Update 11: Multicasting, Cyber-Communism, 21st!, Halloween, Teaching

Reply-To: david@weekly.org
From: update@david.weekly.org
Subject: Multicasting, Cyber-Communism, 21st!, Halloween, Teaching
To: update@david.weekly.org

 n o v e m b e r   3  /  9 9
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<david.weekly.org> Update #11
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-----<< Greetings >>

Hello, everyone! It's been exactly a month since the last update. Sorry
I've been kind of quiet (as has the website!) -- I've had my hands rather
full with life, but then again I'd be loathe to fill your mailboxes with
empty emails. ;) Artificial Intelligence has been particularly difficult;
last weekend I was simultaneously studying for a midterm, working on a
problem set, and beginning a programming assignment! Insanity. Anyhow,
I've actually bought a car, but can't insure it because I don't have a
license! So I got glasses (my vision is correctable to 20/15!) and have
taken a few driving lessons from the Stanford Driving School. I could
have sworn my instructor was on methamphetamines, but that's a story for
another day. =) Hopefully, I should have my license soon. And for those
of you who were wondering, I don't have my license because I come from
Boston and had great public transportation growing up!

I also got a new computer, an Athlon-500 from Compaq. It's not too
shabby (especially when playing Quake III!) but has some quirks that
keep me from using it too much (i.e., it doesn't boot all the time).
Odd; I'll keep calling Compaq to make sure things get fixed up.

At any rate, I'm now 21 and legal to drink, and more importantly,
legal to go clubbing! Huzzah! I hope to take advantage of this fact
soon. =) I had a really kickass birthday party: you can read about
some of this (and my Halloween) on my site:

http://david.weekly.org/news/99nov1.php3

While this quarter's focus was on *thought* (AI, Psychology, Philosophy),
it looks like next quarter's focus will be on teaching. I will be
section-leading the Introduction to Computer Science curriculum here and
will also be teaching a short series of classes on Saturdays on the
mechanics of startups. Exciting, no?

-----<< Site Changes >>

You may have noticed (or not!) that I removed the audio board; nobody
was really using it and the novelty wore off a bit. If you would like
to see it back again, tell me! On a deeper note, I'm trying to make my
site as easily accessible as possible and am thinking about redoing
the main/landing page to put all of the information in the site at your
fingertips -- how should I best do this? Please send me your feedback.


-----<< Multicasting >>

I tried downloading a number of multicast utilities, and much to my
dismay discovered them to be woefully inadequate. Multicasting is a
really cool technology whose day just has not yet come. Read more:

http://david.weekly.org/writings/multicast.php3

(it's okay if you don't understand what multicast is - I explain it!)


-----<< Cyber-Communism >>

I've been intrigued lately with economic systems and indeed in a later
article may propound my theory for an ideal economic system. I ran
across an excellent article by Richard Barbrook, which I republish here,
formatted for web readability:

http://david.weekly.org/writings/cyber-communism.php3