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Yes I am, and my citation is personal experience AND testable results which can be quickly verified on your computer.

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/redelm/

Run this. Right now. One for EACH core of your CPU. Idle process/nice 19. Do it on Linux (livecd works) and Windows.

Try using Firefox when you completely set it up. Please report the results.

Bios do decompress themselves, at least for the menus. Maybe the SATA locking code would be uncompressed, I'm not sure.

I still think you're underestimating the complexity of finding the code in the Bios and patching it. A human could do it, automating the process is not so trivial. There are after all a lot of ways to send a command to a drive, even a drive one one interface (there are two at the moment, AHCI for native SATA and ATA for IDE and SATA in emulation mode). If you asked two people to do it, they would each produce slightly different code and hacking it out would require a different set of bytes being patched.

If you just scan for the command byte, you'd probably get a lot of hits. Change 'em all and you'll brick the machine.

Awdflash is updated regularly, according to this guy

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jefn/bootblock.html
Always ensure that you use the correct version of Awdflash.exe! Phoenix/Award regularly updates Awdflash.exe program to support ever-changing hardware.

See, all boards with an Award Bios can't be flashed in the exact same way.

You couldn't use this in malware since you need to boot into Dos.

Asus have a Bios update tool which runs unders Windows which they make sure works on all their boards

http://support.asus.com/technicaldocuments/technicaldocuments_content.aspx?no=714

It's not like all of their boards use the same instructions to do the update though. An update tool needs to have a driver, essentially for each board it supports. That's the reason awdflash and the Windows Bios flash tools often have to be updated when they launch a new board.

And you have to support AMI Bioses too.

Actually someone tried this before

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH#Virus_specifics

CIH spreads under the Portable Executable file format under Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME. CIH does not spread under Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista. Non Microsoft operating systems are not affected. CIH infects Portable Executable files by splitting the bulk of its code into small slivers inserted into the inter-section gaps commonly seen in PE files, and writing a small re-assembly routine and table of its own code segments' locations into unused space in the tail of the PE header. This earned CIH another name, "Spacefiller". The size of the virus is around 1 kilobyte, but due to its novel multiple-cavity infection method, infected files do not grow at all. It uses methods of jumping from processor ring 3 to 0 to hook system calls.

The payload, which is considered extremely dangerous, first involves the virus overwriting the first megabyte (1024KB) of the hard drive with zeroes, beginning at sector 0. This deletes the contents of the partition table, and may cause the machine to hang.

The second payload tries to write to the Flash BIOS. Due to what may be an unintended feature of this code, BIOSes that can be successfully written to by the virus have critical boot-time code replaced with junk. This routine only works on some machines. Much emphasis has been put on machines with motherboards based on the Intel 430TX chipset, but by far the most important variable in CIH's success in writing to a machine's BIOS is the type of Flash ROM chip in the machine. Different Flash ROM chips (or chip families) have different write-enable routines specific to those chips. CIH makes no attempt to test for the Flash ROM type in its victim machines, and has only one write-enable sequence.

Note it only worked in 16 bit Windows. Now the 430TX chipset looks like it has the Bios connected to the ISA bus.

http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/290562.pdf

It mentions a hardware write

Maybe, but I'm hesitant to believe that. I'm a digital circuits guy... individual bits don't just disappear. They either flip or get corrected, or masses and droves of them disappear. It seems weird that their product would randomly and "frequently" flip bits. Please post an article or something outlining more clearly exactly what you're talking about.

It's not that it "flips" random bits, is that it does sample rate conversion (so that it does all its internal operations at 48k samples per second), which cannot be done without "changing bits." The SBLive and Audigy cards to ALL their internal processing at 48kHz. A digital output of a 44.1k signal through one of these cards gets converted to 48k and back to 44.1k. The bits don't come back the same. Whether the SOUND is similar enough to the original is a different argument.

So anyway, sorry for being longwinded... please cite a source which explains this phenomenon pertaining to SoundBlaster Live and Audigy products.

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/hamakerd/sbsrc/

There's actually a theory that renders your theory irrelevant. Let's say for a moment that CUBIC NATURE IS OMNIFIC, INFINITE, INEFFABLE, AND ON DUTY. Singularity is the death math
of religious/academic Godism.

Seriously, have you read your crackpot? "Why Software Is Bad"? "Simple Proof that Nothing Can Move in Spacetime"? At least Time Cube is funny.

There's actually a theory that renders your theory irrelevant. Let's say for a moment that CUBIC NATURE IS OMNIFIC, INFINITE, INEFFABLE, AND ON DUTY. Singularity is the death math
of religious/academic Godism.

Seriously, have you read your crackpot? "Why Software Is Bad"? "Simple Proof that Nothing Can Move in Spacetime"? At least Time Cube is funny.

There's actually a theory on this that renders this question irrelevant.

Space, as we know it, is a place in which matter and energy exist. Particles can be attributed a "position" within space relative to some other object in space, giving rise to the concept of "distance," which gives rise to all kinds of theories, relativity among them. In this model, we assume the existence of space and, ergo, the "position" of any given particle within space is an extrinsic property of that particle (i.e. assigned to it by an outside parameter, in this case, it's relative placement in space).

Flip that around for a moment and consider the opposite. Let's say for a moment that we don't assume the existence of space, but rather space as we know it is an illusion created by our perceptions. Since there is now no extrinsic parameter by which to assign a "position" to any given particle, the "position" of a particle must then be an intrinsic property (i.e. inherent to) of the particle which defines how we perceive it (or, more specifically, where we perceive it) in this illusion of space.

Now the question of the bounds of the universe is irrelevant, because space is an illusion generated by our perceptions of the intrinsic "positions" of particles.

Anyways, here's a page describing the theory in greater detail.

The new AT&T privacy policy is here. Under "Scope", it states that, "Additional privacy policies apply to certain AT&T services, including AT&T Yahoo! Dial, High Speed Internet and Small Business[...]". The linked privacy policy for DSL is here, where the language hasn't been changed since 2004; it looks similar to the old language people here are quoting.

That said, having just renewed my DSL contract, I'm not pleased with the way things are looking for AT&T's privacy policies. Still, not having AT&T as your ISP is no guarantee that your data/phone connection/etc won't travel over their lines. It's still unclear exactly what major telecoms are providing to the NSA, but the idea of the NSA going against its own tradition and monitoring US citizens' communications is very unsettling.

Responding to my own reply, this looks like it only applies to ATT Yahoo internet (Dialup, DSL) and video, and has nothing to do with ATT wireless (ok, Cingular), voice (including POTS), etc. Somebody posted a link to the actual privacy policy in question here.

Here are links to the new policy and the current policy.

So why then does SBC have you pick one of 16 locations "close to you" rather than the default speedtest location?

Traceroutes indicate you are within "their network" and AT&T's own PR would have you believe this is the case as well.

Of course, I expect AMD's production testing dept to have far better code, since they will devote more job hours to it and know proprietary chip details. Still, different parts of AMD as emailed me several times to thank me because they found the pgms useful. Great.

But these guys know what they're doing. Heat transfer from the hot multipliers has to be carefully analysed [3D finite element heat transfer analysis]. I suspect something far more mundane, like someone reducing die or slug thickness, or a mfg problem with the die/slug gap or thermal goop.

Just from reading the replies here, I think it becomes clear that opinions on which browsers and versions one should keep supporting are as varied as the userbase itself is.

EG. If I ask a Windows user this question, I'm far less likely to get an argument from them that support for browsers like Opera is worthwhile than if I ask a Linux user. By the same token, anyone still hanging onto to "legacy" Macs running MacOS 9.2 or earlier is going to be worried about pages rendering properly in IE 5.17 for Mac - a product that's largely misunderstood by anyone *not* using older Macs. (People tend to think it's equivalent to IE 5.x for Windows, or even IE 6 for Windows - and it's just not.)

Personally, I have real issues with companies deciding that "IE 6 support is good enough". *Maybe* that's true for an in-house package that relies heavily on Active-X components - but even then, you have to question the wisdom of marrying the project to a specific product.

A good example of this concept miserably failing is SBC's user registration site for DSL sign-ups. (https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net/ They designed it to priamrily be auto-displayed by IE 6 when it's launched from inside their setup program on CD. But if that setup fails to complete properly for some reason, or a user has reasons not to sign up that way (like maybe they're a Mac or Linux user?), they get instructed to visit this site by hand in their browser and create their new user account/email that way. Unfortunately, I can't even get the "Next" and "I Agree" type buttons to display properly when I view this site in FireFox/Mozilla, IE 5.23 for Mac OS X, or even Apple's Safari browser! Last time I set up new DSL service for a client using all Macs, I had to bring along a Windows laptop just to get their user account created!

birth of the P-P-P-Powerbook

1. From the Apple menu (in the top-left corner of the screen), select System Preferences.
2. In the System Preferences window, select Network.
3. From the "Location" drop-down menu, select New Location. You will be asked to name your location. You should name it something simple that you will remember, like "SBCYahoo."
4. From the "Show" drop down menu, select Built-in Ethernet.
5. Next, click on the PPPoE tab and fill out the fields.
6. • Check Connect Using PPPoE.
   • Under "Account Name," enter sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net.
   • In the "Password" field, enter sbcyahooreg (Please note that passwords are case sensitive. If you enter an incorrect password, OS X does not generate an error message.)
7. Click PPPoE Options.
8. • Under "Session Options," make sure Connect automatically when starting TCP/IP applications is checked. The other Session Options choices are optional.
   • Under "Advanced Options," Send PPP echo packets should be checked.
9. Click OK.
10. Click Apply Now and close the window.
11. Open Internet Explorer (included with OS X) and type the following URL in the Address field: https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net
12. Follow the directions on screen. When you are finished, write your new account information down and keep it in a safe place.

Once registration is complete, you'll need to enter your new account information in the "Network" settings under "System Preferences."

1. From the Apple menu, select System Preferences > Network.
2. Select the location that you created in Step 3.
3. From the "Show" drop down menu, select Built-in Ethernet.
4. Click on the PPPoE tab.
5. • Make sure Connect using PPPoE is checked.
   • In the "Account Name" field, Delete sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net. Enter your SBC Yahoo! Member ID (your entire email address, e.g. YourMemberID@sbcglobal.net)
   • In the "Password" field, replace sbcyahooreg with your own SBC Yahoo! password. OS X saves your password by default. (Please note that passwords are case sensitive.)
6. Click Apply Now.
7. Close the window and open Internet Explorer to access the Internet. If your homepage doesn't automatically default to yahoo.sbc.com,you mayset it to do so at this time.

If you cannot access the Registration Site while following the procedure above, take these additional steps:

1. On your desktop, double-click the Macintosh HD icon.
2. Double-click the Applications folder.
3. Double-click the Internet Connect application.
4. In the "Configuration" drop-down menu, make sure that Built-in Ethernet is selected.
5. • Ensure that sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net is displayed under the "Name" field.
   • Re-enter sbcyahooreg in the "Password" field (you must enter the password in lowercase).
   • Click Connect.
6. Once you are connected, open Internet Explorer and go to Step 9 above for registration instructions.

1. From the Apple menu (in the top-left corner of the screen), select System Preferences.
2. In the System Preferences window, select Network.
3. From the "Location" drop-down menu, select New Location. You will be asked to name your location. You should name it something simple that you will remember, like "SBCYahoo."
4. From the "Show" drop down menu, select Built-in Ethernet.
5. Next, click on the PPPoE tab and fill out the fields.
6. • Check Connect Using PPPoE.
   • Under "Account Name," enter sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net.
   • In the "Password" field, enter sbcyahooreg (Please note that passwords are case sensitive. If you enter an incorrect password, OS X does not generate an error message.)
7. Click PPPoE Options.
8. • Under "Session Options," make sure Connect automatically when starting TCP/IP applications is checked. The other Session Options choices are optional.
   • Under "Advanced Options," Send PPP echo packets should be checked.
9. Click OK.
10. Click Apply Now and close the window.
11. Open Internet Explorer (included with OS X) and type the following URL in the Address field: https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net
12. Follow the directions on screen. When you are finished, write your new account information down and keep it in a safe place.

Once registration is complete, you'll need to enter your new account information in the "Network" settings under "System Preferences."

1. From the Apple menu, select System Preferences > Network.
2. Select the location that you created in Step 3.
3. From the "Show" drop down menu, select Built-in Ethernet.
4. Click on the PPPoE tab.
5. • Make sure Connect using PPPoE is checked.
   • In the "Account Name" field, Delete sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net. Enter your SBC Yahoo! Member ID (your entire email address, e.g. YourMemberID@sbcglobal.net)
   • In the "Password" field, replace sbcyahooreg with your own SBC Yahoo! password. OS X saves your password by default. (Please note that passwords are case sensitive.)
6. Click Apply Now.
7. Close the window and open Internet Explorer to access the Internet. If your homepage doesn't automatically default to yahoo.sbc.com,you mayset it to do so at this time.

If you cannot access the Registration Site while following the procedure above, take these additional steps:

1. On your desktop, double-click the Macintosh HD icon.
2. Double-click the Applications folder.
3. Double-click the Internet Connect application.
4. In the "Configuration" drop-down menu, make sure that Built-in Ethernet is selected.
5. • Ensure that sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net is displayed under the "Name" field.
   • Re-enter sbcyahooreg in the "Password" field (you must enter the password in lowercase).
   • Click Connect.
6. Once you are connected, open Internet Explorer and go to Step 9 above for registration instructions.

Leaked photos of the upcoming P-p-p-powerbook

It's here, but, no, I wouldn't expect a person to just stumble upon it. I had to go through two levels of tech support people (yelling all the way) before one finally admitted they were blocking port 25 at all.

I use SBC and its true that they didnt notify the users, then again I dont check my sbc email either.
Most users running a mail server would probably notice a problem pretty fast.
sbc upblocked it within a day after a visit to the following page though.

http://help.sbcglobal.net/article.php?ys_service=D SL&ys_state=&browser_redirect=%2Farticle.php%3Fite m%3D4640

Download CPUBurn here.
Run x instances, where x is the number of CPUs in your machine.
As easy as that.

CPU Burn-in and cpuburn

Assuming it's SBC DSL that has been blocking your port 25, (They've started doing this recently), http://help.sbcglobal.net/article.php?item=4640 will let you request unblockage.

It seems Verizon doesn't block port 25 yet, (but I may have mis-googled), They do have other issues though.

SBC recently started blocking outgoing port 25, at least for me -- but they will unblock it for an individual if you ask them to. You can even do it through a web form, but for some reason it's the "report abuse" web form. That wouldn't have occured to me, and it took 10 minutes with the tech support guy before he finally told me how to do it; for the record, it's at http://help.sbcglobal.net/servabuse.php

For some reason they have no problem sending all of their customers zillions of email ads, yet informing us of an important technical change like this is "impossible".

Once I realized what was going on, however, a quick Google search provided some answers.

There is an automated process to request unblocking Port 25 on a per-account basis. It took about 24 hours after filling out the request form, but it did work for me.

Help page from SBC/Yahoo.

Opt out of port 25 blocking form (be sure to fill out account name/password correctly & choose as "Abuse Type", "**Opt Out Port 25".

Note that this is an automated request, so there is no point in filling up the description field with a detailed account of all your frustrations. Just make sure you've got your account info and "**Opt Out Port 25"--that's all you need!

For some reason they have no problem sending all of their customers zillions of email ads, yet informing us of an important technical change like this is "impossible".

Once I realized what was going on, however, a quick Google search provided some answers.

There is an automated process to request unblocking Port 25 on a per-account basis. It took about 24 hours after filling out the request form, but it did work for me.

Help page from SBC/Yahoo.

Opt out of port 25 blocking form (be sure to fill out account name/password correctly & choose as "Abuse Type", "**Opt Out Port 25".

Note that this is an automated request, so there is no point in filling up the description field with a detailed account of all your frustrations. Just make sure you've got your account info and "**Opt Out Port 25"--that's all you need!

I am ameritech also. I found the notice on dslreports.com.

Port 25 Block Notice

On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, SBC Service Abuse wrote:

Thank you for contacting SBC Internet Services' Security Policy Team. We have received your request to be removed from our Port 25 filtering.

We are unable to grant your request. If your needs require that you run a mail server we recommend upgrading to an Enhanced DSL account which allows you to sun your own server/s. Please call 888-827-5722 to order and use promotion code ______. Otherwise we recommend you look into a list server such as the free service offered at http://groups.yahoo.com.

Is this program useful to test system stability? I like to use cpuburn to see if my system can handle it like cooling.

I'm somewhat playing devil's advocate here, but Sony/IBM/Toshiba were also following the idea of Piranha from the Compaq group paper. The old Compaq project had eight simple cores (in-order Alpha 21164, if I remember correctly) and it really shined in transaction benchmarks.

In a way, AMD64 is the same idea as when Intel extended x86 from 16-bit to 32-bit. Back in the 90's, Itanium sounded like a good idea, and they (Intel) really were looking ahead then (and they didn't want EMT64 to cannibalize Itanium sales for various reasons). They also hoped that compiler technology would be much further along than where it is now.

The real issue for Intel is whether or not many cores is a good investment for them. Amdahl's Law states that system performance will benefit more from improving single-threaded instead of multi-threaded execution (what if your code isn't or can't be parallelized?). So if you go with a scaled down processing core so you can fit eight cores on a chip, you may get a chip that kicks ass in TPC but isn't much better - or that may be worse - than what's out there for running general purpose code. And then they have to ask if people would buy a processor that is geared towards highly parallel applications only.

Two cores isn't a hard decision, but going beyond that requires some more cost-benefit analyses. Yes, high frequencies have gotten Intel far, and in retrospect, they should have explored this area earlier, but they have a lot more baggage (compatibility and performance-wise) than Cell.

Wasn't really me, but I laughed my ass off reading the story. :)

You just need to deploy the new P-P-P-Powerbook.

Persecution? No, not persecuted. They're not put in cages, like gorillas, or denied ballot access. Baseless name-calling, borderline libel and slander, and various other ad hominem attacks abound, though. I'm not all that offended if some people classify that as "persecution", however--we are quite spoiled in America these days, due no doubt to the extreme unfairness inherent to our religio-capitalistic oppressive culture. When the biggest threats to your free speech involve the possible inability to access goatse.cx from the public library, it's possible that some people might exaggerate the nuances.

So, tell me. Do you think that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are being persecuted? After all, they've gotten close to zero media time on their well-documented charges, and have instead been accused of being Republican apparachniks by everybody from Dan Rather on down. Contrast this to the Bush-AWOL story that had legs for two weeks, which was based on the careful accretion of no facts at all. A serious charge has been made against Kerry--where are the defenders of the truth? They're poking into the Internet postings of the authors of a book and ignoring the charge altogether.

You mean like this?

This evening, I learned that one meter equals 39.3700787 inches. While this may come as no surprise to some people, it was one to me - for years, I had mistakenly believed a meter was 39.77 inches, and now I know it's basically 39.37.

Of course, I'm not alone in my confusion. A bit of research on Google revealed quite a few different conversions from meters to inches. Here are some of them:

• 38 inches according to a page at Arkansas State University and another at Microflex Technologies.
• 38.16 inches according to a rounding-happy math teacher at Norfolk Collegiate School in Virginia.
• 38.37 inches according to Honeywell's Sensotec folks.
• 38.8 inches according to some numerological babble
• 39 inches according to Fife Products and some folks who sell quilting products.
• 39.14 inches according to the specifications on a measuring wheel for engineers. (uh-oh!)
• 39.15 inches according to an October 30 2002 entry in a blog.
• 39.21 inches according to Richard Bowles.
• 39.27 inches according to pages at University of Wisconsin Stevens Point and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.
• 39.28 inches according to Jonathan Brooks at Penn State University.
• 39.3 inches according to some laser folks.
• 39.34 inches according to a page about photography, and another about a role-playing game. Hey, it's only a game, their meters can be whatever length they want.
• 39.36 inches according to some ham radio sorts and some NASA folks among others. Pretty close... but... shouldn't NASA know better by now?
• 39.38 inches according to people who race 1-meter model yachts, talk about prehistory in California, and, um, other NASA folks. Again, pretty close!
• 39.39 inches according to someone ranting against metric (how ironic), as well as a page about UFOs.
• 39.4 inches according to a list of conversions from a company that makes electric motors and such things, and the Secretary of the Navy.
• 39.45 inches according to a set of math problems f

I'm oversimplifying for sure, but aren't the heat issues (and other more difficult quantum effects) primarily due to the ever increasing demand for clock speed?

For the most part, yes. Power density is a problem. Increasing L2 cache sizes is an easy way to increase performance without adding much in terms of high power density... it's mostly static power consumption. But, this is changing too as leakage power increases with shrinking dimensions.

By going dual core, you save power with pads and you can share the L2. There's also the reduced cost of motherboards by not having extra sockets, pins, VRMs, caps, etc., and increased computing density, yadda yadda.

As a layman it kind of makes sense to put 2 lower speed cores on a die rather than one faster one, and get lower power consumption and more importantly less heat production, and let the software deal with utilising it?

Very good point. One thing to keep in mind, though, is Amdahl's Law... single-threaded performance still matters even for parallizable code, and parallel programming is a pain in the ass.

But, as Power 4 and 5 decided to put two complex cores onto a single die, there was an old project by Compaq/Alpha called Piranha that used 8 simple cores on a die (I believe they were Alpha 21164s, when 21264s were the hot thing). It was optimized for database/transaction code, since there's a ton of parallelism in db code and you can get a lot of performance improvements by reducing communication misses (and communication miss latency) and increasing L2/L3 caches (which reduces communication misses). Here's the link to the paper.

to carry this powerbook around.

The keyboard's re-arrangement including:

UFAG
and
LOL

... great stuff ... thanks for the laughs...

I sent an email to the editor, and I got a response from the author, Andreas Kluth.

In the resulting dialog Andreas admitted:

...I do plead guilty that I have not actually used or tried to install Linux on a desktop myself--along with 99.9% of our readers, I would guess.

So much for journalistic integrity. At least he was honest though! You can reach Andreas at:
andreaskluth@sbcglobal.net or
andreaskluth@economist.com

The Integraph suit deals with Itanium stuff, as is stated here. The SSE/Hyperthreading suit is another company (MicroUnity) and another suit (same article).

Now, from what I understand, MicroUnity's MediaProcessor is a fine-grained multithreaded processor. There's limited information here and here, which may be the processor with the alleged patents that have been infringed upon. But what about University of Washington's SMT group? They put out their first paper in 1995. The Alpha EV8 (21464), before it got canned, was supposed to have SMT (and the Alpha group went from Digital to Compaq and then to Intel). I'm speculating that Intel got Hyperthreading from Alpha who got it from Washington. DEC/Compaq worked with Washington's SMT group, as Luiz Barroso is listed on the Washington SMT page (interestingly, he works for Google now. His Google article is quite interesting).

The Integraph suit deals with Itanium stuff, as is stated here. The SSE/Hyperthreading suit is another company (MicroUnity) and another suit (same article).

Now, from what I understand, MicroUnity's MediaProcessor is a fine-grained multithreaded processor. There's limited information here and here, which may be the processor with the alleged patents that have been infringed upon. But what about University of Washington's SMT group? They put out their first paper in 1995. The Alpha EV8 (21464), before it got canned, was supposed to have SMT (and the Alpha group went from Digital to Compaq and then to Intel). I'm speculating that Intel got Hyperthreading from Alpha who got it from Washington. DEC/Compaq worked with Washington's SMT group, as Luiz Barroso is listed on the Washington SMT page (interestingly, he works for Google now. His Google article is quite interesting).

The term "Android" was introduced by Albertus Magnusin the 13th Century. Another automaton was a chess playing automaton called The Turk in the 18th Century.

It works kinda sorta under WINE. Note that the first link is over a year old, and that a lot of things (e.g. PhotoShop) have started working really well in the last few snapshots.

According to this page, MS released their Altair Basic in 1975, while CP/M wasn't released until 1977. The IBM PC wasn't released until 1981.

By the time IBM developed their PC, both DEC and Microsoft were already firmly established companies. For whatever reason, IBM chose Microsoft to develop an OS for their PC, and the rest is history. I wonder if there's a parallel dimension where DEC won that contract, and an updated, graphical version of CP/M rules the market? ;)

There is no GPS software that works on a Mac... Riight...

To do it manually using the following as the PPPoE login
Username: sbcyahooreg@sbcglobal.net
Password: sbcyahooreg
[this is the replacement for dslreguser/reguser, for those who were familiar with that.]
And go to the following URL to complete registration
https://sbcreg.sbcglobal.net/

I've been using the PPoE built-in to my NetGear firewall/router/switch on my SBC DSL line for years with no trouble. I have no Enternet software on my PC. I removed the software after I signed up, but as per above, you don't have to install it all.

I had an Osborne 1 in my possession a couple years back, which I sold. Some pics of the system with the software bundle, etc

My 8088 still works, as does my old 486/33 with 8 MB of RAM which was, up until 2 years ago, running an older incarnation of RedHat, barely squeezed onto a 550 MB hard drive. It was a MUD and web server passably for years until I got tired of 45 minute compile times for the MUD. Now it's crunching numbers for Distributed, alnog with its first successor, a P166 that only lasted a year or so.
The fan on the 486 went out in 1998 and I never fixed it. The thing STILL works. It's outlived 3 hard drives.

I have a cocktail-table sytle vintage Pac-Man machine from 1982. The monitor blew out on it but the PCB, sound, and controls all work fine. I'm in the process of refurbishing and re-wiring the cabinet on it. It's a blast. I bought a new monitor but I haven't figured out how to hook it up to the 21-year old connectors from the PCB! (If anybody has any experience with this, email me: here, PLEASE!. I'm too much of a chicken to just plug it in and turn it in in case I do something Incredibly Stupid and Wrong and ruin it.

My dad's an accountant and he had an old adding machine from the early 70's that he kept on his desk when I was a kid. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I'll bet he's still got it somewhere. He also kept his first-ever calculator, which cost $100 at Sears. They had to make payments on it. Still works.

My desktop gaming PC pre-dated the advent of the Athlon chip, and despite it having never once received any hardware upgrades beyond a new Ethernet Card (it didn't come with one, that's how old it is), it still plays EQ, DAOC, MOO3, CIV3, Quake3, and every other game I'ev thrown at it. It's not always smooth, but it more than works. This isn't really old but I'm still amazed. I used to upgrade machines once every 2 years and add new hardware - never again. This was an $1800 machine when I got it and it's not received another penny of work yet and it's more than good enough. I expect it to begin to fail by this summer.

I have my original 8-bit NES. I mowed lawns for an entire summer to buy one of these in late 1984. All of my original carts still work, too. Mario 1-3, Final Fanyasy, Zelda 1 and 2, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Dragon Warrior, Ultima. Got 'em all, and the save-game batteries are all still good. Mario 3 gives me trouble sometimes and Zelda 1's battery is getting flakey, but they're in good shape.

My Atari 2600 still works but sadly I sold it before it was worth any money, but its current owner insists that it's still working fine.

I've got a 30-year old dishwasher in our house that still works well enough. Our water heater is pushing 16 years, which is ancient as far as water heaters go. Our furnace was 30 years old before we replaced it, which we only did because the 30-year old A/C unit went out and we figured we'd replace the whole mess now and not worry about it.

I bought a DVD player in 1995 that still works. Never been cleaned and it works fine. Sadly, it can't play some of the newest DVDs, I'm not sure why yet. It also can't play burned CDs or copy-protected CDs. Also have a VCR from 1981 that sometimes works, and a color TV from 1972 that just died a few years ago. Actually, it still worked but it was developing a big yellow blotch and it was one of those big monsters in a wooden cabinet that was twice the size of the TV. So we got rid of it.

is it just me? Screenshot

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I think the mistake people have made is often to start out with unfounded assumptions about how it should be done - such as assuming that a "drag and drop elements, then connect them up with lines" approach is the right direction (I don't think it is - or we would all be programming with Javabeans right now).

There is nothing wrong with "drag and drop elements, then connect them up with lines". That is the way it should be done. The problem is with the way we program. Encapsulating conventional algorithmic code with things like JavaBeans and c++ classes will not get rid of the fundamental problem of software engineering: the practice of using the algorithm as the building block of software programs. For an alternative non-algorithmic approach, take a look at Project COSA.

Science has never guaranteed 100% infallibility. What it guarantees is an unrelentless pursuit of the truth, even if takes decades to discover the answer to a problem or uncover a mistake, as the case might be. It also promises a ready acceptance of the new evidence, at least as compared to the readiness of all other human endeavours to accept fault.

Wow! Is this the reason that more than four hundred years after Newton and close to a century after the publication of Einstein's relativity, physicists (Hawking, Thorne, Feynman, and the rest) are still talking about time travel as if it were a physicial possibility? Even kids can understand that time cannot change if you explain it to them. The late science critic Paul Feyrabend said it best:

And a more detailed analysis of successful moves in the game of science ('successful' from the point of view of the scientists themselves) shows indeed that there is a wide range of freedom that demands a multiplicity of ideas and permits the application of democratic procedures (ballot-discussion-vote) but that is actually closed by power politics and propaganda. This is where the fairy-tale of a special method assumes its decisive function. It conceals the freedom of decision which creative scientists and the general public have even inside the most rigid and the most advanced parts of science by a recitation of 'objective' criteria and it thus protects the big-shots (Nobel Prize winners; heads of laboratories, of organizations such as the AMA, of special schools; 'educators'; etc.) from the masses (laymen; experts in non-scientific fields; experts in other fields of science): only those citizens count who were subjected to the pressures of scientific institutions (they have undergone a long process of education), who succumbed to these pressures (they have passed their examinations), and who are now firmly convinced of the truth of the fairy-tale. This is how scientists have deceived themselves and everyone else about their business, but without any real disadvantage: they have more money, more authority, more sex appeal than they deserve, and the most stupid procedures and the most laughable results in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down in size, and to give them a more modest position in society.

From Against Method by Paul Feyerabend

If you are sincere about discovering the crackpottery and outright deception that is endemic in the pysics community check out this site: Nasty Little Truth About Spacetime Physics

two additional chapters, including indepth discussions regarding the possibilities of time travel.

Hawking is a perfect example of a crackpot and/or charlatan who has managed to get his crackpot ideas accepted by a generation raised on Star-Trek physics and cheap sci-fi novels. Any physicist of reknown who gets away with talking about time travel as if it were a valid scientific pursuit, makes it on my list of notorious time travel crackpots. Any physicist of reknown who teaches that anything can move in spacetime (or that "time dilation" is a form of time travel, or that we are moving in time toward the future at the rate of one second per second) deserves to be tarred and feathered and paraded through the streets as an example to the others. Damn it! This hogwash has been around for way too long. One hundred years of this crap is about enough, in my opinion. For more information on why time does not pass and why time travel is the ultimate crackpot idea, check out the page below.

Nasty Little Truth About Spacetime Physics

Truly a marvelous book, easy to understand, yet full of knowledge. I recommend it to almost anyone I meet.

I do too, especially if you're a Star-Trek fanatic wearing your little Ferengi outfit. Still, I've got a little gift for you. Hopefully it will wake you out of your stupor: Spacetime is changeless from the infinite past to the infinite future. Chew on that for a while.