No, using the telephone network gives you absolutely no assurance of anything. There's likely hundreds of places between you and them where people could be sniffing traffic.
Read the posts again. The whole point is that you assume all your communications are being sniffed. That's why you use multiple distinct channels.
If you send the keys/passphrase on a modem, and you send the host/user identification through e-mail, you have 2 distinct separate channels. The likelihood of a Bad Guy [TM] being able to intercept both is not significantly greater than the likelihood of said Bad Guy [TM] suborning your courier and reading your floppy, or blackmailing an insider at one or the other end of the communications path into supplying complete access information. I have been known to use 3 channels, myself, one for each of the three pieces of related information. This is information security 101 here.
If you are suggesting that your telco is out to get you, keep in mind that the phone companies have the political, economic, and physical power to crush you like a bug. They can do whatever they want as long as they put profit in front of the shareholders. If a major telco gets caught murdering pre-schoolers for their lunch money they will NOT go out of business, nor will the pre-schoolers magically come back to life again. So stop worrying about what the phone company, the NSA, or your mom can do to you, and instead make sure they have no reason to want to do anything bad to you. Again, security 101, don't piss off anyone you cannot realistically protect yourself from.
Obviously, using the same methods and channels every time degrades the efficacy of said methods. Equally obviously, both ends of the communications channel should implement IP address based restrictions (Wietse's TCP wrappers, for example) if possible, and failed attempts should be logged and monitored.
Um, not really. It's a slightly prettified implementation of XNU/Darwin. Essentially, the BSD APIs and network stack grafted onto the Mach microkernel - what we used to call a "train wreck" operating system. It does not seem (to me at least, on my mac) to be as lame as HP-UX, though, which is the only other TW-OS I've used for real work.
Controlling the hardware platform has allowed Apple to concentrate a lot of effort on fast, efficient drivers, which compensates a lot for the XNU kernel's ineffiency. Still, I personally consider it to be slow (perhaps ponderous would be a better word) but on modern hardware it's fast enough for most people. I'd say the same about most versions of windows, incidentally.
Your comment about the benjamins, though, is right on. Apple's rolling in iPod money right now.
If you cannot resist the siren call of easy credit, chop up and burn your credit cards.
It's better, though, to use credit responsibly, so you can buy the house of your dreams some day. Real estate (the only true wealth, which is why it's "real", get it?) is going to require credit history for most of us. So, follow this easy rule:
If any of your credit cards is carrying a balance (that is, if any card is not PAID IN FULL at the end of the month) do not use credit for any reason. If you are starving you should beg on the street before you carry a balance on a credit card.
If you can't follow that rule, destroy the cards before it's too late. Otherwise you may end up hostage to a bad boss in a dead-end job, whining on/. about how you can't afford to quit.
Also, when you visit the realtor prior to buying property, let them calculate the maximum you can afford to spend. Then be sure to spend no more than two-thirds of that amount - better still spend half. You'll never regret it.
you're stating that you have no ethical problem with frightening people, but that you're too lazy to do it yourself?
Well, I've got other stuff to do. I still don't have my hydro plant working, and working with tons of stone and metal by myself is very time consuming for an old guy like me. I figure another four years minimum.
I think the mujahedeen are working hard to obtain a nuclear or biological weapon. Once they unleash it in a major western city...
You are now joining the doomsayers to predict nuclear holocaust? Seems contradictory to your previous condemnation of environmentalist doomsaying.
Probably because you simply define corporations as "evil" and take pleasure in thinking of them as mindless machiavellian monsters who would gladly grind baby bones into bone meal if it would make them money. If only you would apply the same degree of skepticism to governments' actions...
Wow, I'm not sure where that came from. I am a former rocket scientist - I used to build nuclear missiles for the US government. I work for a corporation today and I have for most of my life, although I've also worked in academia. I really don't see how I could be more skeptical of both governments and corporations than I already am, and it's not due to lack of experience with one or the other, believe me. Perhaps you meant to ask for some material backing that particular statement about corporate misdeeds?
It's not okay to "coddle" fearful people but it is okay to create fearful people? It sounds like you want to do hurtful actions, and if people are hurt by your actions, then they "deserve it". Am I correct?
No, I'm not Ayn Rand. You keep trying to equate my lack of compassion for cowards with a desire to do them harm. I don't try to stop wasps from stinging caterpillars, but it's not because I have a secret hatred of caterpillars, dig? I don't even have any special liking for wasps, for that matter, although they are more desireable in my garden than tomato hornworms.
I definately agree that you are a snot-nosed, arrogant little shit (not to mention abusive and possibly undeserving of living in society), but I take exception to being characterized as such. What did I say that made you think I was "self-righteous"?
Actually, I'm rather old and quite large, though not exceptionally heavy. As for self-righteousness, if you can't see it in yourself I doubt I can point it out to you, but I'll try anyway.
How do you figure your opinion matters on this issue? It's because you are a self-righteous (and abusive, as amply demonstrated just now) and arrogant person. You are convinced that you are right and all these posts show that your opinions are not open to modification by external voices. In all fairness, I have to admit that these criticisms apply to me as well - I'm convinced that my belief system is fundamentally correct, and that others would benefit from having the same beliefs.
If you're not familiar with it, Larry Wall has a famous quote on the three attributes of great programmers: laziness, impatience, and hubris. I think a similar observation could be made here; if you think your opinion matters, you've got to be self-righteous enough to think you know what needs changing and arrogant enough to think you are qualified to say so.
We seem to have argued to an impasse, and so, adieu.
Sending the keys over a POTS ppp link is actually pretty far out-of-band, and provides reasonable levels of assurance that the sender and receiver are correct. Because of less time exposure for interception, it's probably just as good as using a flash drive sent parcel-post.
Are you stating that it's acceptable for you scare people into action because you think they suck anyway?
No, I'm not saying that I am going to do anything to scare anyone. But, on the other hand, yes I am saying that I don't mind Lovelock (or you, for that matter) scaring people. And yes I do have contempt for the sort of cowardice that is endemic in America today. I am totally appalled that anyone in this country could be afraid of terrorism, for example; terrorism hardly ever kills anyone compared to things like automobiles, alcoholism, heart disease, bad hygiene, or any number of other things. Hell, there are probably dozens of US corporations that kill more people than terrorists every year. If someone living in America today is so afraid of the world ending that their health is suffering, then yes they do suck. The answer is not to denounce anything that might scare poor little precious, the answer is for society to stop coddling cowards and for precious to get a fscking grip!
I said "why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?" and you replied "Because we are not pompous, arrogant, condesending, or abusive?" - to which I must reply "Oh yes we are!".
Re-read our posts, starting with yours. I think you've described us both rather well... except you left out "self-rightous".:)
If people are frightened by doomsayers, then let the people be frightened. Maybe they will get off their lazy asses and do something meaningful with their lives. If not, why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?
Fearmongering is fearmongering, and I want none of what you are selling. What I'd like to see is a few more people who will stand up to fearmongers and tell them, rather publicly and en masse, "The fear you spread is more harmful than the thing you fear!"
The guy you are accusing of fear-mongering didn't say a single thing that scared me.
It sounds to me like you are saying "If this climate change stuff is true, we should be terrified, and therefore I cannot believe it is true, therefore I want to see the people saying this stuff denounced!"
Nutty ol' Lovelock proposes strong archival and dissemination of knowledge. And preparing local communities and family groups in case of disasters. This is harmful exactly how?
Lack of preparedness has obvious harmful effects. Children will learn the lifestyle and values of their ill-prepared parents, and build ill-prepared communities, and the next thing you know everybody's on the sofa watching videos instead of fixing the roof, and complaining because the government won't make it stop raining, or doesn't build tall enough levees.
What, exactly, is this "harm" you ascribe to this so-called "fear-mongering"? How is anyone harmed by preparedness?
So, in other words, it's much like every other consumer-level contract.
No, I don't think so, but there are certainly many others just as bad. Windows XP's license is probably worse if you have a real lawyer parse it to death.
Ever read your home DSL/cable contract?
Sure did. I'm ornery that way. It is not as restrictive as the iTunes agreement and I get fantastically more on my side of the contract - for example, I can monitor the grounds of the local Unitarian Universalist Church by video (and hopefully, this will lead to some vandals getting the ever lovin' crap beat out of them). Worth it for that alone, not to mention the ability to IP-phone my relatives in Europe and Britain.
(No, I don't like it. Yes, I'll continue using iTunes - in fact, I'm downloading the QT/iTunes/10.4.4 updates right now. No, I don't use the iTunes store.)
By not using the iTunes store you avoid the most heinous clauses in the agreement, at least. And hopefully, you are getting something of value on your side of the agreement; but there is nothing available to me through the use of iTunes that I can't get elsewhere - without making such a contract.
--What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
I understand the concept, I just never seen one personally. I'm in favor of it if it though!
That's probably a valid point, as far as it goes.
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 1
IANAL, but my understanding is that ridiculously open-ended and unbalanced clauses like that aren't enforceable.
There are the usual weasel-words in the EULA to the effect that any invalid language or application shall not invalidate any other legal interpretations or clauses. So effectively it says "we can do the absolute maximum evil to you that the Delaware Chancery Court says is OK today" (or whatever the court specified is, it's usually Delaware but I haven't read the iTunes EULA in months).
I don't see any benefit that's worth the risk, here. I don't actually need anything iTunes supplies - I can get food, shelter, clothing, etc. without it, in fact even music and video are easily obtainable without iTunes. An infinitesimal increase in convenience is hardly worth risking my system's stability (not to mention encouraging insane EULAs). They need a far more rational license before they will get my traffic, and I'll just use something less convenient in the meantime.
Keep in mind, I don't really care what other folks choose to do with their computers as long as they aren't harming anyone else. The amazing thing to me about this whole argument is that people have flamed me because I've stated that I don't like the iTunes EULA. Do they not have anything better to do with their time? You'd think I stole their girlfriends or something.
Religion is mostly static? How many religions, exactly, have you studied extensively? This statement doesn't even really apply all that well to Xianity.
Your "flaming atheism" would be welcome in any Unitarian Universalist Church, I think.
Many atheists unite with theists in insisting that non-theistic faiths are not religions. And of course the US Supreme Court ruled that Universalism wasn't a religion, because it rejected the notion of a binding creed (which seems sort of like saying "if you reject hatred and strife you aren't a religion!"). It's nice to meet an atheist who thinks a little deeper that that.
If you don't need church, you can still "be a Unitarian by yourself" like Tommy Jefferson. And you can still be an atheist at the same time, too (although he wasn't).
Didn't read the EULA, huh?
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For those who don't know: The iTunes EULA is outrageously broad, and basically grants permission to Apple and several other companies to do anything they damn well please - including re-writing the entire EULA without notification or consent.
That's why my mac has no iTunes. That's why the corporation I work for does not allow versions of Quicktime that include iTunes.
Incidentally, I've been roundly flamed (and even made people's/. foes list) for pointing out that I, personally, am unwilling to enter such an open-ended contract.
Perhaps I have blasphemed the mac religion by reading an Apple EULA. I fully expect this post to be modded troll and flamebait, although it is intended as neither.
Sure! As pointed out in other posts here, if you want to use the special mathematical meaning of the word prove you have to say so. Otherwise, you are speaking English (typically American English on/., but I digress).
In English, to "prove" something you must provide evidence that it is so. If you base your argument on something physically impossible or humanly unknowable, you lose - you have proved nothing.
Science can be seen as composed of equal parts speculation and experimentation. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but without demonstrable, repeatable experiments providing evidence that your speculation corresponds to reality, all you have is a party trick, like Zeno's paradox.
If you discard empiricism, you are not a scientist, although you may be a philosopher or mathematician.
PS: It has also been pointed out that my analogy sucked, you are certainly right about that.
I am amused that you were modded "offtopic" when you commented directly on the newsitem and even included a reference.
But to clear up any confusion, the "IT" referred to in the OP is of course the famous Segway motorized scooter. See how the whole thing makes sense now?
Let's settle on ONE (1) linux distribution....You brought this on yourselves with appix, bppix, cppix, and so on....
I vote for the "solves-my-problem-but-not-yours" distribution, which is clearly the best.
Incidentally, I am also in favor of settling on ONE (1) tool for all mechanical uses. I favor the two-handed hewing axe, but I might be persuaded to vote for the claw hammer.
The crusades are extremely well documented. The "common European farmer" did not sign up for the crusades at all. The people who signed up were mostly religious fanatics, although there was a very large minority of unlanded nobility - third sons of the aristocracy are a chestnut of period literature - who were not always religiously motivated.
Don't try to put the motivations and rationalizations of modern people into a medieval setting - having read hundreds of first-person manuscripts written at the time, I can tell you that's a mistake.
Most crusaders went to the Holy Land because charismatic leaders (like Peter the Hermit for example) told them to. Most of these leaders were insane religious fruitcakes by modern standards, who promised total absolution for crusaders regardless of what atrocities they committed, and eternal fiery damnation for those who "disregarded the call of the Lord".
"...the eternal God has slain and annihilated these lands and peoples, because they neither adhered to Ghengis Khan, nor to the Khagan, both of whom have been sent to make known God's command." --Guyuk Khan, 1246, letter to Pope Innocent IV
The crusades were one of the best things that ever happened to Europe. I'd hardly call them 'bad', except maybe on the individual level of the people that died,
As long as you admit you don't give a shit about anything but Europe, and that you consider the suffering of individuals unimportant, well, okey-dokey then.
the complete lack of religion is better known as atheism
The complete lack of theism is atheism. Or to put it another way, atheists don't believe in gods. There are at least a couple of mainstream religions that do not believe in gods (yes, Jainism is mainstream) so therefore atheist religions do exist, dig?
Like 99.9% of slashdot's denizens, you've equated religion with a small subset of religion (although hopefully you are not also equating religion with fundamentist Xianity, or making the even worse mistake of redefining the nature of religion to suit American cultural biases).
Talk to a non-murtipujak Jain, or a Zen Bhuddist, or a Unitarian Universalist. Belief in deity is not required in any of those religions. Although belief in coffee is generally a UU requirement.
You're the first person I've ever heard describe Comcast as "fast and reliable". You must not be in Delaware!
I've been a customer of theirs for five or six years now, and I've been on several different segments.
I've completely replaced my firewall box 3 times, my cable modem twice, and all my internal wiring twice, because Comcast insisted that my problems must be my fault. Eventually I discovered that every single person in my neighborhood had the same problems and confronted Comcast with this (the neighbors claim they had reported their problems already, but I dunno really) so they sent a guy out who determined that the ground on the pole at the end of the street was no good. Before he made this determination (which eliminated 80-90% of the outages, incidentally) he rewired everything between the pole and my house, creating an incredibly baroque +60' cable run that went all over the place and involved repeatedly puncturing the drip cap tin on my back porch roof, which compromised my waterproofing. When I got home from work I cut it down to a 25' run that went directly from the pole to my entry point and caulked all the extraneous holes with silicon; after that the service was comparitively good (only a couple of 1 to 5 minutes total service interuptions a day).
A weird side effect of this incident was that I started getting 3 or 4 cable channels on my TV that I hadn't signed up for; after a few months, though, they went away again.
Despite all my whining about Comcast's incredibly unreliable, slow (due to thousands of worms which attack my firewall all day long), and poorly designed service (ever look at their DNS setup?) it's the only thing I can get at this time. Unless I was willing to steal wireless from my neighbor, but he's on Comcast anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
If you send the keys/passphrase on a modem, and you send the host/user identification through e-mail, you have 2 distinct separate channels. The likelihood of a Bad Guy [TM] being able to intercept both is not significantly greater than the likelihood of said Bad Guy [TM] suborning your courier and reading your floppy, or blackmailing an insider at one or the other end of the communications path into supplying complete access information. I have been known to use 3 channels, myself, one for each of the three pieces of related information. This is information security 101 here.
If you are suggesting that your telco is out to get you, keep in mind that the phone companies have the political, economic, and physical power to crush you like a bug. They can do whatever they want as long as they put profit in front of the shareholders. If a major telco gets caught murdering pre-schoolers for their lunch money they will NOT go out of business, nor will the pre-schoolers magically come back to life again. So stop worrying about what the phone company, the NSA, or your mom can do to you, and instead make sure they have no reason to want to do anything bad to you. Again, security 101, don't piss off anyone you cannot realistically protect yourself from.
Obviously, using the same methods and channels every time degrades the efficacy of said methods. Equally obviously, both ends of the communications channel should implement IP address based restrictions (Wietse's TCP wrappers, for example) if possible, and failed attempts should be logged and monitored.
Controlling the hardware platform has allowed Apple to concentrate a lot of effort on fast, efficient drivers, which compensates a lot for the XNU kernel's ineffiency. Still, I personally consider it to be slow (perhaps ponderous would be a better word) but on modern hardware it's fast enough for most people. I'd say the same about most versions of windows, incidentally.
Your comment about the benjamins, though, is right on. Apple's rolling in iPod money right now.
If you cannot resist the siren call of easy credit, chop up and burn your credit cards.
/. about how you can't afford to quit.
It's better, though, to use credit responsibly, so you can buy the house of your dreams some day. Real estate (the only true wealth, which is why it's "real", get it?) is going to require credit history for most of us. So, follow this easy rule:
If any of your credit cards is carrying a balance (that is, if any card is not PAID IN FULL at the end of the month) do not use credit for any reason. If you are starving you should beg on the street before you carry a balance on a credit card.
If you can't follow that rule, destroy the cards before it's too late. Otherwise you may end up hostage to a bad boss in a dead-end job, whining on
Also, when you visit the realtor prior to buying property, let them calculate the maximum you can afford to spend. Then be sure to spend no more than two-thirds of that amount - better still spend half. You'll never regret it.
How do you figure your opinion matters on this issue? It's because you are a self-righteous (and abusive, as amply demonstrated just now) and arrogant person. You are convinced that you are right and all these posts show that your opinions are not open to modification by external voices. In all fairness, I have to admit that these criticisms apply to me as well - I'm convinced that my belief system is fundamentally correct, and that others would benefit from having the same beliefs.
If you're not familiar with it, Larry Wall has a famous quote on the three attributes of great programmers: laziness, impatience, and hubris. I think a similar observation could be made here; if you think your opinion matters, you've got to be self-righteous enough to think you know what needs changing and arrogant enough to think you are qualified to say so.
We seem to have argued to an impasse, and so, adieu.
Sending the keys over a POTS ppp link is actually pretty far out-of-band, and provides reasonable levels of assurance that the sender and receiver are correct. Because of less time exposure for interception, it's probably just as good as using a flash drive sent parcel-post.
I said "why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?" and you replied "Because we are not pompous, arrogant, condesending, or abusive?" - to which I must reply "Oh yes we are!".
Re-read our posts, starting with yours. I think you've described us both rather well... except you left out "self-rightous".
If people are frightened by doomsayers, then let the people be frightened. Maybe they will get off their lazy asses and do something meaningful with their lives. If not, why should the rest of us be concerned about the nebulous effects of anxiety on the health of a bunch of cowards?
It sounds to me like you are saying "If this climate change stuff is true, we should be terrified, and therefore I cannot believe it is true, therefore I want to see the people saying this stuff denounced!"
Nutty ol' Lovelock proposes strong archival and dissemination of knowledge. And preparing local communities and family groups in case of disasters. This is harmful exactly how?
Lack of preparedness has obvious harmful effects. Children will learn the lifestyle and values of their ill-prepared parents, and build ill-prepared communities, and the next thing you know everybody's on the sofa watching videos instead of fixing the roof, and complaining because the government won't make it stop raining, or doesn't build tall enough levees.
What, exactly, is this "harm" you ascribe to this so-called "fear-mongering"? How is anyone harmed by preparedness?
A horse's head in your bed
Sure did. I'm ornery that way. It is not as restrictive as the iTunes agreement and I get fantastically more on my side of the contract - for example, I can monitor the grounds of the local Unitarian Universalist Church by video (and hopefully, this will lead to some vandals getting the ever lovin' crap beat out of them). Worth it for that alone, not to mention the ability to IP-phone my relatives in Europe and Britain.
By not using the iTunes store you avoid the most heinous clauses in the agreement, at least. And hopefully, you are getting something of value on your side of the agreement; but there is nothing available to me through the use of iTunes that I can't get elsewhere - without making such a contract.
I understand the concept, I just never seen one personally. I'm in favor of it if it though!
I don't see any benefit that's worth the risk, here. I don't actually need anything iTunes supplies - I can get food, shelter, clothing, etc. without it, in fact even music and video are easily obtainable without iTunes. An infinitesimal increase in convenience is hardly worth risking my system's stability (not to mention encouraging insane EULAs). They need a far more rational license before they will get my traffic, and I'll just use something less convenient in the meantime.
Keep in mind, I don't really care what other folks choose to do with their computers as long as they aren't harming anyone else. The amazing thing to me about this whole argument is that people have flamed me because I've stated that I don't like the iTunes EULA. Do they not have anything better to do with their time? You'd think I stole their girlfriends or something.
Religion is mostly static? How many religions, exactly, have you studied extensively? This statement doesn't even really apply all that well to Xianity.
Your "flaming atheism" would be welcome in any Unitarian Universalist Church, I think.
Many atheists unite with theists in insisting that non-theistic faiths are not religions. And of course the US Supreme Court ruled that Universalism wasn't a religion, because it rejected the notion of a binding creed (which seems sort of like saying "if you reject hatred and strife you aren't a religion!"). It's nice to meet an atheist who thinks a little deeper that that.
If you don't need church, you can still "be a Unitarian by yourself" like Tommy Jefferson. And you can still be an atheist at the same time, too (although he wasn't).
For those who don't know: The iTunes EULA is outrageously broad, and basically grants permission to Apple and several other companies to do anything they damn well please - including re-writing the entire EULA without notification or consent.
/. foes list) for pointing out that I, personally, am unwilling to enter such an open-ended contract.
That's why my mac has no iTunes. That's why the corporation I work for does not allow versions of Quicktime that include iTunes.
Incidentally, I've been roundly flamed (and even made people's
Perhaps I have blasphemed the mac religion by reading an Apple EULA. I fully expect this post to be modded troll and flamebait, although it is intended as neither.
In English, to "prove" something you must provide evidence that it is so. If you base your argument on something physically impossible or humanly unknowable, you lose - you have proved nothing.
Science can be seen as composed of equal parts speculation and experimentation. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but without demonstrable, repeatable experiments providing evidence that your speculation corresponds to reality, all you have is a party trick, like Zeno's paradox.
If you discard empiricism, you are not a scientist, although you may be a philosopher or mathematician.
PS: It has also been pointed out that my analogy sucked, you are certainly right about that.
I am amused that you were modded "offtopic" when you commented directly on the newsitem and even included a reference.
But to clear up any confusion, the "IT" referred to in the OP is of course the famous Segway motorized scooter. See how the whole thing makes sense now?
I vote for the "solves-my-problem-but-not-yours" distribution, which is clearly the best.
Incidentally, I am also in favor of settling on ONE (1) tool for all mechanical uses.
I favor the two-handed hewing axe, but I might be persuaded to vote for the claw hammer.
Although that would work on incredibly stupid voters, simple intimidation usually works on them anyway.
Voters with half a brain cell copy, forge or borrow a receipt to show to the boss.
There's no voter name on the receipt, thus no way for the boss to know how YOU voted.
The crusades are extremely well documented. The "common European farmer" did not sign up for the crusades at all. The people who signed up were mostly religious fanatics, although there was a very large minority of unlanded nobility - third sons of the aristocracy are a chestnut of period literature - who were not always religiously motivated.
Don't try to put the motivations and rationalizations of modern people into a medieval setting - having read hundreds of first-person manuscripts written at the time, I can tell you that's a mistake.
Most crusaders went to the Holy Land because charismatic leaders (like Peter the Hermit for example) told them to. Most of these leaders were insane religious fruitcakes by modern standards, who promised total absolution for crusaders regardless of what atrocities they committed, and eternal fiery damnation for those who "disregarded the call of the Lord".
Oh, wait, you guys control all the armed forces of the western hemisphere. D'OH!
If you need me, I'll be down the street wailing and gnashing my teeth.
"...the eternal God has slain and annihilated these lands and peoples, because they neither adhered to Ghengis Khan, nor to the Khagan, both of whom have been sent to make known God's command." --Guyuk Khan, 1246, letter to Pope Innocent IV
Like 99.9% of slashdot's denizens, you've equated religion with a small subset of religion (although hopefully you are not also equating religion with fundamentist Xianity, or making the even worse mistake of redefining the nature of religion to suit American cultural biases).
Talk to a non-murtipujak Jain, or a Zen Bhuddist, or a Unitarian Universalist. Belief in deity is not required in any of those religions. Although belief in coffee is generally a UU requirement.
You're the first person I've ever heard describe Comcast as "fast and reliable". You must not be in Delaware!
I've been a customer of theirs for five or six years now, and I've been on several different segments.
I've completely replaced my firewall box 3 times, my cable modem twice, and all my internal wiring twice, because Comcast insisted that my problems must be my fault. Eventually I discovered that every single person in my neighborhood had the same problems and confronted Comcast with this (the neighbors claim they had reported their problems already, but I dunno really) so they sent a guy out who determined that the ground on the pole at the end of the street was no good. Before he made this determination (which eliminated 80-90% of the outages, incidentally) he rewired everything between the pole and my house, creating an incredibly baroque +60' cable run that went all over the place and involved repeatedly puncturing the drip cap tin on my back porch roof, which compromised my waterproofing. When I got home from work I cut it down to a 25' run that went directly from the pole to my entry point and caulked all the extraneous holes with silicon; after that the service was comparitively good (only a couple of 1 to 5 minutes total service interuptions a day).
A weird side effect of this incident was that I started getting 3 or 4 cable channels on my TV that I hadn't signed up for; after a few months, though, they went away again.
Despite all my whining about Comcast's incredibly unreliable, slow (due to thousands of worms which attack my firewall all day long), and poorly designed service (ever look at their DNS setup?) it's the only thing I can get at this time. Unless I was willing to steal wireless from my neighbor, but he's on Comcast anyway.