Here's the CPAN module for you.

Also, consider this recent discussion on the subject.

As for 800 MHz machines being "good enough", you obviously haven't been keeping up with the latest 3D games :) OK, for non-gamers, even 800 MHz is more than enough, but I don't think you'll be able to play Half Life 2 on one, even with all the fancy graphics turned down. Although I think we are hitting the point where a game's artists are the limit instead of raw power.

As for spam filters, they are really only a band-aid on the problem. Spammers will go away when the cost of sending spam outweighs the profit received in return.

The quick solution to raising their costs is to have a $0.01 tax/charge per message, which puts that cost of even a 'tiny' mass mailing for 500,000 messages at $5000.00. But then you open up the whole Pandoras box of who collects the taxes, who gets the taxes etc etc etc.

The charge would have to apply to ANY email message, same for corporations and individuals, otherwise these scummers will find a way around it. Actually I think they'd find a way around it anyway.

That's not as far fetched as you might think. The idea of paying for internet access with a "$cost/megabyte-transferred" is the fair and obvious way to setup things. We've been spoiled in the US with phones that have "unlimited dialing", and "unlimited internet accounts". But as more and more people get high speed access, the idea of putting an "information meter" at the entrance to everyone's house/business is going to come. These are "the good-old-days" which we will remember when the "meters" finally come. They will have no choice when the "glorious day" comes when we all have fiber-optic cables for connections. The "information-meter" will have to log 2 costs, the "number of megabytes transferred" and the "speed of transfer". I suppose there will be a way to convert that into one variable, but the idea will be lower rates for slower transfers, and non-realtime transfers.

Getting back to spammers, maybe the "meters" will be able to do "reverse-billing", where the spammers will have to pay into your account, in order for you to get whatever they want to send. I would accept spam at $0.10 a piece. That's what I charge for hitting the "delete key". :-)

This is another endless war.

Our world is created like this from the very beginning, evil power and good power are balanced. Any win or lose are just temperary. Both sides have been trying very hard to win through out the human history. A person's cleverness is simply not related to his/her value system at all.

It might sound negative, but truely this kind of endless war might actually be the ultimate hidden power that pushed the human being advancing. A world without the competition between good and evil, might simply stop, deadly stop.

This is another endless war. Agreed. Another way to look at it is simply that the entropy of a system always increases. Sort of like the clutter in a college student's dorm room. Of course we simply add to the entropy by trying to fight it :-)
---
"Ex libris un peut de tout"

This is another endless war.

Never say that to a man who admires Bismark, Nietzsche, Frederick the Great, William T. Sherman, and Gen. George S. Patton. I've been using tools to filter out spam, but one kept getting through, as if they knew what I was filtering for. So, I pinged them and noticed they were using a Windows server. I captured a bunch of MS virii (easy to do with OS X), sent them to their e-mail accounts, and suddenly, they quit spamming me. Evil, yes, but I do try to use my evil for good purposes.

If I had my way, I'd go after spammers with such vim and determination that the Roman destruction of Carthage would seem like a Bears/Lions game in comparison.

--
tbone1
Ain't enough 'O's in 'stoopid' to describe that guy.
- Dave "the King" Wilson

I found it mildly amusing that soon after I read this node I got a notice that they had to stop some spam filters in order for a mail processor at work to have enough CPU to catch up on a backlog of e-mail processing. *sigh* (:

It is not CPU cycles that spammers fight against anti-spammers, but rather design problem: I have no spam on my HDD just because I have enough policies to not allow anyone to go there.

Best regards,
Courage, the Cowardly Dog

Well, the actual "quote" is "640k is enough for anyone".

The reason I put "quote" in quotes is this: If you believe Wired News anyways...

J-S

It would lead one to the question: Is the software ahead of the processor, or the other way around?

Personnally I believe that it is cyclical (and so is my spelling ability!). At one point the processor speed races ahead of the software, then as the programmers figure out how to use the new gadgets and gizmos, they catch up and exceed what the processors can deal with. Then, when you think all is lost, those silly chip designers throw their mojo at the silicon wafers and ... BOOM ... a new and ever faster processor is born.

SO even though the 800mhz processor you own and use is slowing down, it is only going to get behind the power curve more and more, and sooner or later should end up in the processor graveyard or embedded into clear lucite, making it the perfect place to put your coffee/tea cup.

As for me, I still have a P3 500 that is trudging along because like most, I'm either too stubborn to realize that it is even more archaic than what you have, or maybe it is just that I don't have the money (or I don't want to allocate the funds) to buy/build a newer computer. I have the new case and power supply. I even have a video board for that new computer, but alas, no MB/Proc/RAM/etc. And yes, I also procrastinate profusely.

Now if you have made it this far through this book, you are probable wondering what in the heck is he carrying on about? , well by this time, I have forgotten, also, so will leave you with this thought.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? (read: fat code/phat processors)

Isn't PERL great?

Isn't PERL great?

No. But Perl is pretty cool.