To discourage folks from trying to archive the 300,000 postings in this forum via robots, I wrote a program to generate a .zip file archive that is all static .html files (viewable on your local desktop with any Web browser). The total size is about 120 MB (should inflate to maybe 250 MB).

Visit http://homepage.lcs.mit.edu:8123/ to get your .zip file! Note that this is on a separate computer from the TB2000 forum, so you won't be endangering the discussion even if 50 people at a time decide to download the whole archives.

-- Philip Greenspun (philg@mit.edu), December 31, 1999

Answers

Hey Phil in the red Superman cape...thanks very much!

-- silver ion (ag3@interlog.com), December 31, 1999.

Thanks, Phil! I appreciate all you've done for us, and wish you well for the new year, whatever it may bring.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), December 31, 1999.

Thanks Phil !!! One question, if you will. Are these going to be freshened regularly, and if not, what time was the snapshot taken?

-- Lurker (eye@spy.net), December 31, 1999.

Freshened regularly? No. This snapshot was taken yesterday. I'm doing one right now for the Time Bomb Prep forum. It is a manual process that involves running a Web script, running the zip program at the Unix shell, running a file transfer program to get the archive onto another computer, editing a .html file to make the archive available.

This is why http://photo.net/philg/research/year-2000.html (which I wrote in June 1998) is still my best thinking on the subject of computers. They are so awfully painful to deal with right now that Y2K holds no terrors for me!

-- Philip Greenspun (philg@mit.edu), December 31, 1999.

Phil--

You've certainly put up with a lot of b.s. that you didn't deserve in relation to this site.

I just wanted you to know that your efforts have been appreciated greatly. Thank you so much for maintaining the forum.

-- nothere (nothere@nowhere.net), December 31, 1999.

Thank you Philip!

BTW... The TBY2K Sysops & Moderators greatly appreciate the response people have had to donating to Philip Greenspuns charity, so he in turn will match us in funds and get a new server for his MIT server farm.

For those who missed it (and the forum), while the forum was inaccessible, due to robot/spider attacks, Philip left us several messages. One final one was...

If you want to see the forums back, prove it!

Surf over to https:// db.photo.net/shoppe/ (ignore the warning boxes about the MIT certificate authority not being recognized; your credit card is transmitted securely) and make a tax-deductible donation to SARA Sanctuary, a no-kill animal shelter. They will get 100% of your money. If the Y2K users collectively come through with at least $7,500 (so far we have about $1,500 committed), I'll pay for some new dual- Pentium Linux boxes out of my own pocket.

I dont know what the count and amount is today, but I already made my donation. I also know Ed Yourdon made a good sized one too.

Current count and amount Philip?

For the credit/debit card challenged... donations can be mailed to SARA Sanctuary 1050 Rawhide Road Seguin, TX 78155. Put a note in to credit Philip Greenspun and ArsDigita for the donation.

It's our way of saying "THANK YOU PHILIP!" for two years of free forum service! We all observed it "really" motivated him to pull in help on a holiday week to get us up and running on back-up servers, until we can move to more permanent machines, that aren't on their last legs.

Thank you... to the Forum Posters... as well... for showing Philip we appreciate him and MIT!!!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 31, 1999.

Whistles, finger snaps, KUDOS Phil. Thanx so very much!

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), December 31, 1999.

To the top.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 01, 2000.

Thanks Phil!

I especially like the part 120 MB (will take about 1 year to download with a 14.4 modem rofl!

Phil, you've shown you can work through this stuff with a great sense of humor and patience.

Thank you for everything.

Mike

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-- Mike Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

Phil:

Did I see somewhere else that you were burning an archive CD, too?

Godspeed,

-- Pinkrock (aphotonboy@aol.com), January 04, 2000.