You have a serious problem, because you are trying to buck the system. The best solution is to pick an ISP that will listen to you and treat you with respect and intelligence. For most customers, who know very little about networking, that may mean the standard frontline support. But a good ISP will listen, recognize that you know what you are talking about, and talk to you at your level. After all, it's in their interest as well as yours.
Where are you located? I'm in England, and for some years I have used an ISP called fast.co.uk (Dark Group). Things very rarely go wrong - and when they do, it's usually the fault of BT, the wholesale provider. But when the problem lies in my setup or theirs, the tech support people are outstandingly helpful.
The phrase, "finite limit" is grossly redundant. "Finite" simply means "unlimited". Indeed, both of these words are routinely overused, as there are few things in our world that can rightly be called infinite. (Cue lots of people quoting what Einstein supposedly said about stupidity, although to my mind it doesn't sound at all his style).
How long before legislators and the White House understand that this kind of restrictive export law simply handicaps US researchers and corporations? Competitors from other nations such as India and Russia get a significant advantage over their opposite numbers in the, er, Land of the Free.
After a quick scan of the comments, I didn't notice any mention of the privacy aspects. A tax on gasoline or other fuels is non-intrusive and barely noticeable: the cost of fuel is just that much higher. But to tax drivers by distance (also perhaps factoring in the weight and nature of their vehicles) requires the state to find out how far they have travelled, which probably requires either a "spy in the car" or detection and tracking of all vehicles on the roads.
From a civil liberties point of view, I would think the fuel tax is a far better solution. (Of course those who thrive on building civil service empires, and those who profit from selling government big computer systems, may disagree).
He should have held out for $2 million. Are constitutional rights so cheap nowadays that police can cheerfully violate them by the gross, and pay nothing more in compensation than the price of a second-hand car?
Has it occurred to any of those witlings that people who are now "old folk" invented the computer, the network, the operating system, the Internet, and - marginally - the Web? (Sorry TBL!) Moreover, they are more likely to understand how those things work than younger people who simply take them for granted.
Lord Acton hit the nail on the head. 128 years ago he wrote that, ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Unfortunately, no one has ever devised a way of running societies without giving power to certain individuals. With a very small number of honourable exceptions (which prove the rule), that power has corrupted them. We see it around us almost every day, and the people who rise to control entire nation states display the corruption due to power in singularly pure and concentrated form.
The technicians working in the FBI labs had a very limited form of power, but within that particular domain their sway was almost unchallenged. What expert would dispute the word of the mighty FBI, what lawyer would challenge it, what judge or jury would not be impressed by it? And the technicians' bosses had more power, which was assuredly focused on the important task of getting convictions. I rather doubt that any lab technician at the FBI ever got much career advancement out of frequently discrediting prosecution evidence. Every bureaucratic organization measures itself according to a limited set of drastically oversimplified metrics, and conviction rate is an important metric for any law-enforcement organization. The higher up the tree you go, the greater the desire for more convictions, and the less the concern for whether they are justified or not.
"One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters". - Aldous Huxley
No, thought not. IMHO a classic - almost, in fact, the canonical - example of boring technology that's good because it's boring. Look at all the criticisms of Ada, and you will find that most of them boil down to, "It's not so much fun and doesn't make me feel so good". But that depends on what makes you feel good. As many qualified people have remarked, if you are flying in an airliner you really want the avionics to be written in Ada, not C++ or Ruby or Python. Why? Because you're a lot more likely to survive. Almost unbelievably, it boils down to a matter of professional pride. What gives you a warm feeling - coding something marvellously clever that you yourself won't understand in three weeks, or creating something that works reliably and does exactly the job it was meant to do? One is an amateur attitude, the other is a professional attitude.
"How can a government department concerned with security not get this sort of thing right?"
Very funny.
When did a government department of any kind ever get anything right? Especially when it concerns computers. Triply when it concerns security. See for example:
The truth of the matter is that politicians and civil servants tend to be highly non-technical, and very much focused on high-sounding (but misleading) talk. This is the exact opposite of the attitude you need to accomplish anything with computers. But they are also very arrogant, and committed to the belief that - since they don't understand computers - programming and the like must be extremely easy.
Sounds like an imitation of the Inspector Morse episode "Masonic Mysteries", in which a criminal whom Morse has had imprisoned pulls a similar trick. And then the fun begins!
"...In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right..."
As a foreigner I'm probably completely wrong. But isn't the Constitution getting to look very much like a Bill of Rights for immense corporations to enrich themselves by any means they choose? Just asking.
It's funny that the summary starts with "One of the cornerstones of any democracy is its judicial system". That's true of all forms of society/government; it is absolutely not limited to democracies. So why bring democracy into it - except that it's one of the holy words of our society, a word that stuns everyone into instant acquiescence and worship?
One can make a strong case that justice is particularly hard to come by in a democracy, as opposed to a monarchy or a true aristocracy. The distinguishing feature of real democracy is that the people as a whole wield supreme power. So a majority can carry out any act, no matter how illogical, unethical, or downright disgraceful. Such as the execution of Socrates, for instance. Or the decision to execute the admirals of the Athenian fleet after the battle of Arginusae - which was rescinded the following day, when the people changed their minds.
You can see a similar pattern in the USA, where many prosecutors are elected by the people. This leads them to pursue popularity at all costs - and, in a populous society where most electors will never get to meet the actual candidate, popularity is usually sought by lighting up the media with sensational news. How many miscarriages of justice have been perpetrated because a prosecutor wanted to make a name for himself? And of course the prosecutor is not held responsible, because his job is only to argue the case for conviction. If someone is wrongly found guilty, that is the fault of the defence, the jury, the judge, the police who made up evidence or concealed exonerating evidence... and anyway, it's all forgotten the next week.
Probably the best place to start constructing a good judicial system is with a genuine concern for justice. It has been well observed that, in any country that has a Ministry of Justice or something similar, justice itself will be conspicuous by its absence. (Just as any corporation that has an "ethics committee" has probably forgotten what the word "ethics" means). Honest people know what's right, but given enough bureaucracy and laws - assisted by thousands of career-minded functionaries - we get today's situation where any lawyer can tell you that the law has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with justice.
Definitely bricked. It's axiomatic that your data is more valuable than your hardware - since you have it all backed up, you just buy new hardware and you are set. (Although you might want to consider changing your OS).
In fact, I have heard security professionals opine that a brick is the ideal secure IT system. It can't store any data, it can't do any computing, and it doesn't do you any good except as part of a wall (or something handy to throw at a politician). But it is VERY secure indeed.
This sounds completely consistent with 21st century business practices. Offer a service to do X, then accept money not to do X = without telling the people who are relying on it.
"There is no doubt about it because the rebels announced the news themselves to the whole world before they realized their mistake".
Thank you for your polite expression of dissent. It's fortunate that information like that could never be faked by any group of vicious, self-seeking propagandists who habitually lie about everything. (Which could equally well describe the current "Ukrainian government" or the current US government - it makes no difference as the first is operated by the second).
Unluckily for your conspiracy theory, we know for sure that there were jet fighters within firing range immediately before MH17 went down; that there was no smoke or noise indicating a BUK launch; that the BUK unit captured by rebels (if any) was incomplete and incapable of shooting down an airliner at 10 Km height; that photographs clearly show the cockpit section riddled with cannon holes; that the Ukrainian authorities deliberately diverted MH17 directly over the fighting, for no good reason; and that mysteriously the highly detailed US military satellite images of the attack have never been released. Apart from which the Russians and Novorussians had every reason not to shoot down a civilian airliner, while Kiev had everything to gain from staging a false-flag attack.
Your faked "social media" evidence loses hands down.
" Most of the free world profits from trade with the US".
In the sense that they receive lots of minty-fresh new dollars, hot off the printing press, in return for their valuable goods and services - maybe. But do you think that situation can go on for ever? Seriously??
And by the way, what is this "free world" of which you speak? Do you mean those nations that have democratic constitutions, defined as solemnly holding elections every few years in which the suckers, er people, can choose which of two gangs of corrupt millionaires they want to be ruled by for the next few years? Or do you refer to our "free markets", which are systematically rigged by banks, oil companies, and other wealthy corporations - as well as governments, of course?
Freedom is not an absolute: it's a matter of degree. In a nation with literally tens of thousands of restrictive laws and regulations (and more every year, at a steadily increasing rate) there is precious little freedom except the freedom of the rich to do what they want.
"Well in the UK the sanctions against Russia have merely caused vegetable prices to go through the floor. I rarely go to super markets but I went yesterday and they were piled high at 5p a packet. Normally they are about 70p".
And you think this is a good sign, do you? Consumers like you get to save a few pence, while vegetable producers go broke and eventually out of business. It's not smart at all for a small overpopulated island to rely on imported food - it may not always be there to buy.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a serious problem, because you are trying to buck the system. The best solution is to pick an ISP that will listen to you and treat you with respect and intelligence. For most customers, who know very little about networking, that may mean the standard frontline support. But a good ISP will listen, recognize that you know what you are talking about, and talk to you at your level. After all, it's in their interest as well as yours.
Where are you located? I'm in England, and for some years I have used an ISP called fast.co.uk (Dark Group). Things very rarely go wrong - and when they do, it's usually the fault of BT, the wholesale provider. But when the problem lies in my setup or theirs, the tech support people are outstandingly helpful.
The phrase, "finite limit" is grossly redundant. "Finite" simply means "unlimited". Indeed, both of these words are routinely overused, as there are few things in our world that can rightly be called infinite. (Cue lots of people quoting what Einstein supposedly said about stupidity, although to my mind it doesn't sound at all his style).
How long before legislators and the White House understand that this kind of restrictive export law simply handicaps US researchers and corporations? Competitors from other nations such as India and Russia get a significant advantage over their opposite numbers in the, er, Land of the Free.
After a quick scan of the comments, I didn't notice any mention of the privacy aspects. A tax on gasoline or other fuels is non-intrusive and barely noticeable: the cost of fuel is just that much higher. But to tax drivers by distance (also perhaps factoring in the weight and nature of their vehicles) requires the state to find out how far they have travelled, which probably requires either a "spy in the car" or detection and tracking of all vehicles on the roads.
From a civil liberties point of view, I would think the fuel tax is a far better solution. (Of course those who thrive on building civil service empires, and those who profit from selling government big computer systems, may disagree).
When the heat's on, you will see hyenas eat one another.
He should have held out for $2 million. Are constitutional rights so cheap nowadays that police can cheerfully violate them by the gross, and pay nothing more in compensation than the price of a second-hand car?
I'm British.
"It's a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models ... have been found ... to be in error."
Ha ha ha. He used the notorious passive voice: "have been found". I wonder why?
Clues:
1. Does not specify who did the finding.
2. Provides no link to any actual information.
Has it occurred to any of those witlings that people who are now "old folk" invented the computer, the network, the operating system, the Internet, and - marginally - the Web? (Sorry TBL!) Moreover, they are more likely to understand how those things work than younger people who simply take them for granted.
Lord Acton hit the nail on the head. 128 years ago he wrote that, ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Unfortunately, no one has ever devised a way of running societies without giving power to certain individuals. With a very small number of honourable exceptions (which prove the rule), that power has corrupted them. We see it around us almost every day, and the people who rise to control entire nation states display the corruption due to power in singularly pure and concentrated form.
The technicians working in the FBI labs had a very limited form of power, but within that particular domain their sway was almost unchallenged. What expert would dispute the word of the mighty FBI, what lawyer would challenge it, what judge or jury would not be impressed by it? And the technicians' bosses had more power, which was assuredly focused on the important task of getting convictions. I rather doubt that any lab technician at the FBI ever got much career advancement out of frequently discrediting prosecution evidence. Every bureaucratic organization measures itself according to a limited set of drastically oversimplified metrics, and conviction rate is an important metric for any law-enforcement organization. The higher up the tree you go, the greater the desire for more convictions, and the less the concern for whether they are justified or not.
"One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters".
- Aldous Huxley
No, thought not. IMHO a classic - almost, in fact, the canonical - example of boring technology that's good because it's boring. Look at all the criticisms of Ada, and you will find that most of them boil down to, "It's not so much fun and doesn't make me feel so good". But that depends on what makes you feel good. As many qualified people have remarked, if you are flying in an airliner you really want the avionics to be written in Ada, not C++ or Ruby or Python. Why? Because you're a lot more likely to survive. Almost unbelievably, it boils down to a matter of professional pride. What gives you a warm feeling - coding something marvellously clever that you yourself won't understand in three weeks, or creating something that works reliably and does exactly the job it was meant to do? One is an amateur attitude, the other is a professional attitude.
"...to get to outlook THAT way would take centuries even on the fastest computers we have".
Which would still be FAR FAR TOO SOON.
"How can a government department concerned with security not get this sort of thing right?"
Very funny.
When did a government department of any kind ever get anything right? Especially when it concerns computers. Triply when it concerns security. See for example:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
etc., etc. passim.
The truth of the matter is that politicians and civil servants tend to be highly non-technical, and very much focused on high-sounding (but misleading) talk. This is the exact opposite of the attitude you need to accomplish anything with computers. But they are also very arrogant, and committed to the belief that - since they don't understand computers - programming and the like must be extremely easy.
Sounds like an imitation of the Inspector Morse episode "Masonic Mysteries", in which a criminal whom Morse has had imprisoned pulls a similar trick. And then the fun begins!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt06...
Indeed. While technically stars beyond any doubt, they aren't exactly the kind of stars we are looking for at the moment. (IMHO).
Exactly when did Verizon begin to think they "own" the internet ?
Since they realised they can cut people off from it...
"...In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right..."
As a foreigner I'm probably completely wrong. But isn't the Constitution getting to look very much like a Bill of Rights for immense corporations to enrich themselves by any means they choose? Just asking.
It's funny that the summary starts with "One of the cornerstones of any democracy is its judicial system". That's true of all forms of society/government; it is absolutely not limited to democracies. So why bring democracy into it - except that it's one of the holy words of our society, a word that stuns everyone into instant acquiescence and worship?
One can make a strong case that justice is particularly hard to come by in a democracy, as opposed to a monarchy or a true aristocracy. The distinguishing feature of real democracy is that the people as a whole wield supreme power. So a majority can carry out any act, no matter how illogical, unethical, or downright disgraceful. Such as the execution of Socrates, for instance. Or the decision to execute the admirals of the Athenian fleet after the battle of Arginusae - which was rescinded the following day, when the people changed their minds.
You can see a similar pattern in the USA, where many prosecutors are elected by the people. This leads them to pursue popularity at all costs - and, in a populous society where most electors will never get to meet the actual candidate, popularity is usually sought by lighting up the media with sensational news. How many miscarriages of justice have been perpetrated because a prosecutor wanted to make a name for himself? And of course the prosecutor is not held responsible, because his job is only to argue the case for conviction. If someone is wrongly found guilty, that is the fault of the defence, the jury, the judge, the police who made up evidence or concealed exonerating evidence... and anyway, it's all forgotten the next week.
Probably the best place to start constructing a good judicial system is with a genuine concern for justice. It has been well observed that, in any country that has a Ministry of Justice or something similar, justice itself will be conspicuous by its absence. (Just as any corporation that has an "ethics committee" has probably forgotten what the word "ethics" means). Honest people know what's right, but given enough bureaucracy and laws - assisted by thousands of career-minded functionaries - we get today's situation where any lawyer can tell you that the law has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with justice.
"True, but only because Adobe never made an OS".
A man's gotta know his limitations. And they do.
Definitely bricked. It's axiomatic that your data is more valuable than your hardware - since you have it all backed up, you just buy new hardware and you are set. (Although you might want to consider changing your OS).
In fact, I have heard security professionals opine that a brick is the ideal secure IT system. It can't store any data, it can't do any computing, and it doesn't do you any good except as part of a wall (or something handy to throw at a politician). But it is VERY secure indeed.
This sounds completely consistent with 21st century business practices. Offer a service to do X, then accept money not to do X = without telling the people who are relying on it.
Suckers!
"You come across as a Putin apologist".
Nice ad hominem! You always say the same thing, though; a little variety would be appreciated.
It would be superfluous to add that this is a clear case of pot and kettle.
"There is no doubt about it because the rebels announced the news themselves to the whole world before they realized their mistake".
Thank you for your polite expression of dissent. It's fortunate that information like that could never be faked by any group of vicious, self-seeking propagandists who habitually lie about everything. (Which could equally well describe the current "Ukrainian government" or the current US government - it makes no difference as the first is operated by the second).
Unluckily for your conspiracy theory, we know for sure that there were jet fighters within firing range immediately before MH17 went down; that there was no smoke or noise indicating a BUK launch; that the BUK unit captured by rebels (if any) was incomplete and incapable of shooting down an airliner at 10 Km height; that photographs clearly show the cockpit section riddled with cannon holes; that the Ukrainian authorities deliberately diverted MH17 directly over the fighting, for no good reason; and that mysteriously the highly detailed US military satellite images of the attack have never been released. Apart from which the Russians and Novorussians had every reason not to shoot down a civilian airliner, while Kiev had everything to gain from staging a false-flag attack.
Your faked "social media" evidence loses hands down.
" Most of the free world profits from trade with the US".
In the sense that they receive lots of minty-fresh new dollars, hot off the printing press, in return for their valuable goods and services - maybe. But do you think that situation can go on for ever? Seriously??
And by the way, what is this "free world" of which you speak? Do you mean those nations that have democratic constitutions, defined as solemnly holding elections every few years in which the suckers, er people, can choose which of two gangs of corrupt millionaires they want to be ruled by for the next few years? Or do you refer to our "free markets", which are systematically rigged by banks, oil companies, and other wealthy corporations - as well as governments, of course?
Freedom is not an absolute: it's a matter of degree. In a nation with literally tens of thousands of restrictive laws and regulations (and more every year, at a steadily increasing rate) there is precious little freedom except the freedom of the rich to do what they want.
"Well in the UK the sanctions against Russia have merely caused vegetable prices to go through the floor. I rarely go to super markets but I went yesterday and they were piled high at 5p a packet. Normally they are about 70p".
And you think this is a good sign, do you? Consumers like you get to save a few pence, while vegetable producers go broke and eventually out of business. It's not smart at all for a small overpopulated island to rely on imported food - it may not always be there to buy.