Slashdot Mirror

I used to do a lot of writing for various Commodore magazines, managed news areas on QuantumLink, PC-Link, America Online, Delphi and others. I had so many requests recently for information from my past articles and programs from my older C-64 Programmers Library that I put a copy online with a small token fee to access the files to help cover my internet access & hosting costs. It's amazing how much interest there has been in this old material.... for anyone interested, see http://home.comcast.net/~c64proglib/ for sample articles and more info..... Robert Baker

I don't see why the private contractual arrangments between you and your ISP would affect whether you are an ISP according to the DMCA. A few problems with your persoanl contractual arrangments wouldn't usually affect something like that.

As for forbidding "resharing", how on earth can they ask for that? Can I share with my wife? Kids? Friends? Boarders? Relatives? Guests?

That's a ridiculous clause if such things exist.

But what of the purported fact that the guy cannot get another OS on there? An effective rebuttal would include a good explanation why this problem occured; even better if it discussed a work-around or a fix.

Does anyone here have such a laptop? Would you care to install Linux on it as a test? Has anyone here tried? Did it work?

Actually, I've read the TOS, and you can opt out of agreeing to binding arbitration. Read it for yourself. ;P

"But if an ISP were to "offer this service" of bot detection, it would give the expectation that ISPs are responsible for network security. ISPs do not want to be responsible for network security. They don't even want to be perceived as being responsible for network security. There is no money in it for them. Even though every ISP has a AUP (acceptable use policy), there is little incentive for them to spend any money or effort (same thing) to enforce it."

Actually a few times ISP's did take charge, and shut them down. With the help of a third party that got involved, and sent proof etc to the ISP. If you also check your ISP's AUP you will notice a change in what reasons they give for shutting a user down for violating the AUP. They did not word it in some of these to sound like they are shutting down botnets, instead most shut them down because of excessive bandwidth usage, or spam, plus they include the "infected pc, etc.

In most of the AUP's I have read this evening they all have this clause in them...

From Earthlinks AUP
"Network disruptions and unfriendly activity. Using the Services for any activity which adversely affects the ability of other people or systems to use EarthLink Services or the Internet. This includes "denial of service" (DoS) attacks against another network host or individual user. Interference with or disruption of other network users, network services or network equipment is prohibited. It is the Member's responsibility to ensure that their network is configured in a secure manner. A Member may not, through action or inaction, allow others to use their network for illegal or inappropriate actions. A Member may not permit their network, through action or inaction, to be configured in such a way that gives a third party the capability to use their network in an illegal or inappropriate manner."

The AUP's are not the same word for word, but they do have this in most of the ones I have read. The action or inaction I believe is key in some of the AUP's. BellSouth / AT&T is similar to the Earthlink AUP however BellSouth comes right to the point.

Bellsouth... Through action or inaction allowing the transmission of files that contain a virus or corrupted data. In order to protect our subscribers and our network, BellSouth may suspend and/or cancel a subscriber's account if we believe that it is transmitting a virus to other Internet users or our network."

Comcast is a little different...
"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;"

Actually Comcast has a list from hell covering all bad stuff. http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp

I believe you are forgetting one thing... and that is ISP's are just as sick and tired of all the crap online, as the users are. They get their share of tech support calls, and have to deal with crapware bringing blocks of IPs to a crawl. I believe they get involved if their is a need for them to get involved, and yes I have heard of people being shut down, and I know of one couple personally that was shutdown. Their computer was nothing more than a spam box, and Earthlink shut their service off. The major argument going back and forth was the ISP said they was infected, and to clean up their computer. They said there was nothing wrong with their computer, it was just slow. They just didn't want to believe their computer was infected. It took their ISP shutting them down to open their eyes. This was sad, because this couple was only online like 4 to 6 months. Hardly enough time to learn what to expect online. But a lesson learned quickly in the

My sincerest apologies; you are absolutely correct.

The abuse policy http://www.comcast.net/terms/abuse.jsp does not state the hard number (despite our internal literature telling us differently.

A co-worker has stated that it "should" be on the agreement given to the customer at install; I'm looking into that now (yes I'm posting from work). If I can find an external link with the bandwidth cap stated, I'll repost it.

Previous 'grunts at the company' have stated many different figures, where does the 60GB come from? I scoured through the Comcast TOS (which consists, separately, of the Comcast Service Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy, and Abuse Policy, and does not appear to be available from comcast.com), no mention of 50GB anywhere, or any hard numbers, anywhere.

From the Service Agreement, though: Facilities Allocation. Comcast reserves the right to determine, in its discretion, and on an ongoing basis, the nature and extent of its facilities allocated to support HSI, including, but not limited to, the amount of bandwidth to be utilized and delivered in conjunction with HSI.

Basically, like people have been complaining about for years, it can easily be a moving target, and they can terminate your account without having to tell you either what the hard limits are, OR what generally acceptable numbers are.

Back when I had Comcast, they started sending me nasty letters after I was just using 10GB/month (mind, in a college city, too!), and trust me, there are lots of ways to fill up a *lot* of bandwidth besides BT, particularly with faster, larger, higher capacity games, online video, music, nevermind what percentage of HTTP bandwidth comes back down to advertising.

Comcast doesn't seem like a very good company to begin with, though. In my first-hand experience, they're rotten. I'd been acquired through their buying out AT&T Broadband Internet cable service, it hadn't been so much of a hassle, except that they had given everyone else new cable modems out of it, and even though I was still renting mine, they refused to do anything about mine, which had given consistently low speeds and generated a ton of heat. This wasn't even the biggest problem. When it came time to move, I had tried a half-dozen or more times to cancel the service before moving, but they refused, because I had really been a customer of ATTBI, and so, they told me they had no obligation to allow me to simply discontinue service, since, apparently, I wasn't even really in the system. Despite numerous attempts both over the phone and in-person, they would just not let me discontinue service. I still had to move. Of course, even when I tried to return the modem, they started going on about how that wasn't Comcast equipment, so they couldn't accept a return, a month later, they charge me for several months of supposedly unpaid service (when I had only moved a month before), and the modem, when they refused to handle anything in a remotely sane manner.

So, it doesn't really surprise me in the slightest when people consistently have problems and fears over Comcast discontinuing their service, since they never announce even so much as a safety margin on how much you can use. Though, other people have stated figures quite different from 60gb numerous times, too.

Previous 'grunts at the company' have stated many different figures, where does the 60GB come from? I scoured through the Comcast TOS (which consists, separately, of the Comcast Service Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy, and Abuse Policy, and does not appear to be available from comcast.com), no mention of 50GB anywhere, or any hard numbers, anywhere.

From the Service Agreement, though: Facilities Allocation. Comcast reserves the right to determine, in its discretion, and on an ongoing basis, the nature and extent of its facilities allocated to support HSI, including, but not limited to, the amount of bandwidth to be utilized and delivered in conjunction with HSI.

Basically, like people have been complaining about for years, it can easily be a moving target, and they can terminate your account without having to tell you either what the hard limits are, OR what generally acceptable numbers are.

Back when I had Comcast, they started sending me nasty letters after I was just using 10GB/month (mind, in a college city, too!), and trust me, there are lots of ways to fill up a *lot* of bandwidth besides BT, particularly with faster, larger, higher capacity games, online video, music, nevermind what percentage of HTTP bandwidth comes back down to advertising.

Comcast doesn't seem like a very good company to begin with, though. In my first-hand experience, they're rotten. I'd been acquired through their buying out AT&T Broadband Internet cable service, it hadn't been so much of a hassle, except that they had given everyone else new cable modems out of it, and even though I was still renting mine, they refused to do anything about mine, which had given consistently low speeds and generated a ton of heat. This wasn't even the biggest problem. When it came time to move, I had tried a half-dozen or more times to cancel the service before moving, but they refused, because I had really been a customer of ATTBI, and so, they told me they had no obligation to allow me to simply discontinue service, since, apparently, I wasn't even really in the system. Despite numerous attempts both over the phone and in-person, they would just not let me discontinue service. I still had to move. Of course, even when I tried to return the modem, they started going on about how that wasn't Comcast equipment, so they couldn't accept a return, a month later, they charge me for several months of supposedly unpaid service (when I had only moved a month before), and the modem, when they refused to handle anything in a remotely sane manner.

So, it doesn't really surprise me in the slightest when people consistently have problems and fears over Comcast discontinuing their service, since they never announce even so much as a safety margin on how much you can use. Though, other people have stated figures quite different from 60gb numerous times, too.

Previous 'grunts at the company' have stated many different figures, where does the 60GB come from? I scoured through the Comcast TOS (which consists, separately, of the Comcast Service Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy, and Abuse Policy, and does not appear to be available from comcast.com), no mention of 50GB anywhere, or any hard numbers, anywhere.

From the Service Agreement, though: Facilities Allocation. Comcast reserves the right to determine, in its discretion, and on an ongoing basis, the nature and extent of its facilities allocated to support HSI, including, but not limited to, the amount of bandwidth to be utilized and delivered in conjunction with HSI.

Basically, like people have been complaining about for years, it can easily be a moving target, and they can terminate your account without having to tell you either what the hard limits are, OR what generally acceptable numbers are.

Back when I had Comcast, they started sending me nasty letters after I was just using 10GB/month (mind, in a college city, too!), and trust me, there are lots of ways to fill up a *lot* of bandwidth besides BT, particularly with faster, larger, higher capacity games, online video, music, nevermind what percentage of HTTP bandwidth comes back down to advertising.

Comcast doesn't seem like a very good company to begin with, though. In my first-hand experience, they're rotten. I'd been acquired through their buying out AT&T Broadband Internet cable service, it hadn't been so much of a hassle, except that they had given everyone else new cable modems out of it, and even though I was still renting mine, they refused to do anything about mine, which had given consistently low speeds and generated a ton of heat. This wasn't even the biggest problem. When it came time to move, I had tried a half-dozen or more times to cancel the service before moving, but they refused, because I had really been a customer of ATTBI, and so, they told me they had no obligation to allow me to simply discontinue service, since, apparently, I wasn't even really in the system. Despite numerous attempts both over the phone and in-person, they would just not let me discontinue service. I still had to move. Of course, even when I tried to return the modem, they started going on about how that wasn't Comcast equipment, so they couldn't accept a return, a month later, they charge me for several months of supposedly unpaid service (when I had only moved a month before), and the modem, when they refused to handle anything in a remotely sane manner.

So, it doesn't really surprise me in the slightest when people consistently have problems and fears over Comcast discontinuing their service, since they never announce even so much as a safety margin on how much you can use. Though, other people have stated figures quite different from 60gb numerous times, too.

You further agree to comply with all Comcast network, bandwidth, and data storage and usage limitations. You shall ensure that your bandwidth consumption using the Service does not exceed the limitations that are now in effect or may be established in the future.

I got your "Walrus" entry right here...

http://www.comcast.net/terms/abuse.jsp\

read the last section there, jethros & debras of slashdot... and be careful what you bitch about. These ISPs could always institute hard limits and start ganking access left and right for the 2% of hardcore users that cost 30% percent of the infrastructure issues.

I happen to know that comcast leaves it open ended so that you can get yer downloads when you need them. they pad the pipes, so to speak, to overcome slowdowns from peak usage. they go out to neighborhoods and split nodes (i.e., install multi-million dollar, carrier grade blinkenlights) as soon as projections of node saturation look so-so. they even release excess node capacity for big downloads if it's there.

the whiny whingers in this article, the ones that got cut off, were either jamming things up with a massive list of active torrents or worse, ignantly running a heavily infected computer and refusing to get it cleaned up. either way, it's selfish and stupid behavior.

as to the reporter who crafted this warm and fuzzy story well, he/she has played you like a hand of cribbage.

Did the people read their terms of service? Or did they think the "unlimited" meant they could do what ever they want. Comcast, along with most ISPs are smart enough to protect themselves.

Excerpt from the Comcast High Speed Internet Terms of service is below. Full terms in link.

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

Network, Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitations

Comcast may provide versions of the Service with different speeds and bandwidth usage limitations, among other characteristics, subject to applicable Service plans. You shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or impede Comcast's ability to deliver and provide the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network services.

You further agree to comply with all Comcast network, bandwidth, and data storage and usage limitations. You shall ensure that your bandwidth consumption using the Service does not exceed the limitations that are now in effect or may be established in the future. If your use of the Service results in the consumption of bandwidth in excess of the applicable limitations, that is a violation of this Policy. In such cases, Comcast may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your Service account or request that you subscribe to a version of the Service with higher bandwidth usage limitations if you wish to continue to use the Service at higher bandwidth consumption levels.

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 configure the Service or any related equipment to access or use a static IP address or use any protocol other than DHCP unless you are subject to a Service plan that expressly permits otherwise.

Linux takes way too much space for an embedded OS and REQUIRES a 32-bit cpu.

If you're not using all the features of the kernel you can strip it down (2.6 is even more modular than previous) and get it under a megabyte. You can use fbui and for another ~50kB get a gui with a window mangler in the kernel. uClinux runs on more limited systems (including those without MMUs). It runs on several 16 bit platforms, for example H8 300S.

It's also quite complex and therefore better suited to larger and more featureful devices. Even there, the numerous distributions lack of standards and standardized packaging and nonstandard GUI hampers it.

There is no support for your argument that it is better suited to larger and more featureful devices, because again, you can strip portions out of it.

Since these aren't desktop devices, your complaints about desktop linux are utterly irrelevant.

That's the reason why PalmOS, Symbian, QNX and wxworks exist. Not to mention eCos, uOS, FreeRTOS etc. Linux is not simply the best tool for the job. Linux is the best tool for certain jobs, the rest will require you to choose. The mobile market is just too diverse to standardize.

All of those exist because Linux was not ready to do those jobs (or didn't exist) when they were created. Many of them have no reason to exist now, except that they are better-supported than Linux (a correctable problem) or that they are FAR smaller, in which case they are not really suitable for a mobile phone either because you will have to develop too much of the software. Which is why we use operating systems and don't just write one big program.

Holy smokes! Thanks for that tip. FYI: http://home.comcast.net/~fbui/

Now, I've got to figure out how to get freevo to run on it. The Intel framebuffer is not playing nice on my freevo/mythtv box and this is one answer.

This came as no surprise to me "August 2006: Inclusion of FBUI windowing system into the Linux kernel has been blocked by Linux framebuffer developers. This illustrates one major defect of how the Linux project is managed: those who control it are no more responsive or responsible to the public's needs or wants than are Microsoft's managers." People....

Karlheinz Brandenburg did much of his work on MP3 as a postdoc working under JJ Johnston at Bell Labs. JJ Johnston had done pioneering work on the psychoacoustic aspects of audio encoding, including a codec called PAC (Perceptual Audio Codec). Do a patent search for audio patents under the name "James D. Johnston".

JJ Johnston later went on to help develop AAC. These days, JJ Johnston works at Microsoft, developing audio technology.

In 2006 the IEEE awarded the James L. Flanagan Speech & Audio Processing Award to JJ Johnston.

http://home.comcast.net/~retired_old_jj/

http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/about/awards/bios /2006FlanaganSpeechAudioProcessingAward.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ex-bell-labs -researcher-played-role/story.aspx?guid=%7B6D73DA9 E-AA07-4A2B-9D2B-25C7815974A3%7D&dist=MostReadHome

Have you tried any of the newer CFL's with non-magnetic ballasts? The oscilation frequency is now much higher, beyond what the human
eye can typically perceive.

Also, CFL's come in a range of color temperatures, some of which match "warm yellow" from traditional incandescents. They're not all "hard white".

A quick reference: http://medfordcan.home.comcast.net/Myths.html

How Would You Deal With A Global Bandwidth Crisis?

It bugs me that when I buy bandwidth, I don't really get bandwidth. It's like the airlines used to be: oversold, on the assumption there will be no shows. But when there aren't, the people who've paid for a service don't get it.

So I guess you could have a mode where it told you there was a shortage and asked for volunteers to get bumped for a few days, perhaps in exchange for free bandwidth later (or free porn or whatever it is that people want to trade for in order to get them to voluntarily stand down). But that sounds like it still relies on someone to be willing to give up. If they're expecting to die of bird flu tomorrow, you might find a lot of people who want to watch YouTube or some porn site today before it's too late and don't really care to trade it away.

But I think a better solution would be to have selling someone bandwidth really mean selling them bandwidth. Stop all these stupid clauses in access providers saying you can't resell bandwidth (because those are just there to keep you from exposing the overselling of bandwidth they've supposedly promised you anyway and it should be your right to resell what you've legally purchased). Create large monetary penalties for any provider who sells you bandwidth and doesn't really reserve it for you.

No, I'm not anti-capitalism. I don't mind someone selling the notion of gambling on getting bandwidth and getting a cheaper price. I just don't think that should be sold by saying you're getting x bandwidth. It should be like on credit cards where you have to disclose the info in a manner plain for anyone to know, not hidden in terms of service that the gigantically fonted numbers about how fast the connection will be is not necessarily reliably there... and certainly if you're going to be in trouble for trying to use the capacity of what you're given, that should be in big letters, too. Just like the credit cards have the Schumer Box, broadband agreements should expose things like: what's the worst case? how much is it oversold? will it go down if everyone uses it at once? will it go down if more people in your neighborhood buy? under what circumstancse do they commit to increase bandwidth? With proper labeling, I have a lot fewer objections.

But also, if after proper labeling I find there's no one in my area who will sell reliable bandwidth and everyone will only sell me probabilistic bandwidth, that's significant, too. Right now, a lot of places probably figure they have broadband reliably available when really they have it only probabilistically available (that is, oversold).

It seems to me the reason bandwidth might fall short in an event like a bird flu emergency (if it might--and that's hard to know) is that there's no serious recourse to the consumer if it does. And so what's the motivation for vendors to even care?

RCN itemizes the resale of what you've paid for in bandwidth as Theft of Service.

Comcast restricts you from offering the service to others, as well as telling you that even if you use it for yourself, you (not they) are responsible for making sure your use is within the scope of what you were sold (as if the typical Joe Sixpack is going to know how to assure his use of YouTube is within such bounds) and warns you that if you exceed your quota, they can shut you down at their discretion

Time-Warner Cable has similar restrictions.

Verizon is alleged to be quite overly strict in similar ways. They make a point of noting that Verizon advertises itself as offering a service

Most of what you read over seas is way blown over hyperbole of small isolated events.

Well, put those "small isolated events" together and you get a very frightening picture, and it probably takes a lot of looking the other way to ignore that. Here's a quite provocative collection of those "small isolated events"; I don't fully agree with the conclusions made there, but as you are trying to trivialize the things happening in the US, I find it acceptable to emote a litte, because of the importance of the subject. BTW, many of the sources quoted there are US based...

And the USA is fast becoming a Police State:

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html

The 6808 micro-controller (long version of the name is M9S08GB60) would be excellent for teaching a class on robotics. As its been around since the dawn of time, there's a lot of support readily available for it. Complete, detailed reference manuals are freely available, Freescale will even ship printed copies to you for free. Compilers are available that allow you to program in your choice of assembly, C, or C+. The "M68DEMO908GB60" demo board is available from many online retailers for around $50 which makes it easier to use the microcontroller for prototyping as well as experimentation and class labs.

What lends the 6808 microcontroller is its Pulse-Width-Modulation components (it has 2 modules, one with 5 channels and the other with 3 channels and all channels can be set up for either incoming our outgoing). In addition to all that it runs up to 40MHz without cooling and includes 4K of RAM and 60K of ROM all on-die, so no extra chips for those. It has more power than you could ever hope to use in a class-room.

A good example project is available here: http://home.comcast.net/~starwreck/FinalReport.pdf

I must be in the brainless zone today. I cannot find this highly publicized and promoted list of IP numbers. We got articles, we got links, but IP numbers? Ogg not find. Ogg feeling stupid. Embarrass family. Ogg need know if his IP number on list, even though he regularly change router's WAN ethernet number, get new IP from glomcast. Ogg spend much time nmapping spammers. Running nessus. Ogg probably on someone's list as troublemaker. Ogg not care. Tired of UEC not from wild boar.

Download a copy of Female Alert System. This lovely piece of software has kept me from going nuts trying to figure out why one day my wife is all over me and I can do no wrong, to the next day she wants nothing to do with me and I can do no right. Seriously, this little freeware from Heaven is a Godsend. All you do is plug in her last start date and cycle length and it calculates what mood she's in for any given day. Ridiculously accurate, so you know what days to suggest that you need to buy a new MacPro and 1TB RAID, and what days to "work late" (fragging.)

I AM a rocket scientist!

Well, actually, seriously, I'd hate to get a job at one of these places and then end up finding it tedious and hating it, the way I end up hating everything once I get into Type-A workaholic mode.

I AM a rocket scientist!

Well, actually, seriously, I'd hate to get a job at one of these places and then end up finding it tedious and hating it, the way I end up hating everything once I get into Type-A workaholic mode.

Yikes. Looks like fun with tin-foil.

Specifically this one:

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/Erection.html

You would be a fool to ignore...

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/Erection.html

Island, schmiland. You need to know this:

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/Erection.html

However, since most MP3 player users use lossy compression, the default headphones (if they haven't stepped on them yet) or else a FM transmitter for their car, aren't trained to hear subtle nuances, and listen to music that's been electronically squashed and modified to sound "good" on substandard equipment, the phrase "good enough" probably applies to any half-decent MP3 player for the vast majority of users. They definitely sound far better than the 3rd generation dubbed casette tapes I often listened to in high school, of course rewinding tapes by hand with a pencil in class to save on walkman batteries...

I use a 1G shuffle, but only when I go to the gym, so I'm having to compete with whatever's playing on the radio and the thwap-thwap of the headphone cord tugging on my ear, so it's hardly an audiophile listening experience regardless of the quality of the output stage... I suppose for people who listen to lossless classical music on their iPods in anechoic chambers probably have different needs than I do.

Yeah, the medium-power DC standard is called "twelve volts on a pair of Powerpoles", and all my DC-capable laptop chargers have been modded to take it as input.

For less power, there's USB. For more power, AC is usually appropriate, but the larger Powerpole connectors (SB 350 series in particular) are common on truck winches, tow truck jumper cables, golf carts, and electric forklifts.

Bush and company perpetrated 9/11. There is a huge amount of evidence. http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/911.html The USA is becoming a police state. http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html

Bush and company perpetrated 9/11. There is a huge amount of evidence. http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/911.html The USA is becoming a police state. http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html

Of course not. But it's good to know why:

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/atheism.html

I think someone has fuel injection covered already. Check out this experimental do-it-yourself programmable electronic fuel injection controller. And it seems the nature of that fuel injection project would work just fine for an open source car. Even supports wideband O2 and a decent range of tuning, so you could hotrod your OScar if this was used. Throw in a Megaspark, put it on a common board and you've got a workable ECU.

With a Christian nut & oil man in the Whitehouse, we're screwed. All the scientists should move to one state and then that one should secede from the country. http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html

I've been an NBC NCO so I've spent a fair amount of time wearing a gasmask in a room filled with teargas, and this has happened to me, so I know what being burned feels like, but still the mental image of some protester type chaining himself to a pole wearing a leaky gasmask full of terargas while half-drowning in the snot and phelum, then franticaly searching for the key while being blasted by a "pain-ray", just cracked me up.

I buy the CD for anything I deem worth the best sound reproduction my system(s) can produce (I also buy Vinyl - with the MFSL Master of Madeleine Peyroux's Careless Love my most recent vinyl acquisition).

As it happened, I had never heard Peyroux (she is fantastic and appears to channel Billie Holiday on a couple of cuts) until she was showcased on Bill Shapiro's Cypress Avenue show on NPR. I bought the iTunes copy the same day.

After a week, I bought the CD.

Within a month I bought the MFSL Master on Vinyl.

I know what I like. I know what I can hear. Do you? Here is a test: audio geeks try this at home - lightly rub yout thumb and forefinger together - it makes a "whispery whisking" sound and is an effective test for high-end hearing loss. The trick is to have somebody do this from behind you -starting an inch or so behind an ear. You can't see - but if you hear then the test goes on - alternating ears and distance - you can have a pretty good approximation of your hearing acuity if you can hear the whisper 5 inches (12.5 cm) away from your ear(s).

If you can't hear it - forget about fidelity - you can't tell with your instruments (ears).

As for me - I'll give my stereos and speakers the best rating and for portable I think my 1st Gen iPod Shuffle (1Gig) with Apple Lossless encoding and Etymotic ER-6 or B&O Form 2 'phones come as close as any portable ever will (the ER-6's sound better than the B&O but they are a pain to properly seat; require frequent replacement of soiled components; and, are uncomfortable for long sessions - but the sound and isolation are worth the trouble).

Why the shuffle? Better fidelity - http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playe rtest.htm/

I have a 5.5 gen 80 Gig and the Shuffle still sounds better.

I like Jews, I prefer them over some Christians, but there are too damn many of them in the media establishment. It colors everything we see on TV, hear on the radio, and in this case, see on the Web. Check out Project Censored sometime to see what the media people don't want you to know. http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/tally.html

I'm afraid it's still an issue. Despite the technology being available and cheap, mass consumer electronics does tend to cut corners in ways that are hard to understand.

This is old, but it's a good example how bad it can be:
http://home.comcast.net/~machrone/playertest/playe rtest.htm

Let's think about that:
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/islamcult.html

Won't the water boil off pretty rapidly in a near-vacuum at 30 degrees C?
Definitely, in organic we used buchner funnels to filter materials with a vacuum assist and it was impressive to watch water boiling by being heated with body heat because I was hold the flask in my hand. I think that on Mars a person might actually be able to freeze to death no matter what the air temperature is because each gram of body fluids boiling away take 500 calories with it. The depth of skin that is actually able to hold fluids is pretty thin and the difference between dry skin and a steady dripping isn't much.

"Actually, houses of yesteryear and today also other things in common: doors, floors, walls, roofs, attics, windows, closets, bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms..."

I couldn't figure this one out, either. I do have a guess as to where he lives.

"9. Install Firefox"

You mean that when you install Firefox, user is unable to download pamela_nude.exe files from internet and execute them? It doesn't really matter which browser user has if they install all that fancy stuff (like Windows themes, screensavers, MSN Messenger plugins, heck FF plugins) that comes with bunchload of malware, spyware, whatever. But your points 5 and 6 helps alot on this.

Btw. here's a nice web page http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyt hs.html

The 4004 tic tac toe hardware from their unofficial site looks wicked ... http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jsweinrich/. I never thought I'd be drooling over electronic tic tac toe!

http://kilowattradio.home.comcast.net/linux2micros oft.jpg

...what's funny is the interactions he has with americans. ... To me at least, the talking about backwater Kazakhstan, it's amusing... but the real gold is when he talks about it to other people and they show their ignorance

In Canada, you must also understand sarcasm. A good study reference is here

The USA is rapidly becoming a police state. Bush is making all the preparations so that, when he engineers the next "terrorist" attack, he will take control and become the Fuehrer of the soon-to-be North American Union (NAU).

See more here:
http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/911.html

http://malfy.org/

Try my Refresh Folder Applescript here: http://home.comcast.net/~ryangray/applescript/ put it on your finder toolbar. Unfortunately, I think my Command Window Here script is not working lately. I may have to work in it.