RIP Ward Christensen

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Ward Christensen holds an expansion card from the original CBBS S-100 host machine.
Ward Christensen holds an expansion card from the original CBBS S-100 host machine. (License)

Ward Christensen (along with Randy Suess) is the inventor of BBS. Bulletin Board System (or BBS) is what many of us used to communicate, upload, download, and share stuff with each other. Many traditional BBS servers moved to the Internet in early 2000s and that was when many of us started to know it.

Personally, my life would have been a lot different if it wasn’t for BBSes. I used to play games on them, used to communicate with a lot of people using message boards, and learned a lot about computers. I was fascinated about them and I still am.

Even though I’m much younger than many other people who used to use them, I still remember using dial-up late at night (when my parents went to sleep) to check boards. Ars Technica calls Ward the architect of our online age, and he is indeed. Many of us are owed our IT careers to him, many of us know what we know about Internet and computers because of him.

And remember I got to know BBSes a lot later than many other people, I used BBS a lot less than many other people and I haven’t experienced what many other people have yet it’s one of the best experiences I have regarding to computers and some of my best memories involve these boards.

I’m pretty sure some older people have a lot of amazing stories regarding BBSes and I would be so happy to hear them.

Unfortunately Ward passed away few days ago on 2024 October 11. May he rest in peace. Thank you for everything sir.

Give me the menu!

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I don’t know how common is this around the world but I’ve recently been to a lot of restaurants where they’ve stopped giving people a physical menu! Now I see QR codes everywhere where I have to scan to see the menu.

I’d like to see myself as a tech guy but this is nonsense. Give me the menu. I don’t want to scan some QR code or be forced to give away my phone number so I can order some coffee or eat some cake.

Maybe I don’t have a smartphone, maybe I don’t have cellular or Wi-Fi connection, or maybe I simply don’t want to scan some random code in a random place and visit a random web site. And I was almost tolerating all of that until I was told that some cafes and restaurants force people to sign up on a third-party web site to get the menu and they are forced to pay online for the meals.

It’s wrong at every level. I want the printed menu. Maybe some people are fine with this or even like it but I’m not and I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people like me so even if you’re doing this privacy-violating menu thing, have some printed normal menus so concerned people like me can eat. We pay you too, you know?

Middle Easterners are numb

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Image shows two boys sitting amidst rubble in what appears to be a war-torn or conflict-affected area. They are surrounded by debris from destroyed buildings, with the walls of a damaged structure visible behind them. The building's windows are shattered or boarded up, and laundry is hanging from some windows, suggesting that people may still be living there despite the devastation. The boys are wearing casual clothes and appear to be in conversation, possibly sharing a moment of reflection amidst the destruction. One of the boys is wearing a yellow T-shirt, and the other is wearing a striped shirt. The overall scene conveys a sense of hardship, resilience, and the impact of conflict on civilian life. The palm tree in the background adds a slight contrast to the otherwise bleak environment.
Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash | License

If you’ve followed Middle East news in past weeks you surely know about the attacks exchanged between Israel and Iran(-backed forces). We’re know one step closer to full-blown war. We’re one step closer to a total war and nobody seems to care.

As a Middle Easterner, you get used to certain things in the region, and one of them is war. We’re born with it and many have died with it. It’s been here for thousands of years but modern conflicts date back to 1902. It’s always been here.

I don’t have a memory of a single day without war in the region, nor does my father, nor did my grandpa. We’ve always had war and years of experiencing and getting used to it made us numb.

For the past week I’ve seen my colleagues’ flights being canceled on fear of missile attack from Israel and the only thing I’ve heard from my co-workers is how much angry they are that they can’t go home (for their monthly rest). Nobody seems to care or be feared that if Israel attacks one of the petrochemical and refinery plants here, where we work, every single one of us would likely die.

Nobody seems to even fear that there will be war directly towards us and we most certainly will suffer the consequences. We’re so numb from the war that the only reaction I see from people is them making jokes. Pretty funny jokes actually, made me laugh hard sometimes.

I bet if there’s a threat against some European or American countries, people there would panic and get everything ready to combat the aftermath but it’s not like this here. War has lost its meaning here. I’ve seen people lining up in gas stations to get a full tank so they can flee the city in case of an attack but it was a really small group of people.

I was wondering what the hell is wrong with us here? We know what war can do to us, we’re seeing it every day, and yet we’re continuing life as nothing is happening. War is not funny, it’s not something that will ever become normal, yet it is in here.

AI and copyright

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OpenAI says it’s ‘impossible’ to create AI tools like ChatGPT without copyrighted material. While corporations are doing everything they can to restrict people from downloading or using anything copyrighted and refuse to release stuff under free licenses, they want us to wave all our rights so they can re-sell (and more importantly impose their proprietary licenses) to us what we already own.

People are still being fined, sued, and threatened by various punishments for simply downloading a 20-year-old movie yet are expected to provide their material to these giant corporations for free and even if they don’t, they can’t do anything about it as we see thousands (or millions) of examples of copyright violations by these corporations and copyright infringements every single day regarding AI training.

It begs the question that what privacy and data regulators are doing about this and how people can protect themselves from these data-hungry violators. I’m amazed about how advanced and intelligent computers and programs have become but I care more about my rights than a computer program being able to replicate people’s material, manipulate them and create something (supposedly and allegedly) new.

Asian people

Aside

Why do Americans (or maybe some other people in west) only call eastern Asian people, Asian? Pakistanis, Afghans, Tajiks, Many Russian people, Iranians, Saudis, Omanis, and many other people are also Asians. Why do you (or them) don’t call us Asians?

Sacrifices

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You gotta sacrifice something to get something in return. My boss taught me a life lesson today. We were talking about the wrestling match between Rahman Amouzad and Kiyoota Kotaro in Paris Olympics and how Rahman unbelievably lost the match after dominating all of his previous opponents without losing even one point and he told me something erudite.

He said sometimes you want to prevent losing 2 points and end up losing ten for that. You gotta give the two points and fight for a better position to win.

It’s exactly like that in life. You gotta sacrifice something to get something. It’s just how life works. You gotta give the two points in life so you can continue fighting and getting more. If you stick to the two points, you end up losing everything else.

Human captcha

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Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have captcha on us? Like when people want to interact with us, we would make them solve the captcha. Are you human enough? They would be forced to answer it with real answers.

Human Captcha: Verify you are human
Human Captcha: Verify you are human enough

A list of random questions would be presented to people:

  • Are you racist?
  • Are you sexist?
  • Are you a bigot?
  • Do you support fascists?
  • Do you support terrorists?
  • Have you ever discriminated against a group of specific people?
  • Do you respect people’s privacy?
  • Are you a cheater or a betrayer of trust?
  • Are you a professional liar?
  • Do you secretly do what you preach against?
  • Are you a snob?
  • Are you trying to interact only to use me for some benefit?

These are just few questions I had in mind. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could present people with this kind of captcha?

What would you put on your human captcha?