Slashdot Mirror

Some important passages are:

Note: Comcast reserves the right to immediately terminate the Service and the Subscriber Agreement if you engage in any of the prohibited activities listed in this AUP or if you use the Comcast Equipment or Service in a way which is contrary to any Comcast policies or any of Comcast's suppliers' policies.

And..

Prohibited uses include, but are not limited to, using the Service, Customer Equipment, or the Comcast Equipment to: ... (vii) restrict, inhibit, or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person, regardless of intent, purpose or knowledge, to use or enjoy the Service, including, without limitation, posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a worm, virus, or other harmful feature, or generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information; (viii) restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or otherwise disrupt or cause a performance degradation, regardless of intent, purpose or knowledge, to the Service or any Comcast (or Comcast supplier) host, server, backbone network, node or service, or otherwise cause a performance degradation to any Comcast (or Comcast supplier) facilities used to deliver the Service;

And a little bit more...

You must ensure that your activity (including, but not limited to, use made by you or others of any Personal Web Features) does not improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an unusually large burden on the network. In addition, you must ensure that your activities do not improperly restrict, inhibit, disrupt, degrade or impede Comcast's ability to deliver the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network Services.

and finally a blanket statement of innocence...

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Comcast and its affiliates, suppliers, and agents against all claims and expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) resulting from you engaging in any of the prohibited activities listed in this AUP or resulting from your violation of the AUP or of any other posted Comcast policy related to the Service. Your indemnification will survive any termination of the Subscriber Agreement

Now isn't that a beauty? Using the service is agreeing to this, and they are basically saying... we have sole discretion on whether to keep you as a customer and if you don't like it, too bad...

Is this harsh? maybe... fraudulent? I don't think so.

These contracts are written for the bottom of the barrel "Joe Blow" and guarantee NOTHING. If you're not such a person, buy the product that is actually being marketed for your purposes and has the guarantees you desire. EVERY major telco provider offers them and they're not much more expensive. FYI, here is the relevant portion of the Comcast agreement:

http://www.comcast.net/terms/subscriber.jsp

# Limited Warranty: THE COMCAST EQUIPMENT AND THE SERVICE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. NEITHER COMCAST NOR ITS AFFILIATES OR AGENTS WARRANT THAT ANY CONNECTION TO, TRANSMISSION OVER, OR RESULTS OF THE COMCAST EQUIPMENT OR THE SERVICE WILL MEET CUSTOMER'S REQUIREMENTS

YOUR SOLE REMEDY FOR SERVICE INTERRUPTION SHALL BE LIMITED TO A PRORATED CREDIT UPON REQUEST ONLY IN THE EVENT OF COMPLETE FAILURE OF THE SERVICE DUE TO A TECHNICAL MALFUNCTION FOR TWENTY-FOUR (24) CONSECUTIVE HOURS OR MORE. TO QUALIFY FOR SUCH CREDIT, YOU MUST REQUEST THE CREDIT FROM COMCAST WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS OF THE FAILURE. CREDITS SHALL BE APPLIED ONLY AGAINST CURRENT AND FUTURE FEES PAYABLE BY YOU FOR THE SERVICE AND ANY CREDITS PROVIDED BY COMCAST ARE AT OUR SOLE DISCRETION AND IN NO EVENT SHALL CONSTITUTE OR BE CONSTRUED AS A COURSE OF CONDUCT BY COMCAST. NEITHER COMCAST NOR ITS AFFILIATES OR AGENTS WARRANT THAT ANY DATA OR FILES SENT BY OR TO YOU WILL BE TRANSMITTED IN UNCORRUPTED FORM OR WITHIN A REASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME. ALL REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF PERFORMANCE, NONINFRINGEMENT, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR MERCHANTABILITY, ARE HEREBY EXCLUDED.

You must ensure that your activity (including, but not limited to, use made by you or others of any Personal Web Features) does not improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an unusually large burden on the network. In addition, you must ensure that your activities do not improperly restrict, inhibit, disrupt, degrade or impede Comcast's ability to deliver the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network Services.

" Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other limitations -
Use of the Comcast network infrastructure in a manner that (i) exceeds the then current bandwidth, data storage or other limitations on the Comcast High-Speed Internet service or (ii) puts an excessive burden on the limitations of the network. Examples include: Using the Comcast network to run a Web-hosting server or any other commercial enterprise."

" Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other limitations -
Use of the Comcast network infrastructure in a manner that (i) exceeds the then current bandwidth, data storage or other limitations on the Comcast High-Speed Internet service or (ii) puts an excessive burden on the limitations of the network. Examples include: Using the Comcast network to run a Web-hosting server or any other commercial enterprise."

Yeah, you should check it out.
Isildur

Yeah, I used page to guide me through making nvidia drivers work on a toshiba laptop running debian with a NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) FX Go5200 and a 2.6 kernel. Worked right away too.

If you ever see SMTP requests coming from my IP address, feel free to drop them in the bit bucket. Then call the police, because a spammer has broken into my house and attached a PC to my router.

There is no way that this lady is supposed to be Japanese.

Maybe in some crazy alternate universe where Japanese people are indistinguishable from Europeans, but not this one.

If so... I already hate it.

Why? Most *anime* I've seen doesn't have very many Japanese characters. Sure, their *names* are Japanese, but that's about it.

In fact, Evangelion itself seems to have the standard mostly-caucasian cast.

I am really interested to see how this film turns out. I liked the robot designs and some of the concepts of the original anime, but watching it at a friend's party was totally tedious - especially the last episode. "Oooh! It's the same frame of animation... for two minutes! This must mean something!"

My website has a section for replacing backlights that might help http://home.comcast.net/~stonent/screenfix.htm

Network, Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitations

You must comply with all current bandwidth, data storage, and other limitations on the Service established by Comcast and its suppliers. In addition, you may only access and use the Service with a dynamic Internet Protocol ("IP") address that adheres to the dynamic host configuration protocol ("DHCP"). You may not access or use the Service with a static IP address or using any protocol other than DHCP unless you are subject to a Service plan that expressly permits otherwise.

You must ensure that your activity (including, but not limited to, use made by you or others of any Personal Web Features) does not improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an unusually large burden on the network. In addition, you must ensure that your activities do not improperly restrict, inhibit, disrupt, degrade or impede Comcast's ability to deliver the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network Services.

The details:
T. Matsumoto, H. Matsumoto, K. Yamada, S. Hoshino, "Impact of Artificial Gummy Fingers on Fingerprint Systems," Proceedings of SPIE Vol. #4677, Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques IV, 2002.

Some slides from the presentation are here.

Yeah, iron absorption is much higher from breast milk. Also, it contains IgA (secreted antibodies from the mother).

"... but we'd also finally have everybody using a browser that actually supported web standards! (Yeah, IE is pretty close nowadays"

No, no it's not. Not even in the same class! It's not Netscape 4, but it sure drags its ass like that horrible melange of shit code.

Do you see rounded corners here? How about the fact that CSS support hasn't been updated it years, specifically it still mainly matches these charts which have in supporting only 80% of CSS1, 10% of CSS2, and none of the proposed CSS 3 standards? In the past 2 years, Mozilla's CSS support has not remained static.

If you do anything more complex than a table layout in IE, it just won't work. How does this look in the latest IE? Not like the reference image, I'm sure.

>> Do you know what happens to a frog when it's
>> exposed to the cold vaccuum of outer space?

This happens.

Anyone else think of the Simpsons episode where Homer designs his dream car?

Every time I open my iBook, and especially on the times that I've used it, open, on the passenger seat of my car as an audio player, I've wished that fat central hinge (which works better and is stronger than I first thought it appeared) had the other degree of motion necessary to flop that display around ala Toshiba's (and many other companies') tablets. (That is, the ones that include a keyboard and swivel into notebook mode when desired.)

An open laptop is much more precarious than a tablet would be, esp. one like the iBook, which does not open to a full flat position, and a touch screen would make a laptop much more useful as a car computer in the style of this car-mounted iBook, but ... well, less awkward. :)

Having seen a few nice (factory-option) GPS navigation system / car computers (though not in any car *I'm* likely soon to own), I am a convert, despite previously considering them nothing more than a silly affectation, evidence that people had more money than sense.

On an airplace, too, or better still in the gate waiting area, a tablet would be a far more convenient style for catching up on news sites, watching movies, etc. Trivial, maybe, but it's something I'd like in a portable computer.

timothy

Wow! That really is the ugliest thing I've ever seen! Thanks, Slashdot, for bringing this piece of crap to our attention. Now hundreds of 1337 g4m0rz who have modded their PCs with... well the same tubes and LEDs and plexy crap, really... can feel better about their 'Tandy 30-in-One' lookalike craptastic boxes! They have truly acheived 1960s electronic chic.

Now, if we could find something to make all those airfoiled, spoilered,prismatic,fiberglass Civic, Prelude and Supra mods look like more than some 6 year old's first attempt at a Revell Mustang kit. They need love too.

Yours truly,
The Bitch

My first computer was a PCs Unlimited as mentioned in the article, and I still have the motherboard (picture) to prove it. That computer was a tank--then again, when you're running DOS 3.0 or so, it's hard not to be.

-Paul

Well, it's not any more corrupt than one company owning the platform that 90% of the world operates on, then claiming that all the little fish can compete fairly against them and that they have no advantage owning the system....

If the Republicans own the voting system (and yes, I *know* they don't legally own the system, just as Microsoft doesn't *legally* own SCO), I highly doubt that they would use it to benefit themselves. I mean, come on! That would be unethical.

Two days ago I found a similar e-mail in my inbox which essentially followed the same lines, but was directed at Comcast users. It stated that there had been a problem with my billing credit card, which could be due to any of the following list of plausible-sounding issues, and directed me to click on a hyperlink to rectify the problem. As it happens, my Comcast account is provided by work as part of my on-call requirements, and they pay all the bills. The scary part is, even looking at the header, everything appeared to resolve to a Comcast address (I think it was comcast.biz), except for one little address which was a Qwest address.

Comcast already knows about it; you can see their (extremely not obvious) warning here.

The ultimate in Halloween case mods

I would like to discuss this further. I think you are very insightful. Is it alright if I email you at pcrissman@comcast.net? Thank you. I look forward to our time together.

another mirror for the torrent

It was definitely considered to be a portable RS/6000, but I tell you it had a 603e, and I meant it. And it was called a Thinkpad 850 (I just looked it up in my old webpages), they might have also called it a "power series" machine or something. It had an 800x600 TFT, built in speakers that stuck out farther than the screen, and an optional video camera which attached to the top of the display, which I did not have. Oh, and no internal NIC :( You can see a picture and a tiny bit of information on the machine on this page which I wrote several years ago... When I had the thing. IIRC, I traded it for a 66MHz BeBox sometime down the road. I think I sold the BeBox outright.

Still functional and occasionally used to support the development of my (Windows NT-based) emulator for same. See [techno-paleontology] for details, if you care. :) Z-80 processor, 64K RAM, three 5-1/4" (100 K) floppies, H-19 terminal, other goodies.

I do, and I agree, his articles were among the best written and easiest to understand. He's attended at least a few of these Expos, and there's a picture of him among the pictures from the Commodore Expo 2002.

I do, and I agree, his articles were among the best written and easiest to understand. He's attended at least a few of these Expos, and there's a picture of him among the pictures from the Commodore Expo 2002.

"participate in the collection of e-mail addresses, screen names, or other identifiers of others (without their prior consent), a practice sometimes known as spidering or harvesting, or participate in the use of software (including "spyware") designed to facilitate this activity;

(xiv) run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;

I'm guessing that large ISPs are going to laugh at you if you complain about that. Not that I don't feel your pain, just that's what's in the fine print.

Okay I hooked up my camcorder for you, I hope you appreciate it :)

Control Alt Delete

Look at this. Comcast wants more money for the higher speed.

Business-class means servers.

Not to them. "Business-class" means "VPN client", something that is forbidden to "home" users in the Acceptable Use Policy:

you agree not to use the Service for operation as an Internet service provider or for any business enterprise or purpose, or as an end-point on a non-Comcast local area network or wide area network

You did read the Terms of Service before you subscribed, right?

But wait, there's more. A bit out of date, but accurate.

I don't know how valid this is. Rather than focusing on the top rated, how about looking at those close to US figures. If the above poster's figures are correct, US = 6.5, Singapore = 5.5. Plainly, the population density of Singapore is WAY higher than US (Sing=6050/sq.mile, US=2404/sq.mile(urban density)).

Now, if we expected increased connectivity with increased density, Singapore should be way more connected than the US. Instead, Singapore lags.

Netherlands and US are dead even at 6.5 connectivity wise. However, Netherlands has 387/sq.km (2.6 sq/km=1 sq/mi, so about 1006/sq mile.

Being less dense than the US, we would expect Netherlands to also be less connected. It isn't.

Could it be that population density is just a lame excuse to explain why broadband sucks in the US?? Could it be that the lack of Broadband, or if it does exist, the lack of choice and competition, has to do with the way the Telecos and the Government are practically conspiring to ensure a broadband monopoly. Believe me, If I had a chance to ditch Cumcrust.net, I would.

oops....

linky

Heh, I was just going to comment on that too. Here's the picture, for those too lazy to read the story.

Ahh yes, http://home.comcast.net/~vbriel/r1_4.jpg shows a better view. Perhaps the Apple 1 had a good start, but damn... the VIC20/C64 has to be my favourite 8bit micro ;-)

1. Prohibited uses include
   (xiv) run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers.

The chapter listing is on this website.

I lost my copy of the book years ago, though, so I can't look up the source of that reference.

The real problem is large ISPs/backbones like UUNet/MCI, Cogent, Comcast, Level3, China Netcom, AT&T, Brasil Telecom, and Above.net (among others) who flat-out refuse to do anything about the spammers to whom they provide connectivity.

Complaints sent to any of them are promptly auto-acked and then /dev/nulled (if they don't bounce) and so the spammers keep on spamming, most likely due to ephemeral pink contracts and the crooked marketing/sales departments that agree to them, who then put pressure on abuse personel and network admins to ignore complaints about the contracted spammers.

Because of this, those large ISPs and backbones end up on blacklists, DNS blocklists, and a wide variety of other filters. For them, the money they make off the spammers seems to be of greater concern than the money they make off legitimate customers, i.e. those who end up with their netblocks on every blacklist because of who their providers are.

If it weren't for rogue ISPs and backbones, there would be little use for blacklists or blocklists. However, those reprehensible companies do exist. And because of their policies on spam, they continue to be blocked. Money gained from spammers guarantees the blacklists' continued existence.

It's all just cause and effect. As much as it sounds like a conspiracy theory, I truly believe that it isn't, after fighting spam, one email at a time, since 1997.

Here's a histogram of the top 100 and bottom 100 movies according to IMDB, shown by year of release. The data is probably biased towards more crap recently, but here it is, FWIV.
Raw Data here

Here's a histogram of the top 100 and bottom 100 movies according to IMDB, shown by year of release. The data is probably biased towards more crap recently, but here it is, FWIV.
Raw Data here

here

I wonder how the price of these things compares to a comperably equiped Featherlite coach?? The amenities sound almost exactly like what the Featherlite guy was rattling off on one of those Discovery channel bike week shows. Also anyone interested in extreme vehicles should check out Mercedes Unimogs, those things can do almost everything, from fire engines to light cranes, to railroad repair vehicles (those are equiped with a boom for unloading ties and steel wheels to travel down the tracks!). Also I have to throw in my favorite story that combines geekdom, survivalism, anti-government mentality, and extreme vehicles, The Consultant

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/themichaelsmith/VWHi Res.mpg

Looks like he should have used Clarinex.

All righty, gloves off.

American girls are cute until all the fried food catches up and they expand (much in the manner of robot balloons)

Australian girls are cute until they go wrinkly like a raisin from too much sun.

Euro girls frequently have body hair in the wrong places.

Asian girls are often gorgeous of course,

But your British girls are actually something of a high point of world femininity in my reasonable experience, and they age much better than most..