Can't tell if you're trolling or you're just really badly informed. Ah well, here goes:
There is no such thing as a mebibyte.
Wrong. I could quote you a normative reference, but I can't be bothered. In contrast, you cannot quote a normative reference which proves that there is no such thing. Bad luck, try again.
A megabyte is always 1048576 bytes.
Wrong. According to written definition a megabyte is 10^6 bytes. Historical computing usage has it as 2^20 bytes, but it is not wise to insist that that is the only interpretation. Indeed, if you really want to express 2^20 bytes, you are better off using the term mebibyte (MiB) because that is, unambiguously, 2^20 bytes, and can never be anything else.
You also never use megabits when referring to file sizes,
"Never"? That's a bit strong. What if I were storing, say 128-bit MD5 digests? It might make sense to talk about my filesize in term of bits, at least for an intermediate value.
only when referring to the speed of a network connection.
"only"? Again, a bit strong. If you're going to argue, you need to make sure everything you say is 100% factually correct.
A megabit is 1000000 bits but it's rarely seen not per second.
OK, you have something there. Megabits are more commonly used per time interval than on their own.
So what do we have? One out of five? Doesn't really convince me that you have any idea what you are talking about.
A filesize has lots of reasons to be measured in power-of-two quantities. If you don't think so, let us know which drives use powers-of-ten sector sizes and which filesystems read/write powers-of-ten block sizes.
What has the that got to do with the price of fish?
For at least the last, ooh, 18 years or so, the paradigm implemented by most filesystems is to provide things called "files" which look like an array of bytes whose length can be any integer number of those bytes. Powers of two don't enter into it.
I am told that the Zip file format doesn't support unicode filenames.
The file name is a byte array right?
So why can't we just stuff UTF-8 into it?
One of the major points of UTF-8 is that it doesn't cause too much grief even if the thing on the other end doesn't understand it.
We would just need to use the relevant unicode-filename APIs in the Zip manipulator software and interconvert that with UTF-8 for the Zip file. Maybe have a command-line flag to have the filenames interpretable as ISO-8859-1, but have UTF-8 as the default.
Of course it already does this in unix because filenames are just a byte array there already. But it might be nice to be able to interpret the names as UTF-8 to be able to get listing columns to line up etc.
Would need to be implemented in Info-Zip first, and then waved around on a big flag in front of the other Zip software authors.
Now all we need is for some bright state to mandate that all state documents must be on standard A4 paper (like the rest of the world uses) instead of that ridiculous Letter size paper.
In the long run it should save a lot of money and, more importantly, resource.
Out of the CO accross the atm network to the ISP is faster than 2mb/sec.
Sort of, but in essence wrong. The peak data rate across the ATM network is higher, but circuits are placed into pools where the sum of the DSL bandwidths connected is some multiple (50 for IPStream Home, 20 for IPStream Business) of the pool bandwidth. It's called contention. So the committed data rate available to any one DSL connection is only 1/50 or 1/20 of the DSL data rate.
So if everyone tried to flat-out their connection simultaneously the ATM network could well be the bottleneck.
So your point here was at best misleading, at worst wrong.
any decent ISP will have an OC3 at least going out the the internet, probably multiple redundant OC3s
Yes, any *decent* ISP will have decent back-end connectivity. What I am saying is that shitty ISPs won't have decent back-end connectivity and will try to get away with less.
But the thing that determines *your* connection speed, the speed at which your DSL modem communicates is the DSLAM.
Sort of. What you are saying is technically true. But most services are based on BT wholesale services, and those currently go up to 2Mbps max. Assuming the same DSL rate, things are the same across any ISP based on BT wholesale services until the point where the circuit gets into the ISP.
I have 3 DSL providers at my house, they each own equipment in the qwest co
Therein lies the difference. Most DSL lines in the UK are based on BT wholesale product where BT owns and operates the DSLAM. LLU products with third-party DSLAMs are in the minority. Whilst they are available to a few people, BT wholesale based products are prevalent and available in far more places. Therefore most of the time it makes sense to refer to the BT wholesale based products first, with other products mentioned in the provisos.
Please learn how a DSL network operates before spouting off.
No. I know what I'm talking about. From what you say, it appears that in your locality third-party DSLAMs are more common than in the UK. You appear to have assumed that third-party DSLAMs are more common in the UK than they actually are.
I am currently on 8Mbps broadband already, and have been since the start of this year. In the UK. At £29.99 per month.
UKOnline are the outfit concerned, and so far it's working nicely.
I don't believe that service is generally available. My point was about services which are generally available, which is what they would need to be to make a valid rebuttal to the original comment.
Or you can pay a few pounds more and get a static IP address (or even a range) and no transparent proxy, and loads of back-end bandwidth so that you get a very reliable service.
AAISP http://aa.nu/ offer a very fine ADSL service wherein you can get an IP address range if any size (provided you can justify it to RIPE of course) regardless of the service package ordered.
They offer static IP addresses as standard. If I understand correctly they don't even do dynamic IP addresses on ADSL.
AAISP provide the highest data rate your line that can be achieved on your line (currently 2Mbps with more coming this year), at no extra cost.
They also have no transparent web proxy, guaranteed, cannot be changed - it is an intrinsic part of their service that they just carry IP packets between you and the rest of the Internet.
With AAISP there is absolutely no filtering whatsoever. With AAISP you are considered to be part of the Internet, rather than a "client" or "user" of the Internet.
There are no mysterious or unstated bandwidth caps. Each service package has a clearly stated data allowance, which is more than any reasonable user might need. More data can be transferred at extra cost. Demand during the night time and at weekends is so low that data transferred during those times is not metered.
(Please no babbling about wanting uncapped services at no extra cost -- it is simply not economic to have people saturating a 2 megabit pipe 24/7 for £20 per month. So-called "uncapped" services will always be subject to increased service charges, unstated limits, highly variable performance,... or a pack of lies.)
I have no connection with AAISP other than as a satisfied customer! They just happen to offer a service which I find to be most agreeable.
What this guy was experiencing was a very specific problem which you would get if you were temporarily borrowing someone else's line.
You are inevitably going to run into problems if you don't have the immediate cooperation of the person who owns the account. (You may have their cooperation, but if they are thousands of miles away then you don't have their immediate cooperation.)
If you own your own phone line, then ordering ADSL services is trivially simple, smooth, painless, and reasonably quick.
I have ordered something like a dozen different ADSL services for various people and it has always been pretty much painless.
I have always put the order through a web ordering system. I am usually advised that the ADSL service will be activated in about 5 working days, and it has always been on or before the quoted time.
Regarding migrating from one provider to another using a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code), I have done one of these as well. It was as smooth as smooth can be. I got a MAC from BT (which was relatively easy to get) and had the service pulled over to AAISP http://aa.nu/. The service was transferred on the specified date. On that day, I got a phone call from my boss saying that his ADSL access had gone down and I talked him through reconfiguring the router which involved changing the username and password. Job done.
As I see it the major problem we have in the UK is that there are a few shitty ISPs pushing bargain basement ADSL services with saturation advertising (mentioning no names Tiscali) which give a poor service to the end user who then gets cheesed off with ADSL and it ends up with ADSL getting a bad name.
Also it is unfortunate that these services have been sold under the name "Broadband", which is of couse a bunch of crap.
It seems that the average Brit is considered to be not very technical and not able to comprehend "jargon" abbreviations, so we are given nice friendly names instead:
Which means that almost all of the ISPs simply resell the same BT service
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Check your freakin' facts before you go slagging off the rather elegant BT system.
The bit that is the same is the DSL connection between your house and the exchange, and the virtual circuit over BT's ATM network to the ISP.
It is then up to the ISP in question as to how they link you (the customer) to the Internet.
You can pay a pittance and get a shitty connection with a dynamic IP address, through a transparent web proxy and have your web surfing go down every few weeks (or whenever it gets really busy).
Or you can pay a few pounds more and get a static IP address (or even a range) and no transparent proxy, and loads of back-end bandwidth so that you get a very reliable service.
Although I am not surprised that a foreigner wouldn't know this because very few Brits are aware of these facts either.
You can get 2Mbps for £14.99 (about $28.17) per month.
2Mbps is the highest speed generally available.
Later this year, higher speeds will be available (up to 7.2 Mbps), and "hip" ISPs will offer these speeds at no extra charge. "shitty" ISPs (e.g. BT) will probably restrict the higher rates to premium services.
You greylisting interval(24 hours) is totally braindamaged.
Evan's original suggestion is 1 hour.
I use 1 minute, and that works just dandy.
If you are using Exim 4, then you can use the Bagley greylisting system. Unlike other systems for Exim 4, it does not require fancy recompilation of the Exim 4 binary and can just be plugged in to a vanilla setup.
You guys in the U.S. are really quaint.
A bit like watching the funny monkeys in the zoo.
You're happy in your own little closed-off world with your little brightly-coloured toys.
Out here in the real world we transitioned to 16:9 TV a few years ago. It's all old news. Yawn.
Did you know that everywhere else in the world, you can use your mobile phone whatever country you go to? It's like that with everything. We all use International standards.
GSM @900/1800MHz
Emergency phone number 112
Paper in halvable sizes
Measurement in base 10 systems
If I've got your back up by now then it can only be because I'm right, and your right-brain is active, and you are a typical stupid emotional human being. Since I am unarguably right, anything you say is simply emotional crap and of no relevance.
If however your left-brain is active, that means you're a smart cookie, you'll be calm as a millpond right now, and I'll have given you something to think about. Perhaps there is a way to make the world a better place.
Slashdot Mirror
Can't tell if you're trolling or you're just really badly informed. Ah well, here goes:
Wrong. I could quote you a normative reference, but I can't be bothered. In contrast, you cannot quote a normative reference which proves that there is no such thing. Bad luck, try again.
Wrong. According to written definition a megabyte is 10^6 bytes. Historical computing usage has it as 2^20 bytes, but it is not wise to insist that that is the only interpretation. Indeed, if you really want to express 2^20 bytes, you are better off using the term mebibyte (MiB) because that is, unambiguously, 2^20 bytes, and can never be anything else.
"Never"? That's a bit strong. What if I were storing, say 128-bit MD5 digests? It might make sense to talk about my filesize in term of bits, at least for an intermediate value.
"only"? Again, a bit strong. If you're going to argue, you need to make sure everything you say is 100% factually correct.
OK, you have something there. Megabits are more commonly used per time interval than on their own.
So what do we have? One out of five? Doesn't really convince me that you have any idea what you are talking about.
In My Experience, 'bit' is not abbreviated, and lower case 'b' is never used. So in this case it would be:
5.7 MB
5.4 MiB
45.6 Mbit
43.5 Mibit
Hmmm. I tried to use between the value and the unit, but Slashdot appears to elide that entity. Hmmm. Bad Slashdot. Must try harder.
What has the that got to do with the price of fish?
For at least the last, ooh, 18 years or so, the paradigm implemented by most filesystems is to provide things called "files" which look like an array of bytes whose length can be any integer number of those bytes. Powers of two don't enter into it.
The file name is a byte array right?
So why can't we just stuff UTF-8 into it?
One of the major points of UTF-8 is that it doesn't cause too much grief even if the thing on the other end doesn't understand it.
We would just need to use the relevant unicode-filename APIs in the Zip manipulator software and interconvert that with UTF-8 for the Zip file. Maybe have a command-line flag to have the filenames interpretable as ISO-8859-1, but have UTF-8 as the default.
Of course it already does this in unix because filenames are just a byte array there already. But it might be nice to be able to interpret the names as UTF-8 to be able to get listing columns to line up etc.
Would need to be implemented in Info-Zip first, and then waved around on a big flag in front of the other Zip software authors.
In the long run it should save a lot of money and, more importantly, resource.
More snappily we would say "tail wagging the dog".
That should be "its" not "it's".
I could quote a normative reference at you, but I can't be bothered to find it right now.
Trust me, I'm right on this one.
Sort of, but in essence wrong. The peak data rate across the ATM network is higher, but circuits are placed into pools where the sum of the DSL bandwidths connected is some multiple (50 for IPStream Home, 20 for IPStream Business) of the pool bandwidth. It's called contention. So the committed data rate available to any one DSL connection is only 1/50 or 1/20 of the DSL data rate.
So if everyone tried to flat-out their connection simultaneously the ATM network could well be the bottleneck.
So your point here was at best misleading, at worst wrong.
any decent ISP will have an OC3 at least going out the the internet, probably multiple redundant OC3s
Yes, any *decent* ISP will have decent back-end connectivity. What I am saying is that shitty ISPs won't have decent back-end connectivity and will try to get away with less.
But the thing that determines *your* connection speed, the speed at which your DSL modem communicates is the DSLAM.
Sort of. What you are saying is technically true. But most services are based on BT wholesale services, and those currently go up to 2Mbps max. Assuming the same DSL rate, things are the same across any ISP based on BT wholesale services until the point where the circuit gets into the ISP.
I have 3 DSL providers at my house, they each own equipment in the qwest co
Therein lies the difference. Most DSL lines in the UK are based on BT wholesale product where BT owns and operates the DSLAM. LLU products with third-party DSLAMs are in the minority. Whilst they are available to a few people, BT wholesale based products are prevalent and available in far more places. Therefore most of the time it makes sense to refer to the BT wholesale based products first, with other products mentioned in the provisos.
Please learn how a DSL network operates before spouting off.
No. I know what I'm talking about. From what you say, it appears that in your locality third-party DSLAMs are more common than in the UK. You appear to have assumed that third-party DSLAMs are more common in the UK than they actually are.
I am currently on 8Mbps broadband already, and have been since the start of this year. In the UK. At £29.99 per month.
UKOnline are the outfit concerned, and so far it's working nicely.
I don't believe that service is generally available. My point was about services which are generally available, which is what they would need to be to make a valid rebuttal to the original comment.
AAISP http://aa.nu/ offer a very fine ADSL service wherein you can get an IP address range if any size (provided you can justify it to RIPE of course) regardless of the service package ordered.
They offer static IP addresses as standard. If I understand correctly they don't even do dynamic IP addresses on ADSL.
AAISP provide the highest data rate your line that can be achieved on your line (currently 2Mbps with more coming this year), at no extra cost.
They also have no transparent web proxy, guaranteed, cannot be changed - it is an intrinsic part of their service that they just carry IP packets between you and the rest of the Internet.
With AAISP there is absolutely no filtering whatsoever. With AAISP you are considered to be part of the Internet, rather than a "client" or "user" of the Internet.
There are no mysterious or unstated bandwidth caps. Each service package has a clearly stated data allowance, which is more than any reasonable user might need. More data can be transferred at extra cost. Demand during the night time and at weekends is so low that data transferred during those times is not metered.
(Please no babbling about wanting uncapped services at no extra cost -- it is simply not economic to have people saturating a 2 megabit pipe 24/7 for £20 per month. So-called "uncapped" services will always be subject to increased service charges, unstated limits, highly variable performance, ... or a pack of lies.)
I have no connection with AAISP other than as a satisfied customer! They just happen to offer a service which I find to be most agreeable.
You are inevitably going to run into problems if you don't have the immediate cooperation of the person who owns the account. (You may have their cooperation, but if they are thousands of miles away then you don't have their immediate cooperation.)
If you own your own phone line, then ordering ADSL services is trivially simple, smooth, painless, and reasonably quick.
I have ordered something like a dozen different ADSL services for various people and it has always been pretty much painless.
I have always put the order through a web ordering system. I am usually advised that the ADSL service will be activated in about 5 working days, and it has always been on or before the quoted time.
Regarding migrating from one provider to another using a MAC (Migration Authorisation Code), I have done one of these as well. It was as smooth as smooth can be. I got a MAC from BT (which was relatively easy to get) and had the service pulled over to AAISP http://aa.nu/. The service was transferred on the specified date. On that day, I got a phone call from my boss saying that his ADSL access had gone down and I talked him through reconfiguring the router which involved changing the username and password. Job done.
As I see it the major problem we have in the UK is that there are a few shitty ISPs pushing bargain basement ADSL services with saturation advertising (mentioning no names Tiscali) which give a poor service to the end user who then gets cheesed off with ADSL and it ends up with ADSL getting a bad name.
Also it is unfortunate that these services have been sold under the name "Broadband", which is of couse a bunch of crap.
It seems that the average Brit is considered to be not very technical and not able to comprehend "jargon" abbreviations, so we are given nice friendly names instead:
DSL -> broadband
ATM -> cashpoint / cash machine
VCR -> video (recorder)
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Check your freakin' facts before you go slagging off the rather elegant BT system.
The bit that is the same is the DSL connection between your house and the exchange, and the virtual circuit over BT's ATM network to the ISP.
It is then up to the ISP in question as to how they link you (the customer) to the Internet.
You can pay a pittance and get a shitty connection with a dynamic IP address, through a transparent web proxy and have your web surfing go down every few weeks (or whenever it gets really busy).
Or you can pay a few pounds more and get a static IP address (or even a range) and no transparent proxy, and loads of back-end bandwidth so that you get a very reliable service.
Although I am not surprised that a foreigner wouldn't know this because very few Brits are aware of these facts either.
Are you in possession of the facts?
You can get 2Mbps for £14.99 (about $28.17) per month.
2Mbps is the highest speed generally available.
Later this year, higher speeds will be available (up to 7.2 Mbps), and "hip" ISPs will offer these speeds at no extra charge. "shitty" ISPs (e.g. BT) will probably restrict the higher rates to premium services.
They can prove that there are no bugs can they? That would be a neat trick.
And what's "on noon"?
How about: A fixed version was released at noon on Saturday.
Probes are supposed to use the empty sender .
Greylisting systems, when presented with the empty sender, are supposed to accept all recipients, and only TEMPREJECT after the end of DATA.
That way Probers and Greylisters can coexist happily.
Our Exim 4 server uses Bagley.
Unlike other systems for Exim 4, it does not require fancy recompilation of the Exim 4 binary and can just be plugged in to a vanilla setup.
You greylisting interval(24 hours) is totally braindamaged.
Evan's original suggestion is 1 hour.
I use 1 minute, and that works just dandy.
If you are using Exim 4, then you can use the Bagley greylisting system. Unlike other systems for Exim 4, it does not require fancy recompilation of the Exim 4 binary and can just be plugged in to a vanilla setup.
I, for one, welcome our new wiretapping FCC overlords.
1. This is an item about IBM, so someone has to mention SCO. 2. "All your Supercomputer are belong to us"
Ah well.
Could the last person to leave Canada please turn the lights out? Thanks.
Using RAID0? You must be a nutbar.
Using RAID0 on old hard disks!!! Top of the line wacko looney tooney.
You guys in the U.S. are really quaint. A bit like watching the funny monkeys in the zoo. You're happy in your own little closed-off world with your little brightly-coloured toys. Out here in the real world we transitioned to 16:9 TV a few years ago. It's all old news. Yawn. Did you know that everywhere else in the world, you can use your mobile phone whatever country you go to? It's like that with everything. We all use International standards. GSM @900/1800MHz Emergency phone number 112 Paper in halvable sizes Measurement in base 10 systems If I've got your back up by now then it can only be because I'm right, and your right-brain is active, and you are a typical stupid emotional human being. Since I am unarguably right, anything you say is simply emotional crap and of no relevance. If however your left-brain is active, that means you're a smart cookie, you'll be calm as a millpond right now, and I'll have given you something to think about. Perhaps there is a way to make the world a better place.
replacing our current Windows IT infrastructure with Linux
Er, I think what most people have realised is that you need the right tool for the job in question.
The implementation of this is that you have a mix of systems with the various required functions implented on the appropriate platforms.
That's what we do. We have some Linux servers and some Windows servers. They have different strengths and weaknesses.
Anyone who insists that they have a Windows-only shop or a Linux-only shop is probably a fool.