>>>"This is like saying, "My grandpa earned $200 a month, and he got by ok!"
Alright. Well I'm using 56k right now in the year 2008, and I seem to be surviving just fine. (Read my sig now if you did not do it last time.) I also use S-VHS, audio cassette, listen to analog radio stations, and take notes with a pen and paper. They all work just fine for my needs.
I used to think I needed the best, but after seeing minidisc fail, digital cassette fail, laserdisc fail, and so on, I've grown a little more cynical about the "need" for the latest technology. I'm starting to suspect these new formats are pushed by corporations just so they can suck money out of our wallets. Pretty soon (circa 2020) they'll probably be announcing a new format that handles 10,000i video, and why we need to throw-out our old video collection.
BACK ON POINT: Dialup works just fine for surfing the net.
Mayeb it's a security issue. Where I work every machine has a USB port, but we're not allowed to use it. So I am sometimes forced to use floppies if I want to move data to a non-networked PC.
Re:Why is "turn to government" the first solution?
on
Dealing With Dialup
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· Score: 1
Wow. Talk about missing the point!
The issue is not the government. The issue is *I* (and my neighbors) don't want to be paying the increased taxes required to "wire up" these people to DSL or cable internet. If they want Broadband that badly, and they're not willing to get an "ugly" satellite dish, then let them USE THEIR OWN MONEY to pay the local company to extend the line to their area. That's what my parents did when they moved to a rural community that had no electricity; the power company wired to the curb & they paid for the remaining mile into the woods.
I am sick and tired of paying for other people's bills.
The article says ISDN is broadband, since it exceeds the narrowband (~4 kilohertz wide) speeds of telephone lines. (I guess you shouldn't use Wikipedia as your source.)
>>>" they're living in an area where there's likely to be local ordinances against blatantly jarring or modern features on houses."
The U.S. Congress passed a law in 1996 that forbids local ordinances or housing associations from doing that. Every homeowner has the right to erect a dish or antenna to receive television. (Even renters have the right to do the same on their porches or windows.)
>>>"You're already paying for it. It's called the Universal Service Fund and it's a surcharge on phone bills to ensure that rural phone rates are relatively comperable to urban rates."
And if it were up to me, the USF tax would be retired along with the Spanish-American War tax of 1898. Those taxes are old and obsolete, and in the case of the USF, it provides subsidies for people to leave towns & move to the suburbs (which is bad for the environment, bad for the air pollution, and increases costs across the board).
USF was fine for the 1920s when people lived in log cabins without electricity or phone, but it's now an obsolete tax that is causing more harm than good (encouraging deforestation & urban sprawl).
(1) Get a satellite dish. "It's ugly" is an invalid excuse, especially since the dish could be mounted in the backyard where no one can see it. Maybe fill it with water to make an attractive birdbath (I'm joking). But seriously a dish in your yard looks better than some of the things I've seen sitting in people's lawns!
(2) Get Netscape ISP. It uses text & image compression to increase effective speeds upto 1000 kbit/s. While traveling I can load pages almost as fast with Netscape Dialup as with my home DSL.
(3) Another option is to select "don't load images" in Firefox or Internet Exploder.
As you can see from my signature, using dialup is not a tragedy. All of us had dialup from circa 1980 to 2000 and we survived. Your parents can too.
"spank the monkey" was popular when I was in college. I remember a friend of mine used that phrase as slang for "not doing anything" or "killing time". ME: "What are you doing after supper Jack?" "Oh just spanking the monkey."
That worked well between us guys, but one day he said it to a girl:
"What did you do this weekend Jack?" "Oh nothing much Jill, just spanking the monkey." (Jill blinks) : "What did you say?"....
Even John Q. Public should realize that teenage foolishness is something everybody has done. Mr. Public probably did his fair share of things he's are not proud of, and yet today are mature responsible adults.
What's next?
We start punishing politicians because they stole cookies out of mommy's cookie jar?
What happens twenty years from now when I decide to indulge in some "classic gaming" and, because the server no longer exist, this game no longer works??? As annoying as looking-up words in the Pirates manual can be, at least that old 1985 game still works. But Spore/Mass Effect's new "phone home" DRM is built-in obsolescence that will make the Spore/Mass Effect games unplayable in 5-6 years.
Neighbors reporting neighbors. Isn't that what happened in 1984? The government relied on people acting like police, and creating a horrible, horrible society.
>>>"People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither"
Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin said that. ALSO: Another failed British program: The banning of guns. That made crime go UP, not down, as the criminals preyed on helpless citizens like wolves against sheep.
I suspect the pumps (which run on coal-powered electricity, or possibly diesel oil) PRODUCE MORE carbon dioxide than they shovel away into the caves. Plus, it's likely the CO2 will eventually leak out of the cave, either through natural osmosis or an earthquake creating a crack into the cave, so the government will have accomplished nothing.
>>>"Stop listening to crap that only has one good song. There are plenty of bands out there that put out entire albums of really good material."
In the last twenty years I've heard a lot of people make that claim. But so far none of the bands they recommended lived-up to the hype. There were still just 1 or 2 good songs per CD.
Most promotion happens via radio airplay, and since radio stations are required to pay ~1/2 penny every time a song airs, the record companies are basically getting paid to promote.
JK Rowling is likely to be a one-hit wonder, so she's earned 1 billion.... over an entire lifetime. That's about $20 million per working year, which is still fairly high, but not unreasonable for someone who is a #1 author worldwide.
MOST authors barely earn $20,000 a year... not much better than working fulltime at Walmart.
If I had to pay $10-15 worth of McDonald's BLTs, Salads, Cokes, and other crap I don't like, just so I can get my one egg mcmuffin.....
But McDonald's doesn't do that. McDonald's let me buy the single egg mcmuffin by itself, and so too should RIAA allow me to buy $1 non-compressed CD quality songs.
I think all D&D-style role-playing games are repetitive. It's the nature of the beast (fight this person, fight that person, and then fight some more). Final Fantasy stories help distract you from the boredom.
back to topic:
I'd like to see these programmers rewrite those 50 games using an Atari console with only 128 bytes of RAM. Now *that* would impress me. It's still amazing what was accomplished by Atari and Activision programmers 30 years ago.
OFF BUT RELATED TOPIC: I just wiped my Compaq laptop using the Manufacturer-supplied CDs. I barely had the "new" install turned-on 5 minutes, and suddenly I get a popup telling me to go visit registrycleanerxp.com (known malware).
Is it possible Compaq sold me infected CDs???
I shouldn't have a virus after a brand-new install.
The statute of limitations is seven years. What some teenager did back in high school has no relevance to the 40-something person I am considering electing for office. They are no longer the same person. They've matured (not just emotionally, but also physically, as their teenage brains have matured into adulthood & better reasoning skills).
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>>>"This is like saying, "My grandpa earned $200 a month, and he got by ok!"
Alright. Well I'm using 56k right now in the year 2008, and I seem to be surviving just fine. (Read my sig now if you did not do it last time.) I also use S-VHS, audio cassette, listen to analog radio stations, and take notes with a pen and paper. They all work just fine for my needs.
I used to think I needed the best, but after seeing minidisc fail, digital cassette fail, laserdisc fail, and so on, I've grown a little more cynical about the "need" for the latest technology. I'm starting to suspect these new formats are pushed by corporations just so they can suck money out of our wallets. Pretty soon (circa 2020) they'll probably be announcing a new format that handles 10,000i video, and why we need to throw-out our old video collection.
BACK ON POINT: Dialup works just fine for surfing the net.
>>>"electronic interaction between Iraqi and US soldiers frequently resulted in a corresponding exchange of viruses from these infected DVDs."
Same old story. Goes all the way back to when Roman soldiers exchanged viruses with Celtic milk maidens.
Mayeb it's a security issue. Where I work every machine has a USB port, but we're not allowed to use it. So I am sometimes forced to use floppies if I want to move data to a non-networked PC.
Wow. Talk about missing the point!
The issue is not the government. The issue is *I* (and my neighbors) don't want to be paying the increased taxes required to "wire up" these people to DSL or cable internet. If they want Broadband that badly, and they're not willing to get an "ugly" satellite dish, then let them USE THEIR OWN MONEY to pay the local company to extend the line to their area. That's what my parents did when they moved to a rural community that had no electricity; the power company wired to the curb & they paid for the remaining mile into the woods.
I am sick and tired of paying for other people's bills.
Pay your own freakin' bills.
Hmmm.
The article says ISDN is broadband, since it exceeds the narrowband (~4 kilohertz wide) speeds of telephone lines. (I guess you shouldn't use Wikipedia as your source.)
>>>" they're living in an area where there's likely to be local ordinances against blatantly jarring or modern features on houses."
The U.S. Congress passed a law in 1996 that forbids local ordinances or housing associations from doing that. Every homeowner has the right to erect a dish or antenna to receive television. (Even renters have the right to do the same on their porches or windows.)
>>>"You're already paying for it. It's called the Universal Service Fund and it's a surcharge on phone bills to ensure that rural phone rates are relatively comperable to urban rates."
And if it were up to me, the USF tax would be retired along with the Spanish-American War tax of 1898. Those taxes are old and obsolete, and in the case of the USF, it provides subsidies for people to leave towns & move to the suburbs (which is bad for the environment, bad for the air pollution, and increases costs across the board).
USF was fine for the 1920s when people lived in log cabins without electricity or phone, but it's now an obsolete tax that is causing more harm than good (encouraging deforestation & urban sprawl).
(1) Get a satellite dish. "It's ugly" is an invalid excuse, especially since the dish could be mounted in the backyard where no one can see it. Maybe fill it with water to make an attractive birdbath (I'm joking). But seriously a dish in your yard looks better than some of the things I've seen sitting in people's lawns!
(2) Get Netscape ISP. It uses text & image compression to increase effective speeds upto 1000 kbit/s. While traveling I can load pages almost as fast with Netscape Dialup as with my home DSL.
(3) Another option is to select "don't load images" in Firefox or Internet Exploder.
As you can see from my signature, using dialup is not a tragedy. All of us had dialup from circa 1980 to 2000 and we survived. Your parents can too.
"spank the monkey" was popular when I was in college. I remember a friend of mine used that phrase as slang for "not doing anything" or "killing time". ME: "What are you doing after supper Jack?" "Oh just spanking the monkey."
....
That worked well between us guys, but one day he said it to a girl:
"What did you do this weekend Jack?"
"Oh nothing much Jill, just spanking the monkey."
(Jill blinks) : "What did you say?"
OH GOOD!
Firefox keeps begging me to update it, and I keep saying "no" "no" "no". Glad I followed that procedure rather than download a trojan.
Even John Q. Public should realize that teenage foolishness is something everybody has done. Mr. Public probably did his fair share of things he's are not proud of, and yet today are mature responsible adults.
What's next?
We start punishing politicians because they stole cookies out of mommy's cookie jar?
That's true!
Plus:
What happens twenty years from now when I decide to indulge in some "classic gaming" and, because the server no longer exist, this game no longer works??? As annoying as looking-up words in the Pirates manual can be, at least that old 1985 game still works. But Spore/Mass Effect's new "phone home" DRM is built-in obsolescence that will make the Spore/Mass Effect games unplayable in 5-6 years.
Neighbors reporting neighbors. Isn't that what happened in 1984? The government relied on people acting like police, and creating a horrible, horrible society.
>>>"People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither"
Philadelphian Benjamin Franklin said that. ALSO: Another failed British program: The banning of guns. That made crime go UP, not down, as the criminals preyed on helpless citizens like wolves against sheep.
>>>"The music industry has an advantage: they've never released their products in digital form without DRM."
CDs.
DATs (digital audio tape)
MiniDiscs (early releases)
Does this verdict have any relevance to the ISOHUNT.com search engine?
Or is this a non-related case? I would really hate to lose isohunt, since it's such a useful resource.
I suspect the pumps (which run on coal-powered electricity, or possibly diesel oil) PRODUCE MORE carbon dioxide than they shovel away into the caves. Plus, it's likely the CO2 will eventually leak out of the cave, either through natural osmosis or an earthquake creating a crack into the cave, so the government will have accomplished nothing.
The environmentalists are right this time.
This is just a bad idea.
I have a feeling those 90 days would be really, really boring. They probably don't let you watch TV or surf the net or anything else interesting.
Also, it would be a cut in pay for me.
>>>"Stop listening to crap that only has one good song. There are plenty of bands out there that put out entire albums of really good material."
In the last twenty years I've heard a lot of people make that claim. But so far none of the bands they recommended lived-up to the hype. There were still just 1 or 2 good songs per CD.
P.S.
Most promotion happens via radio airplay, and since radio stations are required to pay ~1/2 penny every time a song airs, the record companies are basically getting paid to promote.
How convenient.
JK Rowling is likely to be a one-hit wonder, so she's earned 1 billion.... over an entire lifetime. That's about $20 million per working year, which is still fairly high, but not unreasonable for someone who is a #1 author worldwide.
MOST authors barely earn $20,000 a year... not much better than working fulltime at Walmart.
You're right about the marketing costs, but if the cassette costs $8.00, why does the CD cost $15.00?
The answer of course is that they are gouging your wallet & being greedy by marking-up the CD almost 200%.
If I had to pay $10-15 worth of McDonald's BLTs, Salads, Cokes, and other crap I don't like, just so I can get my one egg mcmuffin.....
But McDonald's doesn't do that. McDonald's let me buy the single egg mcmuffin by itself, and so too should RIAA allow me to buy $1 non-compressed CD quality songs.
I think all D&D-style role-playing games are repetitive. It's the nature of the beast (fight this person, fight that person, and then fight some more). Final Fantasy stories help distract you from the boredom.
back to topic:
I'd like to see these programmers rewrite those 50 games using an Atari console with only 128 bytes of RAM. Now *that* would impress me. It's still amazing what was accomplished by Atari and Activision programmers 30 years ago.
OFF BUT RELATED TOPIC: I just wiped my Compaq laptop using the Manufacturer-supplied CDs. I barely had the "new" install turned-on 5 minutes, and suddenly I get a popup telling me to go visit registrycleanerxp.com (known malware).
Is it possible Compaq sold me infected CDs???
I shouldn't have a virus after a brand-new install.
The statute of limitations is seven years. What some teenager did back in high school has no relevance to the 40-something person I am considering electing for office. They are no longer the same person. They've matured (not just emotionally, but also physically, as their teenage brains have matured into adulthood & better reasoning skills).