Factory-style production and distribution of food makes bad food, in my opinion.
I prefer to eat locally raised meat and produce. It tastes better. But the majority of people are just sucking down whatever overprocessed swill is cheap at walmart this week, so my choices won't make much difference on a global scale.
I wish everyone had to kill their own food or go hungry...
It does seem sick to name a minor white-collar crime after an illegal industry that's based on recruiting the ignorant and poverty-stricken to a life of murder and rapine.
I wonder if Disney Inc. has ever considered sending some profit from their "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise to help overcome the economic conditions that make REAL piracy a going concern. I doubt it has ever even occurred to them.
Yo, ho, ho, and a bucket of scum....
Totally OT, I chatted with you once or twice about using Pegasus email with samba, and the hacks that've evolved over the years. David Harris has a notice up stating he's thinking about killing Pegasus off - which is quite a change since the 2005 notice that he was considering an Open-Source rewrite.
If a manual window fails, the failure mode is more likely to be survivable.
Driving up 219 towards the Great Lakes in a total white-out, without enough gas or warm clothing to survive waiting out the storm, and the driver's side power window suddenly failed... and since it was UP at the time, it immediately dropped all the way to the bottom of the door and smashed into a million little cubies.
While I agree with the main thrust of your statement (that the US still has plenty of innovative minds, and the so-called "experts" are ignoring history) I have to point out that the Internet and palmOS and all that other stuff was built on technology specifically developed for the space program. Well, and perfected in order to blow up the Soviet Union.
See, there's this thing called an integrated circuit.... all the great gee-whiz tech of the 21st century is either rooted in war science or space science. I like funding space science better.
The reason for the switch was economic, primarily, not because iron was better for the contemporary applications for metal.
Good point. I think the archeological record bears this out, but the data's kind of iffy since bronze usually endures indefinitely and iron often becomes a rust stain in the earth rather quickly.
Maybe add a 'fool' to the end to take your feeling of superiority out on the appropriate target rather than the poor entirety of Victorian England.
I only mentioned the victorian era because that's when Burton wrote. I wish his wife had not burnt Ruffian Dick's papers after his death; supposedly the unpublished volume II of the Book of the Sword was in there, along with some books about sexual practices that would have been considered outrageous at the time.
The older pyramid stones are carved with copper tools, for some reason the egypts did not use bronze,
I believe Sir Richard Francis Burton's Book of the Sword says bronze chisels (and Burton knew the difference between bronze, copper and brass) and I personally have seen an ancient egyptian bronze scimitar/khopesh in a museum in Britain, and I personally own a museum-quality, fully documented reproduction of a ancient egyptian bronze dagger (my spouse gave it to me as a present). I have a small collection of bronze knives, actually, of various types.
Why do you say they used copper on the pyramid stones? Can you document an error in Burton's account? Have some new cases of fraud or miscategorization been discovered in the English museum system that I don't know about? What's your source?
It was a legitimate question. There's no reason reason to chastise him for asking it. I think the fact that he read the origional article and was reading through the comments was proof enough that he was already taking time to learn about the subject.
But, as Dogbert would say, "where's my satisfaction?";)
Short version is "A guy named Nick Negroponte, who has devoted large portions of his life to helping others, experimented with giving used laptops to kids in areas where the population was technologically illiterate. The results were astounding , yet clearly the lack of power and networking in technologically underdeveloped areas was holding the children back. Thus Nickneg gathered a corps of geeks and industrialists to push human-powered, mesh-networked systems outwards from the edge of the developed world. The phenomenal success of cell phones in Africa and Asia indicates this could work. Extremely well-informed scientists and government agencies have examined the project's supporting science and data and are enthusiastic about the project, but because it has the potential to bring millions of 3rd world children into cyberspace without any dependency on telephone companies or software suppliers there is growing opposition to the project."
As for "looking like a genius compared to most people around here"... not my job, man!
Might I recommend the OLPC home page for starters - which is where you end up if you type "one laptop per child" in pretty much any search engine (or your browser's search bar, if you have one)?
Take ten seconds to learn about something before commenting on it, and you will look like a genius compared to most people around here. Your question is answered in the WIKI, and probably about ten thousand other places already.
They carved Limestone, using copper tools (ahem, softer than limestone), so perfectly together that you can't even fit a playing card between them? I don't think so.
Bronze, not copper. HUGE difference.
Also, the bronze technology of the time was more advanced than anything known to Victorian civilization - Burton writes about the bronze chisel (found inside a pyramid or temple, I forget) that was harder than wrought iron when he's discussing the switch from bronze weapons to iron weapons in The Book of the Sword.
We know that the ancient Egyptians had bronze tools hard enough to work limestone. We have at least one example.
Criticizing a do-gooder on the basis that the critic would prefer to use the do-gooder's resources in a different way is fundamentally flawed. That way lies paralysis and doing nothing. It's just a complicated way of saying "be reasonable--do things my way."
Or, as in this case, a way of saying "you are making me feel guilty about my worthless life of punditry so I'm going to criticise your efforts without examining them first".
It's like criticizing the space program on the basis that it would be better to use the same resources to fight poverty in the U.S. That point is arguably true, but it's silly, because if we didn't have a space program the political reality is that those resources would not be used to fight poverty.
Weirdly enough, the space program has done a lot to fight poverty; at least in the USA anyway. It's been a net job creator and generated more cash than the taxes spent on it.
The altruistic impulse is not fungible. If you say to Negroponte "we don't want your laptops," he's not going to say, "Great, I'll just fold up the Media Lab and send all its funds to Oxfam."
Yup. Actually, he'll say "well I know plenty of kids who do want my laptops so get out of the way." It's not like he hasn't already piloted the project (the nay-sayers never actually do any research, so they don't know that) successfully. The OLPC project came about because Negroponte saw the actual transformation used laptops (from eBay, incidentally) made in real world situations, and he determined that the major problem with them was power and network availability. The OLPC hardware addresses those exact problems with mesh networking and muscle-powered generators (no, there's no hand-crank , that was an old idea that didn't work out - the generators will be foot-powered and easily convertible to use other mechanical power sources).
I've faced this problem in deciding how to make personal charitable donations. How can one decide when there are so many worthy causes? How can one justify donating to the American Cancer Society when perhaps the American Heart Association would be a better use of resources? Is it frivolous to donate to the EFF instead of sending that money to UNICEF? The only answer is: these are the charities I donate to, you donate to whatever charities you wish.
Bingo. It's your time, your money, if somebody else is going to dictate what you do with it that's tyranny. Still, I will point out that the best places to put your altruistic giving are Habitat and especiallyHeifer. These organizations do not perpetuate poverty and bad governments by feeding people who would otherwise starve or rebel, they give people a chance to better themselves so that they can improve their lives and the lives of those around them.
Incidentally, I'm highly amused at the rash of "OLPC failure" stories making the rounds these days. The OLPC project is (so far) a raging success! It seems that some people don't want it to be successful, though, so they simply redefine the goals of the project to something they are not, and that way they can claim failure.
Just an aside, as someone with a little history in metallurgy:
My own experience is empirical, as you might guess from my username. I know a fair number of smiths of various kinds. I have a small forge and foundry myself, though I haven't got a trip-hammer so I don't attempt pattern-welding.
Pattern-Welded is actually a weaker sum of the metals that went into it's production.
False. I have been present personally during demonstrations which included creating and testing pattern-welded blades. Comparisons were made to similarly forged and tempered billets and the layered metal took more force to deform and more force to break. You can overforge the steel, you can thin out the layers too much, you can get large or non-carboniferous inclusions, all of which will result in a flawed or brittle blade, but properly forged pattern-welded steel is stronger and stiffer than plain hammered metal of the same type. This is presumably because of the carbon structures that are created during the welding and hammering out; most smiths will need to use a coal fire rather than a gas forge (I've heard that super-duper experts can pattern-weld with gas and carbon-loaded fluxes, but I've never seen anyone do it successfully).
You are overhyping Japanese swordcraft at bit, also - certainly Japanese blades and bladesmiths deserve their reputation, but there's nothing magical about their particular form of pattern-welding, and for a big European-type like me a Viking pattern-welded blade might be more useful and appropriate. The Norse cable-welded core does not create the weak flanks that characterize the japanese method; Miyamoto Musashi was famous for smashing katanas with a wooden sword, but he wouldn't have been able to do it to a Viking longsword.
Meanwhile, Eben Moglen, the FSF general counsel, promises that GPLv3 will explicitly outlaw deals like this.
Up till now everybody's been saying "GPLv3 is too complex and restrictive for actual use, GPLv2 has proven its worth and we're going to stick with that".
But I'm guessing GPLv3 just got a big boost in popularity. I wonder if the FSF is going to send Ballmer a thank-you note?
First, get some quislings. These will be people unsatisfied with the current status quo. Make sure they have conflicting interests and agendas, like, pick a developer who likes emacs and CVS and another than worships git and vi. Don't tell them about each other.
Next, get some enforcers. These should be brutal, ignorant thugs who like to hurt people. Underpay them and viciously insult them at every opportunity. Lead them to believe that the developers - and especially your quislings - are your favorites. Call the enforcers "The department of productivity enhancement" or something similarly beaureucratic.
Now, using information provided by your quislings, have your thugs brutally torture to death some example victims. (Remember, Machievelli says commit all your atrocities early.) It doesn't matter if your victims are actually guilty of anything, in fact it's better if they aren't, but try not to eliminate any key personnel. Let it be known that any "quitters" or "underachievers" will be targeted next.
Apologize profusely for your previous misjudgement. Let everyone know that you only intend to discipline people who really deserve it in the future. Blame the mistaken murders on bad information, provided by your informants (don't say who they are) and "rogue elements" in the enforcement group. Ostentatiously fire the least culpable and least effective enforcer. As soon as you leave the room, the chief enforcer will explain that "people who really deserve it" are those that do not follow coding guidelines, and "discipline" means waterboarding.
One week later hire an even more psychopathic replacement for the fired enforcer. Have the loudest complainer brutally murdered, but don't talk about it or admit having it done. Stare blankly at anyone who brings up the subject, then talk about the company christmas party.
Your developers will work like the very dickens, and do anything you want.
Yes, bubonic plague and smallpox were rampant as recently as 50 years ago - why, we were dropping like flies, I remember it well!
Certainly, if there was anything to worry about the rates of cancer in children would go up, and that's certainly not happening. The car companies haven't needed to increase the candlepower of car headlights, either, and they'd certainly have to do that if pollution was actually increasing.
All this stuff about Peak Oil and Global Warming is just racism against oil company executives, who are at least as human as Iraqis (in fact, they only have to have horns removed and birth, and not tails like the Iraqis) and all attempts to reduce oil burning are just errant liberalism.
Google maps uses flyover data. You can see the shadow of the airplane in many shots.
Your backyard is not locatable/visible from space, unless you have Seekret Military Technology or an extremely shiny backyard. In either case your Google Maps data is not from satellites once you've zoomed in enough to see your yard.
Granted, everything you say is probably true. Certainly the oil company executives have all had their horns cut off at birth, just like Democrats and network executives.
But, since we've still got a capitalist economy (despite the best efforts of the damn liberals and northern carpetbaggers - what the hell did they think they were doing, freeing the slaves?) we can assume that oil prices will never go up, ever. Regardless of how dependent on oil we are.
Obviously, if oil was a limited resource, or even an important one, we'd be paying more now than we did ten years ago. Since we aren't, clearly the oil supply is infinite. No need to worry, or even to implement any of the plethora of alternatives. People who buy hybrids are fools.
Similarly, if burning oil was bad for the environment, we'd have more cancer in our population than 50 years ago, and children would reach reproductive age faster, particularly in inner cities where pollution would be worse. Since none of that is happening, clearly oil does not produce any degradation of human quality of life. People who want to reduce tailpipe emissions are just alarmist know-nothings.
We bloggers and slashdot posters know all this; you can read any forum (um, except those lefty ones where they filter out all the knowledgeable people) and see that there's widespread agreement: Peak Oil and Global Warming are Bunkum.
And since no legitimate concern can possibly be too complex to be expressed in a two-word buzzphrase, therefore we should not worry and keep doing everything exactly the way we did before the damn liberals freed the slaves, only more so - and with more petroleum-based lubrication!
What would be the point of me, as a (nominal, L leaning) Republican, voting for a Democrat even if he/she were a stirring speaker, wonderful statesman and generally agreeable with my own positions on policy?
That's an easy one. Let me use your earlier semi-quote of RAH to answer you:
"I will not vote for a person with such a gross moral defect as to present a menace to the Republic, regardless of party affiliation."
And that's why loyal Republicans won't vote for neo-con tools.
I'm proud that I've voted against George Bush more times than any non-Republican. Because I vote in the primaries - and I vote for actual Republicans, not for torture-obsessed stalinists like the Bushes or treasonous big-government liars like Reagan.
As Terrence Mann used to say "I will know you by your works". I see the works of these traitors, I don't even have to hear their endless lies to know they are morally and ethically defective.
I started with the "abuse@rr.com" address (which connected me to a robot that insisted I have "a copy of the headers of the problem email" in my complaint, even though I was complaining about DNS abuse and not email abuse) and eventually I graduated to dealing with a human who apparently does not understand written English.
I will go through the link you provided, hopefully the security team will be more clueful... at least they should be able to read BIND logs...
In most cases you can either run wiring for 100bT (GigE if you have broadband) or set up a wireless net that will give you acceptable performance for less effort. Because standard equipment has a titanic installed base, it is broadly available, cheap, mature, and will be supported for a long time.
This HomePNA stuff is niche-market, because almost nobody has a problem that can't already be solved with cheap existing technology. That means it will never enjoy the broad support that the mass-market technology has. So, long term, even the niches where it fits would probably be better off expending the labor to put in modern wires.
My house was built before 1840 and I wired it for GigE at a total cost of... Nothing. That's right, I got all the equipment and cabling from dumpster-diving. Standardized networking tackle is so incredibly widely available you can find it in dumpsters in any corporate office park. I decided to buy a set of used conduit benders off eBay when I linked in the barn, so that cost about $50. My wireless A/B (no G or N yet) also cost nothing, I got the APs from a buddy who bought into G (and is now pining for N). So, I have total coverage on my property for nothing but some sweat and about $100 for tools that I can use for other jobs.
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Factory-style production and distribution of food makes bad food, in my opinion.
I prefer to eat locally raised meat and produce. It tastes better. But the majority of people are just sucking down whatever overprocessed swill is cheap at walmart this week, so my choices won't make much difference on a global scale.
I wish everyone had to kill their own food or go hungry...
Hi Jeremy!
It does seem sick to name a minor white-collar crime after an illegal industry that's based on recruiting the ignorant and poverty-stricken to a life of murder and rapine.
I wonder if Disney Inc. has ever considered sending some profit from their "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise to help overcome the economic conditions that make REAL piracy a going concern. I doubt it has ever even occurred to them.
Yo, ho, ho, and a bucket of scum....
Totally OT, I chatted with you once or twice about using Pegasus email with samba, and the hacks that've evolved over the years. David Harris has a notice up stating he's thinking about killing Pegasus off - which is quite a change since the 2005 notice that he was considering an Open-Source rewrite.
If a manual window fails, the failure mode is more likely to be survivable.
Driving up 219 towards the Great Lakes in a total white-out, without enough gas or warm clothing to survive waiting out the storm, and the driver's side power window suddenly failed... and since it was UP at the time, it immediately dropped all the way to the bottom of the door and smashed into a million little cubies.
Thank God for Duct Tape!!!
Testify, brother!
While I agree with the main thrust of your statement (that the US still has plenty of innovative minds, and the so-called "experts" are ignoring history) I have to point out that the Internet and palmOS and all that other stuff was built on technology specifically developed for the space program. Well, and perfected in order to blow up the Soviet Union.
See, there's this thing called an integrated circuit.... all the great gee-whiz tech of the 21st century is either rooted in war science or space science. I like funding space science better.
I only mentioned the victorian era because that's when Burton wrote. I wish his wife had not burnt Ruffian Dick's papers after his death; supposedly the unpublished volume II of the Book of the Sword was in there, along with some books about sexual practices that would have been considered outrageous at the time.
Why do you say they used copper on the pyramid stones? Can you document an error in Burton's account? Have some new cases of fraud or miscategorization been discovered in the English museum system that I don't know about? What's your source?
Short version is "A guy named Nick Negroponte, who has devoted large portions of his life to helping others, experimented with giving used laptops to kids in areas where the population was technologically illiterate. The results were astounding , yet clearly the lack of power and networking in technologically underdeveloped areas was holding the children back. Thus Nickneg gathered a corps of geeks and industrialists to push human-powered, mesh-networked systems outwards from the edge of the developed world. The phenomenal success of cell phones in Africa and Asia indicates this could work. Extremely well-informed scientists and government agencies have examined the project's supporting science and data and are enthusiastic about the project, but because it has the potential to bring millions of 3rd world children into cyberspace without any dependency on telephone companies or software suppliers there is growing opposition to the project."
As for "looking like a genius compared to most people around here"... not my job, man!
I thought I was supercilious, but I must bow to the master!
Pray enlighten us, what exactly is the right problem, and how are upper class geniuses (such as yourself, presumably) solving it?
And incidentally, is it painful to be without arse? Just curious.
...you can look up stuff.
Might I recommend the OLPC home page for starters - which is where you end up if you type "one laptop per child" in pretty much any search engine (or your browser's search bar, if you have one)?
Take ten seconds to learn about something before commenting on it, and you will look like a genius compared to most people around here. Your question is answered in the WIKI, and probably about ten thousand other places already.
Heh, and people just thought I was morbid.
Also, the bronze technology of the time was more advanced than anything known to Victorian civilization - Burton writes about the bronze chisel (found inside a pyramid or temple, I forget) that was harder than wrought iron when he's discussing the switch from bronze weapons to iron weapons in The Book of the Sword.
We know that the ancient Egyptians had bronze tools hard enough to work limestone. We have at least one example.
It's about muzzling people like you. People who say things the rulers don't like. People who might have a conscience.
Networking technology is just the latest excuse. And the "Red Scare" wore out so now the enemies of freedom hype "the War on Terror".
Or, as in this case, a way of saying "you are making me feel guilty about my worthless life of punditry so I'm going to criticise your efforts without examining them first".
Weirdly enough, the space program has done a lot to fight poverty; at least in the USA anyway. It's been a net job creator and generated more cash than the taxes spent on it.
Yup. Actually, he'll say "well I know plenty of kids who do want my laptops so get out of the way." It's not like he hasn't already piloted the project (the nay-sayers never actually do any research, so they don't know that) successfully. The OLPC project came about because Negroponte saw the actual transformation used laptops (from eBay, incidentally) made in real world situations, and he determined that the major problem with them was power and network availability. The OLPC hardware addresses those exact problems with mesh networking and muscle-powered generators (no, there's no hand-crank , that was an old idea that didn't work out - the generators will be foot-powered and easily convertible to use other mechanical power sources).
Bingo. It's your time, your money, if somebody else is going to dictate what you do with it that's tyranny. Still, I will point out that the best places to put your altruistic giving are Habitat and especially Heifer. These organizations do not perpetuate poverty and bad governments by feeding people who would otherwise starve or rebel, they give people a chance to better themselves so that they can improve their lives and the lives of those around them.
Incidentally, I'm highly amused at the rash of "OLPC failure" stories making the rounds these days. The OLPC project is (so far) a raging success! It seems that some people don't want it to be successful, though, so they simply redefine the goals of the project to something they are not, and that way they can claim failure.
False. I have been present personally during demonstrations which included creating and testing pattern-welded blades. Comparisons were made to similarly forged and tempered billets and the layered metal took more force to deform and more force to break. You can overforge the steel, you can thin out the layers too much, you can get large or non-carboniferous inclusions, all of which will result in a flawed or brittle blade, but properly forged pattern-welded steel is stronger and stiffer than plain hammered metal of the same type. This is presumably because of the carbon structures that are created during the welding and hammering out; most smiths will need to use a coal fire rather than a gas forge (I've heard that super-duper experts can pattern-weld with gas and carbon-loaded fluxes, but I've never seen anyone do it successfully).
You are overhyping Japanese swordcraft at bit, also - certainly Japanese blades and bladesmiths deserve their reputation, but there's nothing magical about their particular form of pattern-welding, and for a big European-type like me a Viking pattern-welded blade might be more useful and appropriate. The Norse cable-welded core does not create the weak flanks that characterize the japanese method; Miyamoto Musashi was famous for smashing katanas with a wooden sword, but he wouldn't have been able to do it to a Viking longsword.
But I'm guessing GPLv3 just got a big boost in popularity. I wonder if the FSF is going to send Ballmer a thank-you note?
First, get some quislings. These will be people unsatisfied with the current status quo. Make sure they have conflicting interests and agendas, like, pick a developer who likes emacs and CVS and another than worships git and vi. Don't tell them about each other.
Next, get some enforcers. These should be brutal, ignorant thugs who like to hurt people. Underpay them and viciously insult them at every opportunity. Lead them to believe that the developers - and especially your quislings - are your favorites. Call the enforcers "The department of productivity enhancement" or something similarly beaureucratic.
Now, using information provided by your quislings, have your thugs brutally torture to death some example victims. (Remember, Machievelli says commit all your atrocities early.) It doesn't matter if your victims are actually guilty of anything, in fact it's better if they aren't, but try not to eliminate any key personnel. Let it be known that any "quitters" or "underachievers" will be targeted next.
Apologize profusely for your previous misjudgement. Let everyone know that you only intend to discipline people who really deserve it in the future. Blame the mistaken murders on bad information, provided by your informants (don't say who they are) and "rogue elements" in the enforcement group. Ostentatiously fire the least culpable and least effective enforcer. As soon as you leave the room, the chief enforcer will explain that "people who really deserve it" are those that do not follow coding guidelines, and "discipline" means waterboarding.
One week later hire an even more psychopathic replacement for the fired enforcer. Have the loudest complainer brutally murdered, but don't talk about it or admit having it done. Stare blankly at anyone who brings up the subject, then talk about the company christmas party.
Your developers will work like the very dickens, and do anything you want.
Yes, bubonic plague and smallpox were rampant as recently as 50 years ago - why, we were dropping like flies, I remember it well!
Certainly, if there was anything to worry about the rates of cancer in children would go up, and that's certainly not happening. The car companies haven't needed to increase the candlepower of car headlights, either, and they'd certainly have to do that if pollution was actually increasing.
All this stuff about Peak Oil and Global Warming is just racism against oil company executives, who are at least as human as Iraqis (in fact, they only have to have horns removed and birth, and not tails like the Iraqis) and all attempts to reduce oil burning are just errant liberalism.
Google maps uses flyover data. You can see the shadow of the airplane in many shots.
Your backyard is not locatable/visible from space, unless you have Seekret Military Technology or an extremely shiny backyard. In either case your Google Maps data is not from satellites once you've zoomed in enough to see your yard.
Look it up, I'm serious.
Granted, everything you say is probably true. Certainly the oil company executives have all had their horns cut off at birth, just like Democrats and network executives.
But, since we've still got a capitalist economy (despite the best efforts of the damn liberals and northern carpetbaggers - what the hell did they think they were doing, freeing the slaves?) we can assume that oil prices will never go up, ever. Regardless of how dependent on oil we are.
Obviously, if oil was a limited resource, or even an important one, we'd be paying more now than we did ten years ago. Since we aren't, clearly the oil supply is infinite. No need to worry, or even to implement any of the plethora of alternatives. People who buy hybrids are fools.
Similarly, if burning oil was bad for the environment, we'd have more cancer in our population than 50 years ago, and children would reach reproductive age faster, particularly in inner cities where pollution would be worse. Since none of that is happening, clearly oil does not produce any degradation of human quality of life. People who want to reduce tailpipe emissions are just alarmist know-nothings.
We bloggers and slashdot posters know all this; you can read any forum (um, except those lefty ones where they filter out all the knowledgeable people) and see that there's widespread agreement: Peak Oil and Global Warming are Bunkum.
And since no legitimate concern can possibly be too complex to be expressed in a two-word buzzphrase, therefore we should not worry and keep doing everything exactly the way we did before the damn liberals freed the slaves, only more so - and with more petroleum-based lubrication!
And that's why loyal Republicans won't vote for neo-con tools.
I'm proud that I've voted against George Bush more times than any non-Republican. Because I vote in the primaries - and I vote for actual Republicans, not for torture-obsessed stalinists like the Bushes or treasonous big-government liars like Reagan.
As Terrence Mann used to say "I will know you by your works". I see the works of these traitors, I don't even have to hear their endless lies to know they are morally and ethically defective.
I started with the "abuse@rr.com" address (which connected me to a robot that insisted I have "a copy of the headers of the problem email" in my complaint, even though I was complaining about DNS abuse and not email abuse) and eventually I graduated to dealing with a human who apparently does not understand written English.
I will go through the link you provided, hopefully the security team will be more clueful... at least they should be able to read BIND logs...
Thanks!
You analogy leaves me breathless, like a glass eel.
I would sign up with that ISP in a heartbeat. Most ISPs are total worm farms.
I'm getting DNS poisoning attacks about 300 times a day from a RR.COM cable modem address and RR says they can't do anything about it.
The attacks aren't actually working, but it still peeves me mightily.
In most cases you can either run wiring for 100bT (GigE if you have broadband) or set up a wireless net that will give you acceptable performance for less effort. Because standard equipment has a titanic installed base, it is broadly available, cheap, mature, and will be supported for a long time.
This HomePNA stuff is niche-market, because almost nobody has a problem that can't already be solved with cheap existing technology. That means it will never enjoy the broad support that the mass-market technology has. So, long term, even the niches where it fits would probably be better off expending the labor to put in modern wires.
My house was built before 1840 and I wired it for GigE at a total cost of... Nothing. That's right, I got all the equipment and cabling from dumpster-diving. Standardized networking tackle is so incredibly widely available you can find it in dumpsters in any corporate office park. I decided to buy a set of used conduit benders off eBay when I linked in the barn, so that cost about $50. My wireless A/B (no G or N yet) also cost nothing, I got the APs from a buddy who bought into G (and is now pining for N). So, I have total coverage on my property for nothing but some sweat and about $100 for tools that I can use for other jobs.