I agree that the ranking system, as opposed to a simple single-vote plurality system, would be a better way to measure the vote. However, I have another suggestion, to implement along with any other changes: instead of having a Presidental slot and a Vice-Presidetial slot, let us have only a Presidential slot, with the Vice President literally being the first runner up. This would have the following effects:
If a person had served as VP for 8 years, they could not run for president, since they would have to be eligable for the post of VP, and VP's aren't allowed to serve more than 2 terms.
Ditto for president
This would serve a another check on the President. Consider [Gore|Bush] trying to pass some close legislation: he couldn't count on [Bush|Gore] casting the swing vote in a hung Senate.
This could be used to much the same effect as the various non-plurality voting systems: give each person 2 votes to replace the vote they lose by not voting for a seperate VP. As a result, the first lever they pull will be for the guy they expect will win, but the second vote will be for the guy they want.
There was an example of this effect on one episode of Gilligan's Island (of all places): The castaways were voting on who to make the leader and second-in-command of the island. Everybody voted for themselves as leader, but for second-in-command everybody voted for Gilligan.
This of course begs the question of whether we want a Gilligan running things.
No, what I want is for Max Ary of The Kansas Cosmosphere to get it. He's grabbed more Soviet/Russian gear than anybody else in the free world. If the Russians crash Mir into the ocean, expect Max out there with a big catcher's mitt.
I disagree. Anything that removes stupid people from the gene pool (preferably before they breed) is a good thing.
</humor>
Actually, stupid people are why this will never really take off (no pun intended) in the US. Just look at general aviation. An alternator for a '73 Ford costs $50, the alternator for a '83 Cessna costs $300. Same alternator, save the FAA approval tag on the Cessna. Why is the Cessna more expensive? Liability insurance: your '73 Ford seizes up, are you going to file a multimillion dollar suit? Your Cessna crashes, will your heirs?
Several others have made the suggestion of setting up your own domain, and then changing the e-mail address you give out. Here's one better:
Set up your own domain. For the purposes of this example, I'll use foo.org.
Have a couple of the bigger DNS servers-for-hire be the primary DNS servers for your domain, but make THEM be secondaries from a server you control. That way, they do the heavy lifting, but your server can be updated as needed.
Under the domain, you set up "N" domains, based upon the date they were created. For example, oct202000.foo.org, oct192000.foo.org, etc.
When you need to give out an e-mail that you wish to expire, use yourname@<date>.foo.org.
For however long you want the domain to be valid, have the MX record point to your mail server, which is configured to accept mail from the domains in question.
When you wish to expire a domain, either a) delete the domain record or b) point the MX record to a name that resolves to 127.0.0.1, thus turning the spam back on the server sending it.
Any geek worth his NaCl should have a subscription to Science News (http://www.sciencenews.org). It's a weekly publication, and covered this a couple of weeks ago.
It also covered a possible loophole in the second law of thermodynamics that might make a perpetual motion machine of the second type possible, using Quantum Dynamics.
Yes, don't bother to read my comment. Don't bother to see that I actually mentioned the good of using a computer in class. Don't bother to read that I am simply advising that student's not use the tool as a crutch. Assign a funny name to me to denigrate my position, and don't comment upon the actual meat of my arguement.
I don't know which is more pathetic: that you wrote this, or some moderated wasted a point because he felt it was insightful. Sad, really.
(and please note: I've forgone my +1 on this reply.)
This might not be a good thing, IFF the students stop thinking and just become LIDs (Living Input Devices).
A case study: when I was in undergraduate engineering school (1983-1987), many if not most of the students had HP-CV calculators with the engineering formula add-on pack. I had a TI-35. During one test in Circuits II, I dropped my calculator, and the keyboard came apart, scattering the keys over the floor. I re-assembled my calculator, and still managed to complete the test before anybody else in the class (and get one of the highest scores on the test.)
Why was I able to complete the test? Because I had the good fortune to have had a high school teacher who beat it into my brain to solve the equations first, then crunch the numbers. Most of my classmates just started plugging the numbers into the equations, then taking the resulting numbers and plugging them into the next set of equations, et cetera.
By actually doing the algebra, I was able to reduce out all the pi's, root-2's, and so forth, and come up with simple equations that were far more accurate than the results of the other students. And since I had to type far fewer numbers into my calculator, I was far faster than they were. Finally, since I actually saw what happened in the circuit ("Ah! so that resistor doesn't effect the output voltage, because I just cancelled it out of the equation!"), I had a deeper understanding of the theory.
My point is, that while a computer is a great tool for many things (I shan't tell you about taking my Atari 800 and monitor into my Linear algebra class to run my Gaussian Elimination program on the final....) it must not become a substitute for thinking. I fear that the students in this school won't learn to do algebra (rather they will just use Mathcad student's edition), won't learn to spel korrecktly, and not will grammer learn ("It looks like you are writing a term paper. Would you like to cut and paste some text from Encarta?").
Yes it was, but it was a rant after my own heart. I cannot tell you how annoying I find programs that claim focus to be. To use a real world analogy:
I'm the boss of a small office, and I have several underlings (the programs I am running). I tell one of my minions "Go and get the Johnson account. Summarize it in one page. I'll stop by later and review it." I then turn to another minion and start discussing our latest hostile takeover.
Now, when minion 1 gets done, does he a) interrupt me, stuff his summary under my nose, and then get confused because of what I was saying to minion #2, or b) wait patiently until I turn to him and ask for the report?
If minion #1 chooses a), he is likely to be choosing fries dunker or drive-through order taker at his next job.
Programmers should try to relate program behavior back to the real world as much as possible (that's what I do!): if it would be rude to do it in the real world, it's rude to do it in my computer. That means interrupting me (focus stealing), spying on me, trying to fasten a radio tracking collar on me when I enter a store (needless cookies), or anything else.
You have it dead right. I've written to both Apple and Sorenson asking them to do something about this, and they play a fine old game of "pass the potato"
Sorenson: Sorry, we cannot do anything about this, Apple has an exclusive license, talk to them.
Apple: Sorry, it's Sorenson's codec, talk to them.
As I said, Apple is not a friend of Open Source/Free Software.
For this sort of thing to work well under Linux, it would have to be supported at several layers:
The kernel would have to provide a device independant way to control the basics of the device. You'd about have to make/dev/mouse a read/write device, or create a/dev/mouse/feedback device. Otherwise, Logitec vs. Kingman vs. Microsoft.... ugh.
X would have to provide a basic layer to map "textures" to drawable objects. Thus, as the mouse moved over the screen, X would then notify the mouse what texture to use. Could this be some sort of "beta" channel (as opposed to an alpha channel)?
The widget set (GTK/QT/Motif(ugh)) would have to allow texture to be a new property of the widget.
Lastly, there would have to be some agreed-upon "standard" for what textures mean what things: does "rough" mean greyed-out, or activated?
Of course, we could just slop it in any old way.
No, wait. Excuse me. Long day at the office. I confused proper programmers with that other OS.
(actually, I obviously love to keep harping on this, or I wouldn't.)
Apple is not now, nor have they ever been, a friend of the open source movement. Were they a friend, they would at least release a binary only, closed source version of Quicktime for Linux. Better still, a binary-only plug-in for Xanim. Best, they would release the Sorenson decoder source (the real magic of these things is not in the decoder, but in the ENCODER: figuring out what data to eliminate is the hard work, reconstructing it is relatively easy.)
What has Apple done for the open source or free software movements? They've released yet another kernel for PPC. Nice, but we already have several OSS and free software kernels out there.
The next time Apple tries to milk the movements for free publicity, stand up and call them on it.
(Now's your queue to do an Emily LeTella: "Oh, nevermind").
The battery uses PROTONS, not PHOTONS, as the charge carrier. Rather than using large ions as the primary way to shuttle charge across the battery, they use H+ ions (a.k.a. protons) to move the charge. The only photons involved are the virtual photons mediating the electromagnetic force.
Actually, no. The problem is that the lens of your eye is not optically perfect. This imperfection is magnified (no pun intended) when the pupil is wide, and reduced as the pupil comes to a point.
This is the reason why some of the contact lens companies are making a big deal about "better than 20-20" correction: the contact lens can correct the imperfect lens of the eye to a point where near-optimal focus is achived.
Additionally, some researchers are looking into using active optics to bring focus in the eye to the limits of diffraction: in fact, the focus so achivied is so fine, that a HeNe laser (red, 632.8 nm) can be perceived as green, IF the spot falls on a green cone, rather than a red cone. In short, our vision system does not approach the limits of diffraction, but is limited by the accuraccy of focus of the lens.
Actually, the wider the pupil, the less resolution you have. This is the same effect as a pin-hole camera or squinting: by reducing the apeture to a point, the image will be in perfect focus for any focal length.
However, most cable modems don't pass your NIC's MAC to the network, rather they pass their ID. It is almost certainly possible for the cable company to track your MAC address, however I've had no luck tracking the MACs of the jackasses who probe my system.
I'm not in america, and have no intention to be. luckily, this is not how most of the world works. please don't go stuffing this monitoring down the world's throat just because some american companies may want to. the net doesn't end outside the US.
Sad to say, neither does monitoring of what you do online. If you think people in your country (whatever it may be) aren't monitoring you.... Well, all I can ask is, "What is the speed of light in the little universe you are in?"
Here's my thoughts on what to do to fix moderation"
Nobody below 10 karma can metamoderate. You have to prove you have some clue before you can judge others.
Nobody below 20 karma can moderate. Same argument.
These two modifications prevent (in large part) the creation of "mule" accounts to alter moderation. Ideally, Rob would also reset everybody's karma to 0 at this point, to prevent the currently existing mules from being able to corrupt the system. (and before you bitch, I'm setting at 125 right now, so I do have a fair amount to lose.)
When a user views a page with moderation boxes, encode the target karma into the POST data for the moderation boxes. Don't moderate a post beyond the target karma.
Example: a post is currently at 2. You are in moderator mode. You select "+1 Insightful". The post data encodes (NOTE! ENCODES! as in encrypted!) the target value of +3 into the data. If the comment has already been moderated up, your moderation is ignored (and you don't lose the point).
This prevents the common occurrence of a comment being moderated to +5 because several people tried to moderated it from 2 to 3 (for example). I know that several minutes can elapse from the time I get a page to the time I submit the moderation, during which others may have moderated the comment as well.
Meta-moderation should use more than 1 vote: any given moderation should be review by at least 3, preferably 5 metamoderators, with a 4-1 majority required to change the moderation.
Again, this is to prevent mule accounts from corrupting M2.
Higher karma individuals should lose more karma for a bad post than lower karma. I say lose 10% of your current karma (round up). Otherwise guys like me can troll for days with no ill effect.
Ditch several of the moderation values. I consistantly see posts of nothing but a link being marked "Insightful" WRONG! Interesting, maybe even Informative, but not Insightful. Likewise, I constantly see trolls marked as merely Offtopic. I would reduce the moderation values to:
Interesting (+1)
Troll (-2)
Off-topic (-1)
Me-too (-1)
Treat the "high karma +1" bonus as a moderation, and review it like any other. Mark it as "Interesting" so that people with vendettas against high karma individuals won't be able to automatically M2 them down. This make people like Sig11, Bruce (and myself) think about using that point: it's double or nothing - if somebody feels your post wasn't worth that +1, you will lose karma.
Also, don't default the high karma +1 to on: make me check the box to use it.
Possibly, instead of allowing high karma individuals an unlimited number of higher posts, give a number of tokens per day (say, 1 for every 10 points over 20, round up). Again, this prevents high karma individuals from dominating the conversation.
Every day, take the ten accounts that have the most troll moderations. If they have less than 2 such moderations, ignore them. Otherwise, place them on a "Hall of Shame" page. Allow users with more than 20 karma to cast a vote: for or against bitchslapping them. When some number N votes have been cast, if a 2/3 majority is for bitchslapping: SMACK! Welcome to minusville. Otherwise, remove the name from the list.
This way, Rob&Co cannot be blamed for the bitchslapping: the community did it. This quickly removes the trolls.
Keep the AC account. Otherwise, the jackasses will just set up trash accounts. Besides, AC's do serve a useful purpose.
Limit people to 1 account per e-mail, and don't allow the use of free e-mail accounts by default (no hotmail.com, no juno.com). If you really do only have a hotmail account, you should ask the SlashCrew for personal intervention, or perhaps a "sponsership" system whereby a person with more than 10 karma vouches for you.
Now the fuse is lit.
Re:3dfx is doing this a little too late.
on
3dfx Does OpenGL
·
· Score: 2
kinda creepy knowing that the framework of a 3d scene is NEVER actually standing still.
Actually, neither is ANYTHING you see: your eyes are constantly twitching back and forth at about 70 Hz. This jitter allows your brain to interpolate the data from the retina, thus increasing the effective resolution. Kinda funny how hardware imitates life.
Sorry, but I do know what I am talking about. Sarcasm is about going full bore 180 degrees away from what you feel: the sarcastic way to say this would be "I care so much about...", not "I could care less..."
Sorry for the pendantry, but "could care less", the perennial lose loose mistake, etc. are really stupid for a bunch of folks from whom greater precision in speech can be expected.
(Normally I'd not post this, since I don't know how many people would benefit from it, but the story did ask...)
I live in a wide spot in the road, 15 miles SW of Wichita, KS. My local phone company (which isn't a baby Bell, but an independant) is also my ISP, since they are my only choice (any other ISP would be a long distance call). They started out being pretty lame, running on some abomination of a Windows based server called GalaxyComm. When I ordered service, they asked, "What kind of computer do you have, Windows or Mac?" "Unix" "<E_OSNOTFOUND> -- What kind of computer do you have...." Every month or so they'd dink with something, and change the login proceedure from begin done before the PPP link came up to PAP. I'd call them and ask them to make up their minds (politely), and they'd say they didn't change anything. However, eventually they started to clue in, and things stabilzed.
One day, there was a bright light over their office, Angels Sang, and they converted to running Linux (note to BSD bigots: by this I mean they went to a Unix-like system, as apposed to NT. We are all on the same side.). Things got much better (and I have to wonder if their sysadmin didn't start realizing that I actually DID know what I am talking about...)
Then I received a flyer in my phone bill: they were offering DSL in "limited areas". I knew the answer, but sometimes it's the questions you don't ask, so I called them: "I know I'm dreaming, but will DSL be available in Viola?" "We are doing an experiment this afternoon, and if it looks good, yes." "OK, then, thank you anyway... WHAT!?!?!" The experiment was a success, and I signed up the next day. They sent the tech out to survey the site. <scene="my_front_porch">
Tech: "OK, we need to see if you are close enough to the CO"
Me: picks up dirt clod. Throws, off-hand. Loud thunk as clod bounces off central office
Tech: "OK, I think that's a pass"
Me: "What are you guys running, G.DMMT or G.Lite?"
Tech: apoligetically "Oh, we are running G.DMMT, I'm sorry"
Me: enthusiastically "NoNoNo, G.DMMT is great, I want G.DMMT!"
</scene>
(In case you don't know, G.DMMT (pron. "god-dammit") means they put a splitter at the NID (network interface device, the box on the side of your house), as compared to G.Lite, where every phone in your house has to have a splitter, which KILLS your signal)
I threw a third NIC into my firewall, and pulled CAT-5 from the NID, and set up a jack for the DSL feed next to the server. They came out, walked into the house. "Which computer does this go on, that one?" "No" "That one?" "No" "That one?" "No, walk this way." They got the DSL router! running, and the installer asks me for a piece of paper, upon which he writes 2 IP addresses. "This is your gateway address, and this is your address." "<E_NOT_DHCP> You mean you're giving me a FIXED IP ADDRESS?" "Yes, it's easier for us than setting up DHCP, and you're going to always up anyway."
Now, being that the service is through the phone company, they take downtime very seriously, and other than one time their main router went stupid (e.g. I could get to them, they couldn't get to the 'Net), I've had no service interruptions.
(Egads! when will this guy shut up!) Be thankful I didn't tell you how my brand new NIC was bad, or how my server's mobo died that day, or....
The reason I am going into such detail is that I want to show that not ALL DSL providers are jackasses, nor are all DSL providers huge faceless companies. You might be surprised if you can get a smaller ISP/Phone company to service you. For $60 I have my connection (384/128 minemineMINE ALL MINE I DON'T HAVE TO SHARE WITH ANYBODY ELSE), in-house service, and my account. (Remember, there's not any other choice where I live, they could REALLY screw me on this) Servers? You got the bandwidth, it's your problem, just don't break the law, mkay? You're using a NAT firewall and feeding your network in the house? And this should concern us how?
As you can see, I'm rather pleased with my experience. Now, if the !@#()$* mirrors would free up so I can pull RH7.0 down!
Has anybody else come to the conclusion that I have, namely that NonMindO's sprite editor must have crashed back in the late 1970's? The only thing they seem to be able to get out of it are Mario's. And that little splat of a character, Kirby.
Slashdot Mirror
There was an example of this effect on one episode of Gilligan's Island (of all places): The castaways were voting on who to make the leader and second-in-command of the island. Everybody voted for themselves as leader, but for second-in-command everybody voted for Gilligan.
This of course begs the question of whether we want a Gilligan running things.
However, compared to the current crop....
s/No Fear/No Brains/g
No, what I want is for Max Ary of The Kansas Cosmosphere to get it. He's grabbed more Soviet/Russian gear than anybody else in the free world. If the Russians crash Mir into the ocean, expect Max out there with a big catcher's mitt.
I disagree. Anything that removes stupid people from the gene pool (preferably before they breed) is a good thing.
</humor>
Actually, stupid people are why this will never really take off (no pun intended) in the US. Just look at general aviation. An alternator for a '73 Ford costs $50, the alternator for a '83 Cessna costs $300. Same alternator, save the FAA approval tag on the Cessna. Why is the Cessna more expensive? Liability insurance: your '73 Ford seizes up, are you going to file a multimillion dollar suit? Your Cessna crashes, will your heirs?
Any geek worth his NaCl should have a subscription to Science News (http://www.sciencenews.org). It's a weekly publication, and covered this a couple of weeks ago.
It also covered a possible loophole in the second law of thermodynamics that might make a perpetual motion machine of the second type possible, using Quantum Dynamics.
Go take a look.
You try having your notebook, a Circuits II book, the test paper, and a calculator on a desk measuring 14 by 14 inches.
Yes, don't bother to read my comment. Don't bother to see that I actually mentioned the good of using a computer in class. Don't bother to read that I am simply advising that student's not use the tool as a crutch. Assign a funny name to me to denigrate my position, and don't comment upon the actual meat of my arguement.
I don't know which is more pathetic: that you wrote this, or some moderated wasted a point because he felt it was insightful. Sad, really.
(and please note: I've forgone my +1 on this reply.)
This might not be a good thing, IFF the students stop thinking and just become LIDs (Living Input Devices).
A case study: when I was in undergraduate engineering school (1983-1987), many if not most of the students had HP-CV calculators with the engineering formula add-on pack. I had a TI-35. During one test in Circuits II, I dropped my calculator, and the keyboard came apart, scattering the keys over the floor. I re-assembled my calculator, and still managed to complete the test before anybody else in the class (and get one of the highest scores on the test.)
Why was I able to complete the test? Because I had the good fortune to have had a high school teacher who beat it into my brain to solve the equations first, then crunch the numbers. Most of my classmates just started plugging the numbers into the equations, then taking the resulting numbers and plugging them into the next set of equations, et cetera.
By actually doing the algebra, I was able to reduce out all the pi's, root-2's, and so forth, and come up with simple equations that were far more accurate than the results of the other students. And since I had to type far fewer numbers into my calculator, I was far faster than they were. Finally, since I actually saw what happened in the circuit ("Ah! so that resistor doesn't effect the output voltage, because I just cancelled it out of the equation!"), I had a deeper understanding of the theory.
My point is, that while a computer is a great tool for many things (I shan't tell you about taking my Atari 800 and monitor into my Linear algebra class to run my Gaussian Elimination program on the final....) it must not become a substitute for thinking. I fear that the students in this school won't learn to do algebra (rather they will just use Mathcad student's edition), won't learn to spel korrecktly, and not will grammer learn ("It looks like you are writing a term paper. Would you like to cut and paste some text from Encarta?").
Yes it was, but it was a rant after my own heart. I cannot tell you how annoying I find programs that claim focus to be. To use a real world analogy:
Programmers should try to relate program behavior back to the real world as much as possible (that's what I do!): if it would be rude to do it in the real world, it's rude to do it in my computer. That means interrupting me (focus stealing), spying on me, trying to fasten a radio tracking collar on me when I enter a store (needless cookies), or anything else.
As I said, Apple is not a friend of Open Source/Free Software.
Of course, we could just slop it in any old way.
No, wait. Excuse me. Long day at the office. I confused proper programmers with that other OS.
(actually, I obviously love to keep harping on this, or I wouldn't.)
Apple is not now, nor have they ever been, a friend of the open source movement. Were they a friend, they would at least release a binary only, closed source version of Quicktime for Linux. Better still, a binary-only plug-in for Xanim. Best, they would release the Sorenson decoder source (the real magic of these things is not in the decoder, but in the ENCODER: figuring out what data to eliminate is the hard work, reconstructing it is relatively easy.)
What has Apple done for the open source or free software movements? They've released yet another kernel for PPC. Nice, but we already have several OSS and free software kernels out there.
The next time Apple tries to milk the movements for free publicity, stand up and call them on it.
(Now's your queue to do an Emily LeTella: "Oh, nevermind").
The battery uses PROTONS, not PHOTONS, as the charge carrier. Rather than using large ions as the primary way to shuttle charge across the battery, they use H+ ions (a.k.a. protons) to move the charge. The only photons involved are the virtual photons mediating the electromagnetic force.
Actually, no. The problem is that the lens of your eye is not optically perfect. This imperfection is magnified (no pun intended) when the pupil is wide, and reduced as the pupil comes to a point.
This is the reason why some of the contact lens companies are making a big deal about "better than 20-20" correction: the contact lens can correct the imperfect lens of the eye to a point where near-optimal focus is achived.
Additionally, some researchers are looking into using active optics to bring focus in the eye to the limits of diffraction: in fact, the focus so achivied is so fine, that a HeNe laser (red, 632.8 nm) can be perceived as green, IF the spot falls on a green cone, rather than a red cone. In short, our vision system does not approach the limits of diffraction, but is limited by the accuraccy of focus of the lens.
Actually, the wider the pupil, the less resolution you have. This is the same effect as a pin-hole camera or squinting: by reducing the apeture to a point, the image will be in perfect focus for any focal length.
Funny how a site dedicated to such a powerful system is now slashdotted and not responding.
However, most cable modems don't pass your NIC's MAC to the network, rather they pass their ID. It is almost certainly possible for the cable company to track your MAC address, however I've had no luck tracking the MACs of the jackasses who probe my system.
Sad to say, neither does monitoring of what you do online. If you think people in your country (whatever it may be) aren't monitoring you.... Well, all I can ask is, "What is the speed of light in the little universe you are in?"
We are all in danger of losing our privacy.
These two modifications prevent (in large part) the creation of "mule" accounts to alter moderation. Ideally, Rob would also reset everybody's karma to 0 at this point, to prevent the currently existing mules from being able to corrupt the system. (and before you bitch, I'm setting at 125 right now, so I do have a fair amount to lose.)
This prevents the common occurrence of a comment being moderated to +5 because several people tried to moderated it from 2 to 3 (for example). I know that several minutes can elapse from the time I get a page to the time I submit the moderation, during which others may have moderated the comment as well.
Again, this is to prevent mule accounts from corrupting M2.
This way, Rob&Co cannot be blamed for the bitchslapping: the community did it. This quickly removes the trolls.
Now the fuse is lit.
Actually, neither is ANYTHING you see: your eyes are constantly twitching back and forth at about 70 Hz. This jitter allows your brain to interpolate the data from the retina, thus increasing the effective resolution. Kinda funny how hardware imitates life.
Sorry, but I do know what I am talking about. Sarcasm is about going full bore 180 degrees away from what you feel: the sarcastic way to say this would be "I care so much about...", not "I could care less..."
Sorry for the pendantry, but "could care less", the perennial lose loose mistake, etc. are really stupid for a bunch of folks from whom greater precision in speech can be expected.
Has anybody else noticed that the alleged Latest Linux software link on the DiVX;^) page is a 404?
The proper phrase is "Couldn't care less": if you could care less, then you care some.
(what the hell, I'm still way above 50 karma...)
I live in a wide spot in the road, 15 miles SW of Wichita, KS. My local phone company (which isn't a baby Bell, but an independant) is also my ISP, since they are my only choice (any other ISP would be a long distance call). They started out being pretty lame, running on some abomination of a Windows based server called GalaxyComm. When I ordered service, they asked, "What kind of computer do you have, Windows or Mac?" "Unix" "<E_OSNOTFOUND> -- What kind of computer do you have...." Every month or so they'd dink with something, and change the login proceedure from begin done before the PPP link came up to PAP. I'd call them and ask them to make up their minds (politely), and they'd say they didn't change anything. However, eventually they started to clue in, and things stabilzed.
One day, there was a bright light over their office, Angels Sang, and they converted to running Linux (note to BSD bigots: by this I mean they went to a Unix-like system, as apposed to NT. We are all on the same side.). Things got much better (and I have to wonder if their sysadmin didn't start realizing that I actually DID know what I am talking about...)
Then I received a flyer in my phone bill: they were offering DSL in "limited areas". I knew the answer, but sometimes it's the questions you don't ask, so I called them: "I know I'm dreaming, but will DSL be available in Viola?" "We are doing an experiment this afternoon, and if it looks good, yes." "OK, then, thank you anyway... WHAT!?!?! " The experiment was a success, and I signed up the next day. They sent the tech out to survey the site.
<scene="my_front_porch">
</scene>
(In case you don't know, G.DMMT (pron. "god-dammit") means they put a splitter at the NID (network interface device, the box on the side of your house), as compared to G.Lite, where every phone in your house has to have a splitter, which KILLS your signal)
I threw a third NIC into my firewall, and pulled CAT-5 from the NID, and set up a jack for the DSL feed next to the server. They came out, walked into the house. "Which computer does this go on, that one?" "No" "That one?" "No" "That one?" "No, walk this way." They got the DSL router! running, and the installer asks me for a piece of paper, upon which he writes 2 IP addresses. "This is your gateway address, and this is your address." "<E_NOT_DHCP> You mean you're giving me a FIXED IP ADDRESS?" "Yes, it's easier for us than setting up DHCP, and you're going to always up anyway."
Now, being that the service is through the phone company, they take downtime very seriously, and other than one time their main router went stupid (e.g. I could get to them, they couldn't get to the 'Net), I've had no service interruptions.
(Egads! when will this guy shut up! ) Be thankful I didn't tell you how my brand new NIC was bad, or how my server's mobo died that day, or....
The reason I am going into such detail is that I want to show that not ALL DSL providers are jackasses, nor are all DSL providers huge faceless companies. You might be surprised if you can get a smaller ISP/Phone company to service you. For $60 I have my connection (384/128 minemineMINE ALL MINE I DON'T HAVE TO SHARE WITH ANYBODY ELSE), in-house service, and my account. (Remember, there's not any other choice where I live, they could REALLY screw me on this) Servers? You got the bandwidth, it's your problem, just don't break the law, mkay? You're using a NAT firewall and feeding your network in the house? And this should concern us how?
As you can see, I'm rather pleased with my experience. Now, if the !@#()$* mirrors would free up so I can pull RH7.0 down!
Has anybody else come to the conclusion that I have, namely that NonMindO's sprite editor must have crashed back in the late 1970's? The only thing they seem to be able to get out of it are Mario's. And that little splat of a character, Kirby.
Heck, they even did a Tetris clone with Mario's
It must run on Windows....
</humor>