I never understood this either. I have several friends who can't use proper english when writing an email. It's almost like they're trying to be 'cool' by using abbreviations and not using punctuation.
hey whats up i wuz goin 2 call u but i got home late plz call me whn u get back ok ttyl
Ah.. I grew up not far from where 80 intersects the NE Extension (I-476, used to be PA 9 back in the day). I went to school in Pittsburgh and almost always took I-80. I took 76 once because I had to drop a friend off in Philadelphia over one holiday break and I agree with you that 80 is better. (more senic too!)
I started using Kerio because ZA would slow and sometimes crash the network when large volumes of data were being handled for extended periods.
Hmm. I've had this happen, though I assumed it to be a problem with my Linksys WRT54G. Come to think of it, I don't have any problems when I'm not running ZoneAlarm (though I'm using an older version of ZoneAlarm Pro).
I set the slider to the max upload speed based on my connection (I know those numbers are just 'suggestions' but I really don't think my cable connection can upload more than 25k/sec, though I could be wrong). My router is currently configured properly to allow port forwarding through the BitTorrent ports (6881-6889 I believe).
What is the share ratio all about? One of the settings in the control panel is set by default to seed until share ratio reaches 80%. Would seeding longer affect my ability to download faster?
I have several torrents queued, and when one completes the next in the queue doesn't immediately begin. Is this because it's waiting for the share ratio to reach 80% before beginning the next torrent? I'm fairly new at bittorrent, and so far I like the amount of content but I just don't see how it's as fast as everyone's raving about.
I work for a company with a similar policy. Virtually all personally owned electronics are prohibited (except for clocks, watches, coffee pots, fans, one-way (receive only) pagers, and the remote transmitters to open our car doors. It would be easy to sneak something in, but if someone gets caught they can easily be fired on the spot. I worked for a similar company before, though we were allowed to bring in our own cellphones as long as there was no camera. I don't see how a cellphone is any different than a landline for information security, except for the fact that the company phone can easily be monitored.
I think one important step that an IT department could take would be to prohibit connecting a USB removable drive, or at least keep a log when a device is attached and what files were transferred. Is this even possible?
As the GP post said, these schemes are being driven by the expectation that alternative-fuel vehicles will become popular enough that the gas tax will no longer be sufficient.
And as long as the government keeps allowing GM, Ford, and Chrysler to manufacture gas guzzling trucks and SUVs, this will never be an issue.
Of course GM, Ford, and Chrysler aren't the only ones who manufacture big trucks and SUVs - Toyota is just as guilty, though it is my understanding that Toyota isn't directly asking for any special breaks, rather they take advantage of the loopholes that are created to satisfy the big 3.
BTW, GM recently released a Hybrid pickup truck. Better watch out, the states might lose a lot of gasonline tax revenue! Instead of getting 15MPG, the hybrid truck gets 16MPG!
Pick up a Philips DVP-642. They're about $60, can play MPEG and DivX movies from data CDs, and you can either remove or reset the region code with a few presses on the remote control. They're not exactly portable, but at that price you can buy two and keep one here and one there.
Not only can you not burn the shows to DVD, at $1.99 an episode they're not exactly cheap. What's the quality like?
I thought about buying some iTunes shows, but if you wait long enough, you can usually pick up a DVD box set of certain shows for $40. You get high resolution video and sound, special features, and interactive menus.
For now, I'm satisfying my needs with BitTorrent. I like the TV show House (on Fox) but don't own a PVR and I'm usually not home the night it airs. So I turn to BitTorrent and I get a excellent copy of the broadcast a day or two after it airs. Now my only problem with BitTorrent is that my downloads average 15k/s even with a torrent that has 100 seeders and about just as many downloaders. I'm trying to get one torrent that has about 100 seeders and 400 downloaders. It's been open for two days and hasn't downloaded anything yet, but the tracker shows that it's still a healthy torrent. Any ideas?
I recently moved from CA to NJ. When I lived in CA and wasn't driving in rush hour traffic I never went slower than 75. 80 was about average. I've never seen a problem with this because most people knew to stay to the right if they weren't going fast, or at least knew enough to get over if someone wanted to pass them. People also know how to leave some distance between cars, which makes merging and changing lanes a lot safer.
In New Jersey, the average speed is the speed limit. Half the cars are going 20 under, and the other half are going 20 over. In New Jersey though people don't understand the concept of 'slower traffic keep right'. We have five lanes of traffic with someone going slower than the speed limit in each lane. Then you have people going 20 over and weaving in between the slow cars. When someone is going 50MPH in the far left lane and someone wanting to pass is tailgating them, most people don't even consider moving to the right to allow the tailgater to pass. Also, most New Jersey drivers either don't use turn signals at all or use them at the instant they're changing lanes. I thought the whole point of turn signals is to alert the people behind you that you're going to change lanes. Using them at the moment you change lanes is pointless.
I think the police should focus their enforcement efforts on laws other than speed limits. Instead of pulling over the guy who's going 70 in a 55 zone when there isn't much traffic they should go after the guy who is going 50 in a 65 in the far left lane and won't move over. Better yet, go after the Escalade who's going 80 miles an hour weaving in and out of traffic.
Pay a road use tax that is based on odometer readings when you get your car's yearly inspection or registration renewal.
Why bother? As stated previously in this discussion (and as I have believed for a long time) the gasoline tax effectively accomplishes the same thing, and has the added benefit of rewarding (or maybe just not punishing) those who drive fuel efficient vehicles).
I moved to NJ from CA a few months ago. Gasoline in New Jersey is much cheaper than in CA and it's full service! Unfortunately the savings don't come close to covering the additional expense in tolls that I pay every month (over $70 a month). I now understand why they're called "Freeways".
The PA turnpike there isn't all that horrible. I live in New Jersey and have to commute on either the Garden State Parkway ($1.40 roundtrip) or the New Jersey Turnpike ($2.90 roundtrip - 26 miles total). I spend about $70 a month in tolls, including my trips to Manhattan and weekend travel to go hiking/skiing/kayaking. How can a highway that's part of the federally funded interstate system can charge a toll? How can two of the only convenient ways to go North-South through New Jersey both be fairly expensive toll roads? (Your only other option are congested local roads with many traffic lights)
New York Commuting? Fuhgettaboutit! $4 to cross the GW Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel with EZPass ($6 if paying by cash). A friend of mine is a toll collector at the GW Bridge and told me he collects around $8000 per shift.
I understand part of the problem is that because New Jersey is small, you can drive across the state in no time. Many cars on the turnpike are from other parts of the Northeast simply passing through the state. When you don't buy gas in NJ they don't get any tax revenue. The only way to get this revenue to fix the roads is by charging a toll. I think they should do away with the tolls and just charge all the hundreds of thousands of large trucks that drive on the turnpike every day a HUGE road use fee (they're the ones damaging the roads and bridges, right?) On the other hand, I've heard rumors that a big percentage of toll revenue for the Parkway, Turnpike, and all NY bridges goes to the toll collectors' and turnpike/parkway workers' pension fund.
Why is the government wasting money trying to figure out how to track people? Most places already have this figured out. Have you ever heard of EZPass? It's a little transponder tag that mounts inside your windshield (RFID!!!) to pay your tolls. I'm the tinfoil hat type, but this little thing saves me from waiting 15 minutes in the cash lanes. The private toll roads in Southern California (and the fast lane on the 91 freeway in Corona) use FastTrack, which is just like EZPass. I know San Francisco has something similar as well for the Golden Gate Bridge.
Ok "legal right" wasn't the right thing to say there. Part of the membership agreement says that they can inspect you on your way in or out. If you refuse, they can revoke your membership and ask you to leave.
I don't know how that works in other stores. I've heard some people say in this discussion that if you refuse to show your receipt at a non-membership store such as BestBuy or Wal-Mart, they can ask you not to return to that store. I don't know if they can do that, but I don't think that they would actually bother to make sure you don't return.
I never heard of Avast AV or Kerio PF, but they seem interesting. I usually install the free version of ZoneAlarm on the machines I fix, just to get an idea of what programs are trying to access the network (and block certain applications).
I've never been a big fan of antivirus software. I used McAfee or Symantec a few years ago and it turned out to be more of a problem than anything. It was hogging a lot of memory and CPU time, which I didn't have much to spare. I never had any known virus problems, but then again I'm somewhat careful with what I download. I figured that running ZoneAlarm will tell me if some strange app is attempting to phone home. I guess in most cases this will work fine (I'll know if some strange.exe is trying to access the internet - like the time I got the msblast worm) though if a known application gets modified I'll have no way to tell.
I'm going to try Avast! and do a scan tonight to see what if anything I've accumulated.
Blocking slashdottings is a small price to pay compared to turning it into a [ad] pile [ad] of [ad] advertisements or subscription site. That is what you do if you "don't want a big bandwidth bill".
That's a very good point that I overlooked. I didn't see the original site because of the slashdot block and I was too lazy to manually type it in. If there are no ads (and he's paying out of pocket) then good for him and everyone who regularly visits his site.
My Uncle is a self-employed HVAC installer/maintainer and consistently has to turn business away. The scary thing is that he does half-assed work and still gets recommended by everyone. Occasionally a customer complains shortly after an installation or repair, but my Uncle will promptly go out of his way to satisfy them.
I think it might just be that many people are satisfied with what I and a handful of other people consider half-assed work (I'm a perfectionist to a degree). My Uncle also has a unique personality which many of his customers really appreciate.
This policy is employed for the sole purpose of avoiding a huge bandwidth
bill that I would have to pay out of my own pocket. Anyone who would like
this restriction to go away is more than welcome to send me bucketloads of
cash.
If you don't want to pay a big bandwidth bill then don't run a webserver.
I have a formula that works farily well to combat spyware/adware, successfully removing existing spyware and preventing the system from getting new spyware.
1. Kill all unfamiliar windows processes
2. Remove anything strange from the 'startup' folder
3. Go to "add/remove programs" and try to remove anything you don't need
4. Run Spybot S&D (my personal favorite too)
5. Run HijackThis (another excellent FREE tool for getting rid of browser helpers and other search redirection 'utilities', though it's not for the novice user)
6. Install Firefox, delete all shortcuts to IE.
I've done this to several computer-illiterate friends' and family computers, and they've been working spyware-free for quite some time. I ran into one really nasty search redirection on my brother's computer that the above steps didn't fix. It involved IE calling one specific DLL for a search, and it would reappear as another name if I tried to delete it. Somehow, it was running as a disguised Windows 2000 system process that I simply had to turn off which allowed me to manually delete all associated files.
I know in the one state I lived in where concealed carry is legal, you'd be in a big legal mess if you shot someone who wasn't immediately threatening your life (usually that means they don't have a weapon such as a gun, knife, or even a stick)
I personally like the laws in Texas and Florida (and probably a handful of other states) where you can shoot someone for stealing your personal property, even if they have their back to you and are running away. Criminals might think twice before stealing knowing that they might actually get killed or at least severly injured, rather than a slap on the wrist and a few days in jail.
Just last night on the news in NY there's some state lawmaker pushing for tighter controls on handgun registrations so that the guns can be traced better. He stated that almost all the guns used to commit crimes in NY/NJ are guns that were stolen guns originally purchased out of state and that better tracking could help prevent that. Where's the logic there? Tighter tracking simply means they'll be able to know where all the legal guns are, while criminals will still get their hands on stolen guns.
I've been to Vestal! I used to play Hockey there in the spring and summer because at the time Wilkes-Barre, PA only had one ice rink that converted to an indoor soccer rink during those months (things are different there now - they now have two in addition to the big arena for their AHL team the Wilkes Barre Penguins, though I now live in close proximity to about 8 ice rinks).
I normally don't have a problem showing my receipt, but I was at Best Buy about a month ago and there was a big line of people waiting to have their receipts checked. I didn't feel like waiting, so I walked out the door. The doorman asked to my receipt and I simply said no. He told me he needed to see it and I just told him I already paid for my items and there's no need for him to check my bag. Nothing ever happened, but I was waiting for him or someone else to chase me out in the parking lot and physically stop me. I hear (from slashdot) that if someone even touches your toe without your permission they can be charged with battery.
I felt kind of bad because he was a young kid obviously following orders of his BestBuy overlords, but more people need to stand up against this crap (except at Sams club where they have a legal right to inspect your bag/cart/recepit)
I love how TFA said something along the lines of "bar code swapping has been around before, but not as high tech as this incident".
High tech? Instead of cutting/peeling a barcode from another item, he printed his own. How is this high tech? He used a barcode that was identical to another item in the store. He didn't absolutely need a computer; this could have been done with a 20 year old copy machine.
I like your idea. Make up a bunch of nonsense barcodes, including ones that don't have a correct checkdigit.
Slashdot Mirror
hey whats up i wuz goin 2 call u but i got home late plz call me whn u get back ok ttyl
What's wrong with just typing "haha" or "ha ha" if something's funny? No reason to use silly abbreviations
Ah.. I grew up not far from where 80 intersects the NE Extension (I-476, used to be PA 9 back in the day). I went to school in Pittsburgh and almost always took I-80. I took 76 once because I had to drop a friend off in Philadelphia over one holiday break and I agree with you that 80 is better. (more senic too!)
Hmm. I've had this happen, though I assumed it to be a problem with my Linksys WRT54G. Come to think of it, I don't have any problems when I'm not running ZoneAlarm (though I'm using an older version of ZoneAlarm Pro).
What is the share ratio all about? One of the settings in the control panel is set by default to seed until share ratio reaches 80%. Would seeding longer affect my ability to download faster?
I have several torrents queued, and when one completes the next in the queue doesn't immediately begin. Is this because it's waiting for the share ratio to reach 80% before beginning the next torrent? I'm fairly new at bittorrent, and so far I like the amount of content but I just don't see how it's as fast as everyone's raving about.
I think one important step that an IT department could take would be to prohibit connecting a USB removable drive, or at least keep a log when a device is attached and what files were transferred. Is this even possible?
And as long as the government keeps allowing GM, Ford, and Chrysler to manufacture gas guzzling trucks and SUVs, this will never be an issue.
Of course GM, Ford, and Chrysler aren't the only ones who manufacture big trucks and SUVs - Toyota is just as guilty, though it is my understanding that Toyota isn't directly asking for any special breaks, rather they take advantage of the loopholes that are created to satisfy the big 3.
BTW, GM recently released a Hybrid pickup truck. Better watch out, the states might lose a lot of gasonline tax revenue! Instead of getting 15MPG, the hybrid truck gets 16MPG!
I'm not too familiar with the UK TV license (what a ridiculous concept) but what happens if you just don't pay it?
Pick up a Philips DVP-642. They're about $60, can play MPEG and DivX movies from data CDs, and you can either remove or reset the region code with a few presses on the remote control. They're not exactly portable, but at that price you can buy two and keep one here and one there.
I thought about buying some iTunes shows, but if you wait long enough, you can usually pick up a DVD box set of certain shows for $40. You get high resolution video and sound, special features, and interactive menus.
For now, I'm satisfying my needs with BitTorrent. I like the TV show House (on Fox) but don't own a PVR and I'm usually not home the night it airs. So I turn to BitTorrent and I get a excellent copy of the broadcast a day or two after it airs. Now my only problem with BitTorrent is that my downloads average 15k/s even with a torrent that has 100 seeders and about just as many downloaders. I'm trying to get one torrent that has about 100 seeders and 400 downloaders. It's been open for two days and hasn't downloaded anything yet, but the tracker shows that it's still a healthy torrent. Any ideas?
As evil as the labels are, fiddy cent is still worth more than $50M. He's not exactly being screwed by his label.
In New Jersey, the average speed is the speed limit. Half the cars are going 20 under, and the other half are going 20 over. In New Jersey though people don't understand the concept of 'slower traffic keep right'. We have five lanes of traffic with someone going slower than the speed limit in each lane. Then you have people going 20 over and weaving in between the slow cars. When someone is going 50MPH in the far left lane and someone wanting to pass is tailgating them, most people don't even consider moving to the right to allow the tailgater to pass. Also, most New Jersey drivers either don't use turn signals at all or use them at the instant they're changing lanes. I thought the whole point of turn signals is to alert the people behind you that you're going to change lanes. Using them at the moment you change lanes is pointless.
I think the police should focus their enforcement efforts on laws other than speed limits. Instead of pulling over the guy who's going 70 in a 55 zone when there isn't much traffic they should go after the guy who is going 50 in a 65 in the far left lane and won't move over. Better yet, go after the Escalade who's going 80 miles an hour weaving in and out of traffic.
Why bother? As stated previously in this discussion (and as I have believed for a long time) the gasoline tax effectively accomplishes the same thing, and has the added benefit of rewarding (or maybe just not punishing) those who drive fuel efficient vehicles).
I moved to NJ from CA a few months ago. Gasoline in New Jersey is much cheaper than in CA and it's full service! Unfortunately the savings don't come close to covering the additional expense in tolls that I pay every month (over $70 a month). I now understand why they're called "Freeways".
New York Commuting? Fuhgettaboutit! $4 to cross the GW Bridge or Lincoln Tunnel with EZPass ($6 if paying by cash). A friend of mine is a toll collector at the GW Bridge and told me he collects around $8000 per shift.
I understand part of the problem is that because New Jersey is small, you can drive across the state in no time. Many cars on the turnpike are from other parts of the Northeast simply passing through the state. When you don't buy gas in NJ they don't get any tax revenue. The only way to get this revenue to fix the roads is by charging a toll. I think they should do away with the tolls and just charge all the hundreds of thousands of large trucks that drive on the turnpike every day a HUGE road use fee (they're the ones damaging the roads and bridges, right?) On the other hand, I've heard rumors that a big percentage of toll revenue for the Parkway, Turnpike, and all NY bridges goes to the toll collectors' and turnpike/parkway workers' pension fund.
Why is the government wasting money trying to figure out how to track people? Most places already have this figured out. Have you ever heard of EZPass? It's a little transponder tag that mounts inside your windshield (RFID!!!) to pay your tolls. I'm the tinfoil hat type, but this little thing saves me from waiting 15 minutes in the cash lanes. The private toll roads in Southern California (and the fast lane on the 91 freeway in Corona) use FastTrack, which is just like EZPass. I know San Francisco has something similar as well for the Golden Gate Bridge.
I don't know how that works in other stores. I've heard some people say in this discussion that if you refuse to show your receipt at a non-membership store such as BestBuy or Wal-Mart, they can ask you not to return to that store. I don't know if they can do that, but I don't think that they would actually bother to make sure you don't return.
I've never been a big fan of antivirus software. I used McAfee or Symantec a few years ago and it turned out to be more of a problem than anything. It was hogging a lot of memory and CPU time, which I didn't have much to spare. I never had any known virus problems, but then again I'm somewhat careful with what I download. I figured that running ZoneAlarm will tell me if some strange app is attempting to phone home. I guess in most cases this will work fine (I'll know if some strange .exe is trying to access the internet - like the time I got the msblast worm) though if a known application gets modified I'll have no way to tell.
I'm going to try Avast! and do a scan tonight to see what if anything I've accumulated.
That's a very good point that I overlooked. I didn't see the original site because of the slashdot block and I was too lazy to manually type it in. If there are no ads (and he's paying out of pocket) then good for him and everyone who regularly visits his site.
I think it might just be that many people are satisfied with what I and a handful of other people consider half-assed work (I'm a perfectionist to a degree). My Uncle also has a unique personality which many of his customers really appreciate.
If you don't want to pay a big bandwidth bill then don't run a webserver.
1. Kill all unfamiliar windows processes
2. Remove anything strange from the 'startup' folder
3. Go to "add/remove programs" and try to remove anything you don't need
4. Run Spybot S&D (my personal favorite too)
5. Run HijackThis (another excellent FREE tool for getting rid of browser helpers and other search redirection 'utilities', though it's not for the novice user)
6. Install Firefox, delete all shortcuts to IE.
I've done this to several computer-illiterate friends' and family computers, and they've been working spyware-free for quite some time. I ran into one really nasty search redirection on my brother's computer that the above steps didn't fix. It involved IE calling one specific DLL for a search, and it would reappear as another name if I tried to delete it. Somehow, it was running as a disguised Windows 2000 system process that I simply had to turn off which allowed me to manually delete all associated files.
I know in the one state I lived in where concealed carry is legal, you'd be in a big legal mess if you shot someone who wasn't immediately threatening your life (usually that means they don't have a weapon such as a gun, knife, or even a stick)
I personally like the laws in Texas and Florida (and probably a handful of other states) where you can shoot someone for stealing your personal property, even if they have their back to you and are running away. Criminals might think twice before stealing knowing that they might actually get killed or at least severly injured, rather than a slap on the wrist and a few days in jail.
Just last night on the news in NY there's some state lawmaker pushing for tighter controls on handgun registrations so that the guns can be traced better. He stated that almost all the guns used to commit crimes in NY/NJ are guns that were stolen guns originally purchased out of state and that better tracking could help prevent that. Where's the logic there? Tighter tracking simply means they'll be able to know where all the legal guns are, while criminals will still get their hands on stolen guns.
I've been to Vestal! I used to play Hockey there in the spring and summer because at the time Wilkes-Barre, PA only had one ice rink that converted to an indoor soccer rink during those months (things are different there now - they now have two in addition to the big arena for their AHL team the Wilkes Barre Penguins, though I now live in close proximity to about 8 ice rinks).
I felt kind of bad because he was a young kid obviously following orders of his BestBuy overlords, but more people need to stand up against this crap (except at Sams club where they have a legal right to inspect your bag/cart/recepit)
High tech? Instead of cutting/peeling a barcode from another item, he printed his own. How is this high tech? He used a barcode that was identical to another item in the store. He didn't absolutely need a computer; this could have been done with a 20 year old copy machine.
I like your idea. Make up a bunch of nonsense barcodes, including ones that don't have a correct checkdigit.
stainless steel != tinfoil (or aluminum foil, or aluminium foil for you Brits)