can you please provide a cogent argument for why it is wrong to drive 45 in a 35 zone at 3:00 AM on a country road 10 miles from the nearest house?
No, I can't. Right and wrong in this context is a conditional judgement call, based on road condition, car condition, driver ability/condition, situtational hazards (traffic, potholes, puddles, animals, pedestrians, lighting, weather), etc.
The problem is that law based on personal judgement does not scale well to situations where tens, or hundreds, of millions of drivers' judgement needs policing daily.
Judgement-based law works better for much more rare, by magnitudes, situations like "assault vs. self-defense" or "manslaughter vs. murder".
Most traffic law, due to scale, can only practically be applied to quantitative or objective-state measures (speed limit, signal-color, line-color, etc.) And often those measures, especially speed) are set low to meet a lowest-common-denominator of driver, car, or condition.
It's not perfect, but it's practical and does improve safety overall.
Viruses wouldnt travel here if we closed our borders and let the infected die off elsewhere
Great. You'll also have to ban US citizens from foreign travel, and ban imports and exports. So much for freedom and capitalism. Oh well, at least I get to stay here with dumbasses like you.
You know, I don't get it. You have this vitriolic pseudo-patriotism thing going, but you don't seem to believe in any of this country's founding principles. So what gives?
Its called evolution, the weak perish. So the UN thinks they can do it better then nature?
Well, that is the basis of modern medicine you dumbass.
1 - I'm against the UN both functionaly and conceptionally. My original post was about function, but doesnt mean i cant dislike them fundamentally.
Fine. Whatever. Just stop arguing in non sequitors then, because it makes you sound dumb.
2 - If the *few* things it *might* have done ok doesnt directly benefit me and my country, then its irrelevant to me and a waste of resources.
So you're view basically is, "They weren't lucky enough to be born here, so F'm--let'm suffer and die." That's pretty vile and immoral. I guess we're different people. Thankfully.
BTW, I don't think the world's contageous virii are aware that they should apply for visas prior to entering the US. I'm confident that, left unchecked, they probably would travel to the US and thrive without your permission. Public health efforts have a pretty direct benefit, if you value, well, living.
Regarding your fear of foreign organizations, who don't necessarily represent/respect/acknowledge your valid interests, controlling the internet...I guess you could probably empathize with the folks who don't want a US monopoly then--if you had some capacity for empathy that is.
Uh, okay. But see, your comment was that the UN doesn't do things skillfully, not that "the UN doesn't do things that affect me."
Besides, may I ask how you keep from coming into contact with diseases cured and/or managed by UN efforts? Do you oversee the hygiene and travel itineraries of your friends, family, coworkers, as well as all the random folks you run into at the supermarket? Or do you rely on health organizations that you're apparently not even aware of to constantly analyze and neutralize contageous disease vectors whenever and wherever possible? My guess is te latter.
Most were a waste of time and energy.
Are you fucking kidding me? Personally, I'm confident that right-minded folks overwhelmingly believe that fighting disease and preventing human deaths--regardless of politics--is worth someone's time and energy.
What does domain control have to do with 'internet control'? Its the foot in the door.
The foot in the door of what? You clearly have no technical understanding of the technical issues involved and are just jerking your knee to a nationalist anti-UN tune.
So you don't like the UN. Fine. The internet is international, and eventually, the US will lose its monoply control over IP-space and TLDs. If it's not the UN, it will be the ITU or a new treatied organizaton. It's inevitable.
1. Raising consciousness of the concept of human rights through its covenants and of its attention to specific abuses through its resolutions or rulings. (eg. abolishing Apartheid in South Africa)
2. Health successes such as the World Health Organization's elimination of small pox.
3. The UN's World Food Programme helps feed more than 100 million people a year in 80 countries.
4. The UN has helped run elections in countries with little democratic history including recently in Afghanistan and East Timor.
5. The UN Population Fund is a major provider of reproducitive services especially in poor countries. It has helped reduce infant and maternal mortality in 100 countries.
6. Organizations like the WHO, UNAIDS and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are leading institutions in the battle against AIDS around the world especially in poor countries.
7. The UN has set up war-crimes tribunals to try war criminals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
8. A 1988 Nobel Peace Prize for the UN Peacekeeping forces.
(Note: There's a healthy dose of criticism in the same source material. Some deserved, some likely not...)
and they have no business telling US what to do.
What would they get to "tell us" if they "governed" the internet? And what do you think it means to "govern the internet" anyway?
Besdies they dont acknowledge several of our guaranteed rights here in America.
Sure, but ironically our current administration has the same problem. What does this have to do with overseeing IP address allocations and domain namespaces?
Hey, if you're happy being just a user instead of actually running your own services that's fine.
And if you're happy and get value from running your own services that's fine too. I have nothing against server-geeks...I was one myself before wife and kid took priority over Linux, Bind, Sendmail and Apache.:^)
But the previous company (Stratos) actually addressed the needs of people like me. Corecomm was only interested in the money to be gained from more customers.
Prior to the dot.com boom (and bust) ISPs were for geeks and Joe Consumer used AOL|Compuserve|Prodigy et al. When the boom happened, many excellent small and medium-sized ISPs struggled to stay solvent while maintaining explosive growth in customers, network, staff, and capital expense. Some didn't, such as Stratos. Equipment, bandwidth and staff costs a lot of money--and internet service prices were low and getting lower.
OTOH, many ISPs that commoditized customers, such as Corecomm, survived. They cared (and likely still care) more about positive cash flow than about serving corner case (server-geek) customers. Hence, the cookie-cutter service and crappy techsupport. Still, I can't fault them for acting in their own interest.
On the other hand, Speakeasy has been excellent.
Speakeasy, from what I've heard, is a great geek ISP. And that's a fine thing!
I've only had to deal with customer support four times in five years and each experience was handled flawlessly.
Okay. However, there are other ways server-geek customers eat into a commodity ISP's revenue, such as anomalous bandwidth (over)consumption. ISPs may market "Unlimited" this-or-that, but oversubscription is an essential revenue strategy for any ISP.
I'm not the average consumer and don't expect to be treated like one.
Clearly. And it's good that you've found a provider that serves your needs. But you should not assume that your niche is so large that every ISP should happily accommodate it. It's not.
Corecomm should have known what kind of customers the Stratos user base were when they bought the company.
They probably knew perfectly well. And they probably decided to handle the outliers, customers like you, on a case-by-case basis. They knew that some would sigh and stay, some would cuss and walk. Regardless, they also knew that the bulk of customers wouldn't even know--or care--that anything had changed except maybe their email address.
A fellow network engineer,at an ISP I used to work for, once decreed that in addition to our "Customer Care" department (which advocated internally for customers), we should have a "Customer Don't-Care" department to advocate for the business.
The theory was this: some customers cost more to serve than the revenue generated by their accounts. Hence, they should get a call from a CDC rep saying, "Go away. And don't let the door bruise yer backside going out."
Sounds like you got a CDC call--and probably deserved it--to me.
It's so nice that peoples opinions on networking and security give them a high perch with which to look down on others.
"Ummm. A ROUTER" --Kodack
Ummm. HOW IRONIC.
I'm not some bumpkin who got a router for xmas.
Okay...
I work for a major telecommunications company at a high level troubleshooting networking issues in a wireless environment. GPRS, WAP, in addition to circuit switched networks. You might not think I know my shit but you would be wrong.
Whatever.
And I do know the difference between a firewall and a router.
Hmm. Considering a router completely isolates your private subnet from the internet except for ports you specifically open to the outside world. Yes I would consider it a firewall.
Since I normally hang with fellow service provider networkers, I occasionally forget how funny it can be to hear home-networking/home-server folks discuss their view of networking. Thanks.
IP routers don't isolate networks; they interconnect networks and switch traffic between them based primarily on IP routing tables.
Yes, most home-networking routers, like yours, have firewall and NAT features. But, it's important to remember that only some routers are "end user" network devices, like yours.
Assuming you have an internet connection, there could be many, many transit service routers between you and other home network jockeys. Do you think those transit routers do lots of NAT/PAT/NAPT and firewall filtering? Do you want them to?
And my real world experience with software firewalls has lead me to absolutely believe they are more performance impacting than a router firewall.
Well, almost all consumer routers implement routing, NAT and firewall features in software. In my real world experience, they suck...maybe differently than server-based software firewalls, but there's still an unmistakable woooshing sound. I have to reboot my home broadband router fairly often because it's prone to spontaneous wedgies. By contrast, some of the routers, small and large, I support at work have been forwarding traffic for 1.5 years or more without a failure.
The moral of the story: let the servers serve, let the routers route, let the firewalls wall. They are separate networking functions, and should be done separately whenever real security *and* performance is essential.
More and more modern cable head ends run IP to the customer. It's probably part of a migration plan, where your internet traffic will share bandwidth with your MPEG2/MPEG4/HD content...and phone traffic.
What could an average user legally do with that much bandwidth?
Remote backups,
Send Grandma a whole photo album/slideshow with background music
You've got to be kidding. You don't think that your data sits for a bit while your Barelya Router(tm) SOHO box buffers each packet, reads IP headers, does a translation lookup, and then rewrites every packet, including TCP checksums where applicable?
Then there's some nontrivial protocol problems with, oh, let's see, IPSec/AH, H.323, SNMP, ICMP, and FTP, to name but a few.
You're absolutely right that my definition of fair use was not nearly inclusive enough to be correct. In my defense, the conversational context was my scoping guide. Based on the AC's comments, I didn't get the impression [s]he was borrowing content for creative endeavors...
Regardless, your linked guidelines are quite a bit more inclusive and, in my opinion, they are very well conceived. To be sure, fair use in the context of artistic and intellectual endeavors--rather than the context of pursuing "free" entertainment--is a very compelling concept.
As a supporter of fair use, I always try to download a free copy of a song or movie instead of paying for it.
What an f'ed up definition of "fair use". Fair use is media backup or transfer once you have paid for the original media presentation of a work.
The war on corporate greed (RIAA etc) will not end until artists come to realize that it is wrong to gouge money out of people just for appreciating a creative work.
Artists have always either been commissioned for works, or charged for uncommisioned works displayed for sale in galleries. This has been true since long before either copyright or fair use existed conceptually.
True art comes from creative desire, not the profit motive. Michelangelo did not make his masterpieces with the intent of charging admissions, and neither did Mozart.
Pure. Unadulterated. Crap. Both Michaelangelo and Mozart were both commissioned to create most of their works; even the most famous examples were for profit. Mozart particularly earned box office revenue for symphony presentations.
And, again, that is typical of artists throughout history, prior to "intelectual property" law. The first plays and musicals were done by roving acting troupes who would "pass the hat" afterwords.
Please keep your mucked up version of history private from now on.
But, that's what I meant by layer 4 switch. It wouldn't start sending the packet out the door until it had gotten the first few bytes of the layer three payload so it could apply the layer 4 rules.
Hm, did you mean that it would not start sending the packet out until it had the layer *four* header in hand? Because, if it only has the first few bites of the layer *three* header, then it would not have enough information (destination addr/port) to forward the packet correctly.
And, my point was that if you start sending a packet based on layer three info prior to receiving the layer four header, then you won't have the information you need to apply layer four rules prior to forwarding the packet.
In the case where a layer four rule blocks forwarding, then you'd have a partial packet on the wire already. A large flow of partially blocked packets could conceivably cause a great deal of "runt" congestion and result in higher next-hop switch|router|server cpu loads.
My main concern though is that with two ports, how can I be absolutely certain the packet has to go through my firewall rules before it can go anywhere?
FTA, the card is supposed to coexist nicely with ethernet, so I would assume it presents a single MAC address at layer two and a single IP address at layer three. From other posts, it appears that layers four through seven are handled "normally" by the CPU, as always. Most firewalls and IDS start at layer two or three and go up the stack to at least layer four, so they should work normally with this technology.
If it could handle all the rules for you, then it might even be capable of functioning as a layer 4 switch and sending out a new IP packet before completely recieving said packet.
But with a cut-through[1] switching algorithm you give up layer four visibility, because by definition you start forwarding the frame as soon as you complete a layer three lookup (or cached-flow check) to assign an egress interface. In order to access the layer four header, you need to inspect the first 12 bytes of the layer three payload. Point being, your packet would already be partially out the door before you cracked it open far enough to apply layer four rules.
[1]One popular switch vendor's term for what you described.
But, I'd want all the software on that card to be Open Source.
May I ask why? Is it for operational performance e.g. you believe you can increase the code's quality, operational comfort e.g. you can validate the code, or just a personal preference for open source architectures? Or is it something else? Not implying any criticism; I'm just curious.
You know that at least some of it will likely be in assembler for speed's sake. Even if it is open, it would be a royal pain to modify safely and correctly.
Yet you never offer "another way" that achieves the desired result: the elimination of totalitarian regimes like Imperial Japan.
There may be a better fit, but this smacks of "argumentum ad ignorantium". This fallacy is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is false because it has not been proved true.
"Another way" seems to always mean appeasement of the very real evil
On the logical front this is called a [poorly-executed]* strawman. You've constructed an argument to disagree with, instead of sticking to the argument at hand.
*My 2-cents
BTW, have you noticed that "evil" is rather pragmatically and dynamically defined in US foreign policy endeavors? I mean, our Sec. of Def. shook Sadam's hand mighty enthusastically in the 1980s, did he not?
If you're intellectually honest, you have to acknowledge that the US will insert or bolster a dictatorship whenever it "best" serves our interest. Unfortunately for us, folks who make skilled dictators usually don't also make good lapdogs, and tend to go rogue eventually.
if history has taught us one thing, appeasement never works
Here's the fallacy of hasty generalilzation. BTW, diplomacy and politic is almost always less expensive, less damaging and more durably successful than war. That's the conclusion history actually tends to bear.
In the context of the times, the use of atomic bombs against Imperial Japan was the correct decsion both militarily and politically.
Perhaps. But you've not presented even one valid logical argument to support your assertion. That's the condition of critical thinking these days though.:^(
I tend to agree that the hasty conclusion of the war was, on balance, preferable. Many lives were taken by these bombs, but by most accounts, more were spared by ending the war quickly.
Too bad for the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as it was too bad for the millions of victims of Imperial Japans aggression.
What a nice example of a "red herring" fallacy. A logician would only have to point to lessons learned from Sesame Street to debunk this one; two wrongs don't make a right.
Unfortunately, these aren't. Two of the links refer to a National Science Foundation survey of Science and Engineering Indicators (2000). The others publish methodology and confidence margins.
How does this translate to most, many, majority, all or half?
Well...
Stars: Accuracy of survey results is within +/-3.1% for overall measures for the poll.
Branches: Individual poll questions have an error margin of 7%
Plants/Science: The data came from a National Science Foundation survey from 2000. The survey methodology description below is from the 2001 version of the same survey. One assumes that the NSF can perform consistent scientific surveys...
Population Target: The target population of the 2001 survey was noninstitutionalized adults, age 18 or older, residing in the United States. Sample: 2,000 completed interviews. Variation: The coefficient of variation for a percentage estimate of 50 percent in the total population in 2001 was approximately 2.5 percent.
Investing Knowledge: For results based on the total sample, it can be said with 95 percent confidence that the error attributable to sample and other random effects is plus or minus 4 percentage points...
Earth/Sun: The source data was same NSF survey as the Plant/Science data, with the same sample and variance.
Aside from the indirectly quoted NSF survey, all of the error margins were published right on the same pages where you got the sample sizes. Don't you understand what they mean?
How ironic that you attempted to debunk surveys that measure knowledge.
I've seen several tons of people lamenting the $40 tickets (family of 4) plus $20 snacks ($5/per) for a movie out. Granted $60 is no small number. But the cost of home theater viewing can get very, very large too.
My HT, which I do love and prefer to going out, cost a relatively economical $4400 for the TV, DVD player, VCR, 7.1 receiver, speakers, cables, and in-wall wiring in new construction. Add another $900 for 60 or so DVDs. That's the one-time charges. I could take the whole family out to 88.3 movies for that same money. That's one movie a week for 1.5 years
My "HT" is also my family room, so I didn't go all out on gear. When I build a dedicated room in my unfinished basement, I'm estimating $25,000-$28,000 for equipment and furniture, plus $10,000 construction for a 14x20x9 room. (And then there's the other basement rooms...)
For recurring charges, add another $30+ (beyond basic charges) per month, or ~$400/year, for HD cable, DVR, and 2 movie channel groupings. And maybe $4/month for the rare DVD rental. That's ~$450/year, or another 7 1/2 movies/year I could go out for.
Finally, food and drink at home is, of course, much cheaper than at a theater, but it isn't free. I won't bother estimating how much gets consumed during movies in my house, but it would be considerable.
So, yes, theaters gouge, but HT costs aren't trivial.
I'll open my mouth on this issue, knowing I'll probably lose karma, but whatever.
Good for you. You're a brave person. A very brave, epicly ignorant, tragically judgemental, person.
Any piercing on a man is disgusting. Any.
And your opinion means what to who? May I ask why you even take notice of mens' piercings, generally speaking?
Any piercing on a man is disgusting. Any. An earring makes you look wierd, and you should never get hired for more than the most menial of jobs. Pray tell when the last time you felt good about a earringed guy selling you a product was. Unless you're unusual, as in pierced yourself, never. Multiple earrings, other piercings, enlarged ears...you should never be hired. Who knows - you obviously don't have great morals, so the employer knows that you are a risk.
You've apparently confused the concepts of "critizing" with "thinking critically", because that's a simply ridiculus statement. If you actually base your moral judgement on cosmetic differences in people's appearence, I am forced to doubt *your* morals. Your morality is simple-minded, unstudied, superficial and, honestly, not aligned with Christ's teachings.
And to answer your question: I don't really notice men's earrings, anymore than I notice their shoes, so I'm completely ambivalent. My question to you is, "Why are you looking at men's ears so much?"
You know that the ancient Easter Islanders used to do earlobe lengthening as a rite of passage. They had them so long they hung down to the shoulder
Also, at various times in history, moral Christian men wore wigs, tights, flourishing cuffs and lavish collars. Today, those practices are in your words, "wierd". Today, many good Christian men in the UK wear kilts. Here, in the US, that's considered "wierd". So...do I win your "contrast common cultural fashions" contest?
On women, any earrings lowers my estimation of them. 2 in each ear, and I'm not very impressed with them. Any more, or other piercings, or even just midriff showing, and I consider them very, very, very much in poor taste. As I said, something that pagans do. Of course, you masochists/pagans like that, but Christians don't.
Fine. As long as you understand that no one cares what you find in poor taste, largely because your moral judgement is as shallow as a new-moon tide pool.
Same for tattoos.
I have a older family friend; he's a devoted husband and father of several happy, kind, and successful children. After saving many lives and capturing countless criminals, he retired as a top-ranked state trooper. And he's a very active and popular church leader.
But...he has a faded blue topless hula girl emblazoned on his forearm, that he acquired while earning several highly honored medals in Viet Nam. What an unemployable loser, eh?
Slashdot Mirror
can you please provide a cogent argument for why it is wrong to drive 45 in a 35 zone at 3:00 AM on a country road 10 miles from the nearest house?
No, I can't. Right and wrong in this context is a conditional judgement call, based on road condition, car condition, driver ability/condition, situtational hazards (traffic, potholes, puddles, animals, pedestrians, lighting, weather), etc.
The problem is that law based on personal judgement does not scale well to situations where tens, or hundreds, of millions of drivers' judgement needs policing daily.
Judgement-based law works better for much more rare, by magnitudes, situations like "assault vs. self-defense" or "manslaughter vs. murder".
Most traffic law, due to scale, can only practically be applied to quantitative or objective-state measures (speed limit, signal-color, line-color, etc.) And often those measures, especially speed) are set low to meet a lowest-common-denominator of driver, car, or condition.
It's not perfect, but it's practical and does improve safety overall.
Viruses wouldnt travel here if we closed our borders and let the infected die off elsewhere
Great. You'll also have to ban US citizens from foreign travel, and ban imports and exports. So much for freedom and capitalism. Oh well, at least I get to stay here with dumbasses like you.
You know, I don't get it. You have this vitriolic pseudo-patriotism thing going, but you don't seem to believe in any of this country's founding principles. So what gives?
Its called evolution, the weak perish. So the UN thinks they can do it better then nature?
Well, that is the basis of modern medicine you dumbass.
1 - I'm against the UN both functionaly and conceptionally. My original post was about function, but doesnt mean i cant dislike them fundamentally.
Fine. Whatever. Just stop arguing in non sequitors then, because it makes you sound dumb.
2 - If the *few* things it *might* have done ok doesnt directly benefit me and my country, then its irrelevant to me and a waste of resources.
So you're view basically is, "They weren't lucky enough to be born here, so F'm--let'm suffer and die." That's pretty vile and immoral. I guess we're different people. Thankfully.
BTW, I don't think the world's contageous virii are aware that they should apply for visas prior to entering the US. I'm confident that, left unchecked, they probably would travel to the US and thrive without your permission. Public health efforts have a pretty direct benefit, if you value, well, living.
Regarding your fear of foreign organizations, who don't necessarily represent/respect/acknowledge your valid interests, controlling the internet...I guess you could probably empathize with the folks who don't want a US monopoly then--if you had some capacity for empathy that is.
Guess what? Many, many, many IETF RFP authors are--here it comes--NOT US Citizens, ergo we don't "own" the internet that exists today.
For example, HTTP was conceived by a Brit, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
And which one of those effect me? None.
Uh, okay. But see, your comment was that the UN doesn't do things skillfully, not that "the UN doesn't do things that affect me."
Besides, may I ask how you keep from coming into contact with diseases cured and/or managed by UN efforts? Do you oversee the hygiene and travel itineraries of your friends, family, coworkers, as well as all the random folks you run into at the supermarket? Or do you rely on health organizations that you're apparently not even aware of to constantly analyze and neutralize contageous disease vectors whenever and wherever possible? My guess is te latter.
Most were a waste of time and energy.
Are you fucking kidding me? Personally, I'm confident that right-minded folks overwhelmingly believe that fighting disease and preventing human deaths--regardless of politics--is worth someone's time and energy.
What does domain control have to do with 'internet control'? Its the foot in the door.
The foot in the door of what? You clearly have no technical understanding of the technical issues involved and are just jerking your knee to a nationalist anti-UN tune.
So you don't like the UN. Fine. The internet is international, and eventually, the US will lose its monoply control over IP-space and TLDs. If it's not the UN, it will be the ITU or a new treatied organizaton. It's inevitable.
If they do this, can we just f-ing split off from the rest of the world,
What goal would this accomplish and at what cost?
I dont want them messing with things here,
The internet is not only "here" now. What do you think would change?
they have a really bad track record of doing accomplishing anything,
Except...
1. Raising consciousness of the concept of human rights through its covenants and of its attention to specific abuses through its resolutions or rulings. (eg. abolishing Apartheid in South Africa)
2. Health successes such as the World Health Organization's elimination of small pox.
3. The UN's World Food Programme helps feed more than 100 million people a year in 80 countries.
4. The UN has helped run elections in countries with little democratic history including recently in Afghanistan and East Timor.
5. The UN Population Fund is a major provider of reproducitive services especially in poor countries. It has helped reduce infant and maternal mortality in 100 countries.
6. Organizations like the WHO, UNAIDS and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are leading institutions in the battle against AIDS around the world especially in poor countries.
7. The UN has set up war-crimes tribunals to try war criminals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
8. A 1988 Nobel Peace Prize for the UN Peacekeeping forces.
(Note: There's a healthy dose of criticism in the same source material. Some deserved, some likely not...)
and they have no business telling US what to do.
What would they get to "tell us" if they "governed" the internet? And what do you think it means to "govern the internet" anyway?
Besdies they dont acknowledge several of our guaranteed rights here in America.
Sure, but ironically our current administration has the same problem. What does this have to do with overseeing IP address allocations and domain namespaces?
Only if that's a term of your (c)
So does that mean you can't even view webpages?
According to TFA lead paragraph, it's specific to movies, software, and music downloads.
BTW, even the text content on news sites (and most other sites) is copyrighted.
Hey, if you're happy being just a user instead of actually running your own services that's fine.
:^)
And if you're happy and get value from running your own services that's fine too. I have nothing against server-geeks...I was one myself before wife and kid took priority over Linux, Bind, Sendmail and Apache.
But the previous company (Stratos) actually addressed the needs of people like me. Corecomm was only interested in the money to be gained from more customers.
Prior to the dot.com boom (and bust) ISPs were for geeks and Joe Consumer used AOL|Compuserve|Prodigy et al. When the boom happened, many excellent small and medium-sized ISPs struggled to stay solvent while maintaining explosive growth in customers, network, staff, and capital expense. Some didn't, such as Stratos. Equipment, bandwidth and staff costs a lot of money--and internet service prices were low and getting lower.
OTOH, many ISPs that commoditized customers, such as Corecomm, survived. They cared (and likely still care) more about positive cash flow than about serving corner case (server-geek) customers. Hence, the cookie-cutter service and crappy techsupport. Still, I can't fault them for acting in their own interest.
On the other hand, Speakeasy has been excellent.
Speakeasy, from what I've heard, is a great geek ISP. And that's a fine thing!
I've only had to deal with customer support four times in five years and each experience was handled flawlessly.
Okay. However, there are other ways server-geek customers eat into a commodity ISP's revenue, such as anomalous bandwidth (over)consumption. ISPs may market "Unlimited" this-or-that, but oversubscription is an essential revenue strategy for any ISP.
I'm not the average consumer and don't expect to be treated like one.
Clearly. And it's good that you've found a provider that serves your needs. But you should not assume that your niche is so large that every ISP should happily accommodate it. It's not.
Corecomm should have known what kind of customers the Stratos user base were when they bought the company.
They probably knew perfectly well. And they probably decided to handle the outliers, customers like you, on a case-by-case basis. They knew that some would sigh and stay, some would cuss and walk. Regardless, they also knew that the bulk of customers wouldn't even know--or care--that anything had changed except maybe their email address.
A fellow network engineer ,at an ISP I used to work for, once decreed that in addition to our "Customer Care" department (which advocated internally for customers), we should have a "Customer Don't-Care" department to advocate for the business.
The theory was this: some customers cost more to serve than the revenue generated by their accounts. Hence, they should get a call from a CDC rep saying, "Go away. And don't let the door bruise yer backside going out."
Sounds like you got a CDC call--and probably deserved it--to me.
Ummm. HOW IRONIC.
I'm not some bumpkin who got a router for xmas.
Okay...
I work for a major telecommunications company at a high level troubleshooting networking issues in a wireless environment. GPRS, WAP, in addition to circuit switched networks. You might not think I know my shit but you would be wrong.
Whatever.
And I do know the difference between a firewall and a router.
Hopefully.
Hmm. Considering a router completely isolates your private subnet from the internet except for ports you specifically open to the outside world. Yes I would consider it a firewall.
Since I normally hang with fellow service provider networkers, I occasionally forget how funny it can be to hear home-networking/home-server folks discuss their view of networking. Thanks.
IP routers don't isolate networks; they interconnect networks and switch traffic between them based primarily on IP routing tables.
Yes, most home-networking routers, like yours, have firewall and NAT features. But, it's important to remember that only some routers are "end user" network devices, like yours.
Assuming you have an internet connection, there could be many, many transit service routers between you and other home network jockeys. Do you think those transit routers do lots of NAT/PAT/NAPT and firewall filtering? Do you want them to?
And my real world experience with software firewalls has lead me to absolutely believe they are more performance impacting than a router firewall.
Well, almost all consumer routers implement routing, NAT and firewall features in software. In my real world experience, they suck...maybe differently than server-based software firewalls, but there's still an unmistakable woooshing sound. I have to reboot my home broadband router fairly often because it's prone to spontaneous wedgies. By contrast, some of the routers, small and large, I support at work have been forwarding traffic for 1.5 years or more without a failure.
The moral of the story: let the servers serve, let the routers route, let the firewalls wall. They are separate networking functions, and should be done separately whenever real security *and* performance is essential.
What could an average user legally do with that much bandwidth?
There. That didn't take much imagination...
Use a router. PAT and NAT are good enough firewall for me,
A router routes packets. It's not a firewall. Neither is NAT, NAPT or PAT.
and not crackable like a soft firewall
Really?
or performance impacting.
You've got to be kidding. You don't think that your data sits for a bit while your Barelya Router(tm) SOHO box buffers each packet, reads IP headers, does a translation lookup, and then rewrites every packet, including TCP checksums where applicable?
Then there's some nontrivial protocol problems with, oh, let's see, IPSec/AH, H.323, SNMP, ICMP, and FTP, to name but a few.
When surveying a population, a sample size of one can only represent a population of one with any statistically significant confidence.
You're going to have to provide a reasonably sized *random* selection of such links to achieve accuracy in representation.
Any less dilligence betrays ignorance, bias or intellectual dishonesty. Which is it for you?
But Big Al B is also incorrect
;^)
What?! Me? Wrong? Never!
You're absolutely right that my definition of fair use was not nearly inclusive enough to be correct. In my defense, the conversational context was my scoping guide. Based on the AC's comments, I didn't get the impression [s]he was borrowing content for creative endeavors...
Regardless, your linked guidelines are quite a bit more inclusive and, in my opinion, they are very well conceived. To be sure, fair use in the context of artistic and intellectual endeavors--rather than the context of pursuing "free" entertainment--is a very compelling concept.
As a supporter of fair use, I always try to download a free copy of a song or movie instead of paying for it.
What an f'ed up definition of "fair use". Fair use is media backup or transfer once you have paid for the original media presentation of a work.
The war on corporate greed (RIAA etc) will not end until artists come to realize that it is wrong to gouge money out of people just for appreciating a creative work.
Artists have always either been commissioned for works, or charged for uncommisioned works displayed for sale in galleries. This has been true since long before either copyright or fair use existed conceptually.
True art comes from creative desire, not the profit motive. Michelangelo did not make his masterpieces with the intent of charging admissions, and neither did Mozart.
Pure. Unadulterated. Crap. Both Michaelangelo and Mozart were both commissioned to create most of their works; even the most famous examples were for profit. Mozart particularly earned box office revenue for symphony presentations.
And, again, that is typical of artists throughout history, prior to "intelectual property" law. The first plays and musicals were done by roving acting troupes who would "pass the hat" afterwords.
Please keep your mucked up version of history private from now on.
But, that's what I meant by layer 4 switch. It wouldn't start sending the packet out the door until it had gotten the first few bytes of the layer three payload so it could apply the layer 4 rules.
Hm, did you mean that it would not start sending the packet out until it had the layer *four* header in hand? Because, if it only has the first few bites of the layer *three* header, then it would not have enough information (destination addr/port) to forward the packet correctly.
And, my point was that if you start sending a packet based on layer three info prior to receiving the layer four header, then you won't have the information you need to apply layer four rules prior to forwarding the packet.
In the case where a layer four rule blocks forwarding, then you'd have a partial packet on the wire already. A large flow of partially blocked packets could conceivably cause a great deal of "runt" congestion and result in higher next-hop switch|router|server cpu loads.
All three reasons to varying degrees
Ah. I can relate on all counts.
My main concern though is that with two ports, how can I be absolutely certain the packet has to go through my firewall rules before it can go anywhere?
FTA, the card is supposed to coexist nicely with ethernet, so I would assume it presents a single MAC address at layer two and a single IP address at layer three. From other posts, it appears that layers four through seven are handled "normally" by the CPU, as always. Most firewalls and IDS start at layer two or three and go up the stack to at least layer four, so they should work normally with this technology.
If it could handle all the rules for you, then it might even be capable of functioning as a layer 4 switch and sending out a new IP packet before completely recieving said packet.
But with a cut-through[1] switching algorithm you give up layer four visibility, because by definition you start forwarding the frame as soon as you complete a layer three lookup (or cached-flow check) to assign an egress interface. In order to access the layer four header, you need to inspect the first 12 bytes of the layer three payload. Point being, your packet would already be partially out the door before you cracked it open far enough to apply layer four rules.
[1]One popular switch vendor's term for what you described.
But, I'd want all the software on that card to be Open Source.
May I ask why? Is it for operational performance e.g. you believe you can increase the code's quality, operational comfort e.g. you can validate the code, or just a personal preference for open source architectures? Or is it something else? Not implying any criticism; I'm just curious.
You know that at least some of it will likely be in assembler for speed's sake. Even if it is open, it would be a royal pain to modify safely and correctly.
Yet you never offer "another way" that achieves the desired result: the elimination of totalitarian regimes like Imperial Japan.
:^(
There may be a better fit, but this smacks of "argumentum ad ignorantium". This fallacy is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is false because it has not been proved true.
"Another way" seems to always mean appeasement of the very real evil
On the logical front this is called a [poorly-executed]* strawman. You've constructed an argument to disagree with, instead of sticking to the argument at hand.
*My 2-cents
BTW, have you noticed that "evil" is rather pragmatically and dynamically defined in US foreign policy endeavors? I mean, our Sec. of Def. shook Sadam's hand mighty enthusastically in the 1980s, did he not?
If you're intellectually honest, you have to acknowledge that the US will insert or bolster a dictatorship whenever it "best" serves our interest. Unfortunately for us, folks who make skilled dictators usually don't also make good lapdogs, and tend to go rogue eventually.
if history has taught us one thing, appeasement never works
Here's the fallacy of hasty generalilzation. BTW, diplomacy and politic is almost always less expensive, less damaging and more durably successful than war. That's the conclusion history actually tends to bear.
In the context of the times, the use of atomic bombs against Imperial Japan was the correct decsion both militarily and politically.
Perhaps. But you've not presented even one valid logical argument to support your assertion. That's the condition of critical thinking these days though.
I tend to agree that the hasty conclusion of the war was, on balance, preferable. Many lives were taken by these bombs, but by most accounts, more were spared by ending the war quickly.
Too bad for the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just as it was too bad for the millions of victims of Imperial Japans aggression.
What a nice example of a "red herring" fallacy. A logician would only have to point to lessons learned from Sesame Street to debunk this one; two wrongs don't make a right.
Unfortunately, these aren't. Two of the links refer to a National Science Foundation survey of Science and Engineering Indicators (2000). The others publish methodology and confidence margins.
It's not a pretty picture.
Ignorance is the greatest enemy we face.
Very, very, very well put.
How does this translate to most, many, majority, all or half?
Well...
Stars:
Accuracy of survey results is within +/-3.1% for overall measures for the poll.
Branches:
Individual poll questions have an error margin of 7%
Plants/Science:
The data came from a National Science Foundation survey from 2000. The survey methodology description below is from the 2001 version of the same survey. One assumes that the NSF can perform consistent scientific surveys...
Population Target: The target population of the 2001 survey was noninstitutionalized adults, age 18 or older, residing in the United States.
Sample: 2,000 completed interviews.
Variation: The coefficient of variation for a percentage estimate of 50 percent in the total population in 2001 was approximately 2.5 percent.
Investing Knowledge:
For results based on the total sample, it can be said with 95 percent confidence that the error attributable to sample and other random effects is plus or minus 4 percentage points...
Earth/Sun:
The source data was same NSF survey as the Plant/Science data, with the same sample and variance.
Aside from the indirectly quoted NSF survey, all of the error margins were published right on the same pages where you got the sample sizes. Don't you understand what they mean?
How ironic that you attempted to debunk surveys that measure knowledge.
I've seen several tons of people lamenting the $40 tickets (family of 4) plus $20 snacks ($5/per) for a movie out. Granted $60 is no small number. But the cost of home theater viewing can get very, very large too.
My HT, which I do love and prefer to going out, cost a relatively economical $4400 for the TV, DVD player, VCR, 7.1 receiver, speakers, cables, and in-wall wiring in new construction. Add another $900 for 60 or so DVDs. That's the one-time charges. I could take the whole family out to 88.3 movies for that same money. That's one movie a week for 1.5 years
My "HT" is also my family room, so I didn't go all out on gear. When I build a dedicated room in my unfinished basement, I'm estimating $25,000-$28,000 for equipment and furniture, plus $10,000 construction for a 14x20x9 room. (And then there's the other basement rooms...)
For recurring charges, add another $30+ (beyond basic charges) per month, or ~$400/year, for HD cable, DVR, and 2 movie channel groupings. And maybe $4/month for the rare DVD rental. That's ~$450/year, or another 7 1/2 movies/year I could go out for.
Finally, food and drink at home is, of course, much cheaper than at a theater, but it isn't free. I won't bother estimating how much gets consumed during movies in my house, but it would be considerable.
So, yes, theaters gouge, but HT costs aren't trivial.
I'll open my mouth on this issue, knowing I'll probably lose karma, but whatever.
Good for you. You're a brave person. A very brave, epicly ignorant, tragically judgemental, person.
Any piercing on a man is disgusting. Any.
And your opinion means what to who? May I ask why you even take notice of mens' piercings, generally speaking?
Any piercing on a man is disgusting. Any. An earring makes you look wierd, and you should never get hired for more than the most menial of jobs. Pray tell when the last time you felt good about a earringed guy selling you a product was. Unless you're unusual, as in pierced yourself, never. Multiple earrings, other piercings, enlarged ears...you should never be hired. Who knows - you obviously don't have great morals, so the employer knows that you are a risk.
You've apparently confused the concepts of "critizing" with "thinking critically", because that's a simply ridiculus statement. If you actually base your moral judgement on cosmetic differences in people's appearence, I am forced to doubt *your* morals. Your morality is simple-minded, unstudied, superficial and, honestly, not aligned with Christ's teachings.
And to answer your question: I don't really notice men's earrings, anymore than I notice their shoes, so I'm completely ambivalent. My question to you is, "Why are you looking at men's ears so much?"
You know that the ancient Easter Islanders used to do earlobe lengthening as a rite of passage. They had them so long they hung down to the shoulder
Also, at various times in history, moral Christian men wore wigs, tights, flourishing cuffs and lavish collars. Today, those practices are in your words, "wierd". Today, many good Christian men in the UK wear kilts. Here, in the US, that's considered "wierd". So...do I win your "contrast common cultural fashions" contest?
On women, any earrings lowers my estimation of them. 2 in each ear, and I'm not very impressed with them. Any more, or other piercings, or even just midriff showing, and I consider them very, very, very much in poor taste. As I said, something that pagans do. Of course, you masochists/pagans like that, but Christians don't.
Fine. As long as you understand that no one cares what you find in poor taste, largely because your moral judgement is as shallow as a new-moon tide pool.
Same for tattoos.
I have a older family friend; he's a devoted husband and father of several happy, kind, and successful children. After saving many lives and capturing countless criminals, he retired as a top-ranked state trooper. And he's a very active and popular church leader.
But...he has a faded blue topless hula girl emblazoned on his forearm, that he acquired while earning several highly honored medals in Viet Nam. What an unemployable loser, eh?