I am very happy with my Canon i850s as well. I am printing across a network without issues, the individual tanks are not expensive, borderless printing works well and the quality is great.
I think a modestly-priced Canon is probably the best compromise for the poster.
Is probably my favorite modern theatre in the city. The parking is not so great, but, I love how they lay out the theatres... a steep arc of chairs, so that even if the guy in front of you is 6 foot 5, he doesn't block your view. Plenty of leg room. The arm rest goes up so you can snuggle up with that special someone. Every arm rest has a cup holder.
There are not giant huge great theatres there, because it's all in an old building, but that's good too... cause it means you don't have to share your film experience with 10,000 wailing babies.
"The havoc of losing the A root server would be bad, like Staypuft Marshmallow Man bad. "
No, read the goddamn article already;
"The DNS is built so that eight or more of the world's 13 master root servers would have to fail before ordinary Internet users started to see slowdowns, according to John Crain, manager of technical operations for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)."
Yeah, it bugs me too. 911 is the phone number you call in an emergency. That's been drilled into my skull for 27 years out here in California. It's completely bizarre that every time someone starts talking about 911, it's not referring to the woeful state of our emergency-telephone system.
You hate us because there are plenty of bad tech writers out there. But honestly, we are the experts at this task. Professional documentation tools such as FrameMaker allow us to produce doc that users will actually open and read. Dumping code comments into text is not effective if you are not 'writerly', i.e. your code comments are not communicating appropriately to your audience. Try hiring one of the thousands of currently unemployed, highly-skilled tech writers and you may find your doc is actually used!
Writing 'don't bend' on a package doesn't make the belts and machinery treat it differently. Or did you imagine that your package was carefully carried from one person to the next, handed by the nice counterperson straight to a nice fellow who carried it to a plane, and there handed it to some guy to carry to its destination?
Pictures need to be packed between two peices of plywood.
You got modded up for being funny, but to me that's not funny at all.
Fact is, the people responsible for screwing over your dad were the managers who refused to cover his insurance charge. THe people you hit with urine were the blue-collar schlubs whose misfortune it is to work nonstop in the UPS sweatshops.
And when the jars broke, basically it would halt the entire sort line while a hazmat team got to go clean it up: workers are supposet to NOT TOUCH any package that is leaking. That's OSHA rules.
Actually, what management does is force employees to move 1200 boxes per hour, which if you do the math is one every 6 seconds. The problem employees are the managers. The average preloader lasts 6 weeks on the job before he quits. Why is that? UPS likes having most of it's part-timers on the lowest end of the wage scale. And UPS managers care far more about getting the guaranteed delivery packages there on time, then they do about making sure gramma's precious lamp doesn't get busted.
Believe me. I was there. For a year and a half. It's part of why we went on strike! (remember that?)
I worked at UPS for a year and a half, on the early-morning 'Preload' shift.
Our facility was horrificly out of date: probably one of the oldest in the country.
We destroyed packages constantly. Employees are not supposed to throw packages, but they are expected to work so fast that it is impossible to do your job without tossing the odd box.
Also, the system of conveyer belts and the giant 'carousel' that sorters use to move boxes from their 'feeder trucks' (the trailers that move about the country) through sort to the delivery 'package cars' routinely mangle boxes.
Chances are, it wasn't anyone's fault per se. UPS facilites are always busy, but during the months of november and december, volume rises enormously. The machinery just can't take it.
Also: did your computer box have those little punch-in handles? Workers can't resist grabbing the boxes by those, and inevitably they rip right out the side. Blame that on the computer shippers themselves, for providing handles that just can't handle it.
Plus, anyone sending a package by ground should understand that if it's on the bottom, up to 7 or 8 packages weighing up to 70 pounds each, may be stacked on top of your box. Or, if it gets put on top, it may fall as much as 5 feet, onto a metal or concrete surface. If you're not comfortable dropping your box from head hight, it's not packaged well enough! There should be NO empty space inside the box, which allows things to move around (violently) and allows the box to crush in one place. You should not bother with styrofoam peanuts, because they allow the contents to settle and therefore be exposed to shock from a blow to the bottom of the package. I like to use tightly-wadded-up newspaper. Also keep in mind your package may be exposed to rain at some point: wrap the items in plastic first, then put them in the box with newspaper wads filling all space left, on all sides (including the bottom) of the item. Then use packaging tape (not masking tape, not string, not duct tape) and wrap the crap out of it. Cover every seam with tape. Make at least one strip of tape go all the way around the enitre box, parallel to each axis. If you don't follow these directions, you're fooling yourself about whose fault it is when your items show up in lots of little tiny bits.
When I was at UPS in 1995 and 96, I once heard from a supervisor that after payroll, the single highest cost for every UPS facility is paying off the insurance claims on packages. In other words, they spend more paying the $100 on packages we destroyed, then they do buying things like trucks, or maintaining the facilities themselves, etc. Don't know if that is true, but the point is, it would actually cost more for them to break fewer boxes, then it does for them to pay the insurance.
Don't know why your international shipment wasn't insured. You could have insured it, just not for free...
And, I knew people at FedEx. They are absolutely just as bad: they have the same problems as UPS, but they handle fewer large packages and therefore their equipment is optimized for small things. If you're sending a big box, way better off with UPS than FedEX, in my opinion.
I did a volunteer project with 3 other students from my technical writing program at San Francisco State University. We produced some materials for GlideTech, a program run by Glide Church in San Francisco.
They evaluate each incoming person, who must first qualify by being off drugs, pledge to stay off drugs, and be below a certain poverty level. Daycare services are available for the students, and classes are scheduled at evening times for people who have part-time or intermittent jobs.
If students qualify for the technical programs (have a certain literacy level, etc.) they learn basic PC skills and eventually get their A+ certification. Glide also helps with job-placement and does follow-up.
Applicants who don't qualify yet for the tech program can get classes in English skills, workplace skills, and so forth.
All nonprofit. Non-denominational. Free. Requires commitment and standards of behavior, drug-free. An exemplary program.
The previous millenium's energy darling, nuclear power, has proven unfeasible due to the tremendous clean up costs involved.
Are you smoking crack? The previous millenium's 'energy darling' was coal. Or maybe horses. Or, on a global scale, pretty arguably, wood. Or do you honestly mean to say that in 1200AD, there were tons of visionaries around the world, desperately looking forward to the coming days of nuclear power?
You're offtopic, and surely will be modded down. My reply to you will not be modded up. Nevertheless: You, (along with millions of others) have mistakenly identified Slashdot (and millions of other sites) as public services. Sorry, tax dollars didn't pay for Slashdot. Its privately owned. It belongs to its owners, who may do whatever they please with it, enact whatever rules they wish, and so forth. If you don't like it, write to the owners with suggestions. They'll ignore you if they like. Your only other option is to go away. Period.
If you played Trade Wars, chances are you also played Global Wars, the BBS Door version of the boardgame 'Risk'(TM).
BlueDragon has re-created Global Wars on Prowler-Pro: he calls his version World at War, and he has made it look and feel very much like the original Global Wars. I've been playing for months now, it's just as addictive as the original. Be sure to read through the help info on the login page to discover what all the variants are.
-Leperflesh
Note: Risk(TM) is a trademark of Parker Brothers or somebody; World at War is a reverse-engeneered, HTML based game that is based on Global Wars, and not Risk(TM). I am not a lawyer.
Based upon an idea developed by myself and Lincoln F. Stern in 1994, and further developed by jfmcrr in 1996, I submit the following for patent:
Write Only Memory is a new development designed to aid in the permanent, secure storage of binary data. Any data stored, transmitted, or formatted in computer binary form can be secured successfully using the WOM technology.
Additionally, the WOM technology includes an advanced compression algorithm, allowing a nearly-infinite amount of data to be stored on a single WOM device.
Users wishing to secure a file with WOM invoke a command to send that file to the WOM device. The file is composed of binary data; electronic representations of mixed ones and zeros.
The WOM device uses the patented WOM algorithm to convert every electronically-represented 'one' to a 'zero', creating a file that is guaranteed to be uncrackable, undecipherable, and irretrievable by any entity. Users of WOM can rest assured that no other person can ever gain access to their carefully archived data.
Additionally, the conversion of the entire data file to a single stream of electronic 'zeros' allows for incredible compression. Because zeros are stored electronically in a 'low' state, the entire encrypted file can be electronically stored in a non-magnetic, non-electronic medium, as such media are capable of storing an infinite number of zero-electric-state pulses. For this patent, any device utilizing the WOM technology, regardless of the type of storage medium utilized, is covered. Initial plans for storage media include the use of small, rectangular low-fired ceramic building blocks (bricks), resevoirs of neutral fluids (a bag of water) and even wooden, open-ended containers of air (a bucket.)
While this patent covers a physical WOM device, it mainly patents the WOM algorithm as new and proprietary technology; this means that any device which uses the WOM patented algorithm as a method for convering normal, binary data to an unreadable, archival stream of low-state data(zeros) is an infringement of this patent under US and International Patent Law.
If this patent is successfully submitted, any device which deletes information, or causes a data file to be lost, deleted, or erased in any way, has to have a license from me, and pays me royalties for the use of that license. Woohoo!
Ok, obviously there were at least 40,000 couples married in the alleged '36,000,000 Blessing,' that's how many were in the stadium at Seol, but come on... they're claiming 72 Million people being married? The earth's population is about 6 billion, so that means he is claiming to be marrying 1.2% of the total population of the planet. How come I haven't met any of these couples? Statistically, every slashdotter should know at least a few...
Subduction is a plate tectonic process that takes millions of years.
Furthermore, much of what is at the very top of a subducting plate gets scraped off onto the overlying continental shelf - the Franciscan Complex of California is an example of the 'melange' that such a process leaves.
The problem with our garbage, on the other hand, is that it will take hundreds or thousands of years, not millions of years, to decompose or otherwise be naturally recycled; most likely, all that would remain after millions of years, of most of our garbage, would be iron oxides and dirt.
Finally, this solution does not prevent any of the problems leading to the drastic global warning Hawking is predicting; how do you bury massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses at the bottom of the ocean? Oh, and what about the environmental impact of dumping stuff into the sea? No, Brin's 'dross in the abbyss' solution only works if you are burying indestructable spaceships in a science fiction novel.
Time and again, for anyone over the age of about 12, I love to give the Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. Every geek needs one, but then, so does everyone else. I have given Swiss Army Knives as gifts many times, and I always hear back from the person, saying that they find it extremely useful and that it was a great gift.
The knife is possibly mankinds oldest and most valuable tool. I use my knife every day, for cleaning my fingernails, cutting tape on a package, prying open the jammed CD-ROM, and so forth. I feel every human being ought to know how to handle a knife properly, and the best way to learn is to do it, constantly, from as young an age as possible. I have sliced open my hand with my own knife doing something stupid, and believe me, this is the best way to learn how not to do something stupid with a knife.
Plus they start at only ten bucks, but go all the way up to over a hundred, providing a good range of prices for rich and poor alike.
[Please remember that a knife is safer when it is extremely sharp. A blunt knife requires more force to cut, and therefore is more likely to slip.]
(I do not work for Victorinox, nor do I sell knives; I'm just a fan.)
I live in San Francisco, serviced by PacificBell.
I went with Mindspring, because they were already providing my netcom dialup service. They give a 6 month rather than 1-year contract, which is nice, and it was not too expensive. All my contact with them, including two calls to their tech support, have been excellent.
Pacbell had to 'bring the line to my house' and then Covad were contracted to do the internal install.
Pacbell were obnoxious because their database indicated that my box was in the garage, even though it was outside, the result being that they insisted that I had to be at home to let them in to do the install. They came twice while I wasn't at home, and both times, didn't bother to look at the side of the house, even though I left a note. Finally, my girlfriend was able to be there; she pointed at the box, and an hour later the line was in.
Then, get this, Covad calls within 20 minutes of the PacBell guy leaving, and offers to be there in 2 hours to do the install! I found this quite impressive. I wasn't home, so the covad guy screwed up the install on my win95OSR2 machine, attempting to use a USB NIC even though the OS lacks good enough support for it. But, I was able to make it work myself with a PCI NIC and a call to Mindspring's excellent installation support.
Since then, no problems, no outages, and consistently very fast (usually at least 1 MBPS) service.
The final kicker was three days after install; mindspring now offers free licenses for Norton PersonalFirewall. I downloaded that baby, free, and now I have a reasonably good software firewall on my DSL. I haven't heard that anyone else has offered this kind of thing yet.
-Leperflesh
This reliance on digital effects as a replacement for models is exactly what I have hated about both Episode One and the digitally-touched re-releases of the previous films. Jabba the Hut looked much more real to me in puppet form than he has as a digital, clean, shiny computer jabba. For me, the most visually pleasing parts from the original series involve gritty models with the infinite texture you can only get with something built in real life.
So in other words, what made Episode One suck, will make Episode Two suck even worse. Plus, obviously, Lucas no longer cares about the chemistry that two actors can develop through their interaction in a scene; if you cut up parts of scenes, throw in a bunch of digital characters, and expect it to have emotional impact, you're dreaming.
Slashdot Mirror
I am very happy with my Canon i850s as well. I am printing across a network without issues, the individual tanks are not expensive, borderless printing works well and the quality is great.
I think a modestly-priced Canon is probably the best compromise for the poster.
-Lep
...have been swept away. Fear will keep the local systems in line.
So if they were to install Seti@Home on the earth simulator, when it was not busy simulating Earth, Seti@home's speed would double...
-Leperflesh
So does that mean that, 20 years or so from now, Darth Cheney will toss Emperor Bush down a ventilation shaft?
-Leperflesh
Is probably my favorite modern theatre in the city. The parking is not so great, but, I love how they lay out the theatres... a steep arc of chairs, so that even if the guy in front of you is 6 foot 5, he doesn't block your view. Plenty of leg room. The arm rest goes up so you can snuggle up with that special someone. Every arm rest has a cup holder.
There are not giant huge great theatres there, because it's all in an old building, but that's good too... cause it means you don't have to share your film experience with 10,000 wailing babies.
And best of all: they have a student discount!
-Lep
"The havoc of losing the A root server would be bad, like Staypuft Marshmallow Man bad. "
No, read the goddamn article already;
"The DNS is built so that eight or more of the world's 13 master root servers would have to fail before ordinary Internet users started to see slowdowns, according to John Crain, manager of technical operations for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)."
Duh.
-Leperflesh
Yeah, it bugs me too. 911 is the phone number you call in an emergency. That's been drilled into my skull for 27 years out here in California. It's completely bizarre that every time someone starts talking about 911, it's not referring to the woeful state of our emergency-telephone system.
-Lep
You hate us because there are plenty of bad tech writers out there. But honestly, we are the experts at this task. Professional documentation tools such as FrameMaker allow us to produce doc that users will actually open and read. Dumping code comments into text is not effective if you are not 'writerly', i.e. your code comments are not communicating appropriately to your audience. Try hiring one of the thousands of currently unemployed, highly-skilled tech writers and you may find your doc is actually used!
Writing 'don't bend' on a package doesn't make the belts and machinery treat it differently. Or did you imagine that your package was carefully carried from one person to the next, handed by the nice counterperson straight to a nice fellow who carried it to a plane, and there handed it to some guy to carry to its destination?
Pictures need to be packed between two peices of plywood.
-Leperflesh
You got modded up for being funny, but to me that's not funny at all.
Fact is, the people responsible for screwing over your dad were the managers who refused to cover his insurance charge. THe people you hit with urine were the blue-collar schlubs whose misfortune it is to work nonstop in the UPS sweatshops.
And when the jars broke, basically it would halt the entire sort line while a hazmat team got to go clean it up: workers are supposet to NOT TOUCH any package that is leaking. That's OSHA rules.
-Leperflesh
Actually, what management does is force employees to move 1200 boxes per hour, which if you do the math is one every 6 seconds. The problem employees are the managers. The average preloader lasts 6 weeks on the job before he quits. Why is that? UPS likes having most of it's part-timers on the lowest end of the wage scale. And UPS managers care far more about getting the guaranteed delivery packages there on time, then they do about making sure gramma's precious lamp doesn't get busted.
Believe me. I was there. For a year and a half. It's part of why we went on strike! (remember that?)
-Leperflesh
I worked at UPS for a year and a half, on the early-morning 'Preload' shift.
Our facility was horrificly out of date: probably one of the oldest in the country.
We destroyed packages constantly. Employees are not supposed to throw packages, but they are expected to work so fast that it is impossible to do your job without tossing the odd box.
Also, the system of conveyer belts and the giant 'carousel' that sorters use to move boxes from their 'feeder trucks' (the trailers that move about the country) through sort to the delivery 'package cars' routinely mangle boxes.
Chances are, it wasn't anyone's fault per se. UPS facilites are always busy, but during the months of november and december, volume rises enormously. The machinery just can't take it.
Also: did your computer box have those little punch-in handles? Workers can't resist grabbing the boxes by those, and inevitably they rip right out the side. Blame that on the computer shippers themselves, for providing handles that just can't handle it.
Plus, anyone sending a package by ground should understand that if it's on the bottom, up to 7 or 8 packages weighing up to 70 pounds each, may be stacked on top of your box. Or, if it gets put on top, it may fall as much as 5 feet, onto a metal or concrete surface. If you're not comfortable dropping your box from head hight, it's not packaged well enough! There should be NO empty space inside the box, which allows things to move around (violently) and allows the box to crush in one place. You should not bother with styrofoam peanuts, because they allow the contents to settle and therefore be exposed to shock from a blow to the bottom of the package. I like to use tightly-wadded-up newspaper. Also keep in mind your package may be exposed to rain at some point: wrap the items in plastic first, then put them in the box with newspaper wads filling all space left, on all sides (including the bottom) of the item. Then use packaging tape (not masking tape, not string, not duct tape) and wrap the crap out of it. Cover every seam with tape. Make at least one strip of tape go all the way around the enitre box, parallel to each axis. If you don't follow these directions, you're fooling yourself about whose fault it is when your items show up in lots of little tiny bits.
When I was at UPS in 1995 and 96, I once heard from a supervisor that after payroll, the single highest cost for every UPS facility is paying off the insurance claims on packages. In other words, they spend more paying the $100 on packages we destroyed, then they do buying things like trucks, or maintaining the facilities themselves, etc. Don't know if that is true, but the point is, it would actually cost more for them to break fewer boxes, then it does for them to pay the insurance.
Don't know why your international shipment wasn't insured. You could have insured it, just not for free...
And, I knew people at FedEx. They are absolutely just as bad: they have the same problems as UPS, but they handle fewer large packages and therefore their equipment is optimized for small things. If you're sending a big box, way better off with UPS than FedEX, in my opinion.
-Leperflesh
I did a volunteer project with 3 other students from my technical writing program at San Francisco State University. We produced some materials for GlideTech, a program run by Glide Church in San Francisco.
They evaluate each incoming person, who must first qualify by being off drugs, pledge to stay off drugs, and be below a certain poverty level. Daycare services are available for the students, and classes are scheduled at evening times for people who have part-time or intermittent jobs.
If students qualify for the technical programs (have a certain literacy level, etc.) they learn basic PC skills and eventually get their A+ certification. Glide also helps with job-placement and does follow-up.
Applicants who don't qualify yet for the tech program can get classes in English skills, workplace skills, and so forth.
All nonprofit. Non-denominational. Free. Requires commitment and standards of behavior, drug-free. An exemplary program.
-Leperflesh
The previous millenium's energy darling, nuclear power, has proven unfeasible due to the tremendous clean up costs involved.
Are you smoking crack? The previous millenium's 'energy darling' was coal. Or maybe horses. Or, on a global scale, pretty arguably, wood. Or do you honestly mean to say that in 1200AD, there were tons of visionaries around the world, desperately looking forward to the coming days of nuclear power?
-Leperflesh
Smoke me a kipper; I'll be back for breakfast.
You're offtopic, and surely will be modded down. My reply to you will not be modded up. Nevertheless: You, (along with millions of others) have mistakenly identified Slashdot (and millions of other sites) as public services. Sorry, tax dollars didn't pay for Slashdot. Its privately owned. It belongs to its owners, who may do whatever they please with it, enact whatever rules they wish, and so forth. If you don't like it, write to the owners with suggestions. They'll ignore you if they like. Your only other option is to go away. Period.
-Leperflesh
slashdot.info is still available. Who will be the first to register it?
-Leperflesh.
If you played Trade Wars, chances are you also played Global Wars, the BBS Door version of the boardgame 'Risk'(TM).
BlueDragon has re-created Global Wars on Prowler-Pro: he calls his version World at War, and he has made it look and feel very much like the original Global Wars. I've been playing for months now, it's just as addictive as the original. Be sure to read through the help info on the login page to discover what all the variants are.
-Leperflesh
Note: Risk(TM) is a trademark of Parker Brothers or somebody; World at War is a reverse-engeneered, HTML based game that is based on Global Wars, and not Risk(TM). I am not a lawyer.
Based upon an idea developed by myself and Lincoln F. Stern in 1994, and further developed by jfmcrr in 1996, I submit the following for patent:
Write Only Memory is a new development designed to aid in the permanent, secure storage of binary data. Any data stored, transmitted, or formatted in computer binary form can be secured successfully using the WOM technology.
Additionally, the WOM technology includes an advanced compression algorithm, allowing a nearly-infinite amount of data to be stored on a single WOM device.
Users wishing to secure a file with WOM invoke a command to send that file to the WOM device. The file is composed of binary data; electronic representations of mixed ones and zeros.
The WOM device uses the patented WOM algorithm to convert every electronically-represented 'one' to a 'zero', creating a file that is guaranteed to be uncrackable, undecipherable, and irretrievable by any entity. Users of WOM can rest assured that no other person can ever gain access to their carefully archived data.
Additionally, the conversion of the entire data file to a single stream of electronic 'zeros' allows for incredible compression. Because zeros are stored electronically in a 'low' state, the entire encrypted file can be electronically stored in a non-magnetic, non-electronic medium, as such media are capable of storing an infinite number of zero-electric-state pulses. For this patent, any device utilizing the WOM technology, regardless of the type of storage medium utilized, is covered. Initial plans for storage media include the use of small, rectangular low-fired ceramic building blocks (bricks), resevoirs of neutral fluids (a bag of water) and even wooden, open-ended containers of air (a bucket.)
While this patent covers a physical WOM device, it mainly patents the WOM algorithm as new and proprietary technology; this means that any device which uses the WOM patented algorithm as a method for convering normal, binary data to an unreadable, archival stream of low-state data(zeros) is an infringement of this patent under US and International Patent Law.
If this patent is successfully submitted, any device which deletes information, or causes a data file to be lost, deleted, or erased in any way, has to have a license from me, and pays me royalties for the use of that license. Woohoo!
Ok, obviously there were at least 40,000 couples married in the alleged '36,000,000 Blessing,' that's how many were in the stadium at Seol, but come on... they're claiming 72 Million people being married? The earth's population is about 6 billion, so that means he is claiming to be marrying 1.2% of the total population of the planet. How come I haven't met any of these couples? Statistically, every slashdotter should know at least a few...
Anyone wanna try Dunking one of these in flourinert and see if ya can't push her up to 500MHz?
You've been reading too much David Brin.
Subduction is a plate tectonic process that takes millions of years.
Furthermore, much of what is at the very top of a subducting plate gets scraped off onto the overlying continental shelf - the Franciscan Complex of California is an example of the 'melange' that such a process leaves.
The problem with our garbage, on the other hand, is that it will take hundreds or thousands of years, not millions of years, to decompose or otherwise be naturally recycled; most likely, all that would remain after millions of years, of most of our garbage, would be iron oxides and dirt.
Finally, this solution does not prevent any of the problems leading to the drastic global warning Hawking is predicting; how do you bury massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses at the bottom of the ocean? Oh, and what about the environmental impact of dumping stuff into the sea? No, Brin's 'dross in the abbyss' solution only works if you are burying indestructable spaceships in a science fiction novel.
Time and again, for anyone over the age of about 12, I love to give the Victorinox Swiss Army Knife. Every geek needs one, but then, so does everyone else. I have given Swiss Army Knives as gifts many times, and I always hear back from the person, saying that they find it extremely useful and that it was a great gift.
The knife is possibly mankinds oldest and most valuable tool. I use my knife every day, for cleaning my fingernails, cutting tape on a package, prying open the jammed CD-ROM, and so forth. I feel every human being ought to know how to handle a knife properly, and the best way to learn is to do it, constantly, from as young an age as possible. I have sliced open my hand with my own knife doing something stupid, and believe me, this is the best way to learn how not to do something stupid with a knife.
Plus they start at only ten bucks, but go all the way up to over a hundred, providing a good range of prices for rich and poor alike.
[Please remember that a knife is safer when it is extremely sharp. A blunt knife requires more force to cut, and therefore is more likely to slip.]
(I do not work for Victorinox, nor do I sell knives; I'm just a fan.)
I live in San Francisco, serviced by PacificBell.
I went with Mindspring, because they were already providing my netcom dialup service. They give a 6 month rather than 1-year contract, which is nice, and it was not too expensive. All my contact with them, including two calls to their tech support, have been excellent.
Pacbell had to 'bring the line to my house' and then Covad were contracted to do the internal install.
Pacbell were obnoxious because their database indicated that my box was in the garage, even though it was outside, the result being that they insisted that I had to be at home to let them in to do the install. They came twice while I wasn't at home, and both times, didn't bother to look at the side of the house, even though I left a note. Finally, my girlfriend was able to be there; she pointed at the box, and an hour later the line was in.
Then, get this, Covad calls within 20 minutes of the PacBell guy leaving, and offers to be there in 2 hours to do the install! I found this quite impressive. I wasn't home, so the covad guy screwed up the install on my win95OSR2 machine, attempting to use a USB NIC even though the OS lacks good enough support for it. But, I was able to make it work myself with a PCI NIC and a call to Mindspring's excellent installation support.
Since then, no problems, no outages, and consistently very fast (usually at least 1 MBPS) service.
The final kicker was three days after install; mindspring now offers free licenses for Norton PersonalFirewall. I downloaded that baby, free, and now I have a reasonably good software firewall on my DSL. I haven't heard that anyone else has offered this kind of thing yet.
-Leperflesh
This reliance on digital effects as a replacement for models is exactly what I have hated about both Episode One and the digitally-touched re-releases of the previous films. Jabba the Hut looked much more real to me in puppet form than he has as a digital, clean, shiny computer jabba. For me, the most visually pleasing parts from the original series involve gritty models with the infinite texture you can only get with something built in real life.
So in other words, what made Episode One suck, will make Episode Two suck even worse. Plus, obviously, Lucas no longer cares about the chemistry that two actors can develop through their interaction in a scene; if you cut up parts of scenes, throw in a bunch of digital characters, and expect it to have emotional impact, you're dreaming.