Slashdot Mirror

This is the top of the superfish.js listing. Not that I understand Javascript very well (where are the line numbers?) but it seems fairly innocuous...

*
  * Superfish v1.4.8 - jQuery menu widget
  * Copyright (c) 2008 Joel Birch
  *
  * Dual licensed under the MIT and GPL licenses:
  * http://www.opensource.org/lice...
  * http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gp...
  *
  * CHANGELOG: http://users.tpg.com.au/j_birc...
  */ ;(function($){
        $.fn.superfish = function(op){

                var sf = $.fn.superfish,
                        c = sf.c,
                        $arrow = $([' '].join('')),
                        over = function(){
                                var $$ = $(this), menu = getMenu($$);
                                clearTimeout(menu.sfTimer);
                                $$.showSuperfishUl().siblings().hideSuperfishUl();
                        }, .....

You may be right, I don't know. I just want to point out an open-source javacript is called superfish, and I'm pretty sure this library is something else entirely, and benign. http://users.tpg.com.au/j_birc...

American school districts don't need to save no stinkin' euros!

But kids love euros.

Well to give a couple of examples of plans in Australia (looking at DSL plans, rather than fibre or cable):

Example of a cheaper ISP: http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2-standalone

Examples of a higher-end ISP (generally better network/less contention/better customer service):

http://www.internode.on.net/residential/adsl_broadband/easy_broadband/
http://www.iinet.net.au/internet/broadband/naked-dsl/

It's worth noting that due to competition laws, most Australians living in cities and towns have a LOT of ISP options. Not just the 2-3 options available in many areas in the US but typically 20+ choices of ADSL provider. The owner of the telephone lines is required to wholesale access to any third party that wants it.

I am not sure what you mean by 'true' unlimited, but TPG offer an ADSL2+ service for ~AU$80 that is unlimited.

http://www.tpg.com.au/

(not affiliated, customer for ~4 years)

"It's just impossible to codify "critical thinking,"

To an extent. I think Carl Sagan did a pretty good job of it. When I taught critical thinking to my students, this was pretty much the model I used.

http://users.tpg.com.au/horsts/baloney.html

This.

I'm all behind the NBN.. so long as they prioritise to provide services for:
1) Areas that with no broadband
then
2) Areas that currently have badly services broadband
then
3) Areas limited to ADSL 1
then
4) Everywhere else

taking into account
A) All new suburbs / houses are to be connected as they are built

The problem with this is that it isn't economically viable. They need to get millions of users onboard and paying for the network in order to ensure sufficient capital and investment to extend to the areas that really need it.

The other problem is that the prices they are putting forth don't look too good when stacked up against ADSL 2.

Compare $50 for the DSL for 500GB with uploads not countered at DSL2+ speeds - that's 8M down 1Mup if you are close enough to an exchange (from TPG) ;
to
$49 for 40gig at 12mbps (from Optus) with uploads meters - which does not mean 40GB.. it means 40 GB total uploads and downloads.. so call that 30 GB or 20 GB.. depending on how you use your connection.

The worst part is that they feel the need to meter uploads and downloads. A major step backwards. Most people won't appreciate the impact of this until they are hit with their first excessive use bill.

They are still debating whether or not average joe will even join the NBN. This problem, however, is solved: they are destroying the copper network, and forcing everyone onto the NBN. Pundits have been guessing that if this didn't happen then the NBN would sink.

Did anyone mention that the Gov't has already stepped forward with a plan for a national NBN filter?

Now, how about a few thousand mesh network devices all over the country side...

Swings and roundabouts..

The caps in Australia aren't that onerous anymore. Add to that that ISPs have mirrors that don't count towards the quota (eg. most open-source stuff, game updates, video, Steam content servers, etc.), and it really isn't that big a deal.

The alternative would be to be limited by congestion, which at least in my experience is practically nonexistent. Similarly, there is no incentive for providers to try to reduce usage of streaming video and Bittorrent, since the heavy users are paying a premium and there is no desire for them to switch to cheaper plans.

I like TPG's Broadband map. Very useful - http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/

For nation wide see http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au/

The new National Broadband network also has coverage maps - http://www.nbnco.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/main/site-base/main-areas/our-services/coverage-maps/ ....

and I'm fairly certain that all of the above, combined, has cost less than $100 Million :-)

Yes, the interior is "sparsely populated" - Not much water in there, and the climate can be harsh. Amount of water and comfort of living roughly equates to amount of people.

Yes and look at the new plans by Australian ISP's eg. Internode http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/bundles/easy_bundle/plans/ "Massive 'Any Time' monthly quota - measured as the total of downloads plus uploads. "

That is not cheap try this , although as I have said in previous posts you still need to shop around and decide on the best plan for your needs and if the service you are after is available in your area.

N900 + TPG
$10/month for 200 MB, or $1/month for 50/150 MB (depends on bundling) + whatever you do on wifi

Of course, you might have meant in your country of residence, but that's like someone in Myanmar thinking that one day there just might be broadband. It already exists, you're just in the wrong place.
So you can either:
a) move
b) change the place that you live in for the better
c) put up with it

at one stage they used to change 17c per MB once you reached your allowance

Considering that you can get a $1 / month plan from TPG that only charges 2.75 c / MB (over 3G, no less) this is almost criminal.

About 300kg of rocks make their way from Earth to Mars every year. The reverse is more, about 500kg. The total of "hospitable" rocks that might harbor stowaway life for an Earth to Mars transit is about 150kg/year. So, you see, we're constantly seeding life on Mars.

At least there's a Baloney Detection Kit. If only we could get people to use it...

Funnily enough, you can get sorta close to both of those plans.

There are ADSL2+ plans (i.e. 24 Mbps) with 2 GB/month allowances: http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php (first plan in the list).

There are also 100+ GB plans from several ISPS at the 'standard' ADSL1 speed of 1.5 Mbps, which is quite close to your 1 Mbps example.

If you wanted to get upwards of 200 GB though, you'd have to buy a 24 Mbps plan with 200+ GB and tell your modem to connect at 1 Mbps if you insist on it ... why you'd do that is beyond me though. The 24 Mbps plans are not really any more expensive than the 1.5 Mbps plans usually, as it's a function of what equipment is in your area and the condition and length of your phone line. Since you pay for the data you use, the ISP doesn't really care what speed you get it at. So they are happy to sell you 24 Mbps plans for the same as 1.5 Mbps plans, if they have the hardware to supply it to you in the area. :)

Not really, you can't pick ANY old arbitrary combination. But there are a good range of plans (most ISPs will offer a dozen or more plans). Also, unlike in the US where there's usually only 2 or 3 ISPs to choose from in a lot of places, virtually everywhere in Australia will have 10, 20, 30+ ISPs to choose from. So competition is healthy - although being an English-speaking island we still have expensive rates overall due to the fact that we pull 90% of our data from the US through expensive undersea cables.

In general, for ADSL-based services, speeds (downstream in kbps) you can pick from are:*

- 256 or 512kbps (very low end plans, not commonly seen anymore)
- 1.5 mbps
- 8 mbps (full ADSL1)
- 24 mbps (full ADSL2+).

Those on longer telephone lines might not receive the full speed from the 8 or 24 mbit services, in which case you get the highest speed your modem can negotiate on your line. Upload speeds are generally 1 mbit for the 8 or 24 mbit plans, although some ISPs offer AnnexM which increases ADSL2+ upload capacity to a max of 2.5 mbps.

Once you've chosen a delivery method (aka speed), you pick a plan based on how much data you need. Some ISPs are cheaper. Some are more expensive. The more expensive ones generally have better service, lower contention ratios and are congestion-free. Most also have their own mirrors of content that do not count towards your allowance (e.g. sourceforge mirrors, tucows, linux repos etc.). Uploading isn't counted,* and for some ISPs, traffic within that ISPs own network isn't counted.

If you exceed your allowance, you get shaped (i.e. your speed is reduced, usually to 128 or 256 kbps, depending on ISP)*

Example of a cheaper ISPs 24 mbps plans: http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php

Example of a more premium ISPs 24 mbps plans: http://www.internode.on.net/residential/internet/home_adsl/extreme/pricing/

An advantage of data allowances is that it allows ISPs to know how much data, on average, is required by their network. They can then plan ahead and provision capacity as required. Increases in THEIR costs are matched by increases in the cost to the consumer. As such, Australian ISPs don't need to do packet inspection, throttle torrents, block certain ports etc. It's a completely unrestricted and 'neutral' service. Plus it's always fast (on my ISP at least ... some cheaper ISPs do have problems with overcontention/congestion at peak times).

The disadvantage is obvious: it does discourage the takeup of some high-bandwidth services. But then again, you get what you pay for. If I need a higher allowance I can always increase my plan. There's no penalties for doing so (on my ISP at least) and I can change up and down as required. Personally I'm on the 25 GB plan and find its perfect for my needs. I generally end up using around 20 GB per month (which includes a fair bit of torrenting and streaming media). The next plan up is 50 GB which is quite a jump, but only 10 bucks more.

-----------

*There are exceptions to this stuff, of course (e.g. Telstra counts uploads and charges per MB instead of shaping you). But for most ISPs, this post is how things are.

Yeah honestly, movie ticket prices in Australia are now ridiculous. I used to go to the movies a lot. Maybe 15-20 times a year. This was only 5 years ago or so when an adult ticket was $10 AUD and student tickets were only $8 or so.

In the space of just a few years, they've almost doubled in price. Hoyts charges $17 for an adult now. That's wayyy more than normal price increases related to inflation. Not to mention the food and drinks are still just as hideously overpriced as they always were. So they've almost completely lost me as a customer. I think I went to the movies only twice last year and only once so far this year.

The statement 'Bittorrent isn't an option' is wrong though.

Firstly, Australia actually has the highest per-capita usage of Bittorrent in the world.* This is mostly because we don't get all the decent US/UK shows until a year or more later, and Hulu etc. doesn't allow non-US IPs to connect.

Secondly, yes our internet is metered as you say, but your figures are massively exaggerated. 15 GB for 90 bucks? Only Bigpond would charge such ridiculous rates and noone with half a brain uses them. There are plenty of plans out there offering 100-200 GB for less than AUD ~70 per month. Which really, is heaps of data (considering a TV show compressed using Xvid or H.264 is like 200-300 MB for SD or 600-700 MB for HD, you could download half a dozen TV shows every day of the month). For instance, check out: http://www.tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php

So yeah - Bittorrent is definitely an option in Aus, and EVERYONE uses it.

* Source: http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-most-popular-in-australia/

Obviously we are referring to the loose kind of journalism one would find in Der Spiegel.

Or the New York Times, or by CBS/ABC/NBC/CNN...

The point that the GP was getting at, that you so flippantly deride, is that too many "researchers" these days are willing to use the first three results from a Google search as the sum total of their research into a topic. While Der Spiegel may be a reputable news outlet, one cannot generally take its articles as primary sources, and certainly not for the purposes of engaging in encyclopedic grade research.

Which is a large reason Wikipedia is so shoddy: sources are taken on "reputation" and the arbitrary decision of what a "reliable source" is, usually as defined by whether or not (a) most of the left-winger edit warriors of Wikipedia agree with the source's conclusions and (b) whether anyone else can come up with something that passes the "reliable source" test to discredit it (interestingly vague; lies and nonsense have remained in Wikipedia sometimes for months because a "reliable source" said something wrong, a set of bloggers caught it and documented very well that it was wrong, but the left-wingers shouted it down, claimed the blogs were not "reliable sources", "No Original Research" when someone simply replicated the sources the blogs were using as proof that it was false, etc...)

I feel that Wikipedia needs to put in place policies that start selecting out those contributors who are unable to either engage in this level of research and those who are unable to produce encyclopedia grade writing.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia's policies are currently the reverse: they have a major problem with driving academics and good researchers away, and it doesn't help that those who are "unable to produce encyclopedia grade writing" instead wind up spending hours per day "reverting vandalism" and are eventually given admin tools.

Power corrupts: Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely: Petty Power corrupts all out of proportion. Wikipedia admins are the worst sort because they, and their power, are so petty. It doesn't help that they also routinely overestimate their own competence.

Many of the Wikipedia articles are, while informative and good as an introduction into a topic, very superficial and poorly written. Unsophisticated use of language is not a problem per se, however it can lead to ambiguity. The ability of a writer to consistently ensure that there is no other way their text could be interpreted is the difference between a mediocre researcher and a true scholar.

How to lie with statistics. Also, Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit.

Most wikipedia articles are not "informative and good as an introduction into a topic" - the sourcing is routinely biased, and important countersourcing ignored or minimized if included at all.

I am confused about this shaping speed. It says in the fine print that 70% of customers achieve 10Mbps or faster. So is that off-peak? Does that mean during peak hours, you go down to 64k a second?

The "shaping speed" is what you get limited to if you have reached your cap. As off-peak and on-peak typically have their own caps you may find yourself shaped in one but not in the other until your next month starts.

The "70% of customers achieve 10Mbps or faster" refers to the maximum speed obtained on a customers (unshaped) ADSL2 connection. ADSL2 is limited by line quality so anything that effects that (distance from the exchange, crappy phone wires) will reduce the maximum speed achived. This FAQ has a pretty graph of the sort of averages you get based on distance and my ISP has a great Google Maps thingo that shows actual speeds people are getting at their locations.

This sounds a bit crazy to me, the whole idea of download caps. They should cap on speed.

I think bandwidth caps make more sense. From an ISPs perspective they are a cap on average speed, which is what they are interested in. From a customers perspective they have the fastest connection possible and can manage their cap as they see fit. It fulfills the ISPs needs while giving the customer as much functionality and flexibility as possible.

I am confused about this shaping speed. It says in the fine print that 70% of customers achieve 10Mbps or faster. So is that off-peak? Does that mean during peak hours, you go down to 64k a second?

The "shaping speed" is what you get limited to if you have reached your cap. As off-peak and on-peak typically have their own caps you may find yourself shaped in one but not in the other until your next month starts.

The "70% of customers achieve 10Mbps or faster" refers to the maximum speed obtained on a customers (unshaped) ADSL2 connection. ADSL2 is limited by line quality so anything that effects that (distance from the exchange, crappy phone wires) will reduce the maximum speed achived. This FAQ has a pretty graph of the sort of averages you get based on distance and my ISP has a great Google Maps thingo that shows actual speeds people are getting at their locations.

This sounds a bit crazy to me, the whole idea of download caps. They should cap on speed.

I think bandwidth caps make more sense. From an ISPs perspective they are a cap on average speed, which is what they are interested in. From a customers perspective they have the fastest connection possible and can manage their cap as they see fit. It fulfills the ISPs needs while giving the customer as much functionality and flexibility as possible.

And a typical cap is around 5gb over here - Far less than the 250 Gb mentioned... Not enough to watch online movies even casually. 20Gb is considered a "Big" plan over here and pretty much no one can afford 250Gb for non professional (commercial) use.

What "Australia" are you living in?
5gig would be an entry level account, not a "typical" one. 20 gig would be a low end one.

I have a 50 gig plan from TPG. I haven't paid more for internet for as long as I can remember and year after year my bandwidth cap has increased in a way that has been more than sufficient for increased usage.

Youtube? Myspace? Never would have happened in Australia.

Of course, but it's largely a factor of our geography. Data doesn't magically get from A to B and when you are as far away from pretty much everything (including the other side of the same country) the economics are inevitably different to places that are more centrally located and/or have high population densities of their own.

It isn't (entirely) a lack of imagination or drive to find a better alternative to "models that were in place when modems were the dominant technology." It's a reflection of physical reality.

Because the caps are so small, there is no business driver to keep upgrading infrastructure...

I think that is fundamentally incorrect. The tiered cap approach means that demand increases justify infrastructure purchases with extra income.

I pay $69.95 a month and I'm with TPG. http://www.tpg.com.au/

SBS has had coverage too, which has been good and relatively uninterrupted for some events.

I have been a bit lucky, my ISP has some IPTV channels so as well as Channel 7 and SBS I have had two Chinese channels of Olympics, an (English language) Indian channel and occasional coverage from other asian stations on there (and all not included in data caps too).

CS Lewis did the same thing so many hypocritical christians do - they say "well, that was BEFORE I became a christian." So much for the ideals of accepting responsibility for one's actions. Being "born again" or "retreaded" or whatever, does NOT give one license towards one's fellow beings, ever.

I'm not sure whether this is an intentional straw man or you completely fail to understand the teachings of Christianity, but the idea that anything gives license to sin is absurd. The whole point of Christianity is eliminating sinfulness, not encouraging it.

He was a devout and well-known Christian, yet he had been living in semi-secrecy with a married woman since he was 19.

... a mother of his friend, who was a sort of surrogate mother to him. What this has to do with his rationality I cannot begin to guess.

A hypocrite through and through ... trying to deny his bi/homosexuality even from himself (and let me make clear here that there's absolutely nothing wrong with being gay - its normal for humans, just like many other mammals - what's wrong is being a hypocrite and throwing rocks at others as a way to hide your own proclivities).

One gay guy inferring secret homosexual temptations does not exactly constitute a resounding proof of Lewis' hypocrisy, but even if it did, it would still be completely irrelevant unless you're claiming that it is impossible for someone who did something he acknowledged was not morally right to be rational, which is rather an absurd idea. You do remember that this whole discussion is about your statement:

critical thinking and logic are anathema to anyone who believes in god.

... don't you? Perhaps I put too much credit in the idea that you might be capable of rational discussion. It's beginning to appear you have a chip on your shoulder about some aspect of God's existence and aren't approaching this discussion with a clear mind. The whole point here is that regardless of your emotional state, those who disagree with you on this issue (who are the majority of humanity throughout history) are perfectly capable of logic and critical thinking. Irrelevant ad hominem attacks against examples I raise of people who are clearly skilled at logic are not helping your case.

His marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham was mostly a scam of the British immigration system and then later of that nation's socialized medicine.

Not that it's any more relevant than the rest, but it is rather ridiculous if you've ever read A Grief Observed or are at all aware of his relationship with the Greshams.

Your examples of "people of science" who are theists, as justification is an "argument from authority", and fails Sagan's bullshit meter, or more politely, "Baloney Meter"

Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").

A counterexample to your claim is hardly an argument from authority. Regardless, arguments from authority make up nearly everything you "know" ... certainly everything historical. And we're not discussing scientific observations, but critical thinking and logic. Even within scientific inquiry, there is an element of authority - you'll never read a technical paper without a review of the relevant literature at the beginning to give a background of what others have discovered that's relevant.

People believe because they choose to believe. There is no hard evidence to back up their beliefs. Just opinion, formed by cultural and social forces.

What a relief that you're here to tell us all that most apparently rational philosophers and writers or average people who claim to have based their opinions on some form of evidence are liars.

CS Lewis did the same thing so many hypocritical christians do - they say "well, that was BEFORE I became a christian." So much for the ideals of accepting responsibility for one's actions. Being "born again" or "retreaded" or whatever, does NOT give one license towards one's fellow beings, ever.

As for references, the first 2 hits for CS Lewis gay bring up some interesting reads.

http://www.thestonetable.com/articles/247,1.html

He did not understand or approve of homosexuals, but his oldest and most cherished friend from childhood was gay. He despised uneducated females, yet he was also uncomfortable with many of the educated women he met.

He was a devout and well-known Christian, yet he had been living in semi-secrecy with a married woman since he was 19. He had been coaxed back to religion by his university friend JRR Tolkien, a Roman Catholic; yet he had put on the trappings of a Protestant bigot, dismissing Catholics as bog-trotters.

A hypocrite through and through ... trying to deny his bi/homosexuality even from himself (and let me make clear here that there's absolutely nothing wrong with being gay - its normal for humans, just like many other mammals - what's wrong is being a hypocrite and throwing rocks at others as a way to hide your own proclivities). Read on about the scam involved with his "living with a woman" ...

http://www.tobyjohnson.com/perelandra.html

As we know from the play and movie, Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis was a "bachelor," living with his alcoholic brother most of his life, living as a sort of celibate cleric of academe. He certainly wasn't a modern gay man, but he was one of us, I think.

A deeply religious man in later life, he interpreted the Christianity of the Great Britain of the mid-20th century in which he lived into what he thought would be a living religion.

He had some dismissive things to say about homosexual bonding in his book THE FOUR LOVES: "... all those hairy old toughs of centurions in Tacitus, clinging to one another and begging for last kisses when the legion was broken up...all pansies? If you can believe it you can believe anything.

That's hardly a valid argument against homosexual activity in the ancient world. Indeed, those comments only go to show how stereotyped was Lewis's understanding of homosexuality throughout history and, even more importantly, how closeted--perhaps even from himself--he really was. At any rate, he lived long before gay liberation and before homosexuality was understood in a modern, enlightened psychological context.

His marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham was mostly a scam of the British immigration system and then later of that nation's socialized medicine. After World War I, he'd come home at age 18 and moved the 45 year-old Mrs. Maureen Moore and her 11 year-old daughter into his home, having made a pact with his army buddy Paddy Moore that he'd care for his friend's family in case Paddy died. Biographers assuming his heterosexuality hypothesize he was in love with Mrs. Moore the 30 years they lived together. The presumption of a repressed homosexuality might better explain that he was bound to the Moore family by his intense--and certainly never to be reciprocated--affection for his friend Paddy. Who knows? Until the current transformation of understanding about homosexuality, such details were routinely concealed and misrepresented.

Your examples of "people of science" who are theists, as justification is an "argument from authority", and fails Sagan's bullshit meter, or more politely, "Baloney Meter"

Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").

People believe because they choose to believe. There is no hard evidence to back up their beliefs. Just opinion, formed by cultural and social forces.

That's a problem of a bureaucratic monopoly, not capping. These are typical plans in Australia. Better than what you're describing. On my 50 AUD (31 EUR) per month (with VOIP) plan I get true, sustained 17 Mbps download/1 Mbps upload with my choice of throttling or capping.

The local ISP's can't lie about the services they are providing, unlike the US ones. Better for everybody with more transparency and user pays in the market.

Face it, allowing ISP's to lie about their services (with claims like "unlimited") is a bad thing. One way or another heavy users have to pay for the bandwidth they are using. It's unfair to the light users to not do this.

Already happens. Many Australian ISP's already have peak/off-peak download limits. e.g. TPG. It works as you describe.

Close. e.g. In Australia they stopped the "Unlimited" fraud some time ago. Here's what a typical, competitive mid-level Australian ISP offers for ADSL 2+. e.g. 25GB/month at 10+ Mb/s download is AUD50/month (=USD47/month).

---

Like trademarks, and for much the same reason, copyright should be lost if a product line becomes generic (used by >50% of the market).

I was excited when I heard speakeasy was finally installing ADSL2+ connections (up to 10Mb/s in my area), only to find out they wanted $180/month without voice

Good lord, I thought we had it bad in the land down under.

http://tpg.com.au/products_services/adsl2plus_pricing.php

> Why "must" it stop? Why are whales any more important than pigs or
> cows or chickens?

killing wild stock has effects on the greater ecosystem. killing farm stock does not, in a primary sense. Plus with farm stock you've taken action to replace the portion of the population that you slaughter.

> As long as they don't mess with endangered species, which they
> don't, I don't see the problem.

This year they planned on taking Humpbacks, which are still recovering from being critically endangered. They backed off after pressure from the US and Australian govenments.

This year they have said that they will take 50 fin whales, of an estimated 5000 in the southern ocean. That's 1% of the population THIS YEAR, or in human terms, all of the USA and Europe THIS YEAR.

The minkes are not endangered, but they are cuter than cows or pigs, and arguably chickens.

> With your attitude they (PETA?) will be coming for your burger and
> wings soon.

fallacies of logic: Slippery slope + Non sequitur
http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html

> everything in moderation

I love animals too, they're delicious.

i 2nd that, tpg is the only good ISP i can find in Australia

they have 7 ADSL-2 Plans, from $30 to $120 (AU) all about $10 apart. All have the same speed, (as fast as you can't the last mile) just different Max MB download caps. When you reach the cap you just get throttled, but still no download limit.

http://www.tpg.com.au/
ive heard good things from internode too, but ive never been with them so yeah.


oh btw if your in Australia, Stay Away from Bigpond aka telstra. They have adsl modems that you cant even setup port forwarding etc, every thing has to be done from telstra's end, more so a telstra tec has to come out each time, sit on the fone and wait for the settings to be put into the modem. At least you can just toss the 'free' modem and buy anything else.

Yep. http://www.tpg.com.au/
You want Business ADSL.

Yes, they do. Most ISPs nowdays "throttle" your connection to 64K when you get over the limit rather than charging you for extra usage. These 15 (or 8) cents per meg plans are usually pretty old ones. Check out for yourself: http://www.bigpond.com.au/ http://www.tpg.com.au/ etc. But no, there's no truly "unlimited" ADSL.

You brought up loose change, not I. Elements of Loose Change may have been discredited, but it is a logical fallacy to dismiss the proposition (9/11 was a conspiracy involving rogue elements of the U.S. government, among others) because of the presentation (a "swiss cheese documentary").

I brought it up because so many people whom believe in the 9/11 conspiracy turn to that movie. It is dissapointing.

Science works by proving falsehoods, not by "proving facts". Correlations and anecdotal evidence alert us to the need to investigate. Because the perpetrators covered their tracks fairly well, the physical evidence which would definitively prove WTC 1, 2 & 7 were brought down by explosives has largely been destroyed (WTC steel -> india for recycling before analysis could be performed, etc). Careful analysis of video and photographic evidence, such as that undertaken in 9/11 Eyewitness and at wtc7.net, show that the official story is bogus, no matter whether you get it from Bullshitters, a magazine, or George Bush himself.

Yes, science works by proving falsehoods, and those things that cannot be falsified must be left as true. This is why the theory of evolution is so well founded, it has a massive body of evidence, but you cannot actually "prove" it in the strictest sense, but you can disprove all other theories.

The problem with "the perpetrators covered their tracks fairly well" is that it falls to Ochams Razor. This is a form of logic in science that states "whenever there are 2 explanations for the data, choose the simpler". The simple explanation is that 19 terrorists carried out a malicious attack on the world trade center towers and pentagon, but failed on a fourth plane. It was well thought out and well executed.

Your explanation seems to be that hundreds, or probably thousands of people in government got together to fake these attacks to scare the populace. The sad thing is that governments are terribly inefficent, and could not keep something like this under wraps. Occhams razor picks the 19 terrorists. Again, I dont KNOW what your full explanation would be, but if it was not the terrorists, then it would require the actions and knowledge of a very large number of people.

[note: I've only just discovered 9/11 eyewitness, because of your link to wtc7.net, and as of this writing, I've only watched the first 55 minutes or so. Thus far it has no conjecture, just analysis of video of the collapses taken from the New Jersey shore. Thanks for pointing it out for me. :]

No problem. I have only read the site, I have not as of yet seen the video.

and I come down on the same side as Popular Mechanics.

Like you said, "it is easy to pick and choose what fits you theory, and discard what does not."

Yes. The difference is that I examined both sides of the argument prior to picking a side. I have seen loose change (although my baloney detection kit was SCREAMING full bore during the viewing) and read much of the other conspiracy literature. I have also read the claims that are skeptical, and of those skeptical claims they are backed up mainly by the scientific method, physics, detailed photos and the like. Whereas all the conspiracy theories have gaping holes in their theories that do not stand up to the baloney detection kit.

Here is a link to the short version, it does not do it justice without the whole book: http://users.tpg.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.htm l

The phenomenon is

You might want to check out the DTrace Toolkit and take a look at the DTrace scripts it includes. Many of the tools you see there are very admin-oriented, and those are mostly simple examples of what can be done with DTrace

Remember, it offers observability to most, if not all, of the system in a variety of ways which makes DTrace suitable for both admins and develoopers.

The whole point of DTrace is that it allows you to gather information
that you couldn't obtain before. See some examples here:
  http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/bmc/20040805
here:
  http://users.tpg.com.au/adsln4yb/dtrace.html#OneLi ners
and here:
  http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/howtoguides/dt racehowto.jsp

Declaration of interest: I work for Sun, use DTrace, demonstrate it and
see the expressions of stunned delight on the faces of people
when they suddenly recognise its power.

Dtrace is the exact opposite of error vomit, and I dont recall ever hearing it called that anyway. The entire principle is that you dont need to go inserting metric shitloads of debugging and printf("we got here") statements all through your code, recompile it and then see that the error doesnt occur because all your debugging has now slowed your code enough to prevent the race condition that caused the original error.

True - its a L3 and developer tool for the most part, but there are plenty of scripts out there to show what it can do for an admin. Take a look at http://users.tpg.com.au/adsln4yb/dtrace.html for starters. Stuff like iosnoop, iotop, opensnoop and kill.d can be used quite regularly by admins without the need for putting debugging into active applications.

Here you got some dtrace scripts, direct from my firefox bookmarks.


--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95

The thing that peeves me a bit about the article is that he quotes me verbatim and paraphrases for other parts without any attribution. Compare my original email I sent him the night before to his article, and spot the similarities. My email's a bit long and relates to what Apple's plans might be to circumvent Microsoft's Office dominance and fill the gaping gap in their iLife strategy, a decent Office package, without losing a lot of users when Microsoft inevitably retaliates by pulling MS Office. The part about Adobe is in there too, although I didn't say they have to buy Adobe outright now, only controlling interest if Adobe ever threatens to pull killer apps like Photoshop:
"Apple is beholden to two software companies above all: Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft they may be able to get around, but not Adobe. If Apple loses Photoshop, they lose the CS and MX suite (now Adobe owns Macromedia), and they lose the publishing market (not necessarily in that order), one of their mainstay niche markets that have kept them alive all these years. It's a killer app they must have. Their only alternative would be to buy a majority stake in Adobe to force a native version of the CS suite."
The least he could have done is acknowledge his source.

Martin Andersen

... it's much easier to just shove your subject hard up against the scanner & click "Scan"!

http://users.tpg.com.au/users/scottie7/cousins.htm l

See! :)

CONGRATULATIONS , nhand42 ,

Your web space is now active

For help with creating, editing or uploading your home page click HERE

# dexplorer
Output dir will be the current dir (/export/home/root/DTrace/Dexplorer).
Hit enter for yes, or type path:
Starting dexplorer ver 0.70.
Sample interval is 5 seconds. Total run is > 100 seconds.
    5% Interrupt counts...
  10% Dispatcher queue length by CPU... ...
File is de_jupiter_200506271803.tar.gz

2005 Jun 14 02:26:40, load average: 0.16, 0.18, 0.21 syscalls: 1381 ...
        read 78
        sigaction 113 ...

this is where ready made dtrace scripts come into play.

Brendan Gregg's Dtrace toolkit contains over 80 premade script that allows normal users to use dtrace to find stuff about there system that no other tool can. one small example

connections snoop inbound TCP connections as they are established, displaying the server process that accepted the connection. Full example is here.

# connections
    UID PID CMD TYPE PORT IP_SOURCE
        0 242 inetd tcp 79 192.168.1.1
        0 359 sshd tcp 22 192.168.1.1
    100 1532 Xorg tcp 6000 192.168.1.1

Amazing comments coming from someone who lists their smurf^W blog in their sig and under their UID.

Blogging is like the word "smurf".

Of *course* blogging is important if you label every fucking thing on the web "a blog".

Why can't we get over all these stupid meta-blogging articles, and realise that it's just fucking "content creation by individuals" and it doesn't need a fucking name.

You seem upset that a simple label has been applied to sites such as those linked above, yet you don't offer any better alternatives. Sorry, "content creation by individuals" is much too long to be useful in most situations. As silly as the term blog is to me, and as silly as I think the media is for "reporting" on blogging, I don't see any reason to get testy about it. It's like ranting about all tissues being referred to as Kleenex, or all MP3 players being called iPods, or even using google as a verb. Silly? Perhaps. But not likely to change now that it's in common use.

From a Skype VoIP FAQ:

  How does Skype protect my privacy?
Skype is encrypted end-to-end because it uses the public Internet to transport your voice calls and text messages and sometimes these calls are routed through other peers. Skype encryption ensures that no other party can eavesdrop on your call or read your instant messages.
Skype uses the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, also known as Rijndael) which is used by U.S. Government organizations to protect sensitive information. Skype uses 256-bit encryption, which has a total of 1.1 x 1077 possible keys, in order to actively encrypt the data in each Skype call or instant message. Skype uses 1024 bit RSA to negotiate symmetric AES keys. User public keys are certified by the Skype server at login using 1536 or 2048-bit RSA certificates.

So.. it seems they are using 256 bit AES for encryption.

I don't know about this user public key part.. seeing how I don't have to carry around a private key and can just login from anywhere with my username/password, that key seems to not be used for identifying users.

Attempting to strangle ADSL adoption, killing the national BBS community when the Internet first became mainstream in Australia in order to force adoption of Big Pond, and a host of other offenses meant that after an extended period of shopping around, I finally stopped using Telstra as a carrier completely last year, and they can now consider themselves permanently boycotted as far as I'm concerned. They are one of the most short-sighted, destructive, and generally amoral corporations I've heard of. They were also vocally criticised by Bill Gates during one of his visits here, for their strangulation of broadband adoption.

Apart from the above, to some degree there are now price incentives to use other carriers as well, particularly for voice. If you've got a credit card, you also might want to check out TPG for ADSL...they probably have the best deals I've seen.

With those download limits I doubt any file-sharing person would use AOL.
More than likely they will switch to the TPG 1.5mbps 20gb plan.

(Note: I'm not a Solaris user. =)

Seeksize's home page is here. It explains that seeksize "prints the disk head seek distance by process. This can identify whether processes are accessing the disks in a 'random' or 'sequential' manner."

In other words, it shows how much the program bounces around in the file with fseek() and other read commands. If it shows a lot of 0s, the program probably reads the files in order; if other values, it probably jumps around a lot.

The site is slashdotted and I could only get the first page from Coral, so I can't see the screenshot. I don't know what could be so shocking about bouncy file access; we aren't exactly in the golden era of tape-based storage anymore, random access files tend to be norm these days anyway. =) Maybe it is shocking in case where you don't *expect* program to poke around the file.

It was started by some guy in Australia for his own emulator, and first *shared* on the ZSNES message boards.

It was pretty obviously cracked mainly for Super Sleuth, because the guy who did the research was using that as the testbed.

That research was incomplete, and the missing operations were cracked for immediate inclusion in Snes9x. Where does ZSNES get to claim it was "their team", especially when Snes9x more or less gave them the code wholesale, and they never acted on it until someone handed them a complete port of the code months later?

Nope, Nach is exaggerating just who could really be counted as part of the ZSNES team, claiming research done for other emulators as a "ZSNES" accomplishment, and all that. Seriously, this is not the ZSNES DSP Team...

I think that's game, set, and match.

Snes9x 1.43WIP
- Seta special chip emulation enhancements (Feather, The Dumper, Overload, MKendora)
- code tweaks to the ST010 (Nach, pagefault)
- Exhaust Heat 2 and regional ports are playable (Feather, The Dumper, Overload, MKendora)
Snes9x 1.42
- More work on Exhaust Heat 2 (MKendora, Overload, The Dumper)
Snes9x 1.40
- stubbed the ST010 chip in Exhaust Heat 2 (Overload, MKendora)