr0n on a machine - viewing it
>on the web is almost unavoidable these days...
Even on yahoo or amazon's home page :( I thought I had x10 blocked,
but then my five year old asked why that lady didn't have a shirt . . .
hawk, who wasn't pleased
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>[The guy who's account's been pulled for NetHack.]
>>The stakes are quite high here. You should have a lawyer--now.
>My first response to this was hasty and badly thought out.
>It might have been interpreted as humorous in intent, for one thing, when
>I was deadly serious. This is without a doubt the worst piece of bad
>advice I have ever seen on rgrn.
In that case, you clearly don't understand the situation, the law, or
how the system works:
>Currently the situation is that there has been an unfortunate
>misunderstanding and some guy had his account suspended. Now, this may not
>have been handled very diplomatically, but it's the only thing that _can_
>be done; it's better to err on the side of caution and inconvenience one
>user than to err on the side of recklessness and inconvenience all your
>users a week later.
If that was all that happened, that might be true.
>Now, the approach any remotely sane person would take is to resolve the
>misunderstanding.
You mean the part where he went in to talk to him, and he wouldn't
respond? Where instead of responding to the attempt to resolve the
problem sanely, the admin sent him to the principal in an attempt to
suspend him?
>Once that is done the worst consequences will be a
>mild rap over the knuckles for playing games when he's not meant to.
No, he made it clear that suspension was already on the table. Yes,
that could be cleared up in the long run, but his ability to enter
college in the fall *already* is in jeopardy.
>It
>strikes me as vanishingly unlikely that his filespace has actually been
>deleted without possibility of retrieval, but if it has no number of
>lawyers will bring it back; and if you proceed like a reasonable human
>being you grasp the moral high ground and can then easily get whatever
>exemptions are needed to rectify the situation.
That's not what the lawyers are for. Without a lawyer, the risk of
suspension/expulsion is there. That's reality. With one, it is remote.
It's not reasonable for him to risk his future.
It is *much* cheaper and faster to clean up situations than to prevent
them. A little lawyer early saves a lot of lawyer later.
>Or you could speak to a lawyer. Now, even if you "win" - ie, you succeed
>in ensuring that the majority of money transferred from decent people to
>lawyers used to belong to someone other than yourself, presumably to the
>taxpayers of the relevant state - you've just turned the relationship
>between the institution and yourself from a co-operative one into an
>adversarial one, which is no way to go about being educated.
Huh? First of all, we're talking about something in the neighborhood of
$200 for that letter--being paid *by* a decent person being abused by
the state. Hopefully he can get reimbursed. Figure about twice that
amount if the lawyer shows up for the meeting.
Second, the situation is already adversarial, and his education is in
jeapordy.
hawk
Darshan Shaligram
[how to cast the summon lawyers spell in the US]
> we're talking about something in the neighborhood of $200 for that
> letter--being paid *by* a decent person being abused by the state.
> Hopefully he can get reimbursed. Figure about twice that amount if
> the lawyer shows up for the meeting.
$400 for a lousy meeting+letter? I just converted that to my currency,
and now I *really* hate lawyers. :-)
The green-eyed monster hits!--More--
--
Darshan Shaligram dars...@aztec.soft.net
dSb
Richard E. Hawkins replied...
> Huh? First of all, I'm a recovering lawyer; it's been nine years since
> I've sued anyone.
Damn...and I was proud of being a non-smoker for 6 months now.... Ever
still get "the urge"? :oP
David Damerell
>>seems high, remember that if we were going to be strict, we'd be talking
>>about _one_ incident - admittedly one clear enough that it wasn't just
>>finding some URL replaced with a page of smut popups, which can happen to
>>anyone - in their entire time as students.]
>i thought we were talking about _storing_ pr0n on a machine - viewing it
>on the web is almost unavoidable these days...
I was talking about deliberate viewing. Obviously storing's the most easy
case, but you probably also can nab quite a few guys just by watching your
Web cache logs.
>the deliberate storing of pornography on a machine that doesn't belong
>to you is A Bad Thing.
No more so than other data the machine's not intended for, provided that
it's either non-world-readable or it's clear from directory names what it
is [1] - in the latter case, it may be a Good Thing, because some of the
other users may be desirous of pornography too.
[1] This is a general guideline for world-readable stuff - if you're going
to let other users look at it, make it easy for them to find stuff they
want.
David Damerell
>ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu (Dr. Richard E. Hawkins) writes:
>>we're talking about something in the neighborhood of $200 for that
>>letter--being paid *by* a decent person being abused by the state.
>>Hopefully he can get reimbursed. Figure about twice that amount if
>>the lawyer shows up for the meeting.
>$400 for a lousy meeting+letter?
Straightforward enough when you consider that, like management
consultants, the primary purpose of advice from lawyers is to make you
spend money on lawyers.
Now, let us consider next; when this lawyer comes to the meeting, will he;
a) try and defuse the situation and walk away with $400 or
b) try and land it in court and walk away with a shitload more?
David Damerell
>>It might have been interpreted as humorous in intent, for one thing, when
>>I was deadly serious. This is without a doubt the worst piece of bad
>>advice I have ever seen on rgrn.
>In that case, you clearly don't understand the situation, the law, or
>how the system works:
Proof by blatant assertion detected!
>>Currently the situation is that there has been an unfortunate
>>misunderstanding and some guy had his account suspended. Now, this may not
>If that was all that happened, that might be true.
That's all that has happened. Oh, and the sysadmin was short with someone
who he believes (wrongly, but in good faith) is not only a cracker but
reinstalled his cracking software immediately after being caught with it.
There's a shock. It's been referred to the school authorities - well,
_there's_ a shock. What do you expect any schoolteacher to do in a case
that is believed to be a serious disciplinary matter?
[And, of course, in a culture infested with the love of litigation, he may
not be authorised to speak to the student now.]
>>Now, the approach any remotely sane person would take is to resolve the
>>misunderstanding.
>You mean the part where he went in to talk to him, and he wouldn't
>respond? Where instead of responding to the attempt to resolve the
>problem sanely, the admin sent him to the principal in an attempt to
>suspend him?
Yes. FFS, this guy's a schoolchild. Being sent to the headmaster's a
normal occurrence (albeit we hope not a frequent one); maybe at that point
he should be talking to his _parents_ - because in countries that aren't
actively infested with lawyers, that's what children do when they get in
trouble.
>>Once that is done the worst consequences will be a
>>mild rap over the knuckles for playing games when he's not meant to.
>No, he made it clear that suspension was already on the table.
As it would be if the readily dismissed supposition that this was cracking
software was accurate.
>It is *much* cheaper and faster to clean up situations than to prevent
>them. A little lawyer early saves a lot of lawyer later.
Stuff and nonsense. It's exactly that attitude that means that the USA
suffers from a crippling amount of lawyer. The only way you can get away
from that is not being the first to escalate; now if someone with the
actual authority to suspend him can't be made to see reason, then (his
parents may feel that) the law is a proportionate response.
>>Or you could speak to a lawyer. Now, even if you "win" - ie, you succeed
>>in ensuring that the majority of money transferred from decent people to
>>lawyers used to belong to someone other than yourself, presumably to the
>>taxpayers of the relevant state - you've just turned the relationship
>>between the institution and yourself from a co-operative one into an
>>adversarial one, which is no way to go about being educated.
>Huh? First of all, we're talking about something in the neighborhood of
>$200 for that letter--being paid *by* a decent person being abused by
>the state.
He's not being "abused by the state" - he's currently suffered mild
irritation because one guy's ill-informed. You meet ill-informed people in
every walk of life - and this isn't like being wrongfully arrested, or
something, because Mr. Ill-informed has no actual power to carry out any
of the punishments that have been mentioned.
>Hopefully he can get reimbursed. Figure about twice that
>amount if the lawyer shows up for the meeting.
So even if the lawyer can't manage to wind it into a court case, that's
$400 gone from either the original poster or the state's taxpayers into
the pockets of lawyers. I think my comnments were entirely accurate.
>Second, the situation is already adversarial,
No, it's not - the institution has taken no position. They don't actually
_like_ to suspend people, y'know; if they are populated by sensible people
(eg, not lawyers) then they will be reasonably keen to avoid actually
having to suspend him.
>and his education is in jeapordy.
The mere mention of suspension does not constitute unspeakable peril. "If
you did X you would be suspended" might concern you if you had done X; if
you haven't, it's probably worth trying to point that out.
tomandcatherine
> > It's not. They've noticed this, and it's against the rules. They
aren't
> > aware in general, because they don't (and, in general, you don't)
> > preemptively trawl people's filespaces, because that would require you
to
> > take action against all male undergraduates for porn, and so forth.
>
> taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
> Thing imo - the amount of awfulness i see on my colleagues screens
> appalls me.
There are some universities that do monitor such things (in particular,
religious institutions like Tabor College) but most wouldn't have the
resources even if they wanted to. How many man-hours would it take to
monitor thousands of students' internet use for porn, illegal mp3's,
hacking software, etc?
There are also issues relating to liability -- if a university actively
works against porn being shared / downloaded / stored on their network,
they can likely be sued by the RIAA for not *also* preventing illegal
mp3's from being downloaded. So by trying to curb one problem, they can
actually make themselves liable for not curbing another, which really
stinks.
I do like the Tabor College policy -- you're required to sign a "lifestyle
contract" saying you won't look at porn (among other things) and the
administrators will come talk to you if they find anything in their logs.
But most universities shouldn't have policies like that, because they
*don't* have you sign something that says that, and because it would cost
them a lot of money to institute such a policy, and because it's likely
they really don't care anyway.
Phredd Groves
> In article <4576830.W...@calcifer.valdyas.org>,
> Raisse the Thaumaturge <rai...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>>On Thursday 08 May 2003 18:45 David Damerell wrote:
>
>>> From my personal experience as a university sysadmin. And as a male
>>> undergraduate, come to think of it. :-)
>
>>Heck, *I* have porn on my computer. A few LOTR slash stories that I
>>wanted to read on the train :-)
>
> *hobbit* porn??? *now* I'm getting scared . . .
>
> "Ooh," she murmured, as he carressed her furry feet . . .
Not quite.
"Oh Sam," murmured Frodo, "that feels so good, even here in the
blasted wastelands of Mordor. Don't stop."
GnomeMuncher
> Yes. FFS, this guy's a schoolchild. Being sent to the
> headmaster's a normal occurrence (albeit we hope not a frequent
> one); maybe at that point he should be talking to his _parents_
> - because in countries that aren't actively infested with
> lawyers, that's what children do when they get in trouble.
And
>Or you could speak to a lawyer. Now, even if you "win" - ie,
>you succeed in ensuring that the majority of money transferred
>from decent people to lawyers used to belong to someone other
>than yourself, presumably to the taxpayers of the relevant
>state - you've just turned the relationship between the
>institution and yourself from a co-operative one into an
>adversarial one, which is no way to go about being educated.
And
> So even if the lawyer can't manage to wind it into a court case,
> that's $400 gone from either the original poster or the state's
> taxpayers into the pockets of lawyers. I think my comnments were
> entirely accurate.
YANI - a new monster - the Lawyer
Make it a red 'l' Mostly generated in shops, temples and Minetown.
When it hits it drains your purse like a leprechaun does but also
causes conflict for n turns and has a 3% chance of angering your
god plus a 3% chance of calling the Kops.
The Lawyer hits. --more--
Your purse feels lighter. --more--
The voice of Thoth Booms --more--
"You shall pay for this, mortal!"
Robin Schoonover
>
> YANI - a new monster - the Lawyer
>
> Make it a red 'l' Mostly generated in shops, temples and Minetown.
>
> When it hits it drains your purse like a leprechaun does but also
> causes conflict for n turns and has a 3% chance of angering your
> god plus a 3% chance of calling the Kops.
>
> The Lawyer hits. --more--
> Your purse feels lighter. --more--
> The voice of Thoth Booms --more--
> "You shall pay for this, mortal!"
>
Someone has actually already suggest this on rgrn. :P
http://student.bvsd.k12.co.us/~schoonov/yani/yani.cgi?cmd=read&id=210
I wouldn't be surprised if it had been suggested even before the date
I have for that YANI (01/25/2000).
--
Robin Schoonover (aka End)
# Just think -- blessed SCSI cables! Do a big enough sacrifice and
# create a +5 blessed SCSI cable of connectivity.
# -- Lionel Lauer
Raisse the Thaumaturge
> I thought I had x10 blocked,
> but then my five year old asked why that lady didn't have a shirt . .
"She's probably going to take a shower"
Raisse, killed by an incubus
(been there, done that)
David Corbett
Raisse the Thaumaturge wrote:
> On Friday 09 May 2003 00:38 Dr. Richard E. Hawkins wrote:
>
>
>>I thought I had x10 blocked,
>>but then my five year old asked why that lady didn't have a shirt . .
>
>
> "She's probably going to take a shower"
>
> Raisse, killed by an incubus
> (been there, done that)
>
Got the T-shirt?
Jakob Creutzig
> >taking action against porn on school/college/uni machines is A Good
> >Thing imo
>
> You may think that, but the fact remains that taking action against 99% of
> male students and around 60% of female ones is not a feasible process.
>
> [No, I'm not just pulling these numbers out of thin air.]
Now I'm curious. Where did you pull them from?
Best,
Jakob
Dylan O'Donnell
> On 09 May 2003 03:04:03 GMT, GnomeMuncher <Re...@this.Group> wrote:
> > YANI - a new monster - the Lawyer
>
> http://student.bvsd.k12.co.us/~schoonov/yani/yani.cgi?cmd=read&id=210
>
> I wouldn't be surprised if it had been suggested even before the date
> I have for that YANI (01/25/2000).
Oh, to be sure.
<CAMPO.95J...@sunthpi3.difi.unipi.it>
and, as a character class:
<1pcrlg$b...@aurora.engr.LaTech.edu>
--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: "What scourge, what scourge I bear, from what red star :
: So near to happiness, and yet so far?" :
: -- Andrew Plotkin, _So Far_ :
David Damerell
>There are some universities that do monitor such things (in particular,
>religious institutions like Tabor College) but most wouldn't have the
>resources even if they wanted to. How many man-hours would it take to
>monitor thousands of students' internet use for porn, illegal mp3's,
>hacking software, etc?
Porn's quite easy, actually - grep your Webcache logs, and that tells you
whose home directory to be snooping in. Not everyone gets it like that,
but if you're permitted to go on preemptive snooping expeditions, it's
easy to write something that trawls home directories for images and
flashes a random sampling of them up for human inspection.
Distinguishing legal from illegal-but-legitimate (I have the CD but my
country has stupid laws) from illegal MP3s is a trickier exercise. :-)
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
>The green-eyed monster hits!--More--
I'm assuming $200/hour in a large city. Also, it' gets paid from
American wages rather than your local wages . . .
I know it sounds like a lot, but once you consider the overhead
involved, it isn't. With fees based on $200/hour, an established
attorney will bring home about $50k-$100k.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
dSb <aftert...@entropy.muc.muohio.edu> wrote:
>When asked "Where were you on Thu, 08 May 2003 22:34:39 +0000?" Dr.
>Richard E. Hawkins replied...
>> Huh? First of all, I'm a recovering lawyer; it's been nine years since
>> I've sued anyone.
>Damn...and I was proud of being a non-smoker for 6 months now.... Ever
>still get "the urge"? :oP
Nope. I took a 90% pay cut from what I would have made the next year to
go to grad school, and it was worth every penny.
I will do anti-trust work if it comes up, or anything else that's really
calling for an economist with a law license rather than a lawyer.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Darshan Shaligram <dars...@aztec.soft.net> wrote:
>>ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu (Dr. Richard E. Hawkins) writes:
>>>we're talking about something in the neighborhood of $200 for that
>>>letter--being paid *by* a decent person being abused by the state.
>>>Hopefully he can get reimbursed. Figure about twice that amount if
>>>the lawyer shows up for the meeting.
>>$400 for a lousy meeting+letter?
>Straightforward enough when you consider that, like management
>consultants, the primary purpose of advice from lawyers is to make you
>spend money on lawyers.
Once you assume that 2=3, you can prove anything.
Yes, there are scummy lawyers that do that. Yes, there are mechanics
that nudge another wire or piston when a car comes in to get another
repair in a few days. ANd so forth. To claim this as a universal rule
is simply ignorance.
>Now, let us consider next; when this lawyer comes to the meeting, will he;
>a) try and defuse the situation and walk away with $400 or
>b) try and land it in court and walk away with a shitload more?
Uhh, for the overwhelming majority of those I have actually known and
practiced with, it's a). Those that choose b) get away with it for a
while unitl the bar association pulls their license.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
>> I thought I had x10 blocked,
>> but then my five year old asked why that lady didn't have a shirt . .
>"She's probably going to take a shower"
I think I tried to point out that she did endeed have a shirt, though it
was nearly identical in color to her skin (as they've always been for
those ads)
hawk
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
Ken Arromdee <arro...@violet.rahul.net> wrote:
>In article <b9gel2$1928$8...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu>,
>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>I know it sounds like a lot, but once you consider the overhead
>>involved, it isn't. With fees based on $200/hour, an established
>>attorney will bring home about $50k-$100k.
>The problem is that people think "I get $20 an hour, why does a lawyer get
>$200", but it's hard to really understand that the $200 isn't salary.
Yeah. I would have been happy to keep $50 of it :)
hawk, whose overhead for the year once exceeded $100k . . .
Yoshi348
> YANI - a new monster - the Lawyer
>
> Make it a red 'l' Mostly generated in shops, temples and Minetown.
>
> When it hits it drains your purse like a leprechaun does but also
> causes conflict for n turns and has a 3% chance of angering your
> god plus a 3% chance of calling the Kops.
>
> The Lawyer hits. --more--
> Your purse feels lighter. --more--
> The voice of Thoth Booms --more--
> "You shall pay for this, mortal!"
Sadly, I think I dreamed about this last night. My first Nethack dream
as well. He only stole my gold tho, I was surrounded by Z's at the
time.
--
-Aaron Davidson
Latest attempt at greatness failed miserably:
8 20870 Yoshi VI-Val-Hum-Fem-Law died in Sokoban on level 3
[max 8]. Killed by a soldier ant. - [82]
Seraph
news:b9gn8q$no7$1...@blue.rahul.net:
> In article <b9gel2$1928$8...@f04n12.cac.psu.edu>,
> Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>I know it sounds like a lot, but once you consider the overhead
>>involved, it isn't. With fees based on $200/hour, an established
>>attorney will bring home about $50k-$100k.
>
> The problem is that people think "I get $20 an hour, why does a lawyer
> get $200", but it's hard to really understand that the $200 isn't
> salary.
I personally don't consider it that hard, and I don't really consider
$200/hr to be that much. The company I work for charges me out for $40-
50/hr, and all I do is sit in a chair while a few pumps do their thing.
Compare that to a lawyer who actually has to work to earn his $200/hr, I
would say its a valid scale up.
--
Most people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features
yet.
tomandcatherine
"David Damerell" <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in message
news:1pt*fw...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk...
> tomandcatherine <tomandc...@attbi.com> wrote:
> >There are some universities that do monitor such things (in particular,
> >religious institutions like Tabor College) but most wouldn't have the
> >resources even if they wanted to. How many man-hours would it take to
> >monitor thousands of students' internet use for porn, illegal mp3's,
> >hacking software, etc?
>
> Porn's quite easy, actually - grep your Webcache logs, and that tells
you
> whose home directory to be snooping in. Not everyone gets it like that,
> but if you're permitted to go on preemptive snooping expeditions, it's
> easy to write something that trawls home directories for images and
> flashes a random sampling of them up for human inspection.
But still expensive. And not very worthwhile, unless the college has a
"lifestyle" contract.
Seonggi Cho
> YANI - a new monster - the Lawyer
>
> Make it a red 'l' Mostly generated in shops, temples and Minetown.
>
> When it hits it drains your purse like a leprechaun does but also
> causes conflict for n turns and has a 3% chance of angering your
> god plus a 3% chance of calling the Kops.
>
> The Lawyer hits. --more--
> Your purse feels lighter. --more--
> The voice of Thoth Booms --more--
> "You shall pay for this, mortal!"
I have something even better, how about nethack in legalese, which is
an entirely different language from everyday English.
You hit = You committed assault and battery
You killed = You committed homicide
You are dead = You are sued by tobacco lawyers and asbestos lawyers in
a civil right class action.
Bag of holding = Briefcase of legal decisions (holding = decision
entered by a judge on a legal matter)
Scroll of charging = Brief of Prosecution (Legal "brief" is a paper
usually 20 to 2000 pages long, stating legal and factual points quite
irrelevant to the matters at court.)
You begin to pray = You begin to communicate with your attorney
The priest asks for contribution = The person of religious order
informs you that donations to temple is tax deductible and useful
means to hide your excess income from IRS.
dSb
ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu (Dr. Richard E. Hawkins) wrote:
> In article <pan.2003.05.08....@entropy.muc.muohio.edu>,
> dSb <aftert...@entropy.muc.muohio.edu> wrote:
> >When asked "Where were you on Thu, 08 May 2003 22:34:39 +0000?" Dr.
> >Richard E. Hawkins replied...
>
> >> Huh? First of all, I'm a recovering lawyer; it's been nine years since
> >> I've sued anyone.
>
> >Damn...and I was proud of being a non-smoker for 6 months now.... Ever
> >still get "the urge"? :oP
>
> Nope. I took a 90% pay cut from what I would have made the next year to
> go to grad school, and it was worth every penny.
I bet you sleep better at night now too.... :oP
> I will do anti-trust work if it comes up, or anything else that's really
> calling for an economist with a law license rather than a lawyer.
Dare we say...*gasp*...Meekrosoft?
Adam Biltcliffe
dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk says...
> I have always been amused by the story of a bank trying this on a
> prominent researcher at the Computer Laboratory in Cambridge only to be
> directed to the Chancellor of the University. Who is, of course, Prince
> Philip.
This wasn't the recent cryptographic vulnerability in Citibank and
others' cash machines discovered by Ross Anderson and Mike Bond, was it?
The first-year computer scientists had their software engineering
lectures slightly re-ordered so that we could be told about the lessons
to learn from that before the gagging order came into effect ...
Adam
David Damerell
>dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk says...
>>I have always been amused by the story of a bank trying this on a
>>prominent researcher at the Computer Laboratory in Cambridge only to be
>>directed to the Chancellor of the University. Who is, of course, Prince
>>Philip.
>This wasn't the recent cryptographic vulnerability in Citibank and
>others' cash machines discovered by Ross Anderson and Mike Bond, was it?
No, many years before. Ross Anderson is the researcher in question. Mind
you, it may be an urban myth - I never asked Ross about it.
BTW, if you continue with Cambridge comsci, go to every lecture by Ross
you can - he's a fascinating lecturer.
>The first-year computer scientists had their software engineering
>lectures slightly re-ordered so that we could be told about the lessons
>to learn from that before the gagging order came into effect ...
... dear me, another example of how lawyers are useless parasites on
society. There's a shock. :-)
Richard Bos
> In article <4576830.W...@calcifer.valdyas.org>,
> Raisse the Thaumaturge <rai...@valdyas.org> wrote:
>
> >Heck, *I* have porn on my computer. A few LOTR slash stories that I
> >wanted to read on the train :-)
>
> *hobbit* porn??? *now* I'm getting scared . . .
You must be the only person in the entire world not to have suspected
Legolas and Gimli of, well, goings-on.
Richard
Stuart Fraser
>
> ... dear me, another example of how lawyers are useless parasites on
> society. There's a shock. :-)
This is OT, offensive, given that there's at least one person on the who
was a lawyer, and utterly wrong (soc.history.what-if was asked to
contemplate the course of human history if audiences hearing "the first
thing we'll do, lets kill all the lawyers" had actually done so, in the mid
17th century; the conclusion was a few years of anarchy followed by a
return to despotism).
Please desist.
Thankyou,
Stuart
David Damerell
>David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in
>>society. There's a shock. :-)
>This is OT,
Natural topic drift in this thread. Hobbit porn isn't on-topic either.
>offensive,
I certainly hope so.
>and utterly wrong (soc.history.what-if
"I read it on Usenet, so it MUST be true!"
Roger Broadbent
news:3ebf9565....@news.nl.net:
> You must be the only person in the entire world not to have suspected
> Legolas and Gimli of, well, goings-on.
What on Earth makes you think that?
Roger
Jonathan Ellis
"Roger Broadbent" <rdb_spa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Xns937A8EBDFC0rdb...@193.38.113.46...
Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship. Nor
Frodo/Sam, or indeed Merry/Pippin. And frankly I get *angry* at people
who try to write that kind of slash fiction: all it shows you is how
inadequate the writers are, as pathetic excuses for human beings.
Jonathan.
dSb
Ellis replied...
> Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship. Nor
> Frodo/Sam, or indeed Merry/Pippin. And frankly I get *angry* at people
> who try to write that kind of slash fiction: all it shows you is how
> inadequate the writers are, as pathetic excuses for human beings.
Oh come on...long horseback rides through the plains...visiting the mines
and the forest together as part of a pledge to each other.... This smells
of something...
Ole Andersen
> Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship. Nor
> Frodo/Sam, or indeed Merry/Pippin. And frankly I get *angry* at people
> who try to write that kind of slash fiction: all it shows you is how
> inadequate the writers are, as pathetic excuses for human beings.
Well, fanfic is about as good as any other fic when it comes to
developing writing skills.
--
Ole Andersen, Copenhagen, Denmark * http://palnatoke.net
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.
- George Bernard Shaw
GnomeMuncher
news:pan.2003.05.13....@entropy.muc.muohio.edu:
> Oh come on...long horseback rides through the plains...visiting
> the mines and the forest together as part of a pledge to each
> other.... This smells of something...
You think maybe they should have been named Legal Ass and Gimlet? :)
I never saw the movie but read the books as an impressionable young
lad (and again as an adult) and to tell you the truth I was far more
worried about Merry and Pippin during their stay with the Ents.
I also started to get concerned about Sam Gangee when they got to
Mordor, sleeping on top of his master 'to keep him warm' whilst
dreaming about his gaffer's taters. But those that have only watched
the movie wouldn't know about that.
Richard Bos
>
> "Roger Broadbent" <rdb_spa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:Xns937A8EBDFC0rdb...@193.38.113.46...
> > r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos) wrote in
> > news:3ebf9565....@news.nl.net:
> >
> > > You must be the only person in the entire world not to have
> > > suspected Legolas and Gimli of, well, goings-on.
> >
> > What on Earth makes you think that?
>
> Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship.
Neither did I, _while reading the books_. But once people started
mentioning Tolkien and slash in the same sentence, those two were the
very first names that popped into my mind.
> Nor Frodo/Sam, or indeed Merry/Pippin. And frankly I get *angry* at people
> who try to write that kind of slash fiction: all it shows you is how
> inadequate the writers are, as pathetic excuses for human beings.
And PTerry is an illiterate, low-charactered excuse for an author
because he descends to the level of fantasy parody.
Being _angry_ at slash authors? Get a grip, Jonathan.
Richard
Jason Northrup
allotted a certain amount of space anyway?
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Roger Broadbent" <rdb_spa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:Xns937A8EBDFC0rdb...@193.38.113.46...
>> r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos) wrote in
>> news:3ebf9565....@news.nl.net:
>> > You must be the only person in the entire world not to have
>suspected
>> > Legolas and Gimli of, well, goings-on.
Uhh, uhh, umm . . . I'm kind of worried about a mind that suspects
that :)
>> What on Earth makes you think that?
>Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship. Nor
>Frodo/Sam, or indeed Merry/Pippin. And frankly I get *angry* at people
>who try to write that kind of slash fiction: all it shows you is how
>inadequate the writers are, as pathetic excuses for human beings.
So "slash fiction" is, uhh, porn about the characters?
Given JRR's theology, the very suggestion that that's what was going on
is rather silly . . .
hawk
David Damerell
>>Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship. Nor
>>Frodo/Sam, or indeed Merry/Pippin. And frankly I get *angry* at people
>>who try to write that kind of slash fiction: all it shows you is how
>>inadequate the writers are, as pathetic excuses for human beings.
>So "slash fiction" is, uhh, porn about the characters?
Yes (compare anime fandom's "lemons"); slash implies, but is not
exclusively, gay male [1].
>Given JRR's theology, the very suggestion that that's what was going on
>is rather silly . . .
But like good post-modernists we need not regard the author's intent as
relevant. :-)
[1] Largely written by and for women, like Japanese "shonen ai" and "yaoi"
material - a sort of inverse of Western mass-market "lesbian" porn.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Roger Broadbent
> "Jonathan Ellis" <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Roger Broadbent" <rdb_spa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:Xns937A8EBDFC0rdb...@193.38.113.46...
>> > r...@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard Bos) wrote in
>> > news:3ebf9565....@news.nl.net:
>> >
>> > > You must be the only person in the entire world not to have
>> > > suspected Legolas and Gimli of, well, goings-on.
>> >
>> > What on Earth makes you think that?
>>
>> Well, *I* for one never saw anything in their friendship.
>
> Neither did I, _while reading the books_. But once people started
> mentioning Tolkien and slash in the same sentence, those two were the
> very first names that popped into my mind.
>
Your original statement does not follow from this line of reasoning. Not
everyone thinks the same way. In fact, quite the reverse; I find it a rare
event to find two people who actually think *and* who think in the same
way. In my experience, most frequently, when it seems that way, it's
actually peer pressure.
Roger
tomandcatherine
"GnomeMuncher" <Re...@this.Group> wrote in message
But then, those who know Tolkein's theological standing wouldn't even
bother with such questions. Though I suppose there are those who say
similar things about David and Jonathan.
GnomeMuncher
news:7lkwa.831435$3D1.476807@sccrnsc01:
>> I never saw the movie but read the books as an impressionable
>> young lad......
[snip]
> But then, those who know Tolkein's theological standing wouldn't
> even bother with such questions. Though I suppose there are
> those who say similar things about David and Jonathan.
'As an impressionable young lad' growing up in a mostly agnostic
society I wouldn't have understood the term 'theological standing'
let alone know what Tolkien's was. To this day I still don't know
what religeous faith Tolkien was of and don't feel that I need to
know, he was the author of some really fantastic books, anything else
is superfluous.
This style of poking fun at someone's work is often done 'tounge in
cheek' and is actually a form of recognition. You shouldn't take this
sort of thing too personally. Take a look back at Monty Python's
'Holy Grail'.
Who are David and Jonathon? Biblical characters?
tomandcatherine
"GnomeMuncher" <Re...@this.Group> wrote
> "tomandcatherine" <tomandc...@attbi.com> wrote in
> news:7lkwa.831435$3D1.476807@sccrnsc01:
>
> >> I never saw the movie but read the books as an impressionable
> >> young lad......
> [snip]
> > But then, those who know Tolkein's theological standing wouldn't
> > even bother with such questions. Though I suppose there are
> > those who say similar things about David and Jonathan.
>
> 'As an impressionable young lad' growing up in a mostly agnostic
> society I wouldn't have understood the term 'theological standing'
> let alone know what Tolkien's was. To this day I still don't know
> what religeous faith Tolkien was of and don't feel that I need to
> know, he was the author of some really fantastic books, anything else
> is superfluous.
Perhaps you don't have any reason to, but enough people do that it's
surprising the sort of accusations that go around. And not all of it is
tongue-in-cheek -- a lot of people debate such things quite seriously, and
often they should know better. So I figure it's better to just let people
know right away -- so if they were seriously wondering they'll know (and
if they're just joking, they'll probably keep joking -- which is annoying
because, like most jokes, it's less funny when you've heard it a dozen
times this week.)
I should also say, when reading Tolkein it helps if you understand his
religious beliefs, even if you don't hold them -- a lot of what he writes
into his characters is meant to be illustration of his beliefs, and a lot
of times that makes what they do less confusing. It may be "superfluous"
info but IMO it makes the books better if you know it.
> Who are David and Jonathon? Biblical characters?
Yes, and who similarly are often the subject of (often serious) discussion
as to whether or not they were gay, for similar reasons.
Darshan Shaligram
> I should also say, when reading Tolkein it helps if you understand his
> religious beliefs, even if you don't hold them
Dear God, the *last* thing I want when reading a novel is to know the
author's religious beliefs.
And is spelling Tolkien as "Tolkein" as annoying as spelling Rogue as
"Rouge"? :-)
--
Darshan Shaligram dars...@aztec.soft.net
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>>Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>So "slash fiction" is, uhh, porn about the characters?
>Yes (compare anime fandom's "lemons"); slash implies, but is not
>exclusively, gay male [1].
I see.
>>Given JRR's theology, the very suggestion that that's what was going on
>>is rather silly . . .
>But like good post-modernists we need not regard the author's intent as
>relevant. :-)
Ahh, yes. There are some solid reasons the Ph.D. is in Economics and
not some form of English. And then there's the group
(deconstructionists?) who believe the only legitamite way to analyze
literature is by the words used--not only the intent of the author, but
the topic, plot, and sentences are irrelevant . . .
>[1] Largely written by and for women, like Japanese "shonen ai" and "yaoi"
>material - a sort of inverse of Western mass-market "lesbian" porn.
I've never understood that one, either . . . men are supposed to be
turned on by women who prefer other women to men? Seems rather, uhh,
pointless.
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins
tomandcatherine <tomandc...@attbi.com> wrote:
>"GnomeMuncher" <Re...@this.Group> wrote
>> 'As an impressionable young lad' growing up in a mostly agnostic
>> society I wouldn't have understood the term 'theological standing'
>> let alone know what Tolkien's was. To this day I still don't know
>> what religeous faith Tolkien was of and don't feel that I need to
>> know, he was the author of some really fantastic books, anything else
>> is superfluous.
>Perhaps you don't have any reason to, but enough people do that it's
>surprising the sort of accusations that go around. And not all of it is
>tongue-in-cheek -- a lot of people debate such things quite seriously, and
>often they should know better. So I figure it's better to just let people
>know right away -- so if they were seriously wondering they'll know (and
>if they're just joking, they'll probably keep joking -- which is annoying
>because, like most jokes, it's less funny when you've heard it a dozen
>times this week.)
>I should also say, when reading Tolkein it helps if you understand his
>religious beliefs, even if you don't hold them -- a lot of what he writes
>into his characters is meant to be illustration of his beliefs, and a lot
>of times that makes what they do less confusing. It may be "superfluous"
>info but IMO it makes the books better if you know it.
After the initial drafts, he would go through again with theology in
mind.
One of the religious references is Gandalf and the balrog . . .
("servant of the secret flame").
Martin Read
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins <ha...@slytherin.ds.psu.edu> wrote:
>I've never understood that one, either . . . men are supposed to be
>turned on by women who prefer other women to men? Seems rather, uhh,
>pointless.
The fantasy is that the pr0n-user is manly enough to persuade the lesbians
that they really want *him*.
Also some male pr0n-users have an aversion to seeing other men's wangs.
m.
--
\_\/_/| Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
\ / | i'm not one for suspicion but are you keeping something sacred
\/ | can we keep this thing together now we're so far apart
------+ -- Manuskript, "Far Apart"