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You really don't want to have to explain how to use Linux whenever a problem comes up. And then you're even more on the hook.

You're already reinstalling their OS and all software, right? So don't give them an administator account. Set up whatever needs to run as the admin, as the admin. Set up a firewall. Turn on automatic updates. Make some non-IE browser the default (or update to IE 8). Install a good anti-virus software. Shut down unneeded services (I think the www.grc.com list and the http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCd/SecureXP.html list are pretty complete). And then lock it the fuck down.

It can then be as easy to use as Windows, and much safer. And, then it becomes a monthly or less often thing to install a software package instead of fix the whole computer.

Same here. Panasonic 5.8 ghz with 1 base and 1+4 cordless handsets. I use http://home.comcast.net/~rickrich1/sw/tkcid.tar.gz (Linux) plus a Zoom modem for my Caller ID. Also has "Blow Them Off" or "Play SIT tones". Uses gnome for a GUI.

http://home.comcast.net/~olimar/DS/jumbotron/

You're right. If I were to seed every ISO known to man, I would be violating Comcast's ToS, but not in the way you think.

This is the relevant clause. A customer may not:

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;

Restricted behavior includes:

generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to use, send, or retrieve information

So, seeding every ISO known to man would probably generate a prohibited volume of traffic.

On the other hand, the clauses relevant to running servers on your connection are as follows. A customer may not:

- use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network (“Premises LAN”), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;
- use or run programs from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN, except for personal and non-commercial residential use;

Seeing how P2P run from your personal computer is in fact for personal, non-commercial residential use, it does not violate those particular terms.

(Running a P2P server from a standalone server, however, would be prohibited.)

I found this (PDF), doesn't mention current use, though.
about their history and actual use (paywall)
not recent...
I suggest you talk to your cardiologist. I can't quickly find any doc on this -- even through googling-- , but it may not be publicly available. From the few docs I can find, I think that they have been deemed safe for medical use but with the improvements of li-ion tech, possibly inductive charging, and other technologies, the use of rtg for pacemaker would look less attractive nowadays, not even considering the risks of accidental release of radioactive material (cremation...)...
So, ask your specialist, or his professors :-)

I found this (PDF), doesn't mention current use, though.
about their history and actual use (paywall)
not recent...
I suggest you talk to your cardiologist. I can't quickly find any doc on this -- even through googling-- , but it may not be publicly available. From the few docs I can find, I think that they have been deemed safe for medical use but with the improvements of li-ion tech, possibly inductive charging, and other technologies, the use of rtg for pacemaker would look less attractive nowadays, not even considering the risks of accidental release of radioactive material (cremation...)...
So, ask your specialist, or his professors :-)

I recently received an email from Comcast that states that they are changing their so-called "Privacy Policy" to include data gathering from all of their internet service customers.

The problem (besides the obvious)?

The "opt-out" option doesn't work.

A couple of the 3rd party partners flat out refuse to allow opting out, and the rest ALL require you to keep a "blank cookie" on your machine to opt-out. The problem is that the vast majority of sites you visit don't work unless you allow a new cookie (including slashdot, it appears).

Here da links..Yeah, you have to dig a little as the obfuscation is pretty heavy-handed.

"Comcast may work with Comcast affiliates and trusted partners to provide tailored content and advertising based on non-personally identifiable information, but you may choose to opt-out of tailored advertising as described more fully in the Privacy Policy and FAQs."

http://customer.comcast.com/Pages/FAQViewer.aspx?Guid=dfcbf43e-91b2-4444-a04d-8d7c68fcb356

The list:
http://www.comcast.net/privacy/2009-10/#partners

Comcast is NOT in the business of providing Internet service, they are in the business of piping advertising to target demographics as well as defining those demographics.

One of the scariest parts of this is that Yahoo is on the list, which means MICROSOFT is on the list...joy.

Such as what? You mean the ancient cultures like the Aztecs who have dinosaurs on their garments and pottery and jewelry despite being thousands of years older then our current understanding of dinosaurs or what they look like.

That's retarded. The only reference to anything like this that I can find is this page which makes the argument that a certain piece of aztec art bears a resemblance to a tyrannosaurus skull. So yeah... hardly pervasive and hardly convincing to anyone who doesn't already desperately want to believe.

Anyways, we have seen with flash flooding and dam bursting that much of the geological formations like the Grand Cannon, the dead sea, and the badlands can be caused over extremely short periods of time in like days and weeks.

No we haven't. The young earth grand canyon meme is debunked nicely here. It also doesn't stand up to some basic critical thinking skills, like if flash flooding carved the grand canyon, how come it left relatively fragile islands of rock standing up in the middle of the canyon in places?

You should really look into it. It's not exactly going to say the earth is 6000 years old, but it will force you to keep an open mind on the millions being claimed.

In order to believe young earth creationism, or ANY kind of age for the earth that's not in the millions or billions of years, you essentially have to throw away a ton of accepted knowledge, like how radioactive isotopes work, how sedimentation happens, plate tectonics, and so on. This includes things that are not only accepted but practically acted upon.

Basically science and technology are like a giant pyramid with the coolest crap on top. You can't accept the stuff on top, like say the GPS in your car or a radioisotope powered pacemaker, without implicitly allowing for the fact that all or most of the stuff beneath it is true, like the age of the earth.

You're free to do that with Comcast as well. Here's a list of all their DNS servers by location. It lists primary and secondary DNS servers for the hijacking and non-hijacking servers.

It wouldn't matter anyway, their opt-out process doesn't work. The only way to opt-out is to manually modify your systems to use static DNS from a non-hijacking server.

You can get the list of servers here: http://dns.comcast.net/dns-ip-addresses.html

Since the opt-out page is broken and doesn't actually opt you out of anything, you'll have to do it yourself. Here's a list of all Comcast's DNS servers: http://dns.comcast.net/dns-ip-addresses.html

The first two are the "redirecting" servers, and have the Comcast DNS hijacking enabled.

The second two are the correct servers to use, they are running pure DNS without Comcast's bullshit.

Here are my tests:

www.blahblahblahblahblah.com
Bogus redirect page.
www.blahblahblahblahblah
NX
blahblahblahblahblah.com
NX
www.blahblahblahblahblah.ner
NX

Eventually all failed non-existant domains that are queried through Comcast's servers, where the query begins with www., will get redirected. They just haven't phased that in, yet: DomainHelperLogic:

We will eventually phase in the following pattern matches to enhance this service in the future:

(1) www.SOME-INVALID-NAME.cmm or

(2) www.SOME-INVALID-NAME

- The entry must include "www" followed by a dot ("www.")

...

I suggest that if you're a Comcast customer and when you read this the opt-out page is still down, contact their tech support. Maybe a swell of tech support calls/emails/IMs will convince them how bad of an idea this is.

user John_ has entered room
jOHN(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:34 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Ask Comcast Escalation
analyst Lotarion has entered room
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:57 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Hello John_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Lotarion. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:59 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I am more than willing to assist you today.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:46:01 GMT-0500 (CDT))> May I know the issue, please?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:45:51 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Hi, I want to opt-out of the domain redirection, but I can't access the page. The website is: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:47:23 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh..Let us check on it.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:47:37 GMT-0500 (CDT))> What is your Operating System John?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:47:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I'm using OpenSUSE 11.1.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:49:38 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Okay.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:49:55 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Go back to the issue, you cannot load www.comcast.net ONLY?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:50:34 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I can load all websites - including www.comcast.net. I can't load the domain redirection opt-out page: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:51:59 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh..That has already been disabled. I cannot also load that site on my end.
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:52:10 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh, okay. Do you know when it will be available again?
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:53:19 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Our engineers are still working on it. Customers will be informed through email.
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:53:14 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Okay, I'll be patient then. Thanks for your help.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:53:53 GMT-0500 (CDT))> You are most welcome.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:00 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Thank you also for bearing with us.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:02 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Do you have any other concern that I can address to?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:54:13 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Nope, that was it.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:39 GMT-0500 (CDT))> It has been my pleasure assisting you today.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Take care always. Have PEACE and goodbye.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Thank you for bringing Comcast into your home. We are here for you 24 hours a day 365 days a year! To learn more about your services and find answers to many questions, please visit our FAQ pages: http://help.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:41 GMT-0500 (CDT))> smile
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:55:28 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Analyst has closed chat and left the room
analyst Lotarion has left room

I suggest that if you're a Comcast customer and when you read this the opt-out page is still down, contact their tech support. Maybe a swell of tech support calls/emails/IMs will convince them how bad of an idea this is.

user John_ has entered room
jOHN(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:34 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Ask Comcast Escalation
analyst Lotarion has entered room
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:57 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Hello John_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Lotarion. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:59 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I am more than willing to assist you today.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:46:01 GMT-0500 (CDT))> May I know the issue, please?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:45:51 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Hi, I want to opt-out of the domain redirection, but I can't access the page. The website is: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:47:23 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh..Let us check on it.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:47:37 GMT-0500 (CDT))> What is your Operating System John?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:47:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I'm using OpenSUSE 11.1.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:49:38 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Okay.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:49:55 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Go back to the issue, you cannot load www.comcast.net ONLY?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:50:34 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I can load all websites - including www.comcast.net. I can't load the domain redirection opt-out page: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:51:59 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh..That has already been disabled. I cannot also load that site on my end.
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:52:10 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh, okay. Do you know when it will be available again?
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:53:19 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Our engineers are still working on it. Customers will be informed through email.
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:53:14 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Okay, I'll be patient then. Thanks for your help.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:53:53 GMT-0500 (CDT))> You are most welcome.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:00 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Thank you also for bearing with us.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:02 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Do you have any other concern that I can address to?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:54:13 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Nope, that was it.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:39 GMT-0500 (CDT))> It has been my pleasure assisting you today.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Take care always. Have PEACE and goodbye.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Thank you for bringing Comcast into your home. We are here for you 24 hours a day 365 days a year! To learn more about your services and find answers to many questions, please visit our FAQ pages: http://help.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:41 GMT-0500 (CDT))> smile
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:55:28 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Analyst has closed chat and left the room
analyst Lotarion has left room

I suggest that if you're a Comcast customer and when you read this the opt-out page is still down, contact their tech support. Maybe a swell of tech support calls/emails/IMs will convince them how bad of an idea this is.

user John_ has entered room
jOHN(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:34 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Ask Comcast Escalation
analyst Lotarion has entered room
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:57 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Hello John_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Lotarion. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:45:59 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I am more than willing to assist you today.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:46:01 GMT-0500 (CDT))> May I know the issue, please?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:45:51 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Hi, I want to opt-out of the domain redirection, but I can't access the page. The website is: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:47:23 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh..Let us check on it.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:47:37 GMT-0500 (CDT))> What is your Operating System John?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:47:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I'm using OpenSUSE 11.1.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:49:38 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Okay.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:49:55 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Go back to the issue, you cannot load www.comcast.net ONLY?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:50:34 GMT-0500 (CDT))> I can load all websites - including www.comcast.net. I can't load the domain redirection opt-out page: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:51:59 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh..That has already been disabled. I cannot also load that site on my end.
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:52:10 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Oh, okay. Do you know when it will be available again?
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:53:19 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Our engineers are still working on it. Customers will be informed through email.
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:53:14 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Okay, I'll be patient then. Thanks for your help.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:53:53 GMT-0500 (CDT))> You are most welcome.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:00 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Thank you also for bearing with us.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:02 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Do you have any other concern that I can address to?
John_(Wed Aug 05 2009 16:54:13 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Nope, that was it.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:39 GMT-0500 (CDT))> It has been my pleasure assisting you today.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Take care always. Have PEACE and goodbye.
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:40 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Thank you for bringing Comcast into your home. We are here for you 24 hours a day 365 days a year! To learn more about your services and find answers to many questions, please visit our FAQ pages: http://help.comcast.net/
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:54:41 GMT-0500 (CDT))> smile
Lotarion(Wed Aug 05 2009 17:55:28 GMT-0500 (CDT))> Analyst has closed chat and left the room
analyst Lotarion has left room

Look at the DomainHelperLogic and the only thing it hijacks are DNS lookups that begin with www and end with a valid TLD (.com, a ccTLD like .us, etc.).

While I think this still stinks that they are hijacking DNS at all, and as a Comcast customer I will complain and opt-out, I think they're doing it in a fairly logical way.

But it's not that bad. If you do a DNS lookup for any domain (say for an MX or NS record) you're never going to see this. Your lookups will only be affected if the query starts with www, followed by a domain, ending with a valid TLD (.com, a CC, etc.).

If your internal office uses something such as mycompany.internal, then even a www.mycompany.internal query isn't going to get hijacked since .internal isn't a valid TLD. If you are using mycompany.com for internal use, you should own mycompany.com externally, and negative replies will still work and not get hijacked.

Again, while I oppose monkeying with DNS, this appears to be fairly well thought out and not anywhere near as bad as most other implementations.

Comcast has opt-out option. https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/

This is the opt out link: https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/

How kind of you to think of the /.ers that don't read the summary.

This list seems to imply that there is a duplicate set of Comcast DNS servers that work correctly for opt-out service: http://dns.comcast.net/dns-ip-addresses.html Maybe just changing DNS to point to your alternate opt-out server(s) will work. Unless they sometimes decide to change the IP addresses around without notice.

I'm a comcast user in NJ, and invaliddomain135.net (no www) took me to their custom page.

This is the opt out link:
https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/

First off, port 53 is NOT being redirected. Use your choice of port 53 provider - whether your own DNS, Level 3, OpenDNS, whatever. As for how it works, check out http://networkmanagement.comcast.net/DomainHelperLogic.htm and http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-livingood-dns-redirect-00 for the precise details. The second document is a complete technical description.

Your comment appears to say that haloes were widely used in pre-Christian religious depictions. That is not established in your quoted source. Indeed after several hours I can't find a single image of haloes that is BCE.

Christians stole almost every aspect of their religion from other established religions and folk tales. The halo was depicted in BCE images, there already was an existing trifecta of god(s), people were said to have been raised from the dead, turned water into wine, last suppers - the list goes on. Just because you looked in the wrong place doesn't mean they don't exist. Try this for an image of a BCE halo. You may say it's a sun disk, it looks like a halo to me. I've seen several images of christ with similar "haloes" If you dig deep enough, you'll probably find that the sun disk is a necessary part of being a god in many many religions. But you define halo in the way that suits your argument. And you suck at reading too, if you didn't even follow the link in the "quoted source" you complain about.
(hint: Helios, Apollo, Neptune, Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, Aditya, Shakyamuni Buddha, The Heavenly Emperors, The Great Emperors of the Three Offices)

Just go to the site below and opt-out :) https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/

I'd be a little more worried about Skynet. It's real, being developed as we speak by DARPA, the DHARMA Initiative, and Area 51.

    Everyone knows the Cylons are just fantasy written to propel the Mormon and Scientology causes.

    (this ought to start some trouble)

Theodore Roosevelt had a great speech about that.
http://home.comcast.net/~nhprman/trhyphenated.htm

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic. ...

Cool. And here it is, still a good read: http://home.comcast.net/~bcleere/texts/draper.html

I was obsessed with the NS Savannah recently because she is such a beautiful ship - I love ships and this cargo ship looks like a yacht. Whilst I am not a fan of the Nuclear Industry in it's current form her reactor appeared to be reasonably well constructed and whilst designed to cruise at 21 knots, she outperformed her design spec by steadily cruising at 24 knots - pretty fast for a cargo ship. Check page 16 of the MARAD documentation (warning - pdf).

There is significant historical information about her operation. Until 9/11 she was part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) but her reactor was permanently disabled due to concerns she could be used as quite a convenient weapon of terror. Sadly, her hybrid design condemned her to a short operational life (10 years) and she is now a ghost ship. There are plans to make her a museum ship whilst waiting for her decommissioned reactor to cool down for eventual disassembly, but no one seems interested in the project. Despite that the seafarers Union have been working to maintain the ship by improving her general appearance.

NS Savannah's crew dispute was because the executive officers traditionally got paid more than the engineering crew on board the ship, this dispute, high running costs, low oil costs all contributed to her eventual demise. An interest group (with mailing list) is looking for photos and artefacts whist she was in operation.

lots more photos, her community organisation, glory days, historical landmark program, service history and specifications, floorplan and schematics, current status, passenger lounge, reactor control room, dry docked , and finally a flickr photo stream and a rather excellent photo essay of the NS Savannah. A little bit of history for you to enjoy.

It is not at all hard to get true pure randomness into your computer.

Despite the fact calculating all of the ranges you claim would make it 'easy' would in fact take computers a few million *ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE* more powerful than what exists today to even finish before you die, but there are simple cheap easy ways (Or if you prefer, expensive) to generate true randomness.

http://inventgeek.com/Projects/alpharad/overview.aspx
^- Based on alpha particle decay using materials found in a home smoke detector and a ccd camera

http://www.uelectronics.info/true-random-number-generator
^- Based off using white noise in an area from a specific angle

http://home.comcast.net/~orb/details.html
^- A built it yourself on a PIC version that uses the outside tolerance levels of capacitor charging.

http://www.lavarnd.org/
^- Uses a lava lamp and snapshots to essentially capture the current state of a highly complex chaotic system that would need to be duplicated down to the molecular level to 'run' and get anywhere near the same output (aka, not possible until star trek is no longer fiction)

Do you mean to say you still aren't using a true hardware random number generator at home?!

-- Dissy

http://www.comcast.net/terms/use/

Get a player that uses two transistors in the output stage, like the first generation iPod Shuffle, instead of a transistor and a capacitor.

http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playertest.htm

No, seriously. That actually looks like a LOT of fun!

Buuuuuut, it also looks like a suicide machine. --I mean, ultralights are dangerous enough, but this one looks fantastically dangerous. Fixed wing aircraft still get to keep their wings in a strong wind.

But then, while pondering this 2003 U.S. Paragliding Accident Summary, (1 per 500 paragliders died in 2003) I was struck by the notion that, yeah, there are going to be some accidents, --that's the nature of tying yourself to a kite and jumping off a mountain-- BUT, this time the pilot is actually sitting inside a pretty awesome roll cage. And anyway, I bet there's at least one person dumber than me among those 499 other guys.

Sign me up!

-FL

The instruction set has an awful lot of bearing performance. The RISC ARM instruction set has only instructions that take exactly 1 cycle (last time I looked). This makes both efficiency and optimisation such as pipelining very effective. The CISC x86 instruction set has instructions that can last varying amounts of time. This makes things such as branch prediction misses expensive. To compensate for this x86 chips use a translator which turns the x86 into VLIW pseudo-RISC internally. Unfortunately this translator takes up most of the power and silicon real estate on the chip.

You can compare the instruction sets of ARM and x86. Writing assembler for the former is a dream, unlike the latter. Mhz for Mhz, ARM blows x86 away.

Phillip.

Actually, the iPod Shuffle has a considerably better built-in amplifier than the 'vanilla' iPod models. (This can be measured objectively)

Unfortunately, I haven't seen similar tests for more recent models. nor am I sure if Apple ever bothered to implement the Shuffle's push-pull design in other models.

Wrong. You would ask her if she fancies going out for a drink sometime.

Not really. Jeri Ryan doesn't do it for me. To each their own I suppose but I'm not a big fan of blonde hair and I had the misfortune of dating a German once......

http://home.comcast.net/~speedyturkey/nothitit.jpg

See Connections, Episode 1: "The Trigger Effect". James Burke is relevant today as it was in 1978. Episode Summary.

Assembler is the cusp where the electronics meet the software. It is a doorway to the underlying electrical concepts in one direction and algorithms and data structures in the other.

When we teach children history, we start at the cusps, the seminal events that change everything, and work both backwards and forwards so they can understand both the causes and the results. I don't see why IT learning should be different.

For grades 3-5 though, I'd make a game of it. That's how I learned it. We started with a pretend machine - a black box, and magic beans we fed it with. If you fed the beans in the right order, special things happened. It became a puzzle to figure out why the box worked in that way, and the best way to feed the beans. Gradually the game became more complex. There were other puzzles too. I remember one, when I was 7, that was a round puzzle box with eight levers. There were discs inside the puzzle box. You could move only one lever at a time, either toward the center or the outside. The thing was, the discs were so arranged so that you could move the levers in a binary pattern. In order to complete the puzzle you had to actually count from 0 to 255 in a form of binary called Gray code, though that wasn't apparent to me until much later. After a few days I could accomplish this in under a minute. Apparently this device is no longer in production, so a sample would need to be found and licensed.

I really need a copy of this "The Brain Puzzle" for my son, so if you have a source, even second hand, I would appreciate it.

1) Off-topic;
2) There are more than one gorgeous girls in the world;
3) You are the Fark geek, the virgin with high standards he could never achieve.

Allow me to introduce you to lanted ale.

Apparently, it'll be out in coming months:

http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use#tracking

However, they really should have released it first. It shouldn't be all that complicated to implement.

Oh really?

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

#13 1984 George Orwell, all time according to this list.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-01-16-top-100-books_N.htm

If you split up sci-fi and fantasy, then the first on this list is #16 Eclipse, a modern-day sci-fi story about vampires. If you keep them together, then Harry Potter would come in at #11; or for a "pure" sci-fi novel, I Am Legend comes in at #72 due to its re-release for the movie.

http://home.comcast.net/~antaylor1/waterstones100.html

Waterstone took a survey to find what people considered to be the 100 best novels of the past century; #1 is Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, #2 is Orwell's 1984 and #3 is Orwell's Animal Farm.

Finally, the current Amazon top 100:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books

As of this writing, the current #1 in book sis Brisingr, a fantasy novel by Christopher Paulini; again, if you consider fantasy and sci-fi to be the same. If you don't, then #5 is Twilight is another vampire novel set in the modern day or #52 Anathem, is a "pure" sci-fi book.

So...which lists of best books or novels were you looking at?

While I do not agree with the cap there are some things that we must realisitic accept.

1)Everything else we use is metered why not Broadband.

2)There are limits to provides for Highspeed but over time things change so hopefully for the better.

That being said comcast announced a change to there plans to its customers. Wether they actually do it or not is another story. I dislike how its being packaged/pushed out, but at least its being offered.

How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoid exceeding the limit?

We are in the process of creating a usage meter that will measure consumption for the Comcast account which will be available in the coming months. In the meantime, we offer a meter for free with our McAfee security suite available at http://security.comcast.net/

There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account. Comcast cannot verify that any tools customers may find themselves and use to measure data usage are accurate or without other flaws. Comcast's determination of each customer account's data usage is final.

It's important to note that when our new threshold goes into effect on October 1,2008 it will not change our practice around excessive use. We will continue to call only the top users who consume the most data each month, which is usually well over 250GB, which is the same practice we've had in place for several years.

Here's an email from one of Comcast's engineers recently sent to Dave Farber's Interesting People mailing list. It clarifies the policy quite well:

From: "Livingood, Jason"
Subject: Clarifying Misconceptions of the New Comcast Congestion Mgmt Syste

Hi Dave

I wanted to try to clear up a misconception about how the new Comcast congestion management system works. I believe we have both heard people complain that they fear that they will be unable to use their provisioned speeds during off-peak hours, for example, or at all times of the day, or that users are somehow throttled to a set speed. Neither of these two things are correct. Part of the problem appears to be confusion over how a user's traffic enters a lower priority QoS state, so I hope to clarify that here

In order for any traffic to be placed in a lower priority state, there must first be relatively high utilization on a given CMTS port. A CMTS port is an upstream or downstream link, or interface, on the CMTS in our network. The CMTS is basically an access network router, with HFC interfaces on the subscriber side, and GigE interfaces on the WAN/Internet side. Today, on average, about 275 cable modems share the same downstream port, and about 100 cable modems share the same upstream port (see page 5 of Attachment B of our Future Practices filing with the FCC, available at http://downloads.comcast.net/docs/Attachment_B_Future_Practices.pdf). We define a utilization threshold for downstream and upstream separately. For downstream traffic, a port must average over 80% utilization for 15 minutes or more. For upstream traffic, a port must average over 70% utilization for 15 minutes or more

When one of these threshold conditions has been met, we consider that individual port (not all ports on the CMTS) to be in a so-called Near Congestion State. This simply means that the pattern of usage is predictive of that network port approaching a point of high utilization, where congestion could soon occur. Then, and only then, do we search the most recent 15 minutes of user traffic on that specific port, in order to determine if a user has consumed more that 70% of their provisioned speed for greater than 15 minutes. By provisioned speed, we mean the "up to" or "burst to" speed of their service tier. This is typically something like (1) 8Mbps downstream / 2Mbps upstream or (2) 6Mbps downstream / 1Mbps upstream

So how does this work in action? Let's say that a downstream port has been at 85% utilization for more than 15 minutes. That specific downstream port is identified as being in a Near Congestion State since it exceeded an average of 80% over that time. We then look at the downstream usage of the ~275 cable modems using that downstream port. That port has a mix of users that have been provisioned either 8Mbps or 6Mbps, so 70% of their provisioned speed would be either 5.6Mbps or 4.2Mbps, respectively. So let's use the example of a user with 8Mbps/2Mbps service on this port. In order for their traffic to be marked with a lower priority on this downstream port, they must be consuming 5.6Mbps in the downstream direction for 15 minutes or more, while said port is highly utilized

Once that condition has been met, that user's downstream traffic is now tagged with the lower priority QoS level. This will have *no* effect whatsoever on the traffic of that user, until such time as an actual congestion moment subsequently occurs (IF it even occurs). Should congestion subsequently occur, traffic with a higher priority is handled first, followed by lower priority (and this is not a throttle to X speed)

I hope this helps. You can others can feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions
Regards
Jason Livingood
  - Engineering & Technical Operation

For verification, you can find the original in the IP Archives. Date of the email is 2008-09-24 12:37:35

I'm pretty sure that is against the policy you agreed to two years ago.

From the acceptable use agreement:

use or run programs from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN, except for personal and non-commercial residential use;

So yeah, if he's not charging for it or running it as/for a company, then he's more than welcome to tell his lawyer he's running a game server.

....and you will until 25 October.
RTFL
http://www.comcast.net/newsgroups/

"They are setting up their operations managers for an opportunity to fraudulently keep trimming the higher-usage customers off their bell curve."

http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use#tracking

How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoid exceeding the limit?

We are in the process of creating a usage meter that will measure consumption for the Comcast account which will be available in the coming months. In the meantime, we offer a meter for free with our McAfee security suite available at http://security.comcast.net/

There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account. Comcast cannot verify that any tools customers may find themselves and use to measure data usage are accurate or without other flaws. Comcast's determination of each customer account's data usage is final.

It's important to note that when our new threshold goes into effect on October 1,2008 it will not change our practice around excessive use. We will continue to call only the top users who consume the most data each month, which is usually well over 250GB, which is the same practice we've had in place for several years.

250Gb/Month should be interpreted as start of a billing cycle to end of a billing cycle. Just call and ask at the first day of a billing cycle and set your meter appropriately. You can figure out the rest.

"They are setting up their operations managers for an opportunity to fraudulently keep trimming the higher-usage customers off their bell curve."

http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use#tracking

How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoid exceeding the limit?

We are in the process of creating a usage meter that will measure consumption for the Comcast account which will be available in the coming months. In the meantime, we offer a meter for free with our McAfee security suite available at http://security.comcast.net/

There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search - for example, a search for "bandwidth meter" will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account. Comcast cannot verify that any tools customers may find themselves and use to measure data usage are accurate or without other flaws. Comcast's determination of each customer account's data usage is final.

It's important to note that when our new threshold goes into effect on October 1,2008 it will not change our practice around excessive use. We will continue to call only the top users who consume the most data each month, which is usually well over 250GB, which is the same practice we've had in place for several years.

250Gb/Month should be interpreted as start of a billing cycle to end of a billing cycle. Just call and ask at the first day of a billing cycle and set your meter appropriately. You can figure out the rest.

That's Comcast old (current) policy. Their new policy is documented in this page on their web site.

On page 11:
"As described above, the new approach will not manage congestion by focusing on managing the use of specific protocols. Nor will this approach use 'reset packets.'"

Are you seriously quoting Arthur Kellerman? I'll see your link to a partisan anti-gun website, and raise you four links that discredit his research. http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdgaga.html http://home.comcast.net/~dsmjd/tux/dsmjd/rkba/kellerman.htm http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,7217,00.html Arthur Kellerman also thinks you shouldn't be allowed to have an automated defibrillator in your home. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20040806/lifesaving-machine-over-counter He doesn't give a rat's ass if you live or die, as long as you aren't allowed to take care of yourself. Have you ever noticed that these anti-gun groups are all about preventing gun violence, but they never cry about any other type of violence? I've decided that they really don't care if you get murdered or raped or mugged, as long as it's not done with a gun.

I don't know about the first one, but the second has no real bearing on anything. McCain, for instance, was not born on American soil, but rather to two American parents who were in another country at the time of his birth. As such he is an American citizen and qualified to run for president.

Are you trying to rewrite the US constitution, or simply don't have a copy?

http://www.presidentsusa.net/qualifications.html

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President."

http://home.comcast.net/~sharonday7/Presidents/AP0601.htm
2. What does it mean in the Constitution when it says "natural born Citizen?"

From Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition: "Natural born citizen. Persons who are born within the jurisdiction of a national government, i.e. in its territorial limits, or those born of citizens temporarily residing abroad."

So the question is still here, where was he born. Was his parents US citizens at the time and if so, were they temporarily residing abroad?
When did his parents become US citizens? There are lots of unanswered questions. It is OK to ask questions even if the answers are not your liking.

DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink. How hard is it, really?

True, I can find DVDFab HD Decrypter just fine, but the first several results on Google for dvd shrink say "we're not allowed to host this nor tell you where it is hosted; use Google". So it is hard. That said, I use VirtualDub-MPEG2 and AC-3 ACM to turn DVDs into AVIs so that I can play them in a DivX player or use Avisynth to make remixes.