You're absolutely right. Several years ago, we were looking at firewall solutions for our GigE pipes. Lots of people had GigE copper inputs, but when we pushed for details it always came down to the simple fact that their hardware couldn't push that kind of traffic.
We looked at building our own PC based boxes to do it. It all came down to the fact that the cards couldn't really push the speeds.
The only solution for GigE that can achieve full line speed is the proper hardware, and you're going to pay a premium for that. You want to route or switch GigE speeds, you're going to put in something like a Cisco Catalyst 6500 series switch (or better). You can pick up a 6500 fairly cheap these days on eBay. Well, cheap in relative terms. It won't be anywhere near the cost of a Linksys AP.:)
I think there was one provider overseas who stated that they intended to offer 100Mb/s to the customer. Since most of us are in the US, we aren't going to see those kinds of speeds any time soon.
I had a quick look at the Verizon FiOS site. 50Mb/20Mb was the fastest residential line they offer. For business customers, they offer a 35Mb/35Mb account if (for those serving or uploading), or the 50Mb/20Mb which would be more targeted towards offices who are downloading more than uploading.
I know businesses can buy GigE loops. It costs a fortune to get installed, and you have to have your equipment on each end. They may offer GigE service, but I'm sure that costs a larger fortune. If you're sending or receiving a 1Gb/s of traffic, you'd be peering with a Tier 1 provider. That's an OC24 circuit.
Several years ago, it was most economical for my offices to have their own T1 loops (no data service included), and stick our own routers on each end. I was very content doing a wireless link from my house to the office, and using their T1 at night. That went straight to our datacenter, so I had the luxury of assigning myself an IP from the datacenter at my house.:) I was in charge of all of that stuff, so there were no real problems doing it. I offered it to anyone in that office who had clear line of sight to the office, but no one else did.
More recently one place I worked was in a building that served as a tower for a wireless provider and they had a GigE loop in the building, and we were provided a 100Mb/s connection from them down to our suite, and paid at 95th percentile for the bandwidth. It was a good deal, but it wasn't anywhere near residential rates.
We tried to get a GigE loop from our office to a Tier 1 provider less than a mile away, and we were handed a 5 figure price tag for the install. Just the loop, no data services at all. We were going to stick our own equipment on each end.
Nope, unless you're somewhere weird, you're not going to get those kinds of speeds any time in the near future.
Actually in my experience, in meeting people from all over the world, and visiting many other places, it's not Americans that are dumb. It's most people in general. Stereotypes do fit some people, because they are created from a subset of a culture.
By categorizing Americans as dumb, you therefore categorize the general population of the whole world as dumb. Only approximately 1.5% of the United States population is Native American. The remainder migrated here, and their "American" ancestry spans one to a few dozen generations.
You're absolutely right. If it was designed to look and act like a phishing site, regardless if it does currently capture any information, and the filters catch it, then the phishing filters are working properly.
That's a bold faced like. There's only one English, and it's the one our president authorizes. We took control of the the colonies and of the language named as "English" with our almost peaceful rebellion. At any rate, with a population of 61.8 million in the UK, and 307 million in the US, it's very clear that we now maintain the largest English speaking population so through our fine democratic process it will be obvious that since the majority of English speakers speak American English (only noted to differentiate from those other pesky dialects), it is the true English.
I find it more entertaining to get on the public address and say "Everyone please stay calm, there is a fire in the back of the store. If everyone would please exit through the front doors in a calm fashion we would appreciate it."
I thought about doing a mock shooting in a Walmart as an Indy film project. I'm betting depending on where you did it, no one would care. I fully believe in the SEP field and it's social implications. I was talking to someone a couple days ago. He used to ride a motorcycle. He was stopped at a light, and the lady in front of him decided it was a good idea to back up and get into a different lane. He was hit, the motorcycle was downed, and he suffered several abrasions. Despite obvious bleeding and the front of his bike being crushed, other drivers honked at him to move, and then went around him. No one stopped.
People don't care if someone has a gun in a Walmart, as long as it isn't pointed at them.... and people wonder why no one cares when shit happens to them. It's not their problem.
The last gig I did, I sat opposite the other developer who I needed frequent contact with. Everyone else got me by email, and I would initiate return phone calls. This avoided unnecessary interruptions in my workflow, and I could queue their requests to allow me to optimize my time.
In the past I've used similar setups. Do all the developers need almost constant face time with each other? Probably not. Then why stuff them in the same room?
At one company, everyone in the same office suite had their own office. That was maybe 1/3 of the development and systems staff. The rest were around the world. Communications were generally by email, except when live interaction was required. This kind of setup worked very well for me, so I could be at home, the office, or the datacenter, and there was no interruption to my workflow, except when I was traveling. It all worked out very well. It didn't matter what timezone someone was sitting in, the communications flow worked fluidly. That was a situation where all of the members of the crew were very good at their tasks, and didn't have to ask for help for stuff very much. Communications were limited to status updates and functionality interaction statements. Well, we'd BS sometimes, which was good for morale and to get to know each other better. I worked with a developer in Russia for probably two years before I ever heard his voice, and never did see him in person. I did know his work was accomplished properly, and his requests to me were usually "I need this functionality on these servers." I may ask for clarification, but since he knew what he was talking about his request were usually very clear.
I guess if you have a team who are going to have lots of questions because they aren't totally clear on what they're doing, stuffing them all in a room is a good idea. A well thought out and documented project plan would alleviate a lot of those problems though. I can imagine a room with 10 developers who can shout questions to each other would create an amazingly high amount of unwanted distractions. Verbal communications also reduce the paper trail. If everything is done via email, no one can say "I asked you for..." and it wasn't done because it hadn't actually been asked for. The simple "You requested X at 3:30 and I responded it was completed at 5:00" is amazingly useful down the line. It completely eliminates mistakes in memory where we thought something was asked.
I've annoyed a few people before where I've told them to always email the requests to me. When they've failed to do so, but insist that they did ask for it, I can usually recite the conversation verbatim, and then they'll remember that they had only intended to ask for it, and never actually said to do it. That's usually enough to initiate the email papertrail so the same mistake doesn't happen again.
No refunds? What if they don't taste good? He was looking to sell them to cannibals, right? Who would want an extra rugrat running around? Those damned things get expensive.
It's a bit early in the morning for research, but here's one. I'm not familiar enough with searching California's laws to come up with a quick answer with a statute number.
I spent a little time in California, and I was given a few friendly warnings about the NOS on my car. I got it from the speed shop I bought parts at, the mechanic who did work I didn't have tools for, and from the emissions testing shop. It was verified in casual conversation with law enforcement. With the NOS on my car, my car had been modified for racing and would be subject to seizure and destruction. Even though it was a pretty simple matter to remove it (it's a dry system), they were clear about it. It would be a matter of a cop opening the hood and knowing what the parts do, but all it takes is one cop who knows something about cars saying "I know what those braided lines are, we're taking your car.
I kept my residence in another state for the duration I was there, and my cars remained happily registered out of state. Going through emissions testing was an exercise. I was actually impressed, with something like 75k miles, it passed with flying colors. The emissions shop actually said my car had better emissions than a lot of new cars that they had tested. There's something to say for a quality car.
Actually, they do. And his example was valid. You signed a whole stack of papers when you bought your car. Did you read every line of them? Most people don't even skim them. They ask "what lines do I sign on?"
Ford *could* limit a car to 35mph, but it's not in their best interest to do so. My car is speed limited to 165mph, because it came stock with tires rated to 168mph. If I put better tires on, I have to make unauthorized changes to the computer to accomplish those speeds. The car is physically capable of it, but the rules they put into place don't allow it. You, I, or just about every car owner, will never see their maximum speeds. I've tried. Roads get really short at high speed.:)
If you modify your vehicle, you'll likely void your warranty. If you live somewhere like California modifying your vehicle with non-oem or non-CARB components can result in fines. If you modify the vehicle with racing parts and use it on the streets, you forfeit your vehicle (it will be taken and destroyed).
It's not an EULA by name, but the same logic applies.
Funny that, I bought a PS2 years ago, and played it on occasion until it died. I've played on a friends PS3, but never had the urge to buy one myself. The world doesn't revolve around your gaming console.
I love the way people bitch about things on here though. Sony set new rules about their consoles, made to play their games, on their network. You purchased a purpose built machine for doing that. It's not like you bought a PC, and installed a Sony game which then says you aren't allowed to play any other games. Changing the rules happens all the time. If Slashdot decided to go 100% pay next week, I'm sure people would bitch until they got over it. It's their network, they can do anything they want. I'm sure their lawyers evaluated the risk of changing the EULA, and forcing updates. I'm also pretty sure that most users never read the EULA to begin with, and they only way they knew was that it got posted here. Oh my gosh, changing the rules that they they hadn't read in the first place. What to do... What to do... Oh, lets go bitch on Slashdot about how evil they are by providing updates.:)
That shouldn't have been hard to get more memory now than drive space then.:) My 486/33 came with a 20Mb hard drive. I upgraded it to 40Mb a little while later and I was the coolest kid on the block.:) I'm not sure you could find memory for a new machine. Well, in looking, you can get a 16Mb DDR2 SODIMM, but why would you want to?:)
My home machine is 3.2Ghz Phenom II X4 with 6Gb RAM and 2Tb storage. Things have come a long way.:) I remember building out my first dual processor machine at one job, and that cost us a fortune. Oh my gosh, what would we possibly do with the mighty power of a dual Pentium Pro 200.:) That was just after I left another employer, and we were discussing the possibility of building a 1TB array with something like 140 9Gb drives (the biggest we could get our hands on at the time). They actually had a business purpose for it (hosting company), but it remained theoretical since it was pretty damned near impossible. What? 3 4 channel SCSI cards, and drives chained across multiple racks just to accomplish it?
It was back in those days when it became obvious that we could spend huge money on huge hardware, or split up our services logically and stay with commodity equipment, and be able to stay with bleeding edge equipment with our important things and roll upgrades through the datacenters without impacting the customers.
That was a fun trip down memory lane.:) I wouldn't want the 40Mb drive nor 486 for anything more than a doorstop though. Well, I do have some sitting in the garage in the "I should throw this away" pile.:)
I've been buying connectivity for only connectivity for years. I don't get a discount because I don't use their POP, SMTP, Usenet, or even DNS services. I've moved around a lot, and using different providers each time. For a short while, I added the provider email into my mail client each time. After a while it was just annoying, especially where my new account would mysteriously start receiving spam even though I never used it and never provided anyone my address. So for the last few years, mail goes to my domain or a few common mail drops, and I collect it from there.
Several times, I asked providers for discounts because I didn't want any of their extra services. They simply wouldn't provide them. They aren't obliged to provide any services beyond the contract. If you look at your contract, I'd be willing to bet it doesn't even mention Usenet, except for possibly in the acceptable use policy.
Even though handling Usenet could be kind of pricey, I doubt it would be very much in terms of cost for them, except for maybe the load on the abuse department.
I had a few friends comment to me about your post. The general consensus is that you're just flame bait. "Get a life"? Getting a life would imply actually stepping away from the computer and... well... getting a life. You suggested Internet based alternatives to the service, which is anything but getting a life.
There were probably good reasons that Cox ditched Usenet, which is probably that such a small percentage of their users ever used the service, and the requirements were large enough that it wasn't worth keeping.
You, I, and almost everyone else have forgotten about it. Last time I ventured towards it, the signal to noise ratio was so insane I wasn't sure if anyone but spammers used it. I could assume that Cox had to process more abuse complaints than they had legitimate users.
It's actually pretty easy in most places, if you know how things work, and have an eye for cheating the system.
I'd guess in his position he had the opportunity to travel to sites on a regular basis. It would be easy enough to schedule to be at a site say Thursday and Friday. When you get there, tell the people at the site that you are scheduled to be there for only Thursday. Finish up what you're doing Thursday afternoon, and enjoy your 3 day weekend on the clock.
I usually didn't have that luxury. Since I usually work with servers, if I'm vising a site, they're expecting to see that a server went down here and there on the scheduled days.
The less important your job is, the easier it is to hide. "Oh, I was over in another department when you didn't see me." or "Oh, I was in a meeting with [someone who has lots of meetings all day and gets nothing done]"
You are kind enough to show that no matter what someone says, even if they invoke the backing of God himself, you can be shown to be wrong. How can I be fruitful and multiply to the best of my ability, if I work within the constraints of not lusting after women?
365 - (12 * 4) = 317 non-menstrual days.
or...
If I'm fruitfully multiplying, there's a 280 day window (pregnancy) + 30 days of recovery, where I've done my task, and I am idly wasting God's time. Do you know how fruitfully I could multiply in 310 days?
Those aren't 5,109,999,987,000 dead days, they're days in a pre-corporeal state. Since entering a human state, the human form has remained.
But if you consider that our corporeal state is only one state of being, rather than having a finite beginning or end, then that brings it to 1 in 393076923 of being bound in a corporeal state tomorrow. Well, unless you believe in movement between states, such as reincarnation, then the numbers may be drastically different.
But... you had two changes in behavior. One was beginning to play the WII. The other was reducing your calorie intake. Were there other changes too, such as eating a good diet, rather than junk food?
I lost 20 pounds in a month, but it was a focused effort. The first was hard exercise more than one hour a day, 5 days a week. The second was a change in my diet, eliminating unnecessary calorie intake (no sugar/caffeine drinks), and eating up to 300 calories twice a day. And the third was increasing my movement time by regular walks away from my desk at work. Reducing my calorie intake from 3000 calories to 600 calories was a big factor in the loss, but the other one was that I burnt off more when working out.
It may be bullshit, and I agree the test wasn't long enough to come to a valid conclusion, a few things are true.
1) Profit. Sorry, I know that's not the typical Slashdot order, but someone got paid to do the study.
2) The obvious conclusion was given. Playing games, no matter how educational, don't make you smarter. At most, they will further your education.
3) Anyone can do a study and get publicity from the BBC and Slashdot.:)
I do believe that they already knew (or hypothesized) the conclusion, and applied it to their improperly scaled experiment.
I use the same technique to prove that I'm immortal. On the day I was born, I didn't die. Every day after that, I failed to die. In over 13,000 days, I haven't died. There's been a 0:13000 chance that I'll end up dead. Therefore it can be determined that I won't ever die. The same applies to me being abducted by aliens, warping time and space with my mind, and finding a hole in the ground that leads to a hidden civilization in middle earth.:)
Well, the caves that had the women with boobies were probably the most popular ones.
There was an interesting piece on the History Channel (I believe) about the brothels of Pompeii.
An awful lot of our history has been determined by either sex or driven because of sex. Occasionally people try to deny this, but in the end it is what drives humanity. Well, humanity is a bit narrow minded, it's what has driven any organism that thrives. Without these instinctual urges, an organism would be a dead end on their evolutionary path.
Someone will probably want to go all religious on this, so let me beat them to the punch.
God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth...
I was going to say, that's the best marketing the Android could have hoped for. "It does everything ours does *AND* can do porn." The adult industries have been a driving force for centuries, and Apple making a pseudo-clean environment isn't going to change that at all.
Slashdot Mirror
You're absolutely right. Several years ago, we were looking at firewall solutions for our GigE pipes. Lots of people had GigE copper inputs, but when we pushed for details it always came down to the simple fact that their hardware couldn't push that kind of traffic.
We looked at building our own PC based boxes to do it. It all came down to the fact that the cards couldn't really push the speeds.
The only solution for GigE that can achieve full line speed is the proper hardware, and you're going to pay a premium for that. You want to route or switch GigE speeds, you're going to put in something like a Cisco Catalyst 6500 series switch (or better). You can pick up a 6500 fairly cheap these days on eBay. Well, cheap in relative terms. It won't be anywhere near the cost of a Linksys AP. :)
I think there was one provider overseas who stated that they intended to offer 100Mb/s to the customer. Since most of us are in the US, we aren't going to see those kinds of speeds any time soon.
I had a quick look at the Verizon FiOS site. 50Mb/20Mb was the fastest residential line they offer. For business customers, they offer a 35Mb/35Mb account if (for those serving or uploading), or the 50Mb/20Mb which would be more targeted towards offices who are downloading more than uploading.
I know businesses can buy GigE loops. It costs a fortune to get installed, and you have to have your equipment on each end. They may offer GigE service, but I'm sure that costs a larger fortune. If you're sending or receiving a 1Gb/s of traffic, you'd be peering with a Tier 1 provider. That's an OC24 circuit.
Several years ago, it was most economical for my offices to have their own T1 loops (no data service included), and stick our own routers on each end. I was very content doing a wireless link from my house to the office, and using their T1 at night. That went straight to our datacenter, so I had the luxury of assigning myself an IP from the datacenter at my house. :) I was in charge of all of that stuff, so there were no real problems doing it. I offered it to anyone in that office who had clear line of sight to the office, but no one else did.
More recently one place I worked was in a building that served as a tower for a wireless provider and they had a GigE loop in the building, and we were provided a 100Mb/s connection from them down to our suite, and paid at 95th percentile for the bandwidth. It was a good deal, but it wasn't anywhere near residential rates.
We tried to get a GigE loop from our office to a Tier 1 provider less than a mile away, and we were handed a 5 figure price tag for the install. Just the loop, no data services at all. We were going to stick our own equipment on each end.
Nope, unless you're somewhere weird, you're not going to get those kinds of speeds any time in the near future.
Actually in my experience, in meeting people from all over the world, and visiting many other places, it's not Americans that are dumb. It's most people in general. Stereotypes do fit some people, because they are created from a subset of a culture.
By categorizing Americans as dumb, you therefore categorize the general population of the whole world as dumb. Only approximately 1.5% of the United States population is Native American. The remainder migrated here, and their "American" ancestry spans one to a few dozen generations.
Funny, that's the same as one of my aliases. For some reason my card seems to be maxed out now.
You're absolutely right. If it was designed to look and act like a phishing site, regardless if it does currently capture any information, and the filters catch it, then the phishing filters are working properly.
Or, as you say, treat it like a duck.
You spelled that wrong. Since the (mostly) peaceful invasion was completed, it is now known as Los grandes Estados del Norte de México
Is there American Pie there? I drove my Chevy there, but it was dry.
That's a bold faced like. There's only one English, and it's the one our president authorizes. We took control of the the colonies and of the language named as "English" with our almost peaceful rebellion. At any rate, with a population of 61.8 million in the UK, and 307 million in the US, it's very clear that we now maintain the largest English speaking population so through our fine democratic process it will be obvious that since the majority of English speakers speak American English (only noted to differentiate from those other pesky dialects), it is the true English.
I find it more entertaining to get on the public address and say "Everyone please stay calm, there is a fire in the back of the store. If everyone would please exit through the front doors in a calm fashion we would appreciate it."
I thought about doing a mock shooting in a Walmart as an Indy film project. I'm betting depending on where you did it, no one would care. I fully believe in the SEP field and it's social implications. I was talking to someone a couple days ago. He used to ride a motorcycle. He was stopped at a light, and the lady in front of him decided it was a good idea to back up and get into a different lane. He was hit, the motorcycle was downed, and he suffered several abrasions. Despite obvious bleeding and the front of his bike being crushed, other drivers honked at him to move, and then went around him. No one stopped.
People don't care if someone has a gun in a Walmart, as long as it isn't pointed at them. ... and people wonder why no one cares when shit happens to them. It's not their problem.
The last gig I did, I sat opposite the other developer who I needed frequent contact with. Everyone else got me by email, and I would initiate return phone calls. This avoided unnecessary interruptions in my workflow, and I could queue their requests to allow me to optimize my time.
In the past I've used similar setups. Do all the developers need almost constant face time with each other? Probably not. Then why stuff them in the same room?
At one company, everyone in the same office suite had their own office. That was maybe 1/3 of the development and systems staff. The rest were around the world. Communications were generally by email, except when live interaction was required. This kind of setup worked very well for me, so I could be at home, the office, or the datacenter, and there was no interruption to my workflow, except when I was traveling. It all worked out very well. It didn't matter what timezone someone was sitting in, the communications flow worked fluidly. That was a situation where all of the members of the crew were very good at their tasks, and didn't have to ask for help for stuff very much. Communications were limited to status updates and functionality interaction statements. Well, we'd BS sometimes, which was good for morale and to get to know each other better. I worked with a developer in Russia for probably two years before I ever heard his voice, and never did see him in person. I did know his work was accomplished properly, and his requests to me were usually "I need this functionality on these servers." I may ask for clarification, but since he knew what he was talking about his request were usually very clear.
I guess if you have a team who are going to have lots of questions because they aren't totally clear on what they're doing, stuffing them all in a room is a good idea. A well thought out and documented project plan would alleviate a lot of those problems though. I can imagine a room with 10 developers who can shout questions to each other would create an amazingly high amount of unwanted distractions. Verbal communications also reduce the paper trail. If everything is done via email, no one can say "I asked you for ..." and it wasn't done because it hadn't actually been asked for. The simple "You requested X at 3:30 and I responded it was completed at 5:00" is amazingly useful down the line. It completely eliminates mistakes in memory where we thought something was asked.
I've annoyed a few people before where I've told them to always email the requests to me. When they've failed to do so, but insist that they did ask for it, I can usually recite the conversation verbatim, and then they'll remember that they had only intended to ask for it, and never actually said to do it. That's usually enough to initiate the email papertrail so the same mistake doesn't happen again.
No refunds? What if they don't taste good? He was looking to sell them to cannibals, right? Who would want an extra rugrat running around? Those damned things get expensive.
It's a bit early in the morning for research, but here's one. I'm not familiar enough with searching California's laws to come up with a quick answer with a statute number.
I spent a little time in California, and I was given a few friendly warnings about the NOS on my car. I got it from the speed shop I bought parts at, the mechanic who did work I didn't have tools for, and from the emissions testing shop. It was verified in casual conversation with law enforcement. With the NOS on my car, my car had been modified for racing and would be subject to seizure and destruction. Even though it was a pretty simple matter to remove it (it's a dry system), they were clear about it. It would be a matter of a cop opening the hood and knowing what the parts do, but all it takes is one cop who knows something about cars saying "I know what those braided lines are, we're taking your car.
I kept my residence in another state for the duration I was there, and my cars remained happily registered out of state. Going through emissions testing was an exercise. I was actually impressed, with something like 75k miles, it passed with flying colors. The emissions shop actually said my car had better emissions than a lot of new cars that they had tested. There's something to say for a quality car.
Actually, they do. And his example was valid. You signed a whole stack of papers when you bought your car. Did you read every line of them? Most people don't even skim them. They ask "what lines do I sign on?"
Ford *could* limit a car to 35mph, but it's not in their best interest to do so. My car is speed limited to 165mph, because it came stock with tires rated to 168mph. If I put better tires on, I have to make unauthorized changes to the computer to accomplish those speeds. The car is physically capable of it, but the rules they put into place don't allow it. You, I, or just about every car owner, will never see their maximum speeds. I've tried. Roads get really short at high speed. :)
If you modify your vehicle, you'll likely void your warranty. If you live somewhere like California modifying your vehicle with non-oem or non-CARB components can result in fines. If you modify the vehicle with racing parts and use it on the streets, you forfeit your vehicle (it will be taken and destroyed).
It's not an EULA by name, but the same logic applies.
Funny that, I bought a PS2 years ago, and played it on occasion until it died. I've played on a friends PS3, but never had the urge to buy one myself. The world doesn't revolve around your gaming console.
I love the way people bitch about things on here though. Sony set new rules about their consoles, made to play their games, on their network. You purchased a purpose built machine for doing that. It's not like you bought a PC, and installed a Sony game which then says you aren't allowed to play any other games. Changing the rules happens all the time. If Slashdot decided to go 100% pay next week, I'm sure people would bitch until they got over it. It's their network, they can do anything they want. I'm sure their lawyers evaluated the risk of changing the EULA, and forcing updates. I'm also pretty sure that most users never read the EULA to begin with, and they only way they knew was that it got posted here. Oh my gosh, changing the rules that they they hadn't read in the first place. What to do... What to do... Oh, lets go bitch on Slashdot about how evil they are by providing updates. :)
That shouldn't have been hard to get more memory now than drive space then. :) My 486/33 came with a 20Mb hard drive. I upgraded it to 40Mb a little while later and I was the coolest kid on the block. :) I'm not sure you could find memory for a new machine. Well, in looking, you can get a 16Mb DDR2 SODIMM, but why would you want to? :)
My home machine is 3.2Ghz Phenom II X4 with 6Gb RAM and 2Tb storage. Things have come a long way. :) I remember building out my first dual processor machine at one job, and that cost us a fortune. Oh my gosh, what would we possibly do with the mighty power of a dual Pentium Pro 200. :) That was just after I left another employer, and we were discussing the possibility of building a 1TB array with something like 140 9Gb drives (the biggest we could get our hands on at the time). They actually had a business purpose for it (hosting company), but it remained theoretical since it was pretty damned near impossible. What? 3 4 channel SCSI cards, and drives chained across multiple racks just to accomplish it?
It was back in those days when it became obvious that we could spend huge money on huge hardware, or split up our services logically and stay with commodity equipment, and be able to stay with bleeding edge equipment with our important things and roll upgrades through the datacenters without impacting the customers.
That was a fun trip down memory lane. :) I wouldn't want the 40Mb drive nor 486 for anything more than a doorstop though. Well, I do have some sitting in the garage in the "I should throw this away" pile. :)
I've been buying connectivity for only connectivity for years. I don't get a discount because I don't use their POP, SMTP, Usenet, or even DNS services. I've moved around a lot, and using different providers each time. For a short while, I added the provider email into my mail client each time. After a while it was just annoying, especially where my new account would mysteriously start receiving spam even though I never used it and never provided anyone my address. So for the last few years, mail goes to my domain or a few common mail drops, and I collect it from there.
Several times, I asked providers for discounts because I didn't want any of their extra services. They simply wouldn't provide them. They aren't obliged to provide any services beyond the contract. If you look at your contract, I'd be willing to bet it doesn't even mention Usenet, except for possibly in the acceptable use policy.
Even though handling Usenet could be kind of pricey, I doubt it would be very much in terms of cost for them, except for maybe the load on the abuse department.
I had a few friends comment to me about your post. The general consensus is that you're just flame bait. "Get a life"? Getting a life would imply actually stepping away from the computer and ... well ... getting a life. You suggested Internet based alternatives to the service, which is anything but getting a life.
There were probably good reasons that Cox ditched Usenet, which is probably that such a small percentage of their users ever used the service, and the requirements were large enough that it wasn't worth keeping.
You, I, and almost everyone else have forgotten about it. Last time I ventured towards it, the signal to noise ratio was so insane I wasn't sure if anyone but spammers used it. I could assume that Cox had to process more abuse complaints than they had legitimate users.
It's actually pretty easy in most places, if you know how things work, and have an eye for cheating the system.
I'd guess in his position he had the opportunity to travel to sites on a regular basis. It would be easy enough to schedule to be at a site say Thursday and Friday. When you get there, tell the people at the site that you are scheduled to be there for only Thursday. Finish up what you're doing Thursday afternoon, and enjoy your 3 day weekend on the clock.
I usually didn't have that luxury. Since I usually work with servers, if I'm vising a site, they're expecting to see that a server went down here and there on the scheduled days.
The less important your job is, the easier it is to hide. "Oh, I was over in another department when you didn't see me." or "Oh, I was in a meeting with [someone who has lots of meetings all day and gets nothing done]"
You are kind enough to show that no matter what someone says, even if they invoke the backing of God himself, you can be shown to be wrong. How can I be fruitful and multiply to the best of my ability, if I work within the constraints of not lusting after women?
365 - (12 * 4) = 317 non-menstrual days.
or...
If I'm fruitfully multiplying, there's a 280 day window (pregnancy) + 30 days of recovery, where I've done my task, and I am idly wasting God's time. Do you know how fruitfully I could multiply in 310 days?
Those aren't 5,109,999,987,000 dead days, they're days in a pre-corporeal state. Since entering a human state, the human form has remained.
But if you consider that our corporeal state is only one state of being, rather than having a finite beginning or end, then that brings it to 1 in 393076923 of being bound in a corporeal state tomorrow. Well, unless you believe in movement between states, such as reincarnation, then the numbers may be drastically different.
Ahh, those pesky belief systems.
But... you had two changes in behavior. One was beginning to play the WII. The other was reducing your calorie intake. Were there other changes too, such as eating a good diet, rather than junk food?
I lost 20 pounds in a month, but it was a focused effort. The first was hard exercise more than one hour a day, 5 days a week. The second was a change in my diet, eliminating unnecessary calorie intake (no sugar/caffeine drinks), and eating up to 300 calories twice a day. And the third was increasing my movement time by regular walks away from my desk at work. Reducing my calorie intake from 3000 calories to 600 calories was a big factor in the loss, but the other one was that I burnt off more when working out.
It may be bullshit, and I agree the test wasn't long enough to come to a valid conclusion, a few things are true.
1) Profit. Sorry, I know that's not the typical Slashdot order, but someone got paid to do the study.
2) The obvious conclusion was given. Playing games, no matter how educational, don't make you smarter. At most, they will further your education.
3) Anyone can do a study and get publicity from the BBC and Slashdot. :)
I do believe that they already knew (or hypothesized) the conclusion, and applied it to their improperly scaled experiment.
I use the same technique to prove that I'm immortal. On the day I was born, I didn't die. Every day after that, I failed to die. In over 13,000 days, I haven't died. There's been a 0:13000 chance that I'll end up dead. Therefore it can be determined that I won't ever die. The same applies to me being abducted by aliens, warping time and space with my mind, and finding a hole in the ground that leads to a hidden civilization in middle earth. :)
Well, the caves that had the women with boobies were probably the most popular ones.
There was an interesting piece on the History Channel (I believe) about the brothels of Pompeii.
An awful lot of our history has been determined by either sex or driven because of sex. Occasionally people try to deny this, but in the end it is what drives humanity. Well, humanity is a bit narrow minded, it's what has driven any organism that thrives. Without these instinctual urges, an organism would be a dead end on their evolutionary path.
Someone will probably want to go all religious on this, so let me beat them to the punch.
I was going to say, that's the best marketing the Android could have hoped for. "It does everything ours does *AND* can do porn." The adult industries have been a driving force for centuries, and Apple making a pseudo-clean environment isn't going to change that at all.