Yeah, really. Plus, even numbered releases never work right. We should probably start working on Buffistechnology 3.1.

Just wanted to say thanks for the brainstorming help last night on dealing with the spam-lovin' board member. What I ended up with, in a *very* summarized form, is:

[dude's name],

You say that you'll add all your own club members to the list, and I wouldn't presume to tell you not to -- it's your club and your membership list. However, I don't believe we should make it a recommendation for all clubs. We should enlist our club contacts' help in promoting the list at their clubs, but I'm very much opposed to asking them to turn over their email lists without their members' explicit permission.

1. Our agreement with [host] specifies that we cannot use their servers for bulk e-mail, or in any way that violates people's privacy. You can argue all day that our list doesn't do that, but all it takes is one complaint and we're shut down. They're a great host, but any internet service knows that if they get onto any of the spam blacklists, their service, and all of their other users, are in trouble. There is no leeway in the hosting business for this kind of thing.

2. You say there's no legal problem because we aren't selling fake Rolexes. This is simply not true: for instance, can you really be sure that there are no clubs in the division with kids on their email lists? It's against federal law to collect information about children online without their parents' explicit permission, EVEN if you're a non-commercial site. "Information", in this case, means their names and hobbies -- not just their home phone numbers or bank accounts. And that's just one law, and not an exhaustive study of the matter.

Furthermore, you simply can't say that nobody will get sued, or that you yourself are willing to be sued -- again, all it takes is one pissed-off person, and even if we win, [org] is out the time and hassle and legal fees. There's never any guarantee against litigious jerks, but let's not open ourselves up to the risk by doing something that's certain to anger people.

This is not to say that I think we shouldn't promote list membership. In fact, I think it's vitally important that we do so. But spamming people isn't the way to go about it. Your insistence that any opposition to your position is fearing the list, or destroying it, is just a straw man. The possible choices are not limited to "sign up everyone" vs. "let the list molder away in a dark dusty corner".

In fact, since I really don't like either of those options, I say we focus on more ways to get people to sign up voluntarily:

* (6 different ideas I came up with in about 5 minutes)

* Most importantly of all -- these are all ideas off the top of my head. Rather than shutting down the discussion, we should be coming up with more.

Once again, let me reiterate that I agree with your fundamental point that we need to get information out better. It's just signing people up without their approval that I don't like.

What if we are an odd numbered build?

Buffistechnology 2 build 9

Great letter, amych!

The key is marketing the list to all the clubs and lists, not signing people up without their consent.

Don't have the numbers handy, sorry, will get them tonight.

Is it an IDE drive or connecting through USB?

IDE

Also, what Operating System are you using?

Win98SE

OH MY GOD I LOVE HAVING BROADBAND AGAIN!!!

(The Earthlink cable guy has been and gone, and I am all broadbanded up. I can't tell if it's actually faster than my old DSL was, or if it just seems that way because we've been on dial-up for a month.)

Anyway, I have a real question. I'm currently on a PC. My next computer will be a Mac. I installed a 120GB HD (internal) in this machine a while back, and am wondering what the chances are that I can just take it out of the PC and stick it into the Mac when the time comes. Because that would be pretty sweet. (I don't know the exact model offhand, and I'm about to leave the house, but I'll be back later and can look all the specs up.)

I installed a 120GB HD (internal) in this machine a while back, and am wondering what the chances are that I can just take it out of the PC and stick it into the Mac when the time comes.

Pretty darn good. What version of Windows are you running?

And? Depending on the format your drive is, it might even mount and you don't have to reformat it as Mac.

And? depends on the model of Mac you are getting.

If it's an IDE drive, I'm wondering if your best bet would be to buy an external firewire or USB case to stick the old drive in.

What kind of Mac? Is there room for a second drive in an iMac?

What kind of Mac? Is there room for a second drive in an iMac?

No. But the external case bit would work.

I'm wondering if your best bet would be to buy an external firewire or USB case to stick the old drive in.

I bought one of those and converted an extra internal drive. It works well. Was around $70. But I wish it didn't require an external power supply.