I've followed it since it's inception in 1993. I was working at Brown University at the time. I fondly recall the "Guns don't kill people, Bowling balls kill people" strip.
So omniscient one, tell me. How did banks manage to run ATM networks in the beginning? Bank fees are excessive. That's my point exactly. And comptetion isn't running rampant if you hadn't noticed. One bank is just like the rest.
I'm so tired of industry schills trying to say banks aren't raking us over the coals. They are but you just want to bury your head in the sand.
I have two cats, one male and one female. I have very mild cat allergies but if I pet Randy (the male) for a long time and I haven't put my eye drops in, I'll start reacting a little bit.
But I could pet Emily all day long and all she does is shed. Really, no reaction whatsoever. Too bad she's fixed.
Were it not a major bank doing this I might just chalk it up to global economics. But in case you hadn't noticed, bank profits are obscene.
Look at the cost of using a foreign ATM. You're charged anywhere from 75 cents to $3.00 by the bank originating the transaction, and another 75 cents to $3.00 at your bank. So if you draw out $20 you could be paying anywhere from $1.50 to $6.00 for the privelege. And the bankers laugh all the way to the, uh bank.
And lets not forget overdraft fees. I have an old brochure from my now bank from back in the early 90's. Then an overdraft item incurred a $7.00 fee. Now it incurs a $35.00 fee. You can't for one moment tell me it costs the bank more now to process an overdraft than it did ten years ago. It's just outright usury on the part of banks.
And increasingly your choices are being limited by all the acquisitions, etc. Around here we have a choice of three banks, Citizens, Bank of America or Sovereign. And the competition from credit unions and such has been decreasing over the years. Maybe it's because credit union customers might only pay their CU 25 cents for a foregin ATM withdrawal, while the host bank is whacking them with fees that total more than 10% of the dollar amount withdrawn.
But here's the other isssue. You can't live without a checking or savings account. For example, I direct deposit my pay into my bank. On numerous occasions the bank has delayed importing the information and sent my account into negative territoty. I've had numerous rows with the bank over that. So suppose I want to just cash my check and use a cash basis for everything. The thought crossed my mind until I realized my paycheck would be drawn on Bank of America. The rub is that in order to cash a large check at BofA you need to present all sorts of ID, your first born, etc. and now they're even considering charging a fee. On a check! A check is really a Demand Draft instrument. Check out the fed rules on that sometime when you're bored.
What's more interesting than the Boston Tea Party is the Burning of the Gaspee. You see, the burning of the Gaspee (A British tax ship) was because they'd taken a ship owned by Nathaniel Greene. The Providence Journal has been doing a nice multi-part profile on Greene over the last couple of weeks.
We'll all be stuck in lines now that people have been notified to leave their ID at home. So now there'll be the standard line for those schmucks with ID, and the line for those without ID.
Two of us in the I.T. group here are windows people who have transitioned to the Linux side. Both of us can't stand IIS. Even the more hardened versions have problems because they delve so deeply into the operating system.
Apache doesn't. Just set it run as u/g nobody and mostly forget about it.
I keep getting these "Come back..." mailings from Verizon, about once every quarter. In them they quote some obscene price for basic phone services with a few extra calling features. It's always somewhere around $45 a month. And you still pay a per minute for LD and toll.
But once they roll out FIOS I might call and beat them up a bit, tell them that if they can give me unlimited to the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. as well as CLID, CW-CLID, Three-Way calling, voice mail, and a ton of other features for $24.99 a month I might consider coming back.
They know they're losing business. So of course they'll use every trick in the book to lure people back to them knowing full well they'll hike the rates two months later and you're stuck in a one year contract. Anyone who can't see that is a fool.
What's more interesting is that now even terrestrial broadcast will be pushed into the pay arena and you'll still have to put up with ads.
And the likes of Clear Channel and Infinity have problems differentiating formats for their owned stations. Who believes that they won't just time shift content on the additional channels?
Is that parents don't have control of what games their kids play, or what they watch, etc.
So they think that government can step in by making everything safe for America. Yeah, right. What it really comes down to is that when parents are each working two jobs to support themselves and their spawn, they don't have the time to argue with the kid about what's appropriate for their age level, and what isn't.
I hate how we try to deflect the real issues. You can put a dress and lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
The standard way of fixing a Windows machine infested by spyware is to format the drive and re-install the OS.
Or, if you had some forethought, just take an image of your machine when you get it configured with all your software and updates. Then keep the image (We use PowerQuest's tools to create CD images) for when you need to rebuild your system. Then of course keep your critical data off the boot drive.
MS has half heartedly done this with the System Restore feature but more often than not, it doesn't do what you think it does.
Awhile back someone had posted a link about the battle within Sony, where someone got passed over for promotion and was put in charge of the PS3 project.
I guess this was his revenge. The more I read about PS3 the more it becomes obvious that the platform is doomed, considering that the Wii will be on market this quarter.
It'd be better for Sony if they just scrapped the PS3 at this point.
The industry needs to be put in check
on
Death By DMCA
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By that I mean we should support an industry that does not include ridiculous law as part of a revenue generating scheme.
That's why I like things like blip.tv, youtube, etc. It's mostly all original content and on blip, you can set your licensing rights on your videos.
Same with music. Support independent musicians. What we need to do is turn the TV's adn radios off. Use the computer to find music and video that isn't encumbered. Show the industry how badly we can hurt them using legal means.
But the fair use standard drives me crazy. For example, I've got an extensive library of music on 33rpm and 45rpm vinyl that I've been converting to digital form so I can put it on my mp3 player etc. But by the technical definition, I'm violating the law.
It looks as though our congress critters might be getting a clue though. This might be good news.
Is the parents. Television has long been an electronic babysitter, and video games brought interactivity to the mix. Parents saw it as a blessing.
Then they went out and bought games for their kids. They had no idea what the games were, nor did they bother to look at the packages, etc. They just saw the green case and did a double-take at the mocha colored images on the package but then thought that little Johnny was worth it. But they missed the rating that's ALREADY on the box. In the case of GTA: San Andreas it clearly states that it's rated M for Mature 17+.
Under some of these proposed laws, if I happened to be playing the game and a friend of ours brought their 14 year old over, I'd be in the hoosegaw for $5000.
Our legislators need an education, Hillary Clinton included. But congress has long turned a deaf ear on science or logic.
Vista doesn't represent enough of an improvement for me to make the jump, at least not now. Considering I waited 6 years to go from Windows 2000 to XP this should be no surprise at all.
I'm particularly incensed that MS once again failed miserably on the innovation side and copied feature for feature from Firefox. That's probably a clear sign that they're on the precipice of their downfall. They've stopped innovating.
If we just used authenticated SMTP we wouldn't have the problems we have now.
First set it up so that users on your network can only send via your SMTP host. Any other SMTP mail outbound would be blocked at the periphery of your network.
Then make each use authenticate with the SMTP server to send email.
As far as I know, these features have been built into firewalls and SMTP daemons for quite some time. I realize that rouge hosts out there would exploit that because you need a mechanism to pass mail from domain to domain. But if ISP's really gave a crap that wouldn't be a problem because they'd be AUTHENTICATING their own users.
Email isn't dead yet. It just needs a sanity check.
Part of it is the culture within NASA proper. Fast, cheap and sexy rules the day. Most of their project managers are NASA folks who like that paradigm. Squyers wasn't one of them.
So the key difference is the culture of leadership. That's why you don't see more projects using proven technology. Part of that I blame on NASA feeling it has to put on the razzle dazzle in order to secure funding.
But the Mars Rovers were plenty of razzle dazzle and were relatively inexpensive projects too. That's sexy as far as I'm concerned and NASA management needs to learn that too.
Cox tells me I'm getting 5 down 2 up but that's a half truth. I normally get 1-2Mbps down, and don't really care about my upload speed.
The numbers I'm quoting come from the various speed test sites, most of which are run by companies trying to sell broadband.
So I tested on some Cox based sites and sure enough, speeds were as advertised. I also tests on a couple of local sites that I knew were peered with Cox over a hop or two and sure enough - good throughput.
You just have to know that what they're telling you is applicable ONLY to their network or within a hop or two. The rest of the world can't be predicted.
And that's true no matter whate medium you use, be it a PRI to an ISP, or likewise.
I should also mention that in the case of DSL in particular, the line matters. If your mom is in an older area chances are the incumbent phone provider hasn't upgraded the outside plant in 30 to 50 years. Old plant has bad insulation, many bridge taps, etc. that will absolutely degrade the DSL signal.
It was moderately expensive to build the two rovers. That might be why. NASA is on that faster, cheaper, better model these days but they're ignoring a fundamental rules of projects. (fast, right, cheap)
If you want it fast and cheap it isn't going to be right. The Rovers succeeded because Squyers put his feet to the fire and told NASA management what they needed to do and how they needed to do it.
From reading the book you can tell it took a toll on all those involved which is probably why we don't have dozens of these things crawling all over Mars.
If you want, read Steve Squyers book "Rovign Mars". It'll give you a better understanding of why the rovers lasted as long as they did. They're built like tanks with proven technology. There was nothing flashy about what went into those robots, it was all tried and true.
They were originally supposed to last for 90 sols, or Martian days. They've now gone far past the origianl design goals and the benefit has been lots more data about Mars.
Spirit is currently on it's 853rd sol. http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/
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The biggest fear of JP II was that we'd find their so called God. Imagine the embarrasment factor upon learning that they'd gotten it all wrong.
I've followed it since it's inception in 1993. I was working at Brown University at the time. I fondly recall the "Guns don't kill people, Bowling balls kill people" strip.
So omniscient one, tell me. How did banks manage to run ATM networks in the beginning? Bank fees are excessive. That's my point exactly. And comptetion isn't running rampant if you hadn't noticed. One bank is just like the rest.
I'm so tired of industry schills trying to say banks aren't raking us over the coals. They are but you just want to bury your head in the sand.
I have two cats, one male and one female. I have very mild cat allergies but if I pet Randy (the male) for a long time and I haven't put my eye drops in, I'll start reacting a little bit.
But I could pet Emily all day long and all she does is shed. Really, no reaction whatsoever. Too bad she's fixed.
Were it not a major bank doing this I might just chalk it up to global economics. But in case you hadn't noticed, bank profits are obscene.
Look at the cost of using a foreign ATM. You're charged anywhere from 75 cents to $3.00 by the bank originating the transaction, and another 75 cents to $3.00 at your bank. So if you draw out $20 you could be paying anywhere from $1.50 to $6.00 for the privelege. And the bankers laugh all the way to the, uh bank.
And lets not forget overdraft fees. I have an old brochure from my now bank from back in the early 90's. Then an overdraft item incurred a $7.00 fee. Now it incurs a $35.00 fee. You can't for one moment tell me it costs the bank more now to process an overdraft than it did ten years ago. It's just outright usury on the part of banks.
And increasingly your choices are being limited by all the acquisitions, etc. Around here we have a choice of three banks, Citizens, Bank of America or Sovereign. And the competition from credit unions and such has been decreasing over the years. Maybe it's because credit union customers might only pay their CU 25 cents for a foregin ATM withdrawal, while the host bank is whacking them with fees that total more than 10% of the dollar amount withdrawn.
But here's the other isssue. You can't live without a checking or savings account. For example, I direct deposit my pay into my bank. On numerous occasions the bank has delayed importing the information and sent my account into negative territoty. I've had numerous rows with the bank over that. So suppose I want to just cash my check and use a cash basis for everything. The thought crossed my mind until I realized my paycheck would be drawn on Bank of America. The rub is that in order to cash a large check at BofA you need to present all sorts of ID, your first born, etc. and now they're even considering charging a fee. On a check! A check is really a Demand Draft instrument. Check out the fed rules on that sometime when you're bored.
What's more interesting than the Boston Tea Party is the Burning of the Gaspee. You see, the burning of the Gaspee (A British tax ship) was because they'd taken a ship owned by Nathaniel Greene. The Providence Journal has been doing a nice multi-part profile on Greene over the last couple of weeks.
We'll all be stuck in lines now that people have been notified to leave their ID at home. So now there'll be the standard line for those schmucks with ID, and the line for those without ID.
Two of us in the I.T. group here are windows people who have transitioned to the Linux side. Both of us can't stand IIS. Even the more hardened versions have problems because they delve so deeply into the operating system.
Apache doesn't. Just set it run as u/g nobody and mostly forget about it.
I keep getting these "Come back..." mailings from Verizon, about once every quarter. In them they quote some obscene price for basic phone services with a few extra calling features. It's always somewhere around $45 a month. And you still pay a per minute for LD and toll.
But once they roll out FIOS I might call and beat them up a bit, tell them that if they can give me unlimited to the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. as well as CLID, CW-CLID, Three-Way calling, voice mail, and a ton of other features for $24.99 a month I might consider coming back.
They know they're losing business. So of course they'll use every trick in the book to lure people back to them knowing full well they'll hike the rates two months later and you're stuck in a one year contract. Anyone who can't see that is a fool.
What's more interesting is that now even terrestrial broadcast will be pushed into the pay arena and you'll still have to put up with ads.
And the likes of Clear Channel and Infinity have problems differentiating formats for their owned stations. Who believes that they won't just time shift content on the additional channels?
Is that parents don't have control of what games their kids play, or what they watch, etc.
So they think that government can step in by making everything safe for America. Yeah, right. What it really comes down to is that when parents are each working two jobs to support themselves and their spawn, they don't have the time to argue with the kid about what's appropriate for their age level, and what isn't.
I hate how we try to deflect the real issues. You can put a dress and lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
The standard way of fixing a Windows machine infested by spyware is to format the drive and re-install the OS.
Or, if you had some forethought, just take an image of your machine when you get it configured with all your software and updates. Then keep the image (We use PowerQuest's tools to create CD images) for when you need to rebuild your system. Then of course keep your critical data off the boot drive.
MS has half heartedly done this with the System Restore feature but more often than not, it doesn't do what you think it does.
Awhile back someone had posted a link about the battle within Sony, where someone got passed over for promotion and was put in charge of the PS3 project.
I guess this was his revenge. The more I read about PS3 the more it becomes obvious that the platform is doomed, considering that the Wii will be on market this quarter.
It'd be better for Sony if they just scrapped the PS3 at this point.
By that I mean we should support an industry that does not include ridiculous law as part of a revenue generating scheme.
That's why I like things like blip.tv, youtube, etc. It's mostly all original content and on blip, you can set your licensing rights on your videos.
Same with music. Support independent musicians. What we need to do is turn the TV's adn radios off. Use the computer to find music and video that isn't encumbered. Show the industry how badly we can hurt them using legal means.
But the fair use standard drives me crazy. For example, I've got an extensive library of music on 33rpm and 45rpm vinyl that I've been converting to digital form so I can put it on my mp3 player etc. But by the technical definition, I'm violating the law.
It looks as though our congress critters might be getting a clue though. This might be good news.
I've noticed I see many more "video removed by user" and "video removed due to copyright violation" on youtube.
That's why a lot of traffic is migrating away from YouTube and moving to Google video or even blip.tv
The RIAA and MPAA are effectively killing their own markets.
Is the parents. Television has long been an electronic babysitter, and video games brought interactivity to the mix. Parents saw it as a blessing.
Then they went out and bought games for their kids. They had no idea what the games were, nor did they bother to look at the packages, etc. They just saw the green case and did a double-take at the mocha colored images on the package but then thought that little Johnny was worth it. But they missed the rating that's ALREADY on the box. In the case of GTA: San Andreas it clearly states that it's rated M for Mature 17+.
Under some of these proposed laws, if I happened to be playing the game and a friend of ours brought their 14 year old over, I'd be in the hoosegaw for $5000.
Our legislators need an education, Hillary Clinton included. But congress has long turned a deaf ear on science or logic.
Vista doesn't represent enough of an improvement for me to make the jump, at least not now. Considering I waited 6 years to go from Windows 2000 to XP this should be no surprise at all.
I'm particularly incensed that MS once again failed miserably on the innovation side and copied feature for feature from Firefox. That's probably a clear sign that they're on the precipice of their downfall. They've stopped innovating.
Because most viruses now use their own mail transfer agent and don't bother to use the native Windows one.
If we just used authenticated SMTP we wouldn't have the problems we have now.
First set it up so that users on your network can only send via your SMTP host. Any other SMTP mail outbound would be blocked at the periphery of your network.
Then make each use authenticate with the SMTP server to send email.
As far as I know, these features have been built into firewalls and SMTP daemons for quite some time. I realize that rouge hosts out there would exploit that because you need a mechanism to pass mail from domain to domain. But if ISP's really gave a crap that wouldn't be a problem because they'd be AUTHENTICATING their own users.
Email isn't dead yet. It just needs a sanity check.
Part of it is the culture within NASA proper. Fast, cheap and sexy rules the day. Most of their project managers are NASA folks who like that paradigm. Squyers wasn't one of them.
So the key difference is the culture of leadership. That's why you don't see more projects using proven technology. Part of that I blame on NASA feeling it has to put on the razzle dazzle in order to secure funding.
But the Mars Rovers were plenty of razzle dazzle and were relatively inexpensive projects too. That's sexy as far as I'm concerned and NASA management needs to learn that too.
Cox tells me I'm getting 5 down 2 up but that's a half truth. I normally get 1-2Mbps down, and don't really care about my upload speed.
The numbers I'm quoting come from the various speed test sites, most of which are run by companies trying to sell broadband.
So I tested on some Cox based sites and sure enough, speeds were as advertised. I also tests on a couple of local sites that I knew were peered with Cox over a hop or two and sure enough - good throughput.
You just have to know that what they're telling you is applicable ONLY to their network or within a hop or two. The rest of the world can't be predicted.
And that's true no matter whate medium you use, be it a PRI to an ISP, or likewise.
I should also mention that in the case of DSL in particular, the line matters. If your mom is in an older area chances are the incumbent phone provider hasn't upgraded the outside plant in 30 to 50 years. Old plant has bad insulation, many bridge taps, etc. that will absolutely degrade the DSL signal.
In that case lean on the telephone company.
I like the platform of the Pirate Party very much. We should have the same here in the United States.
But withdrawal from the WTO will only server to screw Sweden in the long run. Watch what happens to the price of Volvo ans Saab vehicles if they do.
The secrets of a good party are as follows:
1) Must be able to be launched at the spur of the moment. MIDAS seems to have that advantage.
2) High density occupancy - again a dorm room is perfect. Gets bodies closer to each other and lets gravity do its thing.
3) The music has to be pumping.
4) A co-ed crowd (or a same sex crowd, lets not be discriminatory here.)
It was moderately expensive to build the two rovers. That might be why. NASA is on that faster, cheaper, better model these days but they're ignoring a fundamental rules of projects. (fast, right, cheap)
If you want it fast and cheap it isn't going to be right. The Rovers succeeded because Squyers put his feet to the fire and told NASA management what they needed to do and how they needed to do it. From reading the book you can tell it took a toll on all those involved which is probably why we don't have dozens of these things crawling all over Mars.
If you want, read Steve Squyers book "Rovign Mars". It'll give you a better understanding of why the rovers lasted as long as they did. They're built like tanks with proven technology. There was nothing flashy about what went into those robots, it was all tried and true.
They were originally supposed to last for 90 sols, or Martian days. They've now gone far past the origianl design goals and the benefit has been lots more data about Mars. Spirit is currently on it's 853rd sol. http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/home/