I understand that this is Slashdot, and that one of the big hobbies around here is to bash America, Americans, and every endeavor that Americans are involved in, but...
It's not an American Soldier. It's a British Soldier. This can be seen from the weapon (A Bullpup Design that's not in the US arsenal), the Camoflage Pattern (Not in use by the US Military), and most importantly, in the link story, it plainly states that it is a British Soldier.
Well, the real givaway is that if the parent of your comment had bothered to view the linked "editorial" story, it says flat out that it's a British soldier.
The weapon is a good clue, but no better than the camoflage pattern. You'd think the with all the TV time, anybody ought to be able to tell the difference between an American and a British soldier at a glance from the camo pattern.
Iraqi "civilians" or not, when a solitary soldier is overseeing that large a crowd, he should absolutely have his weapon trained on someone approaching him, due to two factors: The suidice bomber, and the Iraqi soldiers' propensity for dressing in civilian clothing.
He shouldn't have his finger on the trigger, though... It should be resting alongside the trigger guard.
Getting back to the great-great-great grandparent post, O'Reilly will issue a stern "Shame on you" to the photographer, but will likely compliment the LA Times for having dismissed him. You think he's gonna slam the Times for doing the right thing?
What is important is the fact that this story was supposed to be related to the IP "Evil-bit" RFC, and it's not.
Shame on you Slashdot... Shame on you for not having the guts to stick with the routine in the face of a complaining readership. If you don't think the joke is good enough to beat into the ground, then you shouldn't have begun it.
Sure, ISDN is available, and it comes as no surprise to me that they'd allow a 1B channel connection for the same cost as a regular dialup... It uses the same amount of resources, a single B-channel of the ISP's PRI. The difference is that the incoming call doesn't have to be handed off to an analog modem at the head end...
But I'm willing to bet you're stuck with usage fees from the Telco ($0.02/minute during Primetime, $0.01/minute after hours). That adds up quick. $1.20/hour during the daytime.
If an ISP offers "Centrex" ISDN service, you can avoid the usage fees, but the ISP usually jacks up the price to greater than $200/month.
We can see, from Iraq's actions today, why the US needs to secure the Iraqi oilfields quickly. Would you prefer that Hussein set all 1600+ oil wells on fire? You think he wouldn't?
He lit up over 700 on his way out of Kuwait, and it took over 9 months to put those fires out, costing the Kuwaiti's over 50 Billion Dollars. How can you put a price on the ecological damage done?
Saddam Hussein forfiet any legitimate claim to sovereignty back on August 2nd, 1990. When he rolled over the Kuwaiti border, it was over for him, and his regime.
I find it unfortunate that he has spent the last 12 years in power. If you want to blame a Bush for this conflict, you can lay it squarely on the shoulders of the elder Bush for not having completed the job in 1991. Of course, that foray into Iraq had UN support, and the world wasn't willing to go the distance. He should have been removed from power then. Instead, he was allowed to remain, on the condition that he behave himself.
The UN reminds me of the old comedy sketch about the Unarmed English Bobby... "Stop! Or I'll have to ask you stop again!"
So here we go, undertaking a task which must be undertaken, for the benefit not only of the United States, but for the entire world. If you don't want to help out, that's perfectly fine. Just sit there, and shut the fuck up. Your regularly scheduled programming will return soon enough.
Toy though it may be, Cisco has zero presence in the home market (Well, other than *my* home... I've got 7 Routers, and a Layer-3 switch), and on the store shelves next to the Netgears and Dlinks of the world, the LinkSys name does just fine.
People have bought into Wireless. People have bought into broadband routers, and SOHO firewall appliances. The home networking market is exploding, and Cisco can no longer afford to ignore it as a means of adding to their bottom line.
Not nearly as much as I enjoy eating them! Deep fried baby is always a fav, but for the more cultured palatte, I suggest braising the baby filet until there's just a little pink left in the tender meat. When finished, cover in a lovely bernaise sauce, and garnish with fresh parsely! Viola! C'est Manifique!
And we had the Druids! Long white robes, long white beards, early transvestites, didn't get their shaving together. And they built Stonehenge - one of the biggest henges in the world. No one's built a henge like that ever since. No one knows what the fuck a henge is. Before Stonehenge, there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge. But a - but a big bad wolf came and blew them down, and three little piggies were relocated to the project. But they built Stonehenge. And it's built in an area - in an area called Salisbury Plain in the south of England. And the area of Salisbury Plain where they built it is very ah-ah-ah-ah-oh-ah-oh-oh-oh-oh. Cause that's good, you know. It's a mystical thing; build it in a mystical area. You don't want to build it in an area that's yaa-da-daa-da-daa-daa-daa-baa-daa-daa-bup-doh-doh- doh-bup-dee-dee-daa. No, you build Trump Tower. Umm... But yeah, so they built it there.
And the stones! The stones are 50 foot high, 30 foot long, 20 foot deep, and other measurements as well. And the stones are not from round there! That's the amazing thing. I mean, remember, this is B.C. *mumble*. This was before the B.C./A.D. changeover when everyone was going... You didn't have to wind your watch back - you had to get a new bloody watch! As if A.D.'s enough - fuckinell... And the Muslim people going, "A.D? Who's he?" Yes. Good laugh there.
And uh... So, yeah, the stones are from 200 miles away, in Wales. So these guys in Wales were obviously carving the rocks out of the v - very living mountain... "Fantastic, building a henge, are we? That's a fantastic idea. That's a marvelous religion the Druids have got. Yes, got a lot of white clothing, I like that. There we go." And they smash out a huge stone and then they put tree trunks down to roll it along on. "All right, walk it along, here we go, here we go." Buuuhbuuuhuuh. "Help you push 'em along. It's not far, is it?" And the Druids going, "Heave everyone, heave! Well done, everyone, you're doing very well. You'll love it when you see it. I've seen some of the drawings already, it's very special." After 200 miles, "You fucking bastards! You never told it was 200 miles! 200 miles in this day and age - I don't even know where I live now! *sigh* I wish the Christians would hurry up and get here!" And they set all the stones up and the Druids still there tinkering around going, "No that stone and this one - can we swap them around?" So that was the Pagans.
"Well, in case you didn't realize, the Constitution is a LIVING DOCUMENT, which means that over 200 years of laws have been piled on top of it."
You need to read a book... For starters, I never mentioned the Consitution. I referred to the Declaration if Independence, in which Jefferson articulated that governments are instituted by men to uphold their rights.
Next, sure... The Constitution is a Living Document, but that doesn't mean what a lot of people seem to think it means. By Living Document, we're talking about the provisions within the Constitution for making alterations: the Amendment process.
"LIVING DOCUMENT" doesn't mean you can go all willy-nilly about whatever tickles your fancy, otherwise, what's the point of writing things down? If you're free to make it up as you go, why bother?
The Consitution is not about the laws which govern you and I. There's nothing in it about theft or murder, speed limits, or fraud. It's about the laws which regulate the functions, and limits of the Federal Government. It is our Government's Charter of operation.
Within that charter, it's pretty clear what the Government is supposed to be doing. Everything that our Government does today which is not specifically delegated to it is usurpation, plain and simple.
There is no Consitutional Amendment which authorizes Public Schools, or empowers the government to regulate education in any way.
There is no Consitutional Amendment which authorizes a Federal Police Agency (The FBI).
There is no Amendment which authorizes the Food and Drug Administration.
No Amendment for the creation of Federal Highways or the Interstate Highway System.
I could go on all day long. Facts are facts. The Federal Government has dramatically overstepped it's bounds.
The "Living Document" folks, the ones that use the term as you choose to, love to point to the elastic clause, or the general welfare clause, and say "See, we have that authority... Says so right here."
History doesn't support that viewpoint. It runs 180 degree from the "Specific, Limited, Delegated Powers" that the founders envisioned, and tried to capture on paper.
I don't know where you're from, but unless you tell me differently, I'm going to assume it's the US.
For starters, since when was Government created to prevent Spam? If you're from the US, then we have an interesting document which describes very clearly what the purpose of Government is: to uphold and defend the rights of citizens. Government has enough trouble getting that right. When you look at some of the other little projects that Government has seen fit to adopt (War on Drugs / War on Poverty / Social Security / Empire Building / Etc.), you can't help but come to the conclusion that it's track record reads like a case study in ineptitude and failure.
That said, how would Government be the answer to a problem like spam?
If, for example, we got a bunch of groovy new anti-spam laws, all that would result would be still more backlog in the courts. Given the number of spammers in the world, and their diverse locations, how would such a thing be logistically possible? Aside from the jurisdictional issues that would surely arise, how many courts would be needed to hear these cases?
The Short Answer: It's not possible.
The solution to the problem must therefore fall into the realm of the technological.
The tools are being developed, or in some cases, they've already been developed. No doubt they will mature and improve. In the end, they will be far more effective than any solution that the government will be able to come up with, and that's just the way it is.
It's going to take some getting used to. Email is the Internet's killer app. People have become dependant upon it. People fear change.
It's getting to the point, however, that people will be willing to change the way they interact with email because they now spend so much of their time sifting through noise to get at the signal.
Whitelisting is going to happen... We can no longer afford to accept email from untrusted sources. The sooner we embrace it on a wider scale, the sooner we can all get back to work, and the less time we'll have to waste on these other half-measures.
Your small 4 wheel drive cars, with 6-8" of ground clearance wouldn't have gotten you anywhere on the eastern seaboard early this week. There was 12" to 36" of snow on all roads. All-wheel drive doesn't help once you've managed to beach yourself on the car's frame.
Our problems were more related to the fact that snow clearing on the roads took a great deal of time because it was a long, sustained storm, and they generally don't begin digging out until the snow stops.
In Wisconsin or Minnesota, each of which has similar weather to Finland, they do a much better job of keeping the streets clear. Of course, they are used to dealing with real winters. In the mid-Atlantic states (MD, VA, the Carolinas), we only have a respectable amount of snow-fall every 5 or 6 years. When they come, our Department of Transportation is not as well prepared as our northern neighbors.
In case you think I missed your little jab, I didn't.
Everyone knows that you idiots ski to work every day, jack-off.
"Aside from the fact that SUVs are proven to be unsafe to other drivers on the roads?"
This is a fact. It's irrelevant to me, but a fact nonetheless. I don't drive like an asshole, but I put my family in an SUV to afford them an added measure of protection from the people on the road that do drive like assholes.
My family and I are entitled to as much safety as we can afford. That others drviers cannot afford the same degree of protection isn't my fault, nor is it my problem. Like I said, I'm already a good driver... If other people manage not to crash into me, then there's no safety issue.
"The fact that most people who drive SUVs don't know how to drive well, especially a vehicle that big."
That, my friend, is not a fact. It is an opinion. The difference is that a fact can be supported by some kind of evidence, and an opinion can be spouted in the absence of any evidence.
Sure, there are plenty of SUV drivers that probably shouldn't be operating a vehicle that comes anywhere near that mass, but the same can be said of the drivers of many smaller vehicle types. Take the Import Street Racer crowd as an example. Sure, their cars are smaller, but that doesn't make me feel any safer when they go whizzing by at double the speed limit, or as they dodge in and out of dialy traffic as though there was a prize waiting for them at their destination.
None of this, of course, has anything to do with how dumb an idea the Segway is. (And *THAT* is just my opinion, but it seems to be supported by the marketplace.)
Come on, reckless drivers aren't limited to the SUV driving crowd.
Look at the number of morons behind the wheel in those rice-burning lowered street racers...
I'm pretty sure you'd be just as dead if one of those jokers smashed into you while you were out running, or cycling. Would you somehow be less angry if it was one of them that clipped you? (You should probably be on the sidewalk anyway, whenever possible. Not because you have no right to be on the road, but more because having the right-of-way doesn't do you much good after you've been ground to hamburger...)
No confession needed... I don't feel stupid for defending them. I don't think they need to be defended.
If it makes you happy, do it, so long as you're not hurting someone else in the process. (And by "hurt," I mean, "Show me a victim." Not "hurt" in the "tragedy of the commons" sense.)
I drive an SUV. I made it to work Monday and Tuesday this week, in spite of the 12" - 24" of snow that fell here in Northern VA/DC Metro area. I have a family to haul around in my private life, and equipment to haul around in my professional life.
Even if that weren't the case, I'd probably still drive an SUV. I like them. I like the space. I like the increased visibility you get from sitting higher on the road.
While I don't own a Hummer, I've driven plenty of those from when I was in the service. If money were no object, I'd love to own one (the H1s). The H2 is far less expensive than the previous generation, and I don't begrudge anyone that has one.
I just don't understand the hostility people exhibit for SUV owners, or the vehicles they drive.
It always comes across as envy. It's always "Why do you need THAT much car? Why do you need a vehicle that consumes THAT much fuel?" Who are they, that they feel they can be the final arbiter of who gets what, and in what proportion? The world would be a better place if people would mind their own business, and not worry about what their neighbors were doing.
Creating/Managing user VPNs on a PIX is something of a nightmare, although, as PDM is maturing nicely (PIX Device Manager), it's a lot easier than it used to be.
Even with the improvement, it doesn't come close to using the VPN Concentrators. The issues you describe are all addressed by the Concentrators, including your concerns about the "wide open" nature of the VPN connections. (I guess it doesn't really address the speed of your WAN, but there's not much that could.)
It has a very rich suite of policy management features, so that you can restrict the corporate resources available to a given class of user. These policies can be administered on a user, or group basis.
For example, you can set the accounting group in such a manner as they are only able to access the Accounting Servers, and you can limit the ports/protocols that they can use to reach those servers.
If you're already spending a quarter million, you should be able to get Cisco to allow you to demo a 3005 VPN concentrator. My company has arranged for several of our customers to borrow 3005s for a 30 day trial, and each of them has gone on to purchase the unit, or one of it's larger, more capable cousins.
That said, I too am a big fan of SSH, and it's port forwarding capabilities. It's a very effective, secure, poor-man's VPN.
PuTTY is a pretty good client... I only wish it had Serial capabilities, so I could use it to jump on router and switch consoles. As it stands, I have to keep TeraTerm around for console access. It's not too bad, and there are crypto libs available to make TeraTerm a decent SSH client as well, but it doesn't do quite as good a job with terminal emulation as PuTTY does.
I'm somewhat concerned about your description of the Cisco VPN solution. You claim it's:
Slow
A pain-in-the-ass to set up, and
flakey
In my experience (Which is considerable, as I have deployed the Cisco VPN solution for literally dozens of clients (I work for a Cisco Silver Partner)), it is none of those things.
You can get into the Cisco 3005 VPN concentrator for under $3000, which provides software 3DES encryption for up to 100 simultaneous clients.
For a little more, you can get hardware based encryption (In the 3015 model) for those 100 clients, and can be further scaled up to support 10,000 simultaneous connections.
The Cisco VPN client is among the easiest to install and deploy of any I have seen, and can be distributed with the configuration file, so that the end user need not even configure his connection information (Reducing the procedure to "Install & Connect").
Administration of the concentrator itself couldn't be much easier. It's configuration is entirely web-based, and the user database can be configured in one of 4 ways:
Internal (Users stored on the concentrator locally)
NT Domain (Bounce user authentication off the NT/2000 domain controllers)
RADIUS
TACACS+
You can even use multiple user databases, configured on a user-by-user basis, or by groups (each group can be authenticated using it's own individual resources).
I don't know what issues they may have been having, but last week, refreshes were taking forever. I didn't ever have a link fail on me, but some were taking up to 5 minutes to load.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not an American Soldier. It's a British Soldier. This can be seen from the weapon (A Bullpup Design that's not in the US arsenal), the Camoflage Pattern (Not in use by the US Military), and most importantly, in the link story, it plainly states that it is a British Soldier.
I wish there were a http://slashdot.eu.
The weapon is a good clue, but no better than the camoflage pattern. You'd think the with all the TV time, anybody ought to be able to tell the difference between an American and a British soldier at a glance from the camo pattern.
Iraqi "civilians" or not, when a solitary soldier is overseeing that large a crowd, he should absolutely have his weapon trained on someone approaching him, due to two factors: The suidice bomber, and the Iraqi soldiers' propensity for dressing in civilian clothing.
He shouldn't have his finger on the trigger, though... It should be resting alongside the trigger guard.
Getting back to the great-great-great grandparent post, O'Reilly will issue a stern "Shame on you" to the photographer, but will likely compliment the LA Times for having dismissed him. You think he's gonna slam the Times for doing the right thing?
What is important is the fact that this story was supposed to be related to the IP "Evil-bit" RFC, and it's not.
Shame on you Slashdot... Shame on you for not having the guts to stick with the routine in the face of a complaining readership. If you don't think the joke is good enough to beat into the ground, then you shouldn't have begun it.
Anyone can author an RFC... You need not be part of some exclusive club or organization.
I'm a router geek, so I'd be curious to hear your idea.
But I'm willing to bet you're stuck with usage fees from the Telco ($0.02/minute during Primetime, $0.01/minute after hours). That adds up quick. $1.20/hour during the daytime.
If an ISP offers "Centrex" ISDN service, you can avoid the usage fees, but the ISP usually jacks up the price to greater than $200/month.
Where's the value?
He lit up over 700 on his way out of Kuwait, and it took over 9 months to put those fires out, costing the Kuwaiti's over 50 Billion Dollars. How can you put a price on the ecological damage done?
Saddam Hussein forfiet any legitimate claim to sovereignty back on August 2nd, 1990. When he rolled over the Kuwaiti border, it was over for him, and his regime.
I find it unfortunate that he has spent the last 12 years in power. If you want to blame a Bush for this conflict, you can lay it squarely on the shoulders of the elder Bush for not having completed the job in 1991. Of course, that foray into Iraq had UN support, and the world wasn't willing to go the distance. He should have been removed from power then. Instead, he was allowed to remain, on the condition that he behave himself.
The UN reminds me of the old comedy sketch about the Unarmed English Bobby... "Stop! Or I'll have to ask you stop again!"
So here we go, undertaking a task which must be undertaken, for the benefit not only of the United States, but for the entire world. If you don't want to help out, that's perfectly fine. Just sit there, and shut the fuck up. Your regularly scheduled programming will return soon enough.
People have bought into Wireless. People have bought into broadband routers, and SOHO firewall appliances. The home networking market is exploding, and Cisco can no longer afford to ignore it as a means of adding to their bottom line.
Besides, who doesn't love the WET-11?
Hi there!
hope you enjoy your army / navy contracts!
Sure we do... What's not to like?
do you enjoy killing babies?
Not nearly as much as I enjoy eating them! Deep fried baby is always a fav, but for the more cultured palatte, I suggest braising the baby filet until there's just a little pink left in the tender meat. When finished, cover in a lovely bernaise sauce, and garnish with fresh parsely! Viola! C'est Manifique!
its all for the best right?
Well, a man's got to eat...
And the stones! The stones are 50 foot high, 30 foot long, 20 foot deep, and other measurements as well. And the stones are not from round there! That's the amazing thing. I mean, remember, this is B.C. *mumble*. This was before the B.C./A.D. changeover when everyone was going... You didn't have to wind your watch back - you had to get a new bloody watch! As if A.D.'s enough - fuckinell... And the Muslim people going, "A.D? Who's he?" Yes. Good laugh there.
And uh... So, yeah, the stones are from 200 miles away, in Wales. So these guys in Wales were obviously carving the rocks out of the v - very living mountain... "Fantastic, building a henge, are we? That's a fantastic idea. That's a marvelous religion the Druids have got. Yes, got a lot of white clothing, I like that. There we go." And they smash out a huge stone and then they put tree trunks down to roll it along on. "All right, walk it along, here we go, here we go." Buuuhbuuuhuuh. "Help you push 'em along. It's not far, is it?" And the Druids going, "Heave everyone, heave! Well done, everyone, you're doing very well. You'll love it when you see it. I've seen some of the drawings already, it's very special." After 200 miles, "You fucking bastards! You never told it was 200 miles! 200 miles in this day and age - I don't even know where I live now! *sigh* I wish the Christians would hurry up and get here!" And they set all the stones up and the Druids still there tinkering around going, "No that stone and this one - can we swap them around?" So that was the Pagans.
[Courtesy of Eddie Izzard: Dressed to Kill]
Who'd want to make out with a girl that could compile her own kernel?
Only a Caligraphic Pharmacist would be able to decode the cyphertext.
You need to read a book... For starters, I never mentioned the Consitution. I referred to the Declaration if Independence, in which Jefferson articulated that governments are instituted by men to uphold their rights.
Next, sure... The Constitution is a Living Document, but that doesn't mean what a lot of people seem to think it means. By Living Document, we're talking about the provisions within the Constitution for making alterations: the Amendment process.
"LIVING DOCUMENT" doesn't mean you can go all willy-nilly about whatever tickles your fancy, otherwise, what's the point of writing things down? If you're free to make it up as you go, why bother?
The Consitution is not about the laws which govern you and I. There's nothing in it about theft or murder, speed limits, or fraud. It's about the laws which regulate the functions, and limits of the Federal Government. It is our Government's Charter of operation.
Within that charter, it's pretty clear what the Government is supposed to be doing. Everything that our Government does today which is not specifically delegated to it is usurpation, plain and simple.
I could go on all day long. Facts are facts. The Federal Government has dramatically overstepped it's bounds.
The "Living Document" folks, the ones that use the term as you choose to, love to point to the elastic clause, or the general welfare clause, and say "See, we have that authority... Says so right here."
History doesn't support that viewpoint. It runs 180 degree from the "Specific, Limited, Delegated Powers" that the founders envisioned, and tried to capture on paper.
For starters, since when was Government created to prevent Spam? If you're from the US, then we have an interesting document which describes very clearly what the purpose of Government is: to uphold and defend the rights of citizens. Government has enough trouble getting that right. When you look at some of the other little projects that Government has seen fit to adopt (War on Drugs / War on Poverty / Social Security / Empire Building / Etc.), you can't help but come to the conclusion that it's track record reads like a case study in ineptitude and failure.
That said, how would Government be the answer to a problem like spam?
If, for example, we got a bunch of groovy new anti-spam laws, all that would result would be still more backlog in the courts. Given the number of spammers in the world, and their diverse locations, how would such a thing be logistically possible? Aside from the jurisdictional issues that would surely arise, how many courts would be needed to hear these cases?
The Short Answer: It's not possible.
The solution to the problem must therefore fall into the realm of the technological.
The tools are being developed, or in some cases, they've already been developed. No doubt they will mature and improve. In the end, they will be far more effective than any solution that the government will be able to come up with, and that's just the way it is.
It's going to take some getting used to. Email is the Internet's killer app. People have become dependant upon it. People fear change.
It's getting to the point, however, that people will be willing to change the way they interact with email because they now spend so much of their time sifting through noise to get at the signal.
Whitelisting is going to happen... We can no longer afford to accept email from untrusted sources. The sooner we embrace it on a wider scale, the sooner we can all get back to work, and the less time we'll have to waste on these other half-measures.
Our problems were more related to the fact that snow clearing on the roads took a great deal of time because it was a long, sustained storm, and they generally don't begin digging out until the snow stops.
In Wisconsin or Minnesota, each of which has similar weather to Finland, they do a much better job of keeping the streets clear. Of course, they are used to dealing with real winters. In the mid-Atlantic states (MD, VA, the Carolinas), we only have a respectable amount of snow-fall every 5 or 6 years. When they come, our Department of Transportation is not as well prepared as our northern neighbors.
In case you think I missed your little jab, I didn't.
Everyone knows that you idiots ski to work every day, jack-off.
Things are what they are... Pretending things are different from what they are doesn't change the reality. It just makes you a Democrat.
(Yeah, yeah... Cheap shot...)
I know of at least one other vendor that is supported as well, but the name escapes me, and I'm too lazy to google it myself.
I have actually used the Cyclades, though, and they work great. (This was at least 3 years ago.)
This is a fact. It's irrelevant to me, but a fact nonetheless. I don't drive like an asshole, but I put my family in an SUV to afford them an added measure of protection from the people on the road that do drive like assholes.
My family and I are entitled to as much safety as we can afford. That others drviers cannot afford the same degree of protection isn't my fault, nor is it my problem. Like I said, I'm already a good driver... If other people manage not to crash into me, then there's no safety issue.
That, my friend, is not a fact. It is an opinion. The difference is that a fact can be supported by some kind of evidence, and an opinion can be spouted in the absence of any evidence.
Sure, there are plenty of SUV drivers that probably shouldn't be operating a vehicle that comes anywhere near that mass, but the same can be said of the drivers of many smaller vehicle types. Take the Import Street Racer crowd as an example. Sure, their cars are smaller, but that doesn't make me feel any safer when they go whizzing by at double the speed limit, or as they dodge in and out of dialy traffic as though there was a prize waiting for them at their destination.
None of this, of course, has anything to do with how dumb an idea the Segway is. (And *THAT* is just my opinion, but it seems to be supported by the marketplace.)
Look at the number of morons behind the wheel in those rice-burning lowered street racers...
I'm pretty sure you'd be just as dead if one of those jokers smashed into you while you were out running, or cycling. Would you somehow be less angry if it was one of them that clipped you? (You should probably be on the sidewalk anyway, whenever possible. Not because you have no right to be on the road, but more because having the right-of-way doesn't do you much good after you've been ground to hamburger...)
If it makes you happy, do it, so long as you're not hurting someone else in the process. (And by "hurt," I mean, "Show me a victim." Not "hurt" in the "tragedy of the commons" sense.)
I drive an SUV. I made it to work Monday and Tuesday this week, in spite of the 12" - 24" of snow that fell here in Northern VA/DC Metro area. I have a family to haul around in my private life, and equipment to haul around in my professional life.
Even if that weren't the case, I'd probably still drive an SUV. I like them. I like the space. I like the increased visibility you get from sitting higher on the road.
While I don't own a Hummer, I've driven plenty of those from when I was in the service. If money were no object, I'd love to own one (the H1s). The H2 is far less expensive than the previous generation, and I don't begrudge anyone that has one.
I just don't understand the hostility people exhibit for SUV owners, or the vehicles they drive.
It always comes across as envy. It's always "Why do you need THAT much car? Why do you need a vehicle that consumes THAT much fuel?" Who are they, that they feel they can be the final arbiter of who gets what, and in what proportion? The world would be a better place if people would mind their own business, and not worry about what their neighbors were doing.
Is it that you can't afford one?
Even with the improvement, it doesn't come close to using the VPN Concentrators. The issues you describe are all addressed by the Concentrators, including your concerns about the "wide open" nature of the VPN connections. (I guess it doesn't really address the speed of your WAN, but there's not much that could.)
It has a very rich suite of policy management features, so that you can restrict the corporate resources available to a given class of user. These policies can be administered on a user, or group basis.
For example, you can set the accounting group in such a manner as they are only able to access the Accounting Servers, and you can limit the ports/protocols that they can use to reach those servers.
If you're already spending a quarter million, you should be able to get Cisco to allow you to demo a 3005 VPN concentrator. My company has arranged for several of our customers to borrow 3005s for a 30 day trial, and each of them has gone on to purchase the unit, or one of it's larger, more capable cousins.
That said, I too am a big fan of SSH, and it's port forwarding capabilities. It's a very effective, secure, poor-man's VPN.
PuTTY is a pretty good client... I only wish it had Serial capabilities, so I could use it to jump on router and switch consoles. As it stands, I have to keep TeraTerm around for console access. It's not too bad, and there are crypto libs available to make TeraTerm a decent SSH client as well, but it doesn't do quite as good a job with terminal emulation as PuTTY does.
No client license costs. Download as many as you need, free of charge.
In my experience (Which is considerable, as I have deployed the Cisco VPN solution for literally dozens of clients (I work for a Cisco Silver Partner)), it is none of those things.
You can get into the Cisco 3005 VPN concentrator for under $3000, which provides software 3DES encryption for up to 100 simultaneous clients.
For a little more, you can get hardware based encryption (In the 3015 model) for those 100 clients, and can be further scaled up to support 10,000 simultaneous connections.
The Cisco VPN client is among the easiest to install and deploy of any I have seen, and can be distributed with the configuration file, so that the end user need not even configure his connection information (Reducing the procedure to "Install & Connect").
Administration of the concentrator itself couldn't be much easier. It's configuration is entirely web-based, and the user database can be configured in one of 4 ways:
You can even use multiple user databases, configured on a user-by-user basis, or by groups (each group can be authenticated using it's own individual resources).
What are you talking about?
I don't know what issues they may have been having, but last week, refreshes were taking forever. I didn't ever have a link fail on me, but some were taking up to 5 minutes to load.
Anybody else experience that same delays?
It's fun, it harkens back to the "Golden Age" of the arcade, and it's absolutely stunning on my 65" Mitsubishi at 1080i!