Theobroma hit retail availability two years ago, and is pretty widely carried. When in season, it's not hard to find - ask your retailer to ask their distributor to get some stock. Follow @dogfishbeer on twitter to know when they're brewing which recipe.
We started using BlockHosts to feed iptables rules, and our failure logs went from 30-50k per day to 100. Basically, with more than 'x' failed logins within 'y' time frame, the source IP is blocked for 'z' time period. Since it uses iptables, you could block it from just the ssh port, or the entire system (we do the latter). All three variables are configurable, and we also have whitelisted a few select standby IPs for contingency use. (As another poster said, you **will** lock yourself out eventually.)
1) Dispute charge with your credit card issuer (as others have recommended) 2) Check out the consumerist blog (consumerist.com) and use their guidelines to get consumer satisfaction.
Don't let them BS you - put the beef out in public and you're more likely to get results. Dell and other large companies don't care about you, an individual consumer - make it public and affect thousands of buying decisions and you'll likely fare better.
Note: If they resolve this to your satisfaction, also post/email/whatever a follow-up showing that they made good on a bad situation. If they do not, of course you should let everyone know that as well.
Just get a T-Mobile handset with the $20 unlimited data plan and a phone like the T610's successor (can't remember the model), then use a USB bluetooth adapter to dial up via GPRS. The coverage is pretty good and the speed is usually faster than dial-up.
The Virginia DMV site is excellent (http://www.dmv.state.va.us). Since VA has about 250 license plates (no exaggeration!), you can order them all online, including a preview of personalized plates. Also, license renewals, car registrations, tax payments, etc. can all be accomplished online (in firefox!) without trouble. This is critical for us, because the wait at the DMV is usually 4-6 hours, even when you get there before opening. The overall VA DOT site also has good info line which direction the HOV (express/commuter) lanes are going at any given time, and that info is in a fairly plain-html format that comes in handy when you want to load that information on a handheld.
I'm not sure of the details, but it will chirp with one sound if you've had a "near miss", and buzzes incessantly when you've been "hit" while de-activating your own gun... As for range, I believe they are tuned to reflect the effective range of whatever weapon they're attached to. Google for "MILES gear" for more info though...
Actually, the training weapons are usually "real" rifles outfitted with the red blank ejector guard on the muzzle and lazer tag-type attachments that tell the other guy when he's been "shot". So, in all truth, they were probably "real rifles", but were certainly not "ready to fire".
So less speculation and more background research, please.:)
You're 100% justified in your frustration with the case you detailed, but the fault lies with your kernel developer/upgrader's kernel compile process. The whole mess would have been avoided if he had set the EXTRAVERSION variable in the kernel's Makefile to something meaningful (i.e. make the kernel version 2.4.21-pre5_custom_04apr04) and posted his specific notes on that kernel someplace where all can find them (I can personally recommend an internal Wiki for this - it works wonders). Also, if you release software after testing it on only one kernel, methinks there are some testing procedures to be beefed up!
Don't knock backports for their own sake - knock those who misuse them. (Upside the back of the head, preferably.)
in bashrc (or whateverrc): alias fastscp="scp -prC -c blowfish"
the -C (compression) won't do much for your images, but is great for most content - think inline zlib compression. blowfish is a reasonably fast cipher as well.
also, if you're hell-bent on not sending encrypted data, you could set up ssh to not use encryption (type "none"), then use a non-password authentication method - either hostbased or publickey.
note, though, that the default for scp/ssh is to NOT use compression. why the insistence on not being a little more secure? in my experience, the encryption overhead is not too big a burden on file transfer over a 100Mbps network. Anything less than that and the bandwidth is the bottleneck, not the cpus on either end.
you may also be able to use an ssl-enabled web page to authenticate, then POST the files over a non-ssl connection... not sure if that's do-able, though.
I'm not sure that they do as many manned launches, though - they're so cash-strapped, they couldn't even lauch a replacement crew or supply replenishment mission a year or so back, if I remember.
Also, if the 1000 lauch figure you state includes unmanned launches, I think that the US has them beat by a long shot... I'll have to look up some numbers, but I think you're mixing apples and oranges.
Not at all - I've done more to preserve the integrity of our nation since leaving the service than I ever did while I was in. You can still support the overall government industry, and "they" have made it easier to do so as a civilian contractor than as a government employee.
Spoken like a truly wide-eyed ROTC cadet. No offense, but come speak to me after your four years are up and let me know if you feel the same way. If you do, I'll buy you a beer and thank you for your continued service. If not, I'll buy you a beer so you can start to recover from the time you spent in uniform waiting to make it to the real world, where you make a real difference.
Sorry, but I think you've missed the mark entirely. The military barely does a respectable job at making sure you're a PERSON (let alone the right one) when assigning jobs. In the Air Force, any 'technical' degree qualifies you to be what's basically an "IT Officer". History major? Well, you've got some 100-level science here, and a physics course you didn't fail. Welcome to the halls of network management!
Not all the jobs are about killing people either. In fact, when you look at the Air Force and the Navy, the overwhelming majority of jobs are there to support the 10% that "break things and kill people". I know that number is higher in the Army and Marines, but I'd be surprised if it were more than 60%.
The standard military mindset is to change everything you can, in order to 'leave your mark' on the organization, and generate performance review statements that make it look like you did lots of "good stuff(tm)" during your tour. Hell, if you look at the performance reviews of anyone in the Air Force, every damned person moves mountains, silently, in their sleep, under budget, and ahead of schedule. I fought and fought to rate a truly worthless upper-to-mid-level manager 3 out of 5 on his annual report, but was told I couldn't because it "didn't look good for him."
Remember - glossy ads and brochures are there to SELL you a product. If it's worth buying, you'd think they could just tell you the truth, but instead, the military has to keep bringing in million-dollar ad agencies to maintain their enlistment numbers... Something to keep in mind next time that stupid-assed "cross into the blue" Air Force commercial comes on TV.
The only reason to work IT-type stuff in the government is to get a clearance so you can get a job doing the same thing for more money and less bureaucracy as a contractor. 90% of the good tech-based jobs in the government sector are performed by civilian contractors. The other 10% are generally far, far behind closed doors, and you'd never even know where to look for them unless you're already "in the know." In the military, at least, the "401k" plan consists of two easy steps: #1 work for us for 20 years. #2 get 50% of your base pay at the 20 year point for life. There is NO middle ground - you leave before 20, you get ZE-freaking-RO. Sure, the promise of a paycheck for life is a nice thought, but the 20 years of bullshit that you'll have to endure is (IMO) hardly worth it. Again, in the military there is next to no inspiration to perform well. Unless you royally screw the pooch, you WILL get promoted. (Even printing out porn on a.mil network isn't enough to get some officers in trouble - I've seen it myself.) You'll enjoy the fact that you can coast on by and leave a mess behind when you move on in a year or two. Your reward for leaving things in decent shape would be that the next guy/girl will change everything (to leave a bigger mark in their short time in the position), making your advances null and void.
I've been on both sides of this - govvie and contractor. I can honestly say that I've done more valuable work in just a few months than I did in the 10 years spent in the federal employ. Don't do it unless it's your last option, and for certain, don't fall into the "we give you good komputter and teknichul skilz" trap - it's a lie, lie, lie.
I have to agree with you - bluetooth is really underrated, and is just starting to get wider consumer-level support. I bought a Sony Ericsson T68i GSM mobile phone specifically because of the bluetooth support. I've got a Palm TungstenT and a Sony Ericsson HBH-60 headset, and the combo of these devices is just awesome. I keep the phone in my backpack, or in one of the cubbies on the dash if I'm driving. I keep the headset on in the car, or handy if I'm walking around. If I want to browse via the Tungsten, I just fire up the browser app, which logs me into AT&T the wireless net via the T68i's GPRS modem. For phone usage, I can just tap a phone number from the address book, which dials the phone, and then I can use the headset to take the call, and take notes on the Tungsten, if needed. One of my next projects is to put one of the USBbluetooth stubs into the living room PC so I can browse via the Tungsten at home, but not eat up the AT&T data allotment.
Check out PhatNoise. I just put the Kenwood eXcelon Music Keg into our new ride, and LOVE it. I might be getting another one for the other car. Post a reply if you're interested in seeing some pix of the install - I don't want to overload the servers at the forums where they're hosted.
It's basically a #include from US Federal Import/Export laws. Besides, the Taliban may not be in charge of Afghanistan any more, but there are still areas that are not controlled by the new Government. That will take some time, then you've got to wait for the US Government to change the verbiage of the law to reflect that.
We have 30 or so DingleBerries that my techs support, and to the best of my understanding (and my checkbook's), we pay an annual fee to Cingular for their operation. We don't have the phone models, which I'd guess would require the cellular networks, but does Cingular offer a pager-only net just for these silly little status symbols?
Slashdot Mirror
Theobroma hit retail availability two years ago, and is pretty widely carried. When in season, it's not hard to find - ask your retailer to ask their distributor to get some stock. Follow @dogfishbeer on twitter to know when they're brewing which recipe.
... retail locations, all in Delaware.
Their products are available (almost*) nationwide, and in some international locations.
* Except for a small number of states that do not permit distribution of regular-ABV beers.
We started using BlockHosts to feed iptables rules, and our failure logs went from 30-50k per day to 100. Basically, with more than 'x' failed logins within 'y' time frame, the source IP is blocked for 'z' time period. Since it uses iptables, you could block it from just the ssh port, or the entire system (we do the latter).
All three variables are configurable, and we also have whitelisted a few select standby IPs for contingency use. (As another poster said, you **will** lock yourself out eventually.)
1) Dispute charge with your credit card issuer (as others have recommended)
2) Check out the consumerist blog (consumerist.com) and use their guidelines to get consumer satisfaction.
Don't let them BS you - put the beef out in public and you're more likely to get results. Dell and other large companies don't care about you, an individual consumer - make it public and affect thousands of buying decisions and you'll likely fare better.
Note: If they resolve this to your satisfaction, also post/email/whatever a follow-up showing that they made good on a bad situation. If they do not, of course you should let everyone know that as well.
Good luck!
just thought i'd check in with the 4-digit uid club. kudos to the decade!
Just get a T-Mobile handset with the $20 unlimited data plan and a phone like the T610's successor (can't remember the model), then use a USB bluetooth adapter to dial up via GPRS. The coverage is pretty good and the speed is usually faster than dial-up.
Overall, I've had great luck with this setup.
The Virginia DMV site is excellent (http://www.dmv.state.va.us). Since VA has about 250 license plates (no exaggeration!), you can order them all online, including a preview of personalized plates. Also, license renewals, car registrations, tax payments, etc. can all be accomplished online (in firefox!) without trouble.
This is critical for us, because the wait at the DMV is usually 4-6 hours, even when you get there before opening.
The overall VA DOT site also has good info line which direction the HOV (express/commuter) lanes are going at any given time, and that info is in a fairly plain-html format that comes in handy when you want to load that information on a handheld.
I'm not sure of the details, but it will chirp with one sound if you've had a "near miss", and buzzes incessantly when you've been "hit" while de-activating your own gun... As for range, I believe they are tuned to reflect the effective range of whatever weapon they're attached to. Google for "MILES gear" for more info though...
Actually, the training weapons are usually "real" rifles outfitted with the red blank ejector guard on the muzzle and lazer tag-type attachments that tell the other guy when he's been "shot".
:)
So, in all truth, they were probably "real rifles", but were certainly not "ready to fire".
So less speculation and more background research, please.
You're 100% justified in your frustration with the case you detailed, but the fault lies with your kernel developer/upgrader's kernel compile process.
The whole mess would have been avoided if he had set the EXTRAVERSION variable in the kernel's Makefile to something meaningful (i.e. make the kernel version 2.4.21-pre5_custom_04apr04) and posted his specific notes on that kernel someplace where all can find them (I can personally recommend an internal Wiki for this - it works wonders).
Also, if you release software after testing it on only one kernel, methinks there are some testing procedures to be beefed up!
Don't knock backports for their own sake - knock those who misuse them. (Upside the back of the head, preferably.)
NO!!! 7 Minute Abs.. Not 6! Who does abs in 6 minutes?!
</something about="mary">
in bashrc (or whateverrc):
alias fastscp="scp -prC -c blowfish"
the -C (compression) won't do much for your images, but is great for most content - think inline zlib compression. blowfish is a reasonably fast cipher as well.
also, if you're hell-bent on not sending encrypted data, you could set up ssh to not use encryption (type "none"), then use a non-password authentication method - either hostbased or publickey.
note, though, that the default for scp/ssh is to NOT use compression. why the insistence on not being a little more secure? in my experience, the encryption overhead is not too big a burden on file transfer over a 100Mbps network. Anything less than that and the bandwidth is the bottleneck, not the cpus on either end.
you may also be able to use an ssl-enabled web page to authenticate, then POST the files over a non-ssl connection... not sure if that's do-able, though.
I'm not sure that they do as many manned launches, though - they're so cash-strapped, they couldn't even lauch a replacement crew or supply replenishment mission a year or so back, if I remember.
Also, if the 1000 lauch figure you state includes unmanned launches, I think that the US has them beat by a long shot... I'll have to look up some numbers, but I think you're mixing apples and oranges.
PeopleSoft is the scourge of the devil. Stay away at all costs.
Not at all - I've done more to preserve the integrity of our nation since leaving the service than I ever did while I was in.
You can still support the overall government industry, and "they" have made it easier to do so as a civilian contractor than as a government employee.
Spoken like a truly wide-eyed ROTC cadet. No offense, but come speak to me after your four years are up and let me know if you feel the same way.
If you do, I'll buy you a beer and thank you for your continued service.
If not, I'll buy you a beer so you can start to recover from the time you spent in uniform waiting to make it to the real world, where you make a real difference.
Sorry, but I think you've missed the mark entirely. The military barely does a respectable job at making sure you're a PERSON (let alone the right one) when assigning jobs. In the Air Force, any 'technical' degree qualifies you to be what's basically an "IT Officer". History major? Well, you've got some 100-level science here, and a physics course you didn't fail. Welcome to the halls of network management!
Not all the jobs are about killing people either. In fact, when you look at the Air Force and the Navy, the overwhelming majority of jobs are there to support the 10% that "break things and kill people". I know that number is higher in the Army and Marines, but I'd be surprised if it were more than 60%.
The standard military mindset is to change everything you can, in order to 'leave your mark' on the organization, and generate performance review statements that make it look like you did lots of "good stuff(tm)" during your tour. Hell, if you look at the performance reviews of anyone in the Air Force, every damned person moves mountains, silently, in their sleep, under budget, and ahead of schedule. I fought and fought to rate a truly worthless upper-to-mid-level manager 3 out of 5 on his annual report, but was told I couldn't because it "didn't look good for him."
Remember - glossy ads and brochures are there to SELL you a product. If it's worth buying, you'd think they could just tell you the truth, but instead, the military has to keep bringing in million-dollar ad agencies to maintain their enlistment numbers... Something to keep in mind next time that stupid-assed "cross into the blue" Air Force commercial comes on TV.
The only reason to work IT-type stuff in the government is to get a clearance so you can get a job doing the same thing for more money and less bureaucracy as a contractor. .mil network isn't enough to get some officers in trouble - I've seen it myself.) You'll enjoy the fact that you can coast on by and leave a mess behind when you move on in a year or two. Your reward for leaving things in decent shape would be that the next guy/girl will change everything (to leave a bigger mark in their short time in the position), making your advances null and void.
90% of the good tech-based jobs in the government sector are performed by civilian contractors. The other 10% are generally far, far behind closed doors, and you'd never even know where to look for them unless you're already "in the know."
In the military, at least, the "401k" plan consists of two easy steps: #1 work for us for 20 years. #2 get 50% of your base pay at the 20 year point for life. There is NO middle ground - you leave before 20, you get ZE-freaking-RO. Sure, the promise of a paycheck for life is a nice thought, but the 20 years of bullshit that you'll have to endure is (IMO) hardly worth it.
Again, in the military there is next to no inspiration to perform well. Unless you royally screw the pooch, you WILL get promoted. (Even printing out porn on a
I've been on both sides of this - govvie and contractor. I can honestly say that I've done more valuable work in just a few months than I did in the 10 years spent in the federal employ. Don't do it unless it's your last option, and for certain, don't fall into the "we give you good komputter and teknichul skilz" trap - it's a lie, lie, lie.
I have to agree with you - bluetooth is really underrated, and is just starting to get wider consumer-level support. I bought a Sony Ericsson T68i GSM mobile phone specifically because of the bluetooth support. I've got a Palm TungstenT and a Sony Ericsson HBH-60 headset, and the combo of these devices is just awesome.
I keep the phone in my backpack, or in one of the cubbies on the dash if I'm driving. I keep the headset on in the car, or handy if I'm walking around. If I want to browse via the Tungsten, I just fire up the browser app, which logs me into AT&T the wireless net via the T68i's GPRS modem.
For phone usage, I can just tap a phone number from the address book, which dials the phone, and then I can use the headset to take the call, and take notes on the Tungsten, if needed.
One of my next projects is to put one of the USBbluetooth stubs into the living room PC so I can browse via the Tungsten at home, but not eat up the AT&T data allotment.
Sorry - not true.
http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html
Check out PhatNoise. I just put the Kenwood eXcelon Music Keg into our new ride, and LOVE it. I might be getting another one for the other car. Post a reply if you're interested in seeing some pix of the install - I don't want to overload the servers at the forums where they're hosted.
Ack! A meager attempt at a bad joke shot down by a statistician... What are the chances of that?!
OK, so were they planning to sample more than 3 typical e-mail accounts worth of daily spam?
It's basically a #include from US Federal Import/Export laws. Besides, the Taliban may not be in charge of Afghanistan any more, but there are still areas that are not controlled by the new Government. That will take some time, then you've got to wait for the US Government to change the verbiage of the law to reflect that.
We have 30 or so DingleBerries that my techs support, and to the best of my understanding (and my checkbook's), we pay an annual fee to Cingular for their operation. We don't have the phone models, which I'd guess would require the cellular networks, but does Cingular offer a pager-only net just for these silly little status symbols?