Also FWIW, Adblock Plus by default blocks YouTube ads. Has for a long, long time. I haven't seen a YouTube ad in so many years I literally tend to forget it even HAS them.
Occasionally jars me when I see people complaining about how horrible YouTube ads are and it reminds me "oh yeeeaaah..":)
I did the same, TT-RSS on Dreamhost. I wanted something that could be used from any web browser, rather than needing an app, and didn't require external authentication. Basically, self-contained, the way Reader was. Feedly and the like just didn't meet those needs.
TT-RSS is so simple; most anyone comfortable enough to do self-hosting can set it up I'd think. Only issues I ever had compared to Reader were, at the beginning, it'd sometimes get temporarily banned on certain RSS feeds for excessive queries (probably numerous users all set up on DH so it was seeing that, as I only query once every four hours). Ironically this happened almost exclusively on Feedburner links (which Slashdot uses), which is owned by Google, so it sometimes felt like Google was really trying to kill RSS.:P That went away after a short time though, probably as Feedburner marked Dreamhost IPs as shared hosting and exempted from the query limits.
Also occasionally Dreamhost's database server can be rather slow (making the whole application slow), but that doesn't happen very often. And you sort of expect it with cheap shared hosting, anyway.
It certainly works plenty well enough, and since I already had the DH account for other purposes, adding TT-RSS was effectively free.
You don't even have to call them half the time. American Express, Citibank, and Wells Fargo all have the ability to register foreign travel right from their online banking websites. Admittedly it's specifically for overseas travel, as they don't let you enter domestic locations, at least not currently. Still, when I vacationed in China earlier this year I was able to let them know online, including date ranges for travel so that I could avoid any possible fraud from charges that might show up after I went home. I just logged in to my account and filled out the information, quick and easy.
More importantly, it was BASIC travel information (country, and sometimes city, and that's pretty much it), not detailed, minute-by-minute tracked movement like this cell phone idea would provide.
I was able to use my credit cards and even withdraw cash from ATMs, with no problems and no card deactivation. And I say after having had deactivation issues in the past, when I didn't let them know.
PagePlus Cellular doesn't require a data plan. They use Verizon's network though so that is unfortunately a limiting factor because Verizon doesn't tend to like activating phones that were not bought through them (i.e., BYOD). Using smartphones with PagePlus is a hit-or-miss story, but I mention them anyway because they are widely known.
AT&T's Prepaid options include pay-as-you-go basic phone plans that do not include data (I lived on the 10c/min, 20c/text plan for years), and they also have a no-contract monthly $25 smartphone plan that does not include data and does not require you to purchase any either. AT&T also now owns and operates pre-pay-only carrier Aio Wireless, though I don't think that one does no-data plans at current.
There is also GoSmart Mobile. They are owned and operated by T-Mobile, like MetroPCS is. Also speaking of subsidiaries, don't forget Net10 which belongs to Tracfone, and does not require data. However I believe Net10 requires you use one of their own devices, not bring your own (much like Tracfone itself).
There's a whole host of little-known MVNOs as well. If you have an interest in Ting (which yes was one I might point out), then I might also suggest ChitChat Mobile, which like Ting also operates on Sprint's network. It has plans that do not require data, and they even openly advertise that they allow smartphones on those same no-data plans. Their homepage currently boasts that they'll activate Sprint iPhones on their $10/mo talk/text/no-data plan.
It's worth pointing out that having a smartphone no longer requires being forced into an expensive monthly post-paid service, a fact that is very much related to the posted article, if only tangentially. It certainly USED to be the case (in the U.S. especially), but these days there's quite a number of pre-paid services that are like Tracfone, that allow you to use a smartphone. StraightTalk comes to mind, since they offer Android and iPhones. Even AT&T's GoPhone (a service similarly priced to Tracfone, notably) lets smartphones on these days, though in the past I admit they used to outright reject them and tell you they could only be used on post-pay.
Many pre-paid providers don't even require you to have a data plan with a smartphone. You can live on voice/SMS alone, and get your data needs via WiFi.
Basically, it's entirely possible these days to enjoy both cheap service AND a smartphone. Though I won't begrudge anyone who truly does want a simple, voice-and-text-only phone. Have at 'em. But people who might like a smartphone but not the expensive service plan should not need to hold out anymore.
That merely detaches other sessions. It does not detach AND log them out, which is what screen -DR does. The only way I know to do a detach-and-logout is with the "detach-session -P" option.
Is there a tmux equivalent to "screen -DR" ? If so, I might try it out.
Not exactly, no. I REALLY liked this particular flag combo in screen, and it's the one thing that tmux doesn't do natively that I miss (but I still use tmux because of all the other happiness it brings me). I even opened a ticket on the lack of this functionality but the answer I got back was basically "I'm not looking to just emulate screen so exact functionality may not be added."
tmux has an option to detach other sessions when you attach yours, but it ONLY detaches. There is not a "detach AND log out" option when attaching a session. However, it does have a detach-and-logout function if you ONLY want to do that (not attach a new session at the same time). Basically "tmux detach-client -P" will detach and log out an attached session, but you'll notice there's nothing to attach your session at the same time. That's the crux of the issue.
Naturally, I'm not the only one that wants this functionality (and clearly so do you), so there is some kludgy ways to do it. The simplest is to create a bash alias (or alias in your shell of choice) to first do the detach-and-logout and then perform the attach-session. Something like this:
tmu() {
if tmux -q has-session -t tmux; then
tmux detach-client -P -s tmux
tmux -2 -u attach-session -t tmux
else
tmux -2 -u new-session -s tmux
fi
}
Basically, I just type "tmu" to run the alias. If the session named "tmux" exists, detach-client and log them out, then attach my current pty to the session. Otherwise, if the session does not exist at all (i.e., tmux server isn't running), create a brand new tmux instance with the session name of "tmux".
Not ideal, but it's the closest way to achieve screen's -DR option at current, at least with the version I'm using. Newer versions of tmux may be better; Debian by its nature doesn't use the very latest, of course, which is the distro (Wheezy) I use. I seem to recall that newer versions of tmux will create a brand new session via attach-session if it doesn't exist; my version requires an explicit new-session in order to start up a tmux server from a totally non-running state. So that could certainly simplify my alias a fair bit.
If only. Come be a utility in Texas, where ERCOT (the state-wide electric utility authority) seriously considered making their push notification system be Internet-only. As in, you HAD to connect your SCADA system to the Internet (even if through an intermediary server in a DMZ) to be able to receive the (required, if you wanted to be licensed and in business) control signals from ERCOT. Thankfully, for once, the backlash was so bad ERCOT actually listened to it and backed off that plan. That's exceedingly rare.
Or backed off kinda-sorta anyway. They still have a dual setup, you can receive either via Internet or via private frame-relay between ERCOT's site and yours. We of course opted for the latter, heavily secured and sanitized through multiple hops, but nonetheless that does still mean we have an external connection into our SCADA system, not air-gapped, though I will grant you it doesn't connect to the Internet at large (we hope; who knows what the fuck ERCOT does on their end). And we MUST have it, if we want to actually operate as a licensed utility in Texas. And Texas is FAR from alone in having this bureaucratically-created shit for operating requirements. These types of enforced setups are nationwide.
That is the sad, stupid state of affairs we live in today.
...(We don't have national performance yet, but that's no big deal; just take a $200 trip to California. It's still binding in every hateful corner of the South. The UK has no such privilege.)...
If only that were true, but no. You remember DOMA, right? The Defense of Marriage Act? It explicitly allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex unions performed in other states. That section of DOMA has NOT been struck down. Only Section 3 (which prevented the federal government itself from recognizing same-sex unions) was ruled unconstitutional. The rest of the act has not been struck down as yet, despite the big hullabaloo that happened back in the summer of last year when Section 3 got the boot.
Of the 29 states that have state constitutional amendments banning same-sex unions (and 4 more states that ban it by law), only two--Oregon and Missouri--actually recognize out-of-state same-sex unions. Missouri recognizes them for joint-file tax purposes only and nothing else, so really it's just Oregon.
So you could say we have "national observation" in the sense that the federal government now recognizes legal same-sex unions no matter where you live in the country, but unfortunately it is not "binding in every hateful corner of the South," since the states themselves don't have to recognize it. And really, the vast majority of benefits that come with marriage are state-level benefits, so the striking down of Section 3, while important, still leaves a whole hell of a lot to be desired.
In and of itself, not paying taxes is not what makes corporations (big or small) evil. It has much more to do with what they use it for and how they go about it.
Exxon and GE, as examples, are rather famous for not paying anything on their recent profit/income taxes (or even getting billions in rebates, in GE's case) while at the same time raking in world-record-breaking profits, and then taking that extra cash and simply lining the executives' pockets by paying out huge bonuses. They also downplay or even attempt to hide their lack of taxpaying, or go to extreme creative-accounting lengths to hide their money so as to avoid taxation.
Tesla (and California)--at least in this particular case--is being very public about this tax windfall, letting everyone know they're being done a favor. And instead of just paying bonuses to the top brass or otherwise pocketing the money and walking away, they're putting it right back into development and product output (yes I'm aware they do profit on sales from that increased output, but that gets taxed separately anyway). They're literally using this tax break to be more productive.
Speaking as someone currently working in the electrical utility industry, I can tell you how my company does it. We use a combination of things, depending on what's most cost-effective, but the vast majority of our communications are done via microwave relay. We actually set up our own towers, get FCC licenses, and transmit private microwave signals to our substations and to our satellite control centers, as well as our generation plants. Some of it is proprietary serial protocol (DNP, very common in the utility industry) and some of it is standard TCP/IP based.
We run multiple networks over these microwave links (which ARE isolated from each other both in microwave frequencies and in physical equipment), as our satellite offices also get corporate network connectivity and Internet connectivity via microwave as well, communicating to our HQ and using its Internet hardline.
For locations where we couldn't set up microwave, we sometimes use private leased lines (direct, always-on, no-dial telephone connections, but these we only use if we have to because they're the most expensive). On a few occasions we use spread-spectrum radio, or as an absolute last resort we use GPRS radio over mobile networks. This last solution is NOT the same network as what a cell phone or other consumer access point goes through. We are basically leasing access to their mobile tower for a "private line" more or less.
In ALL cases, whether it's microwave, radio, leased line, or anything else, over-the-air communications are end-to-end encrypted, because yes we're totally aware that OTA stuff can be intercepted and eavesdropped, even point-to-point microwave links. It is also a closed, air-gapped network. As I said, the Internet and corporate network stuff to our remote offices goes over its own separate microwave channel with separate air-gapped communications equipment that's independent of the equipment talking to substations and the like.
$8 for a ticket. Where are you going? I might need to move there.
C'mon down to Central Texas. $5 matinee (anything before 6pm, seven days a week), $7 regular adult admission. Discounts for seniors, students, children. That's at a fully digital theatre too, 100% of their screens. Even better, most of their screens are 2D as they've found 3D isn't all that popular. They also offer online ticket purchase with no add-on fees; you can even buy up to a week in advance.
Sometimes it feels odd to realize a relatively small, somewhat pokey almost cow-town actually has good things to offer the modern world. We even have some of the best broadband speeds and prices in all of Texas. Maybe the town ought to be renamed Twilight Zone.
I did point out I was trying to talk "average person" here, and for that matter "average day". I'm aware there's always exceptions to the rule, and special circumstances sometimes. I sort of figured someone would go about pointing out exceptions instead of actually using a normal day as the example.
1) I'd call this one of those outlier circumstances. Plus, voicemail. 2) Very much an unusual circumstance. Also voicemail. 3, 4, 5, voicemail voicemail voicemail. 6) Yet again, special circumstance, but also an expected one so in that particular case you'd know to answer an unknown call. 7, 8.. yep, voicemail, voicemail. Hey I'm seeing a pattern here!
Still, sorry to hear CID is only an option instead of a standard, included feature in the UK. That's a pretty shitty rip-off. A bit amusing too. Usually it's us Americans getting shafted by telecoms and looking on in envy at UK and European standards (paying for received text messages here, which are also unblockable, certainly comes to mind).
Hung up on or told to PFO? Honestly, I'm shocked anyone even answers an unknown call at all anymore. These days Caller ID is almost universal--certainly in the U.S. (this being a story about the FTC), but I'd wager the case is pretty similar in most any first-world nation. And cell phones (smart or dumb, doesn't matter) have contact lists, making CID even more friendly and usable.
I realize a business line gets plenty of unknown calls from real customers so they need to answer, but a personal/home line? A personal cell phone? Does the average person really get a ton of calls from unknown numbers that are actually people they know and/or want to talk to? I suspect the number is so close to zero it's statistically null. Yet incredibly people answer these unknown calls on a regular and consistent basis (and once answered, it's marked "good" in the robocaller's database and you'll be getting LOTS MORE CALLS), certainly plenty enough for robocalling (and fraud calling) to be profitable. I suspect it's the same type of mentality as that which makes business spam profitable enough to continue: just enough people actually read it and accept its offer to make it worthwhile for the spammer.
Unknown calls: just don't fucking answer them. Period. Aside from CID, voicemail is also nearly universal (especially on cell numbers!), so just don't even pick that damn thing up. If it's someone you actually need to talk to, they can leave a message.
I'd love to see whitelisting becoming a standard option available to anyone, too. I'd set my cell to whitelist if I could (I mean at the carrier level, so calls and text don't even go through, not just are ignored by my phone). Maybe I'm just speaking completely for myself and am not representative of the average person, but I quite honestly cannot even remember the last time I received a call that I wanted, from a number that wasn't already known to me. This includes business calls, because quite a number of companies publish the number they'll be calling you on so you know it ahead of time.
What's even more frustrating about it is that we have plenty of examples of what sort of good actual competition produces with U.S. telco services, but they're unfortunately usually in small markets or regional areas so they don't get the national coverage they deserve. The Google Fiber project is a rarity in that regard, for having so much attention on it, including stories about Time Warner's response to it in the areas being served (lowering prices and upping service speeds to compete).
I can relate with you, having seen my city (also a college and university city) triple in size in the last decade. Time Warner has done virtually nothing in that time, at least not on a large scale, and certainly nothing on their infrastructure. However, there's been an upstart, regional competitor that's been moving in, slowly slowly slowly. It's been slow because Time Warner's been fighting them tooth and nail, with legal tactics and otherwise. That company's been building up a modern infrastructure, almost all fiber, with current-gen equipment. They've been spending a lot of money to do it, it's true, but despite that they've been consistently profitable year after year, because customers WANT their service.
Just two years ago, that company finally won the right-of-way access to lay down new lines in my neighborhood. As soon as service was available, I switched. I went from 15Mbps/512Kbps(!) on Time Warner to 65M/5M with the new guys. I also pay less for it, and that's not even their top tier; it's one of their mid-range offerings. Plus, I almost always GET the advertised speed too, thanks to the modern back-end. I'm also still a television watcher (I know, I know..) and I'm getting more channels I actually want, including some that were "premium" with Time Warner, included in my package, while also paying less for the television service. I even get TiVo units direct from the cable provider, instead of Time Warner's horrifically shitty lowest-bidder cable boxes and half-broken cablecards.
The reason I bring all this up (yeah yeah, I know I'm getting off-topic a bit) is to point out Time Warner's response to all of this. In the areas that the new provider manages to get in (and ONLY in those areas!), Time Warner almost immediately moves to upgrade its equipment, lower the prices, and up the broadband speeds and television offerings, trying to hold on to customers they never had to give a shit about before. This has actually gotten them in a bit of trouble, because they're literally charging different prices for the same service, depending on which part of the city you live in (whether your neighborhood has competition or not).
Right after I left, I started getting notices and mailings from Time Warner offering to "win me back" and telling me how they'd "improved their services" in my area, having admittedly spent a bundle to upgrade their lines and equipment, and offer higher broadband speeds and more television channels (ironically, their improved services are still not as good as the new guys and aren't cheaper either). This is the kind of thing that happens over and over and over, again and again, anywhere where even a duopoly springs up, let alone even greater competition. But since it's only some small area in Texas in my case, it doesn't get the coverage it deserves. These kind of things should be brought up on a national platform to point out the kind of lies TW's PR is spewing as in the original article up there. I mean mainstream media; it's already well-known on places like Slashdot but you've got to admit it's not an "everyman" news site.
As an aside, wandering even more off-topic, I know what you mean about AT&T not laying shit for DSL and gouging customers. My neighborhood had DSL when I first moved in (expensive $40/mo for 5Mbps/128Kbps). Less than a year later, AT&T actually went in and pulled all the DSL equipment, dumping the customers that were using the service (this was when Time Warner was the only other competitor in the area, too). Their
I second you on that any decent video site. Not just news websites and Hulu, but I found that even YouTube can't live without it yet. Much has been touted about the site itself using HTML5 in place of Flash, and yeah that works fine. However, embedded videos? All still Flash. Unless you go to YouTube.com directly and view, you still need Flash. Doubly annoying because embedded videos don't appear at all, just the usual "broken plugin" placeholder, so you can't even get the link out of it to be able to go view the video directly.
I think it largely depends on usage. Back before I had a smartphone, PAYG was way, way cheaper than contract. As in I paid about $25 per quarter for service. That was just voice and text though, no data at all.
Frankly though, I think the off-contract being cheaper is true for a vast amount of the U.S. Anywhere where the AT&T network is usable (I use the term "usable" subjectively of course), you can use StraightTalk, as they're an MVNO for the AT&T network. In fact their SIMs will even work in phones that are SIM-locked to AT&T. They sell SIM-only, and welcome bring-your-own-phone. StraightTalk has a $45/mo unlimited talk/text/data, and they allow smartphones on that plan (they just recently made an announcement they'll begin selling iPhones directly, and with that plan). AT&T actually makes a point of saying their PAYG plans don't allow smartphones, though you can get around that of course.
I mean, you're welcome to call AT&T and haggle with them, "Hey StraightTalk gives this deal on your network so surely you can give me a good deal!" To that I just say: good luck.
This is why it disturbs me that a goodly number of states actually mail voters a ballot (not an absentee ballot), which they can fill out at home and then either mail back in or simply drop it off at a polling station. Big voting blocks, like California, do this. In Arizona this is how the vast majority of voting is now done (since they began the process in 1992) and polling stations there are practically just formalities.
How do you prove something like that was not a coerced or sold vote?
This disclaimer is not nearly as silly or crazy as one might think. CyanogenMod, for example, has well-documented problems with E911 functionality on various phone models. In fact they completely dropped support for the T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant because dialing 911 didn't work!
I don't know about you, but I can sure see the inability to call 911 to be a "dangerous consequence" that could absolutely lead to "property damage and/or bodily injury, including death" even if it's not the phone itself that's literally the thing killing you.
If they thought they could have already raised prices $20 without resulting in a backlash leading to loss of revenue or other undesirable outcome (i.e. price regulation), they would have already done so.
They have already done so. In fact they went beyond twenty. They went to the "Share Everything" service plans and completely eliminated the Individual plans. They've also stated that grandfathered plans will be forced to change over if they wish to upgrade their devices. So no more grandfathered unlimited plans for anyone, at least if they ever want to replace their current phone (or god forbid it gets broken).
The cheapest Share Everything plan is.. (ready for this?).. about $30/mo more than the cheapest Individual plan that was previously available, as the article points out. Interestingly enough, this went into effect almost exactly a month before this FCC ruling. Now, I'm not usually one for conspiracies, but I'm also not usually one for coincidences either..
Don't like it? Go into your BIOS and turn it off. The specification mandates that it have a disable option..
No, no the specification does NOT mandate that it have a disable option. The specification simply does not prohibit providing such an option (for the moment at least). The motherboard manufacturer and/or BIOS makers are completely free to not provide a disable option if they so desire.
Whether the (lack of) option becomes common or not is another thing entirely, of course.
That was kind of my point, yes. The actual act of getting this disclosed is part of the process of checks and balances, not merely an indicator of it. It wasn't like the Air Force themselves made big of it; a professional had to pour through the reams of documentation and unearth it. Then they had to get it disseminated to the public. And now it can be (in my opinion, rightfully should be) contested.
All of that has to happen before checks and balances is working.
.... It isn't strange that our military also has the authority to take footage.....
The reason why it's a notable thing is because the military, in fact, doesn't have the authority to take footage. Right at the top of the article (but this is Slashdot, so no one read it) it's pointed out that the military, like the CIA, is not supposed to perform surveillance of citizens on domestic soil.
They're using weasel-words to try and loophole around that block, and it's this type of skirting action that should always be made public and pushed against. Checks and balances, watching the watchers, that sort of thing.
Many schools across the country (though especially in the remarkably poorly rated school systems of the Deep South) don't even require an education degree. Or a degree at all. Often you can get by with a simple certification.
The whole "gym teacher also teaching science/biology/etc class" is a classic stereotype but very real. I can't remember what grade, by one of my biology teachers was indeed also the gym teacher. And he didn't even have a phys ed degree, let alone a science degree.
Going along with QuasiSteve's message, I too recommend a local pre-paid local cellular service when traveling to America. Price gouging on roaming can get extreme, on both sides of the pond (American cell companies screw us on roaming in Europe too). And indeed, I'd also recommend buying a local phone with it if you don't mind having a third phone on you.
I've often suggested TracFone to my various European friends when they visit. It's a GSM reseller that sits on top of AT&T's network, so you get widespread national coverage, and it's extremely cheap. You can buy a phone (which usually includes 20 minutes of service to start with) for as little as US$10. You can refill the minutes via a telephone number, their website, on the phone itself through menus, or by going into most any store and buying a 'minutes card' (TracFone's minutes cards can be found in almost any grocery and convenience store or gas station, and most any consumer store that has an electronics section). Much like Steve's suggestion, going into a physical store is the easiest when using a foreign credit card (and it's the only way to buy using cash), but since such a WIDE array of stores sell their cards it can hardly be called an inconvenience.
The other primary reason I suggest it? Privacy. Sure, your two existing phones may work with T-Mobile's or AT&T's networks (their 2G/GSM networks work with most any GSM phone, but their 3G networks operate on wholly incompatible frequencies and most phones usually only support one or the other), and you could get pre-pay service with them if your phones are SIM unlocked (I would figure they are). However, the big telcos require a bunch of personal information to sign up for their service. Admittedly, I haven't used T-Mobile in a long time, but I was recently using AT&T's pre-pay and they insist on your full personal details, name, address, all that sort of thing. TracFone doesn't ask for jack unless you use their website. If you buy the phone and minute cards at stores it's completely anonymous.
The anonymity also means TracFones are very easy to sell off when you're done with them, though being so cheap they're generally not going to sell for much unless you've still got a lot minutes left on them. They're basically disposable phones. My friends usually just drop them into a local cell phone recycling box when they're leaving for home. Stores like Best Buy have these, which probably will be one near you if you're visiting major cities.
Slashdot Mirror
Also FWIW, Adblock Plus by default blocks YouTube ads. Has for a long, long time. I haven't seen a YouTube ad in so many years I literally tend to forget it even HAS them.
:)
Occasionally jars me when I see people complaining about how horrible YouTube ads are and it reminds me "oh yeeeaaah.."
I did the same, TT-RSS on Dreamhost. I wanted something that could be used from any web browser, rather than needing an app, and didn't require external authentication. Basically, self-contained, the way Reader was. Feedly and the like just didn't meet those needs.
:P That went away after a short time though, probably as Feedburner marked Dreamhost IPs as shared hosting and exempted from the query limits.
TT-RSS is so simple; most anyone comfortable enough to do self-hosting can set it up I'd think. Only issues I ever had compared to Reader were, at the beginning, it'd sometimes get temporarily banned on certain RSS feeds for excessive queries (probably numerous users all set up on DH so it was seeing that, as I only query once every four hours). Ironically this happened almost exclusively on Feedburner links (which Slashdot uses), which is owned by Google, so it sometimes felt like Google was really trying to kill RSS.
Also occasionally Dreamhost's database server can be rather slow (making the whole application slow), but that doesn't happen very often. And you sort of expect it with cheap shared hosting, anyway.
It certainly works plenty well enough, and since I already had the DH account for other purposes, adding TT-RSS was effectively free.
You don't even have to call them half the time. American Express, Citibank, and Wells Fargo all have the ability to register foreign travel right from their online banking websites. Admittedly it's specifically for overseas travel, as they don't let you enter domestic locations, at least not currently. Still, when I vacationed in China earlier this year I was able to let them know online, including date ranges for travel so that I could avoid any possible fraud from charges that might show up after I went home. I just logged in to my account and filled out the information, quick and easy.
More importantly, it was BASIC travel information (country, and sometimes city, and that's pretty much it), not detailed, minute-by-minute tracked movement like this cell phone idea would provide.
I was able to use my credit cards and even withdraw cash from ATMs, with no problems and no card deactivation. And I say after having had deactivation issues in the past, when I didn't let them know.
PagePlus Cellular doesn't require a data plan. They use Verizon's network though so that is unfortunately a limiting factor because Verizon doesn't tend to like activating phones that were not bought through them (i.e., BYOD). Using smartphones with PagePlus is a hit-or-miss story, but I mention them anyway because they are widely known.
AT&T's Prepaid options include pay-as-you-go basic phone plans that do not include data (I lived on the 10c/min, 20c/text plan for years), and they also have a no-contract monthly $25 smartphone plan that does not include data and does not require you to purchase any either. AT&T also now owns and operates pre-pay-only carrier Aio Wireless, though I don't think that one does no-data plans at current.
There is also GoSmart Mobile. They are owned and operated by T-Mobile, like MetroPCS is. Also speaking of subsidiaries, don't forget Net10 which belongs to Tracfone, and does not require data. However I believe Net10 requires you use one of their own devices, not bring your own (much like Tracfone itself).
There's a whole host of little-known MVNOs as well. If you have an interest in Ting (which yes was one I might point out), then I might also suggest ChitChat Mobile, which like Ting also operates on Sprint's network. It has plans that do not require data, and they even openly advertise that they allow smartphones on those same no-data plans. Their homepage currently boasts that they'll activate Sprint iPhones on their $10/mo talk/text/no-data plan.
It's worth pointing out that having a smartphone no longer requires being forced into an expensive monthly post-paid service, a fact that is very much related to the posted article, if only tangentially. It certainly USED to be the case (in the U.S. especially), but these days there's quite a number of pre-paid services that are like Tracfone, that allow you to use a smartphone. StraightTalk comes to mind, since they offer Android and iPhones. Even AT&T's GoPhone (a service similarly priced to Tracfone, notably) lets smartphones on these days, though in the past I admit they used to outright reject them and tell you they could only be used on post-pay.
Many pre-paid providers don't even require you to have a data plan with a smartphone. You can live on voice/SMS alone, and get your data needs via WiFi.
Basically, it's entirely possible these days to enjoy both cheap service AND a smartphone. Though I won't begrudge anyone who truly does want a simple, voice-and-text-only phone. Have at 'em. But people who might like a smartphone but not the expensive service plan should not need to hold out anymore.
More compact: tmux at -d || tmux
That merely detaches other sessions. It does not detach AND log them out, which is what screen -DR does. The only way I know to do a detach-and-logout is with the "detach-session -P" option.
Is there a tmux equivalent to "screen -DR" ? If so, I might try it out.
Not exactly, no. I REALLY liked this particular flag combo in screen, and it's the one thing that tmux doesn't do natively that I miss (but I still use tmux because of all the other happiness it brings me). I even opened a ticket on the lack of this functionality but the answer I got back was basically "I'm not looking to just emulate screen so exact functionality may not be added."
tmux has an option to detach other sessions when you attach yours, but it ONLY detaches. There is not a "detach AND log out" option when attaching a session. However, it does have a detach-and-logout function if you ONLY want to do that (not attach a new session at the same time). Basically "tmux detach-client -P" will detach and log out an attached session, but you'll notice there's nothing to attach your session at the same time. That's the crux of the issue.
Naturally, I'm not the only one that wants this functionality (and clearly so do you), so there is some kludgy ways to do it. The simplest is to create a bash alias (or alias in your shell of choice) to first do the detach-and-logout and then perform the attach-session. Something like this:
tmu() {
if tmux -q has-session -t tmux; then
tmux detach-client -P -s tmux
tmux -2 -u attach-session -t tmux
else
tmux -2 -u new-session -s tmux
fi
}
Basically, I just type "tmu" to run the alias. If the session named "tmux" exists, detach-client and log them out, then attach my current pty to the session. Otherwise, if the session does not exist at all (i.e., tmux server isn't running), create a brand new tmux instance with the session name of "tmux".
Not ideal, but it's the closest way to achieve screen's -DR option at current, at least with the version I'm using. Newer versions of tmux may be better; Debian by its nature doesn't use the very latest, of course, which is the distro (Wheezy) I use. I seem to recall that newer versions of tmux will create a brand new session via attach-session if it doesn't exist; my version requires an explicit new-session in order to start up a tmux server from a totally non-running state. So that could certainly simplify my alias a fair bit.
If only. Come be a utility in Texas, where ERCOT (the state-wide electric utility authority) seriously considered making their push notification system be Internet-only. As in, you HAD to connect your SCADA system to the Internet (even if through an intermediary server in a DMZ) to be able to receive the (required, if you wanted to be licensed and in business) control signals from ERCOT. Thankfully, for once, the backlash was so bad ERCOT actually listened to it and backed off that plan. That's exceedingly rare.
Or backed off kinda-sorta anyway. They still have a dual setup, you can receive either via Internet or via private frame-relay between ERCOT's site and yours. We of course opted for the latter, heavily secured and sanitized through multiple hops, but nonetheless that does still mean we have an external connection into our SCADA system, not air-gapped, though I will grant you it doesn't connect to the Internet at large (we hope; who knows what the fuck ERCOT does on their end). And we MUST have it, if we want to actually operate as a licensed utility in Texas. And Texas is FAR from alone in having this bureaucratically-created shit for operating requirements. These types of enforced setups are nationwide.
That is the sad, stupid state of affairs we live in today.
...(We don't have national performance yet, but that's no big deal; just take a $200 trip to California. It's still binding in every hateful corner of the South. The UK has no such privilege.)...
If only that were true, but no. You remember DOMA, right? The Defense of Marriage Act? It explicitly allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex unions performed in other states. That section of DOMA has NOT been struck down. Only Section 3 (which prevented the federal government itself from recognizing same-sex unions) was ruled unconstitutional. The rest of the act has not been struck down as yet, despite the big hullabaloo that happened back in the summer of last year when Section 3 got the boot.
Of the 29 states that have state constitutional amendments banning same-sex unions (and 4 more states that ban it by law), only two--Oregon and Missouri--actually recognize out-of-state same-sex unions. Missouri recognizes them for joint-file tax purposes only and nothing else, so really it's just Oregon.
So you could say we have "national observation" in the sense that the federal government now recognizes legal same-sex unions no matter where you live in the country, but unfortunately it is not "binding in every hateful corner of the South," since the states themselves don't have to recognize it. And really, the vast majority of benefits that come with marriage are state-level benefits, so the striking down of Section 3, while important, still leaves a whole hell of a lot to be desired.
In and of itself, not paying taxes is not what makes corporations (big or small) evil. It has much more to do with what they use it for and how they go about it.
Exxon and GE, as examples, are rather famous for not paying anything on their recent profit/income taxes (or even getting billions in rebates, in GE's case) while at the same time raking in world-record-breaking profits, and then taking that extra cash and simply lining the executives' pockets by paying out huge bonuses. They also downplay or even attempt to hide their lack of taxpaying, or go to extreme creative-accounting lengths to hide their money so as to avoid taxation.
Tesla (and California)--at least in this particular case--is being very public about this tax windfall, letting everyone know they're being done a favor. And instead of just paying bonuses to the top brass or otherwise pocketing the money and walking away, they're putting it right back into development and product output (yes I'm aware they do profit on sales from that increased output, but that gets taxed separately anyway). They're literally using this tax break to be more productive.
There's a pretty fundamental difference there.
Speaking as someone currently working in the electrical utility industry, I can tell you how my company does it. We use a combination of things, depending on what's most cost-effective, but the vast majority of our communications are done via microwave relay. We actually set up our own towers, get FCC licenses, and transmit private microwave signals to our substations and to our satellite control centers, as well as our generation plants. Some of it is proprietary serial protocol (DNP, very common in the utility industry) and some of it is standard TCP/IP based.
We run multiple networks over these microwave links (which ARE isolated from each other both in microwave frequencies and in physical equipment), as our satellite offices also get corporate network connectivity and Internet connectivity via microwave as well, communicating to our HQ and using its Internet hardline.
For locations where we couldn't set up microwave, we sometimes use private leased lines (direct, always-on, no-dial telephone connections, but these we only use if we have to because they're the most expensive). On a few occasions we use spread-spectrum radio, or as an absolute last resort we use GPRS radio over mobile networks. This last solution is NOT the same network as what a cell phone or other consumer access point goes through. We are basically leasing access to their mobile tower for a "private line" more or less.
In ALL cases, whether it's microwave, radio, leased line, or anything else, over-the-air communications are end-to-end encrypted, because yes we're totally aware that OTA stuff can be intercepted and eavesdropped, even point-to-point microwave links. It is also a closed, air-gapped network. As I said, the Internet and corporate network stuff to our remote offices goes over its own separate microwave channel with separate air-gapped communications equipment that's independent of the equipment talking to substations and the like.
So that's how we suggest you do it.
$8 for a ticket. Where are you going? I might need to move there.
C'mon down to Central Texas. $5 matinee (anything before 6pm, seven days a week), $7 regular adult admission. Discounts for seniors, students, children. That's at a fully digital theatre too, 100% of their screens. Even better, most of their screens are 2D as they've found 3D isn't all that popular. They also offer online ticket purchase with no add-on fees; you can even buy up to a week in advance.
Sometimes it feels odd to realize a relatively small, somewhat pokey almost cow-town actually has good things to offer the modern world. We even have some of the best broadband speeds and prices in all of Texas. Maybe the town ought to be renamed Twilight Zone.
I did point out I was trying to talk "average person" here, and for that matter "average day". I'm aware there's always exceptions to the rule, and special circumstances sometimes. I sort of figured someone would go about pointing out exceptions instead of actually using a normal day as the example.
1) I'd call this one of those outlier circumstances. Plus, voicemail. 2) Very much an unusual circumstance. Also voicemail. 3, 4, 5, voicemail voicemail voicemail. 6) Yet again, special circumstance, but also an expected one so in that particular case you'd know to answer an unknown call. 7, 8.. yep, voicemail, voicemail. Hey I'm seeing a pattern here!
Still, sorry to hear CID is only an option instead of a standard, included feature in the UK. That's a pretty shitty rip-off. A bit amusing too. Usually it's us Americans getting shafted by telecoms and looking on in envy at UK and European standards (paying for received text messages here, which are also unblockable, certainly comes to mind).
Hung up on or told to PFO? Honestly, I'm shocked anyone even answers an unknown call at all anymore. These days Caller ID is almost universal--certainly in the U.S. (this being a story about the FTC), but I'd wager the case is pretty similar in most any first-world nation. And cell phones (smart or dumb, doesn't matter) have contact lists, making CID even more friendly and usable.
I realize a business line gets plenty of unknown calls from real customers so they need to answer, but a personal/home line? A personal cell phone? Does the average person really get a ton of calls from unknown numbers that are actually people they know and/or want to talk to? I suspect the number is so close to zero it's statistically null. Yet incredibly people answer these unknown calls on a regular and consistent basis (and once answered, it's marked "good" in the robocaller's database and you'll be getting LOTS MORE CALLS), certainly plenty enough for robocalling (and fraud calling) to be profitable. I suspect it's the same type of mentality as that which makes business spam profitable enough to continue: just enough people actually read it and accept its offer to make it worthwhile for the spammer.
Unknown calls: just don't fucking answer them. Period. Aside from CID, voicemail is also nearly universal (especially on cell numbers!), so just don't even pick that damn thing up. If it's someone you actually need to talk to, they can leave a message.
I'd love to see whitelisting becoming a standard option available to anyone, too. I'd set my cell to whitelist if I could (I mean at the carrier level, so calls and text don't even go through, not just are ignored by my phone). Maybe I'm just speaking completely for myself and am not representative of the average person, but I quite honestly cannot even remember the last time I received a call that I wanted, from a number that wasn't already known to me. This includes business calls, because quite a number of companies publish the number they'll be calling you on so you know it ahead of time.
What's even more frustrating about it is that we have plenty of examples of what sort of good actual competition produces with U.S. telco services, but they're unfortunately usually in small markets or regional areas so they don't get the national coverage they deserve. The Google Fiber project is a rarity in that regard, for having so much attention on it, including stories about Time Warner's response to it in the areas being served (lowering prices and upping service speeds to compete).
I can relate with you, having seen my city (also a college and university city) triple in size in the last decade. Time Warner has done virtually nothing in that time, at least not on a large scale, and certainly nothing on their infrastructure. However, there's been an upstart, regional competitor that's been moving in, slowly slowly slowly. It's been slow because Time Warner's been fighting them tooth and nail, with legal tactics and otherwise. That company's been building up a modern infrastructure, almost all fiber, with current-gen equipment. They've been spending a lot of money to do it, it's true, but despite that they've been consistently profitable year after year, because customers WANT their service.
Just two years ago, that company finally won the right-of-way access to lay down new lines in my neighborhood. As soon as service was available, I switched. I went from 15Mbps/512Kbps(!) on Time Warner to 65M/5M with the new guys. I also pay less for it, and that's not even their top tier; it's one of their mid-range offerings. Plus, I almost always GET the advertised speed too, thanks to the modern back-end. I'm also still a television watcher (I know, I know..) and I'm getting more channels I actually want, including some that were "premium" with Time Warner, included in my package, while also paying less for the television service. I even get TiVo units direct from the cable provider, instead of Time Warner's horrifically shitty lowest-bidder cable boxes and half-broken cablecards.
The reason I bring all this up (yeah yeah, I know I'm getting off-topic a bit) is to point out Time Warner's response to all of this. In the areas that the new provider manages to get in (and ONLY in those areas!), Time Warner almost immediately moves to upgrade its equipment, lower the prices, and up the broadband speeds and television offerings, trying to hold on to customers they never had to give a shit about before. This has actually gotten them in a bit of trouble, because they're literally charging different prices for the same service, depending on which part of the city you live in (whether your neighborhood has competition or not).
Right after I left, I started getting notices and mailings from Time Warner offering to "win me back" and telling me how they'd "improved their services" in my area, having admittedly spent a bundle to upgrade their lines and equipment, and offer higher broadband speeds and more television channels (ironically, their improved services are still not as good as the new guys and aren't cheaper either). This is the kind of thing that happens over and over and over, again and again, anywhere where even a duopoly springs up, let alone even greater competition. But since it's only some small area in Texas in my case, it doesn't get the coverage it deserves. These kind of things should be brought up on a national platform to point out the kind of lies TW's PR is spewing as in the original article up there. I mean mainstream media; it's already well-known on places like Slashdot but you've got to admit it's not an "everyman" news site.
As an aside, wandering even more off-topic, I know what you mean about AT&T not laying shit for DSL and gouging customers. My neighborhood had DSL when I first moved in (expensive $40/mo for 5Mbps/128Kbps). Less than a year later, AT&T actually went in and pulled all the DSL equipment, dumping the customers that were using the service (this was when Time Warner was the only other competitor in the area, too). Their
I second you on that any decent video site. Not just news websites and Hulu, but I found that even YouTube can't live without it yet. Much has been touted about the site itself using HTML5 in place of Flash, and yeah that works fine. However, embedded videos? All still Flash. Unless you go to YouTube.com directly and view, you still need Flash. Doubly annoying because embedded videos don't appear at all, just the usual "broken plugin" placeholder, so you can't even get the link out of it to be able to go view the video directly.
I think it largely depends on usage. Back before I had a smartphone, PAYG was way, way cheaper than contract. As in I paid about $25 per quarter for service. That was just voice and text though, no data at all.
Frankly though, I think the off-contract being cheaper is true for a vast amount of the U.S. Anywhere where the AT&T network is usable (I use the term "usable" subjectively of course), you can use StraightTalk, as they're an MVNO for the AT&T network. In fact their SIMs will even work in phones that are SIM-locked to AT&T. They sell SIM-only, and welcome bring-your-own-phone. StraightTalk has a $45/mo unlimited talk/text/data, and they allow smartphones on that plan (they just recently made an announcement they'll begin selling iPhones directly, and with that plan). AT&T actually makes a point of saying their PAYG plans don't allow smartphones, though you can get around that of course.
I mean, you're welcome to call AT&T and haggle with them, "Hey StraightTalk gives this deal on your network so surely you can give me a good deal!" To that I just say: good luck.
This is why it disturbs me that a goodly number of states actually mail voters a ballot (not an absentee ballot), which they can fill out at home and then either mail back in or simply drop it off at a polling station. Big voting blocks, like California, do this. In Arizona this is how the vast majority of voting is now done (since they began the process in 1992) and polling stations there are practically just formalities.
How do you prove something like that was not a coerced or sold vote?
This disclaimer is not nearly as silly or crazy as one might think. CyanogenMod, for example, has well-documented problems with E911 functionality on various phone models. In fact they completely dropped support for the T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant because dialing 911 didn't work!
I don't know about you, but I can sure see the inability to call 911 to be a "dangerous consequence" that could absolutely lead to "property damage and/or bodily injury, including death" even if it's not the phone itself that's literally the thing killing you.
If they thought they could have already raised prices $20 without resulting in a backlash leading to loss of revenue or other undesirable outcome (i.e. price regulation), they would have already done so.
They have already done so. In fact they went beyond twenty. They went to the "Share Everything" service plans and completely eliminated the Individual plans. They've also stated that grandfathered plans will be forced to change over if they wish to upgrade their devices. So no more grandfathered unlimited plans for anyone, at least if they ever want to replace their current phone (or god forbid it gets broken).
The cheapest Share Everything plan is.. (ready for this?).. about $30/mo more than the cheapest Individual plan that was previously available, as the article points out. Interestingly enough, this went into effect almost exactly a month before this FCC ruling. Now, I'm not usually one for conspiracies, but I'm also not usually one for coincidences either..
Don't like it? Go into your BIOS and turn it off. The specification mandates that it have a disable option..
No, no the specification does NOT mandate that it have a disable option. The specification simply does not prohibit providing such an option (for the moment at least). The motherboard manufacturer and/or BIOS makers are completely free to not provide a disable option if they so desire.
Whether the (lack of) option becomes common or not is another thing entirely, of course.
That was kind of my point, yes. The actual act of getting this disclosed is part of the process of checks and balances, not merely an indicator of it. It wasn't like the Air Force themselves made big of it; a professional had to pour through the reams of documentation and unearth it. Then they had to get it disseminated to the public. And now it can be (in my opinion, rightfully should be) contested.
All of that has to happen before checks and balances is working.
.... It isn't strange that our military also has the authority to take footage. ....
The reason why it's a notable thing is because the military, in fact, doesn't have the authority to take footage. Right at the top of the article (but this is Slashdot, so no one read it) it's pointed out that the military, like the CIA, is not supposed to perform surveillance of citizens on domestic soil.
They're using weasel-words to try and loophole around that block, and it's this type of skirting action that should always be made public and pushed against. Checks and balances, watching the watchers, that sort of thing.
Many schools across the country (though especially in the remarkably poorly rated school systems of the Deep South) don't even require an education degree. Or a degree at all. Often you can get by with a simple certification.
The whole "gym teacher also teaching science/biology/etc class" is a classic stereotype but very real. I can't remember what grade, by one of my biology teachers was indeed also the gym teacher. And he didn't even have a phys ed degree, let alone a science degree.
Going along with QuasiSteve's message, I too recommend a local pre-paid local cellular service when traveling to America. Price gouging on roaming can get extreme, on both sides of the pond (American cell companies screw us on roaming in Europe too). And indeed, I'd also recommend buying a local phone with it if you don't mind having a third phone on you.
I've often suggested TracFone to my various European friends when they visit. It's a GSM reseller that sits on top of AT&T's network, so you get widespread national coverage, and it's extremely cheap. You can buy a phone (which usually includes 20 minutes of service to start with) for as little as US$10. You can refill the minutes via a telephone number, their website, on the phone itself through menus, or by going into most any store and buying a 'minutes card' (TracFone's minutes cards can be found in almost any grocery and convenience store or gas station, and most any consumer store that has an electronics section). Much like Steve's suggestion, going into a physical store is the easiest when using a foreign credit card (and it's the only way to buy using cash), but since such a WIDE array of stores sell their cards it can hardly be called an inconvenience.
The other primary reason I suggest it? Privacy. Sure, your two existing phones may work with T-Mobile's or AT&T's networks (their 2G/GSM networks work with most any GSM phone, but their 3G networks operate on wholly incompatible frequencies and most phones usually only support one or the other), and you could get pre-pay service with them if your phones are SIM unlocked (I would figure they are). However, the big telcos require a bunch of personal information to sign up for their service. Admittedly, I haven't used T-Mobile in a long time, but I was recently using AT&T's pre-pay and they insist on your full personal details, name, address, all that sort of thing. TracFone doesn't ask for jack unless you use their website. If you buy the phone and minute cards at stores it's completely anonymous.
The anonymity also means TracFones are very easy to sell off when you're done with them, though being so cheap they're generally not going to sell for much unless you've still got a lot minutes left on them. They're basically disposable phones. My friends usually just drop them into a local cell phone recycling box when they're leaving for home. Stores like Best Buy have these, which probably will be one near you if you're visiting major cities.