I've been using BBC news for a while now. They currently have 2 live feeds from Iraq; A news feed and a live camera from inside the city (like a traffic cam).
I've run across this little tidbit of history a couple times now. I figure those who haven't should read it now. I didn't write this, and I'm not claiming credit. Reading on BBC (a couple hours ago) that the US was using a "Shock and Awe" technique is especially disturbing.
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Published on Sunday, March 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History by Thom Hartmann
The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.
Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.
Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over
As far as being a good last mile solution, it fares well, mainly because of symmetric speeds. Of course the last mile is not where you're going to see the speed bottleneck, it's at both the ISP and the webserver/etc that you're connecting to.
What this will be exceptional for is people who have computers at various points in the Donobi network. Here are the people who will gain the most: company with multiple office locations, people who's company let's them work from home (VPN, VNC, etc), and of course, gamers. Gaming within the network will be supreme.
I currently have Comcast. The connection can be flaky at times (supposedly because I am doing it wrong), but the speeds are incredible. I love having a 25-50 ping on the games I play, but when one of my room mates is uploading files (I'm talking to you Kai) on WinMx my ping goes down the tube fast (400 anyone?). I would love my 2.5 mbps down just as much as the next guy, but I would trade my soul just to get a synchronous speed even as low as 768 kbps (256 now). Now 100 mbps? that's fast, no matter what the other problems (pay for downloads beyond 5gb, etc).
This isn't news. Companies have been doing this sort of things for years. What sort of thing you ask? Giving more in exchange for more. They give extra content for those who they take money from. Unfortunately in this case slashdot is taking away content from the people who don't pay and giving it those who do. Is it fair? Not really. Is it unexpected? No. Those who have the money to subscribe will see the posts before the slashdot effect takes place, and thus get what they pay for, but those who don't pay will be left with pages already slashdotted by those who did pay. It makes perfect sense...for a business.
Let it be known that on this day of March 6th, 2003, that slashdot.org has become even closer to being known only as slashdot.com.
I've had my e-mail address at hotmail for many years, and until the last year or so haven't taken any precautionary measures to reduce my spam intake. As a result of this, that address receives hundreds of spam messages daily (thank god for filters).
I've only noticed that spam is getting harder to filter because of the blacklists. No longer are they all coming from a dozen or so servers, but instead hundreds.
Besides the obvious listening the only way to have really decent management is if the manager was not just a former or aspiring programmer, but a current programmer.
Currently my "manager" is also the head programmer. Above him is the boss, who is a former programmer (also good). Apart from the eccentricity, life is good...
Why would you be lured to buy an expensive DVD...?
Because it isn't that much more expensive than a VHS, twice the video quality, three times the audio quality, and the "extras" aren't completely worthless.
Sometimes (admittedly not often) the extra footage is cut mainly for time reasons. I'm always willing to pay an extra few dollars so just for a few dollars worth of content.
Unless the "extras" on the DVD made it cost twice as much, they'd be worth.
Here at Westminster College, Salt Lake City Utah, we have a dozen-or-so-computer lab where every computer is running linux. I'm not quite sure, but I'm pretty sure that it is also the only non-classroom computer lab on campus.
No there are not any classes that teach/use linux, but there is a horde of geeks that are every bit as useful as the teachers.
As a programmer I am quite aware that in-house testing/simulations aren't perfect. Sometimes they're even ludicrous. But they do catch problems and bugs before the product is released. 'nuff said.
Well, I've been using @home for quite some time. The download is great (I often get up to 8600 kbps), but the upload is throttled at 128kbps to deter webservers. To make it worse, they've recently blocked port 80 (easy to work around). But to add insult to injury, they jacked the price up to $45!?!
If they stay, that's cool. But if they die, I won't be too sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using BBC news for a while now. They currently have 2 live feeds from Iraq; A news feed and a live camera from inside the city (like a traffic cam).
I've run across this little tidbit of history a couple times now. I figure those who haven't should read it now. I didn't write this, and I'm not claiming credit. Reading on BBC (a couple hours ago) that the US was using a "Shock and Awe" technique is especially disturbing.
------
Published on Sunday, March 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
by Thom Hartmann
The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric
offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.
Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.
Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over
Well, I figured the going rate for my soul was fairly low, but thanks for the link.
What this will be exceptional for is people who have computers at various points in the Donobi network. Here are the people who will gain the most: company with multiple office locations, people who's company let's them work from home (VPN, VNC, etc), and of course, gamers. Gaming within the network will be supreme.
I currently have Comcast. The connection can be flaky at times (supposedly because I am doing it wrong), but the speeds are incredible. I love having a 25-50 ping on the games I play, but when one of my room mates is uploading files (I'm talking to you Kai) on WinMx my ping goes down the tube fast (400 anyone?). I would love my 2.5 mbps down just as much as the next guy, but I would trade my soul just to get a synchronous speed even as low as 768 kbps (256 now). Now 100 mbps? that's fast, no matter what the other problems (pay for downloads beyond 5gb, etc).
This isn't news. Companies have been doing this sort of things for years. What sort of thing you ask? Giving more in exchange for more. They give extra content for those who they take money from. Unfortunately in this case slashdot is taking away content from the people who don't pay and giving it those who do. Is it fair? Not really. Is it unexpected? No. Those who have the money to subscribe will see the posts before the slashdot effect takes place, and thus get what they pay for, but those who don't pay will be left with pages already slashdotted by those who did pay. It makes perfect sense...for a business.
Let it be known that on this day of March 6th, 2003, that slashdot.org has become even closer to being known only as slashdot.com.
I've only noticed that spam is getting harder to filter because of the blacklists. No longer are they all coming from a dozen or so servers, but instead hundreds.
Currently my "manager" is also the head programmer. Above him is the boss, who is a former programmer (also good). Apart from the eccentricity, life is good...
Here at Westminster College, Salt Lake City Utah, we have a dozen-or-so-computer lab where every computer is running linux. I'm not quite sure, but I'm pretty sure that it is also the only non-classroom computer lab on campus. No there are not any classes that teach/use linux, but there is a horde of geeks that are every bit as useful as the teachers.
The ISS is all about polotics. If any [i]real[i] research is going on in space, it is carried out by individual countries.
As a programmer I am quite aware that in-house testing/simulations aren't perfect. Sometimes they're even ludicrous. But they do catch problems and bugs before the product is released. 'nuff said.
Well, I've been using @home for quite some time. The download is great (I often get up to 8600 kbps), but the upload is throttled at 128kbps to deter webservers. To make it worse, they've recently blocked port 80 (easy to work around). But to add insult to injury, they jacked the price up to $45!?!
If they stay, that's cool. But if they die, I won't be too sorry.