I think you're getting confused with "Received" headers, where each mail system inserts its own bit of tracking information
Which, for all completeness, is now also totally useless since spammers use compromised boxen to do the dirty work from them (hence you can only track it back to some worm-infected box owned by grandma who's just been taken to the hospital with a severe cramp in the left side of the body after pressing the 'Ctrl' key 4,523,098 times when the computer said 'press any key to continue'. This, of course, after the RMA'd keyboard arrived, which yet again did not contain the 'any' key, but did come with a friendly letter clearing up the issue.)
All seriousness aside, as an owner of a common word domain name, I get to be the target of many a spammer. Not in the To field, but in the From field.
For said domain, I receive everything that is sent to *@mydomain.tld. I used this to keep track of which people would sell my email address. For example if I had to register with shavedpussy.com, I'd give them the email address: shavedpussy.com@mydomain.tld. Now when I get spam at that email address I know I can't trust shavedpussy.com and it hurts my feelings.
Well, the motherfucker, fudgepacker [no, sorry, I take that back. I'm ovbiously drawing a blank, there's gotta be a better suiting swearword out there.] spammers have decided that it would be a great idea to send their crap from those owned computers, forging the From field to something like randomcrap@mydomain.tld.
So now I get hundreds of emails a day from all those friendly mail servers around that world that Jake is Out Of the Office, and that sillybunns@telstar.com is not a Known User. I'm the most grateful person on the planet, obviously, to have been relayed this information. I think the SMTP protocol is swell and any software that automatically replies to email is a Good Thing(tm).
So my sneaky system has been turned against me by the exact people that I was trying to defeat. Now I have to block *@mydomain.tld and specifically add any new email that I assign. I'm extatic, because it's not a lot of work at all and just in general I'm bored most of the time, so I can use the distraction.
It actually didn't work that well anyways, because after receiving spam to mom845@mydomain.tld I realized that mom just couldn't resist the excitement of sending just one more eCard because this one was just too funny to not send. At least she stopped forwarding me chain-letters (which she really wasn't into, but this one was for a good cause) with all the email addresses in the To or Cc field. She's good now, she puts the addresses in the Bcc field. Of course after learning of this technique she broadcasted an email to everyone she knew to make sure that they were aware of it as well. Cc: mom452@mydomain.tld.
The point of my story: let's say I have changed my mind about the right to bear arms. And I understand that the intention of the constitution may not be my interpretation of it and all, but times change and since spammers didn't exist when the constitution was written, I figure I'm a pretty well regulated Militia, and spammers, well, they just screw things up. (I'm still working on the wording of that a little, it's become terribly hard to interpret the part about security and stuff, especially now that Ashcroft is playing grab-ass with anyone willing to pitch in a dime to keep Patriot Act II moving along, but that's an whole nother can of worms. Speaking of worms....).
I never get mail worth reading from total strangers.
Funny how that works. I have a small website where I advertise consultancy software development. I'm not interested to come up with complex systems for people to contact me, I'm not an "HTML programmer", I do very different kind of stuff. So I just have a (spam-safe) email link on the contact page. So the email I get from people that look at that site is probably the most important email I ever get. It pays for the bills and stuff.
Just to show how things can be totally different for different people.
First of all, installing this in used cars is stupid, mostly because it is expensive:
I owned a very fast car once. It came with an aftermarket alarm. It had an ignition interlock, the insurance company required it. Guess what failed? I tell you, it's a hell of a lot of fun to have your ignition kick in and out while you are applying 300 horsepower to the rear wheels.
Perhaps tougher penalties and larger fines for people who actually drive drunk would be a better idea
As someone who was convicted for DUI, I can tell you the punishment is not trivial. It's just that most people don't realize what kind of impact the punishment has on your live. (and yes, I am thankful that I got a DUI _before_ I actually hurt someone else, and NO, I don't drink and drive EVER anymore)
You will spend time dealing with it on a daily basis, for probably half a year or more. And that's for a 'simple' DUI, e.g. just being pulled over for a trivial reason and being found under the influence.
If you think that a night in jail, between $1000.- and $6000.- cost in fines and lawyers, 1 month no driving at all, 5 months no driving except to work, forced classes for one night a week for 6 weeks and two nights a week for 6 weeks and 10 weeks or so community service work every Saturday (or alternatively 48 hours or so in jail) is trivial, then a DUI might be just the thing for you. Of course if you actually hurt someone else in the process the punishment is most likely to be a lot worse than what I just described, not to mention that you'd have to live with the guild for the rest of your life.
I think it would probably help to 'educate' drinkers about what the consequences really are.
What also would help is: - don't give people j-walking tickets when they cross the street to get to a cab (I've seen it happen in Mountain View, CA) - let taxis pick people up close to bars (Again Mountain View city for a while did not allow this, you had to walk to the train station) - don't have taxi monopolies where only this or that taxi company is allowed to service a certain area (dare I say, again...) so it takes 3 hours before the freakin taxi arrives because they're busy - have (m|h)otels with 24 hour check-in around areas with bars etc (this is how I got my DUI, the hotel we intended to stay at, had 'closed' for the night...) - have fairly regular public transport until at least 2 or 3 am
In other words, make it EASY to NOT take the car. I know this is the responsibility of people who drink, the trouble is that most people that drink and drive just don't think it's a very big deal. They need to realize that they have to work on alternative transportation methods.
"From a pragmatic point of view I think it's an absolutely appalling idea. It would put me out of a job," says Martin Surrey, who tunes pianos for the English National Opera company.
No shit, Sherlock.
Welcome to the world of automation. The other 99.9999% of the population has had their work been influenced by it for a couple of decades now.
Well, it's particularly bad when they actually have this quote in Eric's little blurb:
Annoyed by the fact that most people misuse the term "hacker," he wrote The Hacker's Dictionary and How to Be a Hacker. (Raymond says the basic difference is that "hackers build things, crackers break them.")
In other words, they should have known the difference.
In any case, the biggest problem is that they grouped two totally different types of people. I know I wouldn't want to be in a list where some of the pictures are actually police mug-shots.
Say that again when I'm able to buy even a miserably small home.
You gotta love quotes like this:
adding that it would create more high-value jobs in the US than people could imagine today.
In laymen's terms: we're outsourcing the toilet-cleaning and we are all going to have nice jobs counting money.
When are people like that going to get off their high-freaking-horse?
Oh yeah, I forgot, people in the US are so incredibly smart, there simply isn't a comparison.
Well, this is starting to sound like flamebait, it's not what I intended. I just think it's about time they start taking into account some pretty damn serious issues in the 'homeland'. A government that couldn't care less about the constitution, supreme court judges that are corrupt, companies buying laws, patents and related lawsuits killing even the simplest of inovation, I hate to say it, but if nothing changes, then the future of the US looks pretty grim.
This lawyer sounds like a real whack job. Was his name Lionel Hutz, by chance? You can't agree to something like this by default. Especially in a situation where someone is asking you to sign a document with possibly illegal terms that ask you to give up some of your legal rights. Either you signed it or you didn't. If default agreements were permitted, you could get people to 'agree' to all kinds of things that they didn't even realize.
a) the lawyer did not say that they would win, just that it could be an argument they would use if it ever came to a court case.
b) I willfully started working there, knowing that part of my employment agreement is signing an NDA.
Btw. a signature is NOT the only method of proving you have an agreement. In fact, technically you don't need a signature for anything. A signature has just become an accepted proof in court. But according to the law, if I say "I will buy your car for $1000.-", then that's legally an agreement. (Of course in court I would say that I absolutely intend to buy your car for that amount, in 2104).
So if they can proof that they gave me documents that state that my employment is contingent upon me agreeing to an NDA, and that they gave me the NDA, then by starting the job, they could argue that I agreed to the NDA.
Again, because of the lack of signature, it's hard to say if such a case would hold up in court, but it's very naive to think that the legal system is so black and white.
I've been looking at that site for a while. There's some dubious stuff going on from time to time. One of the things I noticed recently is this bid request:
I want to know flash bios writing example for my educational purpose. I want to to write "abc..xyz" on flash bios boot block. Program should be compatible with various chipset motherboards like Intel 810,815,845,SIS 530/630,VIA,ALI (and so on...) and also compatible with Award BIOS/Americal Megatrends having different flash chips or capacity like Intel,SST,WINBOND,Atmel,EON....5V/12V etc. I know what I will get after that "A dead motherboard". Don't worry I have three extra motherboard and a flash utility to backup/restore bios boot block. (emph. mine)
I wanted to reply: "you aren't accidently writing a virus, are you?"
I told HR that I could not sign this before I spoke with my lawyer about it.
Initially I hoped they would forget about it, but they didn't. I did speak with my lawyer, and he said that it would not be a good idea to forget about it. The company could argue that I agreed with it by default.
The good thing about the stall though is that you have a little more negotiation room. You've proven yourself, and they probably don't want to get rid of you anymore.
My lawyer said that if he'd been on the Companies side, he would not buckle. But since he was on my side, he said that I should certainly negotiate on the sections that I did not like.
Preferably you get those sections out entirely, because once it comes down to wording it gets very tricky and you should really leave it up to a lawyer.
When talking to the lawyer, I came up with a solution pertaining inventions:
My company wanted me to list all prior inventions that I'd made. Although I didn't use these exact words, I said that was insane, and none of their business. So I asked my lawyer if I could file these inventions with him, so they'd be registered at a certain date. That way I can always prove that I invented it before starting at the company and they don't have to know what it is.
Obviously it would be better to have this list filed before you start working.
Regarding stuff you invent while working for the company, if it is related to their business, I think it's hard to argue that you should own it.
In all honesty, even though you do it on your own time, own equipment etc etc, your still going to use knowledge/ideas that you came up with during work hours.
More likely would be where you'd come up with an idea during the day time, but since it's all in your head, who's going to know, right? Then at night you develop it. You can see how this could be harmful for the company. Especially with programmers, they are going to expect a certain level of creativeness. That's why they have to protect against conflict of interest. I personally had no problem signing that part of the deal.
For that matter, most properly written software will be portable, at the source level, among POSIX-compliant systems, meaning not only Linux but a wide range of other UNIX systems.
I think you are pushing it a tad here. You got to keep in mind that the original question came from a Windows (or GUI) background. Sure, Posix works dandy for command line apps, but in my experience, MOST Windows programmers don't even know how to write one of those. (even though it's remarkably easy)
but sometimes you really have to wonder how the hacker community can take having borderline criminals like these three brothers calling themselves part of hackerdom.
Borderline? One of them went to jail for 4 years. Not exactly borderline, I'd say; convicted criminal is more like it. They scammed $2 million.
I just love the quote "He and his sightless brothers have devoted their lives to proving they can out-think, out-program, and out-hack anyone with vision"
If they are so fucking smart, why do they resort to being criminals to prove their point?
Is it just me or are people becoming less critical about what a valid news sources is? 'Someone told me...' on a 'blog'?
That doesn't carry quite the weight of the BBC and Reuters to me, but I suppose there's a good chance no-one was threatened by a 'democratic' government during the production of the article, so maybe it's less biased than some.
It's true. I read somewhere else that a guy 'single-handedly' invented the method.
And I actually have some 'first hand' experience.
Seriously though, wether it is true or not is not that important, the concept is what matters.
A friend of mine had a Lada Niva and decided to treat his girlfriend to some unannounced 4 wheel driving.
He decided to take it through a little pond (he'd done it before). So in the middle of the pond the engine stalled. The water level of the pond was up to about the door opener, and by now the water level inside the car was picking up as well. Of course the engine would never start again.
Long story short, his girlfriend had to swing to the side of the pond. She may not have mind as much had she been dressed somewhat for the occasion.
Wow, the first comment that is actually moderated appropriate, the majority of the +5s is of people who have never even seen the freaking system.
Anyways, I think you are maybe a little over enthusiastic about this system. I _had_ it, in South Lake Tahoe. The real reason we got rid of it was that we moved, but even if we'd stayed, I don't know that we would have kept it.
I don't remember this in great detail, but I remember the connection was terrible at first. I couldn't get to my POP mail servers sometimes, and sometimes couldn't SSH into a remote server.
Then I ran some (windows only) software that Direcway provided, and things improved a lot. If I remember correctly, I found out later that all the software did was change some TCP/IP related registry settings (like the MTU, I believe).
So you may be able to tweak your Linux box to work well with it too.
I still would say that it's a lot closer to a 56K modem then a 1.5Mb/s DSL line, but you do have the benefit of 'always on' and large downloads are a lot faster than with a 56K modem.
In my experience the service was not terribly reliable, we had outages fairly frequently (not weather related btw.) and sometimes there were dramatic changes in performance.
When I was searching for a higher speed solution, I also got quotes for a T1 line. I think it ended up being something like 600-700$/mo. Which of course is directly TAX deductable if you run a business and/or are a sole-proprietor.
I also learned that AT&T garantuees that they can put in a T1 in _any_ location in the country, I believe for $1000/mo max.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm enthrilled to see that the mods agree with this racist bullshit.
Just cause the guy is black doesn't mean it's going to be Men in Black nor that there will be Hip Hop. JC what a bunch of stereo-typical crap.
Maybe there IS going to be Hip Hop. So the fuck what?
I don't remember Douglas Adams ever pointing out the color of Ford's skin.
I think you're getting confused with "Received" headers, where each mail system inserts its own bit of tracking information
Which, for all completeness, is now also totally useless since spammers use compromised boxen to do the dirty work from them (hence you can only track it back to some worm-infected box owned by grandma who's just been taken to the hospital with a severe cramp in the left side of the body after pressing the 'Ctrl' key 4,523,098 times when the computer said 'press any key to continue'. This, of course, after the RMA'd keyboard arrived, which yet again did not contain the 'any' key, but did come with a friendly letter clearing up the issue.)
All seriousness aside, as an owner of a common word domain name, I get to be the target of many a spammer. Not in the To field, but in the From field.
For said domain, I receive everything that is sent to *@mydomain.tld. I used this to keep track of which people would sell my email address. For example if I had to register with shavedpussy.com, I'd give them the email address: shavedpussy.com@mydomain.tld. Now when I get spam at that email address I know I can't trust shavedpussy.com and it hurts my feelings.
Well, the motherfucker, fudgepacker [no, sorry, I take that back. I'm ovbiously drawing a blank, there's gotta be a better suiting swearword out there.] spammers have decided that it would be a great idea to send their crap from those owned computers, forging the From field to something like randomcrap@mydomain.tld.
So now I get hundreds of emails a day from all those friendly mail servers around that world that Jake is Out Of the Office, and that sillybunns@telstar.com is not a Known User. I'm the most grateful person on the planet, obviously, to have been relayed this information. I think the SMTP protocol is swell and any software that automatically replies to email is a Good Thing(tm).
So my sneaky system has been turned against me by the exact people that I was trying to defeat. Now I have to block *@mydomain.tld and specifically add any new email that I assign. I'm extatic, because it's not a lot of work at all and just in general I'm bored most of the time, so I can use the distraction.
It actually didn't work that well anyways, because after receiving spam to mom845@mydomain.tld I realized that mom just couldn't resist the excitement of sending just one more eCard because this one was just too funny to not send. At least she stopped forwarding me chain-letters (which she really wasn't into, but this one was for a good cause) with all the email addresses in the To or Cc field. She's good now, she puts the addresses in the Bcc field. Of course after learning of this technique she broadcasted an email to everyone she knew to make sure that they were aware of it as well. Cc: mom452@mydomain.tld.
The point of my story: let's say I have changed my mind about the right to bear arms. And I understand that the intention of the constitution may not be my interpretation of it and all, but times change and since spammers didn't exist when the constitution was written, I figure I'm a pretty well regulated Militia, and spammers, well, they just screw things up. (I'm still working on the wording of that a little, it's become terribly hard to interpret the part about security and stuff, especially now that Ashcroft is playing grab-ass with anyone willing to pitch in a dime to keep Patriot Act II moving along, but that's an whole nother can of worms. Speaking of worms....).
I never get mail worth reading from total strangers.
Funny how that works. I have a small website where I advertise consultancy software development. I'm not interested to come up with complex systems for people to contact me, I'm not an "HTML programmer", I do very different kind of stuff. So I just have a (spam-safe) email link on the contact page. So the email I get from people that look at that site is probably the most important email I ever get. It pays for the bills and stuff.
Just to show how things can be totally different for different people.
I don't like to start new threads
Because Karma to effort ratio is too low (especially if you post more than 5 minutes after the story got posted)?
First of all, installing this in used cars is stupid, mostly because it is expensive:
I owned a very fast car once. It came with an aftermarket alarm. It had an ignition interlock, the insurance company required it. Guess what failed? I tell you, it's a hell of a lot of fun to have your ignition kick in and out while you are applying 300 horsepower to the rear wheels.
Perhaps tougher penalties and larger fines for people who actually drive drunk would be a better idea
As someone who was convicted for DUI, I can tell you the punishment is not trivial. It's just that most people don't realize what kind of impact the punishment has on your live. (and yes, I am thankful that I got a DUI _before_ I actually hurt someone else, and NO, I don't drink and drive EVER anymore)
You will spend time dealing with it on a daily basis, for probably half a year or more. And that's for a 'simple' DUI, e.g. just being pulled over for a trivial reason and being found under the influence.
If you think that a night in jail, between $1000.- and $6000.- cost in fines and lawyers, 1 month no driving at all, 5 months no driving except to work, forced classes for one night a week for 6 weeks and two nights a week for 6 weeks and 10 weeks or so community service work every Saturday (or alternatively 48 hours or so in jail) is trivial, then a DUI might be just the thing for you. Of course if you actually hurt someone else in the process the punishment is most likely to be a lot worse than what I just described, not to mention that you'd have to live with the guild for the rest of your life.
I think it would probably help to 'educate' drinkers about what the consequences really are.
What also would help is:
- don't give people j-walking tickets when they cross the street to get to a cab (I've seen it happen in Mountain View, CA)
- let taxis pick people up close to bars (Again Mountain View city for a while did not allow this, you had to walk to the train station)
- don't have taxi monopolies where only this or that taxi company is allowed to service a certain area (dare I say, again...) so it takes 3 hours before the freakin taxi arrives because they're busy
- have (m|h)otels with 24 hour check-in around areas with bars etc (this is how I got my DUI, the hotel we intended to stay at, had 'closed' for the night...)
- have fairly regular public transport until at least 2 or 3 am
In other words, make it EASY to NOT take the car. I know this is the responsibility of people who drink, the trouble is that most people that drink and drive just don't think it's a very big deal. They need to realize that they have to work on alternative transportation methods.
The bill makes no mention of who will have to pay for the device
What a stupid question: you and I will. (as in, anyone that drives a car).
Interesting read. I liked this quote:
"From a pragmatic point of view I think it's an absolutely appalling idea. It would put me out of a job," says Martin Surrey, who tunes pianos for the English National Opera company.
No shit, Sherlock.
Welcome to the world of automation. The other 99.9999% of the population has had their work been influenced by it for a couple of decades now.
Nice photosh^H^H^H^H^H^H^H GIMP job.
lame lameness filter....
Well, it's particularly bad when they actually have this quote in Eric's little blurb:
Annoyed by the fact that most people misuse the term "hacker," he wrote The Hacker's Dictionary and How to Be a Hacker. (Raymond says the basic difference is that "hackers build things, crackers break them.")
In other words, they should have known the difference.
In any case, the biggest problem is that they grouped two totally different types of people. I know I wouldn't want to be in a list where some of the pictures are actually police mug-shots.
Of course he also says later "You can call me Mike"
And monkeys are flying out of my butt.
Say that again when I'm able to buy even a miserably small home.
You gotta love quotes like this:
adding that it would create more high-value jobs in the US than people could imagine today.
In laymen's terms: we're outsourcing the toilet-cleaning and we are all going to have nice jobs counting money.
When are people like that going to get off their high-freaking-horse?
Oh yeah, I forgot, people in the US are so incredibly smart, there simply isn't a comparison.
Well, this is starting to sound like flamebait, it's not what I intended. I just think it's about time they start taking into account some pretty damn serious issues in the 'homeland'. A government that couldn't care less about the constitution, supreme court judges that are corrupt, companies buying laws, patents and related lawsuits killing even the simplest of inovation, I hate to say it, but if nothing changes, then the future of the US looks pretty grim.
This lawyer sounds like a real whack job. Was his name Lionel Hutz, by chance? You can't agree to something like this by default. Especially in a situation where someone is asking you to sign a document with possibly illegal terms that ask you to give up some of your legal rights. Either you signed it or you didn't. If default agreements were permitted, you could get people to 'agree' to all kinds of things that they didn't even realize.
a) the lawyer did not say that they would win, just that it could be an argument they would use if it ever came to a court case.
b) I willfully started working there, knowing that part of my employment agreement is signing an NDA.
Btw. a signature is NOT the only method of proving you have an agreement. In fact, technically you don't need a signature for anything. A signature has just become an accepted proof in court. But according to the law, if I say "I will buy your car for $1000.-", then that's legally an agreement. (Of course in court I would say that I absolutely intend to buy your car for that amount, in 2104).
So if they can proof that they gave me documents that state that my employment is contingent upon me agreeing to an NDA, and that they gave me the NDA, then by starting the job, they could argue that I agreed to the NDA.
Again, because of the lack of signature, it's hard to say if such a case would hold up in court, but it's very naive to think that the legal system is so black and white.
I've been looking at that site for a while. There's some dubious stuff going on from time to time. One of the things I noticed recently is this bid request:
....5V/12V etc. I know what I will get after that "A dead motherboard". Don't worry I have three extra motherboard and a flash utility to backup/restore bios boot block. (emph. mine)
I want to know flash bios writing example for my educational purpose. I want to to write "abc..xyz" on flash bios boot block. Program should be compatible with various chipset motherboards like Intel 810,815,845,SIS 530/630,VIA,ALI (and so on...) and also
compatible with Award BIOS/Americal Megatrends having different flash chips or capacity like
Intel,SST,WINBOND,Atmel,EON
I wanted to reply: "you aren't accidently writing a virus, are you?"
I told HR that I could not sign this before I spoke with my lawyer about it.
Initially I hoped they would forget about it, but they didn't. I did speak with my lawyer, and he said that it would not be a good idea to forget about it. The company could argue that I agreed with it by default.
The good thing about the stall though is that you have a little more negotiation room. You've proven yourself, and they probably don't want to get rid of you anymore.
My lawyer said that if he'd been on the Companies side, he would not buckle. But since he was on my side, he said that I should certainly negotiate on the sections that I did not like.
Preferably you get those sections out entirely, because once it comes down to wording it gets very tricky and you should really leave it up to a lawyer.
When talking to the lawyer, I came up with a solution pertaining inventions:
My company wanted me to list all prior inventions that I'd made. Although I didn't use these exact words, I said that was insane, and none of their business. So I asked my lawyer if I could file these inventions with him, so they'd be registered at a certain date. That way I can always prove that I invented it before starting at the company and they don't have to know what it is.
Obviously it would be better to have this list filed before you start working.
Regarding stuff you invent while working for the company, if it is related to their business, I think it's hard to argue that you should own it.
In all honesty, even though you do it on your own time, own equipment etc etc, your still going to use knowledge/ideas that you came up with during work hours.
More likely would be where you'd come up with an idea during the day time, but since it's all in your head, who's going to know, right? Then at night you develop it. You can see how this could be harmful for the company. Especially with programmers, they are going to expect a certain level of creativeness. That's why they have to protect against conflict of interest. I personally had no problem signing that part of the deal.
Sorry this has become a little bit of a rant...
Oh mama, I've not laughed this hard for a while. Talk about an open goal... ;-)
then there is the 15 second layman appraisal from viewing bits of media coverage
clearly, mydoom is an attack by linux zealots in the mind of the average layman
The unfortunate thing is that the BBC should know better. That's all that needs to be said about this piece of junk.
For that matter, most properly written software will be portable, at the source level, among POSIX-compliant systems, meaning not only Linux but a wide range of other UNIX systems.
I think you are pushing it a tad here. You got to keep in mind that the original question came from a Windows (or GUI) background. Sure, Posix works dandy for command line apps, but in my experience, MOST Windows programmers don't even know how to write one of those. (even though it's remarkably easy)
Two additional (useless) trivia:
1) Bochs & Plex86 are written by the same guy (well, the main developer of both is the same guy).
2) Plex86 used to be called FreeMWare.
but sometimes you really have to wonder how the hacker community can take having borderline criminals like these three brothers calling themselves part of hackerdom.
Borderline? One of them went to jail for 4 years. Not exactly borderline, I'd say; convicted criminal is more like it. They scammed $2 million.
I just love the quote "He and his sightless brothers have devoted their lives to proving they can out-think, out-program, and out-hack anyone with vision"
If they are so fucking smart, why do they resort to being criminals to prove their point?
Thanks for that. I'd never seen it. It's funny, but by far the funniest thing is the look on Gates's face.
Is it just me or are people becoming less critical about what a valid news sources is?
'Someone told me...' on a 'blog'?
That doesn't carry quite the weight of the BBC and Reuters to me, but I suppose there's a good chance no-one was threatened by a 'democratic' government during the production of the article, so maybe it's less biased than some.
It's true. I read somewhere else that a guy 'single-handedly' invented the method.
And I actually have some 'first hand' experience.
Seriously though, wether it is true or not is not that important, the concept is what matters.
Hey, no worries. I was just kidding, nothing wrong with your post. Just thought it was funny. :-)
Hmmm, so you. Are saying. That punctuations should be used. In favor of. Long lines? ;-)
These vehicles were great little workhorses.
Ha, that reminds me of a silly story.
A friend of mine had a Lada Niva and decided to treat his girlfriend to some unannounced 4 wheel driving.
He decided to take it through a little pond (he'd done it before). So in the middle of the pond the engine stalled. The water level of the pond was up to about the door opener, and by now the water level inside the car was picking up as well. Of course the engine would never start again.
Long story short, his girlfriend had to swing to the side of the pond. She may not have mind as much had she been dressed somewhat for the occasion.
Wow, the first comment that is actually moderated appropriate, the majority of the +5s is of people who have never even seen the freaking system.
Anyways, I think you are maybe a little over enthusiastic about this system. I _had_ it, in South Lake Tahoe. The real reason we got rid of it was that we moved, but even if we'd stayed, I don't know that we would have kept it.
I don't remember this in great detail, but I remember the connection was terrible at first. I couldn't get to my POP mail servers sometimes, and sometimes couldn't SSH into a remote server.
Then I ran some (windows only) software that Direcway provided, and things improved a lot. If I remember correctly, I found out later that all the software did was change some TCP/IP related registry settings (like the MTU, I believe).
So you may be able to tweak your Linux box to work well with it too.
I still would say that it's a lot closer to a 56K modem then a 1.5Mb/s DSL line, but you do have the benefit of 'always on' and large downloads are a lot faster than with a 56K modem.
In my experience the service was not terribly reliable, we had outages fairly frequently (not weather related btw.) and sometimes there were dramatic changes in performance.
When I was searching for a higher speed solution, I also got quotes for a T1 line. I think it ended up being something like 600-700$/mo. Which of course is directly TAX deductable if you run a business and/or are a sole-proprietor.
I also learned that AT&T garantuees that they can put in a T1 in _any_ location in the country, I believe for $1000/mo max.