BBS: The Documentary
February 23rd, 2008“When I was a boy, we dialed into bulletin board systems,” I can imagine myself telling my son someday…
And we did! Monochrome green (or amber) text, slowly running across the screen, was pretty much it in those days. But, wow, there was an endless, mysterious world out there; in the machine. I don’t know why the machine world seemed so much more interesting than the real world, but it was to me. Maybe, computers just represented an alternative for those of us who didn’t have much interest in sports or school elections.
I think I was about eleven years old when I dialed into my first system, which, I can still remember, was CompuServe. I quickly learned about the BBS movement and started hanging out with a group of miscreants, slobs, weirdos and no-shit hardcore hackers who had day jobs as programmers or unix machine operators at defense companies, banks, game companies, etc. It was a weird mix, man. One guy was getting a PhD in math. Another guy, the best programmer of the bunch (who’s still writing games), didn’t graduate from high school. One dude was blind and had a Braille terminal. The amazing thing was, nobody gave a single, solitary rat’s ass about what “normal” people cared about; TV, sports, hygiene etc.
Decades later, here I am, still looking at a screen in the middle of the night, connected to something… out there, in the machine.
I’ve been watching parts of BBS: The Documentary online and it’s incredible how the film brings it all back. If you were a BBS head in the 1980s, you’ll see bits of yourself in the interviews and probably laugh your ass off remembering those days.
The film is pretty arcane. I don’t know how much it will resonate with people who weren’t involved. I think it would be worth checking out just for the entertainment value of the characters alone, but that’s just me. More normal people might recoil in horror and run from the room. Younger people, who take Internet based technologies for granted now, will get a kick out of how things used to be.
Amazon: BBS: The Documentary:
Before the Internet became the way to connect to the world through a computer, life had already started to move online. Throughout the planet, regular folks were taking their new home computers, connecting them to a modem and a phone line, and starting Bulletin Board Systems, or BBSes. Once numbering in the tens of thousands, these “Dial-up Bulletin Boards” have mostly disappeared and mostly been forgotten… except by the people who lived, loved and worked on them. Director Jason Scott travelled thousands of miles and filmed over 200 people about their stories of the BBS, resulting in this 8 episode, five and a half hour long mini-series. The three DVDs in the set are region free, copy protection free, and Creative Commons licensed. They’re also a lot of fun as the various episodes cover different aspects of the BBS Story. Episode titles include BAUD, ARTSCENE, SYSOPS AND USERS, NO CARRIER and MAKE IT PAY. “BBS: The Documentary” covers the era of the BBS, one caller at a time.
More: bbsdocumentary.com
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Thank you.
New World Record for Solar-to-Grid Conversion Efficiency
February 23rd, 2008Vis: PhysOrg:
On a perfect New Mexico winter day — with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual — Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s “Serial #3” solar dish Stirling system at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility.
The conversion efficiency is calculated by measuring the net energy delivered to the grid and dividing it by the solar energy hitting the dish mirrors. Auxiliary loads, such as water pumps, computers and tracking motors, are accounted for in the net power measurement.
Most Upside Down Home Owners Since Great Depression
February 23rd, 2008Via: ABC News:
It’s a real estate reality facing millions of Americans. Their homes are now worth less than what they owe on them.
Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, said, “The last time we saw so many homeowners with so many home values that were worth less than the amount of mortgage they owed was back in the Great Depression.”
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But those same economists we talked with today say this 10 percent figure — the 8 million people who are paying more than their home is worth — is only going to rise.
Wall Street Bank Run
February 23rd, 2008Via: Washington Post:
It doesn’t look like an old-fashioned bank run because it involves the biggest financial institutions trading paper assets so complicated that even top executives don’t fully understand the transactions. But that’s what it is — a spreading fear among financial institutions that their brethren can’t be trusted to honor their obligations.
Frightened financiers are pulling back from credit markets — going on strike, if you will — to escape the unraveling daisy chain of securitized assets and promissory notes that binds the global financial system. As each financier tries to protect against the next one’s mistakes, the whole system begins to sag. That’s what we’re seeing now, as credit market troubles spread from bundles of subprime residential mortgages to bundles of other kinds of debt — from student loans to retailers’ receivables to municipal bonds.
Investors are nervous because they aren’t sure how to value these bundles of securitized assets. So buyers stay away, prices fall further, and the damage spreads.
The public, fortunately, doesn’t understand how bad the situation is. If it did, we might have a real panic on our hands.
Cartoon: The Subprime Primer
February 22nd, 2008The firm externalized the financial risks of being in this business by selling all of the paper they generated into the secondary mortgage market at the end of every month. This is an institutional marketplace that trades in commoditized mortgages, “debt paper.” In other words, at the end of each month, the firm had none of the impossible-to-payback-negative-amoritization-no-money-down loans on their books!
I handled some issues for the secondary marketing department, even, would you believe, for the person who pulled the trigger on these paper dumps at the end of the month.
“Who buys this stuff?” I asked.
“Oh lots and lots of people. Well, banks and insurance companies mostly. [Large European Bank name deleted] buys a lot of it.”
Pookie sent this hilarious and terrifying cartoon about the subprime mess. She found it on Jim Sinclair’s Mine Set.
The Subprime Primer WARNING: Includes naughty words.
Turkey Launches Ground Operation in Iraq
February 22nd, 2008Via: AP:
Turkish troops launched a ground incursion across the border into Iraq in pursuit of separatist Kurdish rebels, the military said Friday — a move that dramatically escalates Turkey’s conflict with the militants.
It is the first confirmed ground operation by the Turkish military into Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. It also raised concerns that it could trigger a wider conflict with the U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds, despite Turkey’s assurances that its only target was the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
The ground operation started after Turkish warplanes and artillery bombed suspected rebel targets on Thursday, the military said on its Web site. The incursion was backed by the Air Force, the statement said.
Turkey has conducted air raids against the PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq since December, with the help of U.S. intelligence, and it has periodically carried out so-called “hot pursuits” in which small units sometimes spend only a few hours inside Iraq.
The announcement of a cross-border, ground incursion of a type that Turkey carried out before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a major development in its conflict with the Kurdish rebels, which started in 1984 and has claimed as many as 40,000 lives.
U.S. Secret Service Told Dallas Police to Stop Screening for Weapons at Obama Campaign Rally
February 22nd, 2008Via: Star Telegram:
Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.
The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on.
“Sure,” said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a “friendly crowd.”
The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.
Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
“How can you not be concerned in this day and age,” said one policeman.
Arizona: 280-MW Solar Plant to Use Molten Salt for Energy Storage
February 22nd, 2008Via: PESN:
Abengoa’s plant in Arizona will cover a surface of around 1,900 acres — nearly three square miles — and will run two 140-megawatt steam generators for a total capacity of 280 MW.
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The Solana generating station will use Abengoa Solar’s concentrating solar power (CSP) trough technology, which entails long rows of mirrors which track the sun from east to west in order to best focus sunlight onto the receiver pipes. The receiver pipes are filled with fluid that is heated by the sun’s energy, much like a huge magnifying glass, to over 700 degrees. The heated fluid is then sent to a heat exchanger where steam is created, and that steam is then used to turn a turbine.
Storage via Molten Salt
The solar plant will also include a thermal energy storage system that allows for electricity to be produced as required, even after the sun has set. Large insulated tanks filled with molten salt can be used with concentrating solar power (CSP) to store the heat from the fluid. This stored heat can then be used to produce energy during periods of low or no sun, including the evening hours.
German State-Owned Banks on Verge of Collapse
February 22nd, 2008Via: Spiegel:
The German government has had to bail out state-owned banks with taxpayers’ money after their managements recklessly gambled away billions on subprime investments. But if a state-owned bank were to go under, the consequences could be disastrous for the whole economy.
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The situation for Germany’s public banks has become so dramatic that it threatens to topple what has been one of the key pillars of the country’s banking system. The state-owned banks are supposed to bail each other out when necessary, but the problem is that many are in trouble themselves and hardly in a position to help their peers. And things could get even worse.
