U.S. Cellular has the fewest dropped calls in the industry for like 8 years running.
Whenever I hear claims like this, I think, "says who?"
Unless there is an automated or standardized way to report network performance, aren't such statements subjective at best?
Maybe it's just me but I tend to get skeptical when I see the "Hen House Status Report" was written by Mr. Fox.
Seriously, though, we've all heard the "Fewest dropped calls!", "Best 3G coverage!", "Largest national cellular area!", etc. claims. Does anyone know of a truly objective way to compare these services?
The number of people who have the data decryption keys is much smaller than the number of people who have access to patch the system.
That is an interesting approach to compartmentalization but it's important to remember what some organizations have found out the hard way: Without specialized hardware (e.g. TPM, etc.) if Evil Person has physical access to the hardware he/she can own it. From there, it is a short step to recovery of encryption keys or network traffic snooping.
Plus, all Evil Actions are made easier if the perpetrators can get administrative rights...
A horse is a horse, even if someone is paid to tell you so.
That well may be, but a medical study ain't necessarily an unbiased medical study, nor is a product review necessarily an unbiased product review if it was funded by the makers of the things being studied/reviewed.
Ask any ad pro--the best advertisements are those that don't LOOK like ads. "Plain Joe" testimonials are even better. "Heck, darlin', this here ain't one o' them ADS, it's a letter written by someone like ME!"
You're not recommending folks take things at face value without knowing their source, are you??
Understandable, perhaps, by thinking about the mindset of developers in most game companies' labs. Who really wants to be the poor sod with the low-def development gear at his/her desk?
Any self-respecting geek (myself included!) would rather chew glass than suffer the agony and stigma of working on old gear...
No, Blizzard, you wouldn't take out LAN support (which is obviously popular) unless you thought you could make money by forcing everyone to use battle.net.
Or maybe requiring battle.net allows you to check everyone's serial number without generating a bunch of bad publicity by using SecuROM.
Now I'm gonna have to let all the LAN-party machines access the public Internet. Oh, goody!
Like it or not, a direct result of higher fuel prices is a drop is demand. Regardless of your views on oil production/drilling/exploration, it seems like it would be in everyone's best interest to use less fuel.
There was once--many years ago--talk of taxing motor fuel to reduce consumption. While I never personally agreed with the proposal, the idea of removing taxes from gasoline (which would make it appear cheaper to consumers) seems like a step in the wrong direction.
I wonder who is advising the "federal commission" on the options available to them? Why on earth would they decide a massive new taxation infrastructure was the "best path forward" unless they were being advised by someone who would benefit in some way from the massive purchase of new GPS tracking equipment?
Call me a curmudgeon, but I'd really like to know...
Yeah, it's a sad--but predictable--outgrowth of the "zero tolerance" campaigns that started years ago.
Politicians love to tell voters they are "tougher on crime" than their opponents and, to them, there is nothing tougher on crime than a "zero tolerance" policy.
Problem is, once the zero-tolerance policies are enacted, school faculty tend to get pedantic. We've seen it in news reports about children arrested (and turned over to the police, no less) for having a screwdriver or a metal ice scraper in their car. (Could be used as a weapon, you know!)
C'mon, "prescription-strength ibuprofin?" Wow! You mean it's OK if I carry two OTC ibuprofin pills (250mg each) in my pocket but I get in trouble if I carry one 500mg tablet? Where is the sense in that?
More importantly, how many resources are squandered rallying 'round the Zero Tolerance banner that could be better used for things like teaching kids, buying better books, etc.?
There are troublesome kids in every school and they should be disciplined. Crimes--real crimes--should be punished and the offenders removed from the classroom for the sake of the learning environment. I just feel sorry for the ones that are caught in the zero-tolerance meatgrinder and end up with a permanent taint on their records for no good reason, which is what seems to be the eventual result of most of the "get tough" programs.
If the only tool the school administrators have (or choose to use) is a hammer, EVERYTHING looks like a nail.
Seems that nobody in the cited article bothered to think how well the tool will (won't) work when they try it on an encrypted drive.
The trend these days is to encrypt laptops' entire disks. I may be missing something but wouldn't that render this sort of tool useless? (Or worse--to an investigator--give a false negative result?)
Perhaps I'm missing something but I wonder why more folks who are replacing a computer don't simply use the OS license from the old one?
I have two machines on my desk, one GNU/Linux and one XP (because I'm too lazy to do the work required to get certain games, etc., to run on Linux). My XP machine has an Official Windows XP Professional 1-2 CPU sticker on it. Why can't/don't I get a new machine, install XP (or image-copy the old one) and wipe the old machine?
With the exception of the short time when both machines are running, it seems perfectly legitimate and I wonder why more folks don't choose this route.
Last time I checked the Windows EULA, it seemed like this was OK but, like I said, I may be missing something...)
@Kpau: I agree with you WRT the repetition. There is a fine line they (advertisers/programming folks) have tried to walk in the past but it seems greed is now overriding other considerations.
I don't have a problem with ads, per se, but there seems to be a school of thought among some advertisers that says, "Pound it into their heads and they'll buy more!" and "Repetition or volume or, better yet, both!"
Try either of these interesting experiments:
-- Record a TV show. Any show. Extract the audio and look at it with a waveform editor. Normal show dialog == the peaks and valleys you'd expect to see. Commercials == solid bar of over-compressed audio. (By compressed, I mean the low-volume sounds are raised to full volume, reducing the dynamic range and making the whole thing pretty much the same volume.) Not illegal by any means but will jangle almost anyone's nerves.
Here I am, watching a show at night with the volume set at the low end of audibility so it won't wake up my wife. Then comes "TRICKY EDDIE'S USED CARS! EASY WEEKLY PAYMENTS! BUY NOW! BUY NOW! BUY NOW!" at jet-engine volume, followed by the inevitable "Honey, turn off the TV, please."
-- Get DVD copies of a recent and an old TV show. Since the DVD version is just the meat, it's easy to see how many minutes per hour are set aside for commercials. For example, original Star Trek episodes (~1968) ran about 50 minutes. Deep Space 9 (~1998) ran around 45 minutes and the newest, Enterprise runs about 41 minutes. Old Twilight Zone shows (~1963) ran even longer--a little over 52 mins.
Personally, I don't have trouble sitting through 8-10 minutes of commercials in an hour. Fifteen is pushing it, though, and twenty is over the line. In the VCR days, I'd tape a show and watch it an hour later just so I could fast-forward through the crap. DVRs make it even easier.
If you think about it, the business of TV stations and networks is not to provide shows; it is to deliver eyeballs to advertisers. More eyeballs == more revenue. I wonder how far it will go? Is 30 minutes of commercials per hour very far off?
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U.S. Cellular has the fewest dropped calls in the industry for like 8 years running.
Whenever I hear claims like this, I think, "says who?"
Unless there is an automated or standardized way to report network performance, aren't such statements subjective at best?
Maybe it's just me but I tend to get skeptical when I see the "Hen House Status Report" was written by Mr. Fox.
Seriously, though, we've all heard the "Fewest dropped calls!", "Best 3G coverage!", "Largest national cellular area!", etc. claims. Does anyone know of a truly objective way to compare these services?
I've not found one...
... as soon as some politician determined where the backup site would be. (Which, of course, hasn't happened yet.)
Actually, it has happened. The CoVA backup site is located in Lebanon, VA (SW part of the state).
What THIS article is discussing is the lack of network backup, not data backup.
This is an important distinction, to say the least.
His disbarrment doesn't prevent him from filing suits on behalf of himself; he just can't provide legal representation to others, right?
He may remember the advertising adage, "Bad publicity is better than no pulicity at all."
The number of people who have the data decryption keys is much smaller than the number of people who have access to patch the system.
That is an interesting approach to compartmentalization but it's important to remember what some organizations have found out the hard way: Without specialized hardware (e.g. TPM, etc.) if Evil Person has physical access to the hardware he/she can own it. From there, it is a short step to recovery of encryption keys or network traffic snooping.
Plus, all Evil Actions are made easier if the perpetrators can get administrative rights...
EINs and SSNs aren't even the same number of digits.. (NN-NNNNNN vs NNN-NN-NNNN).
Actually, TINs, EINs, etc. are all nine digits in length...
A horse is a horse, even if someone is paid to tell you so.
That well may be, but a medical study ain't necessarily an unbiased medical study, nor is a product review necessarily an unbiased product review if it was funded by the makers of the things being studied/reviewed.
Ask any ad pro--the best advertisements are those that don't LOOK like ads. "Plain Joe" testimonials are even better. "Heck, darlin', this here ain't one o' them ADS, it's a letter written by someone like ME!"
You're not recommending folks take things at face value without knowing their source, are you??
Understandable, perhaps, by thinking about the mindset of developers in most game companies' labs. Who really wants to be the poor sod with the low-def development gear at his/her desk?
Any self-respecting geek (myself included!) would rather chew glass than suffer the agony and stigma of working on old gear...
No, Blizzard, you wouldn't take out LAN support (which is obviously popular) unless you thought you could make money by forcing everyone to use battle.net.
Or maybe requiring battle.net allows you to check everyone's serial number without generating a bunch of bad publicity by using SecuROM.
Now I'm gonna have to let all the LAN-party machines access the public Internet. Oh, goody!
Sheesh...
Like it or not, a direct result of higher fuel prices is a drop is demand. Regardless of your views on oil production/drilling/exploration, it seems like it would be in everyone's best interest to use less fuel.
There was once--many years ago--talk of taxing motor fuel to reduce consumption. While I never personally agreed with the proposal, the idea of removing taxes from gasoline (which would make it appear cheaper to consumers) seems like a step in the wrong direction.
I wonder who is advising the "federal commission" on the options available to them? Why on earth would they decide a massive new taxation infrastructure was the "best path forward" unless they were being advised by someone who would benefit in some way from the massive purchase of new GPS tracking equipment?
Call me a curmudgeon, but I'd really like to know...
Yeah, it's a sad--but predictable--outgrowth of the "zero tolerance" campaigns that started years ago.
Politicians love to tell voters they are "tougher on crime" than their opponents and, to them, there is nothing tougher on crime than a "zero tolerance" policy.
Problem is, once the zero-tolerance policies are enacted, school faculty tend to get pedantic. We've seen it in news reports about children arrested (and turned over to the police, no less) for having a screwdriver or a metal ice scraper in their car. (Could be used as a weapon, you know!)
C'mon, "prescription-strength ibuprofin?" Wow! You mean it's OK if I carry two OTC ibuprofin pills (250mg each) in my pocket but I get in trouble if I carry one 500mg tablet? Where is the sense in that?
More importantly, how many resources are squandered rallying 'round the Zero Tolerance banner that could be better used for things like teaching kids, buying better books, etc.?
There are troublesome kids in every school and they should be disciplined. Crimes--real crimes--should be punished and the offenders removed from the classroom for the sake of the learning environment. I just feel sorry for the ones that are caught in the zero-tolerance meatgrinder and end up with a permanent taint on their records for no good reason, which is what seems to be the eventual result of most of the "get tough" programs.
If the only tool the school administrators have (or choose to use) is a hammer, EVERYTHING looks like a nail.
Yes, and there is something else many people seem to forget: An invoice does not necessarily indicate a debt owed.
In other words, "Invoice me all you want, you morons. I ain't gonna pay it!"
Sheesh...
1930s??? WHAT are you?
OLD--as am I...
Seems that nobody in the cited article bothered to think how well the tool will (won't) work when they try it on an encrypted drive.
The trend these days is to encrypt laptops' entire disks. I may be missing something but wouldn't that render this sort of tool useless? (Or worse--to an investigator--give a false negative result?)
Just wish I could get a bluetooth keyboard for my iPhone :-)
You can't get one--it would compete with the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard and thus is not permissible... :-)
Perhaps I'm missing something but I wonder why more folks who are replacing a computer don't simply use the OS license from the old one?
I have two machines on my desk, one GNU/Linux and one XP (because I'm too lazy to do the work required to get certain games, etc., to run on Linux). My XP machine has an Official Windows XP Professional 1-2 CPU sticker on it. Why can't/don't I get a new machine, install XP (or image-copy the old one) and wipe the old machine?
With the exception of the short time when both machines are running, it seems perfectly legitimate and I wonder why more folks don't choose this route.
Last time I checked the Windows EULA, it seemed like this was OK but, like I said, I may be missing something...)
@Kpau: I agree with you WRT the repetition. There is a fine line they (advertisers/programming folks) have tried to walk in the past but it seems greed is now overriding other considerations.
I don't have a problem with ads, per se, but there seems to be a school of thought among some advertisers that says, "Pound it into their heads and they'll buy more!" and "Repetition or volume or, better yet, both!"
Try either of these interesting experiments:
-- Record a TV show. Any show. Extract the audio and look at it with a waveform editor. Normal show dialog == the peaks and valleys you'd expect to see. Commercials == solid bar of over-compressed audio. (By compressed, I mean the low-volume sounds are raised to full volume, reducing the dynamic range and making the whole thing pretty much the same volume.) Not illegal by any means but will jangle almost anyone's nerves.
Here I am, watching a show at night with the volume set at the low end of audibility so it won't wake up my wife. Then comes "TRICKY EDDIE'S USED CARS! EASY WEEKLY PAYMENTS! BUY NOW! BUY NOW! BUY NOW!" at jet-engine volume, followed by the inevitable "Honey, turn off the TV, please."
-- Get DVD copies of a recent and an old TV show. Since the DVD version is just the meat, it's easy to see how many minutes per hour are set aside for commercials. For example, original Star Trek episodes (~1968) ran about 50 minutes. Deep Space 9 (~1998) ran around 45 minutes and the newest, Enterprise runs about 41 minutes. Old Twilight Zone shows (~1963) ran even longer--a little over 52 mins.
Personally, I don't have trouble sitting through 8-10 minutes of commercials in an hour. Fifteen is pushing it, though, and twenty is over the line. In the VCR days, I'd tape a show and watch it an hour later just so I could fast-forward through the crap. DVRs make it even easier.
If you think about it, the business of TV stations and networks is not to provide shows; it is to deliver eyeballs to advertisers. More eyeballs == more revenue. I wonder how far it will go? Is 30 minutes of commercials per hour very far off?