From: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 1995 14:55:33 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: A "Warning Banner" for Netscape Navigator? Good idea!
Message-ID: <v02120d3eace5624bba5c@[199.0.65.105]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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It's been a long and interesting day...

>Pull down the 'Options' menu, grab the 'Window and Link styles'
>page, and change the default "home page location" from
>netscape's to whatever you want.

Oh. *Those* advertisements! I couldn't for the life of me figure out *what*
Tim was talking about. I've made mine come up blank since the initial,
"Hey, what do these twiddly bits in the Preferences command do...", session
after the first download. You can also put up a type-it-yourself URL window
on the browser window, which comes in handy now that you have to wait 10
seconds (on my dinky PB 180) every time you change code modules in 2.0b3
Netscape (like touching<!> the menu bar for the first time, or looking at
the bookmark window)... Like I've said elsewhere, Netscape is hierarchical
code trying to conquer a geodesic (a word I got from Bucky Fuller, through
Peter Huber, just so I keep my attributions straight...) network. It ain't
gonna fly, in the long run, folks.

In that vein, could someone e-mail me the best non-netscape Mac browser, so
I don't get HTML-nasties when I go play on the cactus machine?

Anyway...

Dave Winer(sp?), the Mac-Developer-turned-gadfly (speak not ill of the
other gadflies, I always say...), talks about seeing some Netscape
(sorry...) patches which actually *do* strip banner ads from various
web-pages. I believe you have to tell it which pages, and what the banners'
file names are, but I'm not sure. Don't know where *Weiner(sp?)* got it
from... I seem to remember the name "Ad Stripper" but I could be imagining
things...

Of course, if that's the way this code really operates, simply changing the
name of the HREF call regularly on the server side, which is probably done
anyway, with all the web-management code showing up out there, defeats
ad-filters of this kind completely...

Obcrypto: Maybe these web-pages will send you nanocash (not mine, either,
sorry, taken from one of the wearable-people at mobileworld, I'll look up
their name, and get back to you. soon. I promise.) to watch their message?

Also, could someone talk here about how easy it might be to spoof Java
"byte code"? The Java presentation at this conference had a lot of
hand-waving and reverent invocation of Whit Diffie's name, so it might not
be trivial. Another feature of this presentation was a really splendid
"subjective axis" chart showing how "powerful" Java is in comparison to
say, client-server, HTML, and other "technologies". This chart reminded me
for all the world of the famous "Pravda Charts" that Tufte likes to lampoon
in "The Graphical Representation of Quantitative Information". Just so I
keep my sources straight. Of course.

To quote Prof. Tufte. "If it looks like a duck, ignore it." Or something to
that effect. Maybe the word "waddle" was in the sentence. Maybe he got it
from someone else... I'll get back to you on that. I really will...

;-).

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com)
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA (617) 958-3971
"Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell
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