Re: they were mavricks
Citation for the caps, throttling and shaping? I don't see any of that on Be.
4341 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jul 2009
Presumably this sale will include Be, which makes me very sad. I've been with Be since before launch (I'm still on the introductory special offer rate!), and for me the service is beyond excellent. Whenever I rarely have technical issues, their support team has been excellent - I don't even mind the offshored Bulgarian call centre, they all seemed extremely polite, knowledgable, and better english than BT's "Steve" in Bengaluru.
I already take Sky TV, so I've had the option of cheaper broadband for some time. For me, Be is the service that I want, so it is worth paying extra for it.
Pah, all ST and B5 is bobbins, the best sci fi in last 30 years has to have been the amazing Andromeda. Only kidding.
@Carl Williams: There is a bit of a dearth of "future" sci-fi at the moment, the tendency has been for more dramatic "near now" sci-fi, and for making it with very high production values. Shows have either had to be brilliant (BSG reboot) or long running (Dr Who reboot) to survive. We're missing a current show that has the appeal of an SG-1 though. Here are some current shows to look out for:
Alphas: Sci fi? It's 'Heroes' on the SyFy channel, with a little pseudo science thrown in. Bit too much magic, I wouldn't disagree with anyone who classes this as "fantasy" rather than "sci fi"
Continuum: Canadian time travel, eh? What's that aboot? It's not bad actually, but it's from cable, so only ten episodes a season, but not at the whim of Fox or NBC. I can't quite work out if it is paradoxical that the "good guys" in the future are actually right wing nutters, or if it is designed to appeal to Fox viewers. Hoping the former. Season 2 will be interesting as they delve into some of the paradoxes.
Falling Skies: Americans are loving these end of days kind of shows. This time, aliens invade, and for some reason want our kids to hook up their machines. Crazy.
Fringe: Coming to the end, definitely sci fi, but less believable as the series roll by. JJ Abrams designs shows that grab me for 5 years, I get to the end and the dénouement and think "WTF? What a crock." (see Alias, Lost). He's an evil evil fucker, and I love him for it.
Haven: Another SyFy show that has me asking "is this SF or fantasy?". Precious little science in the show.
Person of Interest: Is this Sci Fi? A computer that can track people around the world and predict if they are going to come to harm, and rings up a team of people to protect them. They don't go into the SF angle much until it's a plot device. JC is a badass.
Revolution: Ridiculous SF that I still watch. In the future, somehow electrons no longer flow, cue fall of civilisation. Some people have amulets that sometimes allow electricity to work. Add to that the dialogue is ropey and the acting (especially the lead character) is awful. I've not heard this getting cancelled yet, but it would not surprise me.
Red dwarf: Hah, still going. Don't like the new episodes though, give me "White Hole" any day.
Walking Dead: SF? Another near now apocalypse show, this time with zombies.
Warehouse 13: zomg, SyFy make some bad shows. I'll watch anything with Saul Rubinek in though.
Having said that, here's the recent sci-fi cancelled list:
Alcatraz - Interesting premise, too slow, cancelled. Could have gone somewhere, but got no viewers.
Dark Angel - I still can't forgive this being cancelled
Defying Gravity - liked it, it had promise, too slow (hence cancelled)
Dollhouse - Whedon lets another one get away
Eleventh Hour (US and UK versions) - both deserved to get canned
Eureka - ran it's course really, tea time SF
Firefly - Cap'n? Shiny.
Flashforward - cool show, but once you've done the flash forward once, what happens next season? Another flash? Please! (hence cancelled).
No Ordinary Family - Modern Family cross X-Men. Huge promise, ratings died on it, so it died.
Terminator: TSC - Good, but bleak. Could have had a third series if they'd tried.
Terra Nova - Can't spend that much per episode for that few viewers, hence cancelled
The Event - Aliens invade! I liked it, I think they were running out of ideas..
V - Hah. The first time I saw one of the lizard men pop out of a human skin, I almost wet myself laughing it was so ridiculous. I'm impressed this got a second series before being cancelled tbh.
I concur, need line stats to see why. Is router plugged into master socket, have you considered installing a replacement NTE5 faceplate with integrated filter, is internal wiring correct, yadda yadda.
My old man lives in the real middle of nowhere, 6km as crow flies from the exchange, initially he got 512k download synch, I replaced the faceplate and he now gets 3.5Mb, plenty enough for iplayer.
It's only £7k without the warranty - which is essential - so add another £2k to each one. We broke two of the machines within a month of moving here, simply by, as the engineer put it 'making too much coffee'. We didn't pay that much anyway, I think around £6k with warranty.
Before we had the machines, in our old offices, we had tubs of Nescafe, which no-one drank, and loads of people popping out each hour to get their fix. £36k over 3 years in capex, but it keeps employees in the office and working.
There should be some sort of coffee icon..
You need to find a better boss, we have 6 of these babies dotted around the office.
A private secretary is a mid level civil servant assigned to a specific minister with a remit to express his ministers' views, manage the ministerial diary, prioritise and correspond with people who wish to talk to the minister, and most importantly, to record a non political factual notes of decisions and events.
Phil, that sounds like a clever system. HSBC have a much more tighter control that apply to my account - not by my choice.
Every time in the past 12 months I've tried to buy anything significant online - over £100 - HSBC have refused my card, requiring a phone call to them to say that yes, I did order a bunch of computer kit today, filling in the VbV forms.. Verified by Visa, not trusted by HSBC.
I actually mentioned it in the original post - alt.suicide.holiday FAQ.
It's not a monthly publication, somehow people only wanted the one issue, and after that all their mail was returned...
And it is quite interesting. Suicide was never 'sinful' until the god botherers got the idea that part of you - the soul - isn't yours, it's part of a cosmic godhood that you are just renting, and don't do anything bad with, or you go to the hot place. Greeks and Romans viewed suicide very differently.
There are lots of different methods documented in the FAQ, some are crazily efficient, some are crazily inefficient, and most suicide attempts use the inefficient ones - either they don't know better, or they don't really want to die.
Eg, hanging, you can hang yourself quite easily - and asphyxiate to death with a crushed windpipe. It's excruciatingly painful, and if discovered before you pop your clogs, unlikely to work. Alternatively, buy the right rope, tie the right knots, fall the right distance for your weight, and your neck will snap instantly, with almost no chance of failure.
Death by helium asphyxiation is the top recommended method in the alt.suicide.holiday faq-file. Simply get a canister of helium, rig up some breathing apparatus so that you are breathing almost pure helium. You get none of the 'omg I'm suffocating' gag reflex, since that is actually due to the build up of CO₂ in the blood, and you gradually lose consciousness as you lose oxygen in the blood. After about 20 minutes or so, you've had a comfortable, pain free death,
Downsides are that if discovered 'in time', you've typically suffered brain damage. Lots of it.
The other suicide method that has intrigued me is slashing the wrists and bleeding out in a warm bath, as favoured by the Romans, who saw 'patriotic suicide' as a way of dying with dignity in an impossible situation, eg Cato the Younger, who disembowelled himself - ripping out his own intestines rather than let a doctor tend him - rather than live under the despot Caesar.
His 'operatives' continually find new and interesting things, because McAffee keeps paying them. "Oh, John, my cousin Jesus in immigration knows about these Hezbollah terrorists coming in to Belize, all he needs is some chatting (and $10k USD)".
OTOH, It is a life-long dream of mine to make enough money in technology that I can afford to go bat-shit insane on soft drugs in a tropical paradise with my friendly 19 year old bed warmer. Kudos JM.
Sure, if Mauro was in any way Linus' employee. Which he isn't. He can't take him aside and give him a talking to, or sack him. The only nuclear option he has is to beat on him in public, so that his employers take notice.
OTOH, there is no need for someone like Linus to take that sort of tone on-list. He could have just said something along the lines of "Mauro, please re-check this, as I am convinced you are wrong in this", which would be just as painful for a senior dev to receive.
MSPs replace internal services with external ones, meaning you no longer need to manage those services, someone else does it for you.
Managing stuff isn't free, so when we moved from Notes to Google Apps, it freed up one Domino developer to do stuff that didn't make him sad all the time, 1 sysadmin whose job was keeping the global databases in sync and making sure the notes-blackberry bridge stayed working suddenly had time to work on some of the infrastructure backlog, and a bunch of rack space suddenly became free.
It's far cheaper to have google supply mail and calendaring tools than it is to do it ourselves.
It's really not simple though is it? There are hundreds of millions of guns and billions of rounds of ammo already in the hands of Americans, you could completely ban the sale of all guns and ammo for a 20 year period without massively affecting gun ownership.
I expect that some assault rifles will get banned for future sale as a result of this, but nothing else.
Interesting point ACx, but who the fuck is talking about your mail being opened?
I'm positing "email is secure as a postcard". A postcard does not need to be opened to be viewed. A postcard makes its way through many postal systems. In any of those systems, the operators of the system, could, if they so wanted, view the contents of that postcard. The postcard can then be delivered, and there is no indication that the postcard has or has not been read by anyone else.
You might think that posties would never do that, they have no purpose to look, that it would be a disciplinary action if they did.
Compare this to an email. An email does not need to be marked as "opened" to be read. An email makes its way through many postal systems. In any of those systems, the operators of the system, could, if they so wanted, view the contents of that email. The email can then be delivered, and there is no indication that the email has or has not been read by anyone else.
You might think that SMTP admins would never do that, they have no purpose to look, that it would be a disciplinary action if they did.
You can dislike it, you can down vote me as much as you like, email is demonstrably similar to a postcard in snail mail, whilst people use it as a secure person to person communication tool.
If you think prices have increased and you're on an 18 month contract, then you're one of the morons subsidizing me (thx!). I have zero commitment to my phone provider, if they were to raise prices for 3G (they won't) I can just leave for elsewhere.
my £45 contract is now £47.56 a month due to 'inflation'
Play that game then - your £47.56 a month is only worth £45 in 2008.
@AC: Which operator do you think will raise their 2G/3G prices to absorb their 4G costs?
Which operators raised their 2G prices at all after spending 6 times as much on the 3G auction as they are anticipated to pay for the 4G auction?
I expect that the monthly cost of my 3G contract will continue to fall, as it has since I first got one in 2008.
I expect that a bunch of twats will pay over and beyond to get 4G now.
I expect that eventually I will get 4G when it is comparable to the cost of 3G and I need a new phone.
zemerick: It's called, maths, it's a new trick people are using. (short answer: browsers can be used on different OS.)
Long answer: Eg, these sets of donations
Chrome - Windows - 10, 10, 10, 10
Chrome - Mac - 50, 50, 50, 50
IE - Windows - 20, 20, 20, 20
Average for Chrome is 30
Average for IE is 20
Average for Windows is 15
The average for windows is therefore less than the average for any one browser. Without looking at the raw data, it would be tricky to say exactly why, but it is probably like my noddy example, IE users give more than the average for windows, !IE users on windows give less than the average for windows, and !IE users on !windows give more than both.
You might want to look into why the Iranians have the regime that they currently do. They wanted to save themselves from a repressive regime that willingly murdered their own kind, desecrated their religion and acted as a puppet for the west.
Instead they wanted a stable society based upon their Islamic beliefs, completely isolated from western influence. Apart from that choice, they are no more "evil" than any of their near neighbours. There is far more religious freedom in Tehran than in Riyadh for example.
I was brought up playing union, but league is definitely faster, more skilful, more physical and demanding. Tackling is better and harder, there is none of the silly playing on the floor that makes union so dull sometimes.
It's a proper tough man's game, if you can play league, you can play union no bother, but only a few union players can play league, it is just too physical and technical.
Punching someone in the face is not necessarily illegal. If you are 'engaging in discourse' with someone, and they use 'fighting words', then it is entirely fine to lay them out. Fighting words are not 'come on then, have a pop', but 'words used specifically to incite hatred from their target'.
In other words, the defence is 'Yes, I punched him, but he forced me to do it by saying XYZ'. Police are expected to not respond violently to fighting words btw.
Similarly, it can be illegal to photograph someone.
So not as clear cut as you put it.
"Chasing someone" could be lethal to some people, should the police not chase people either?
At some point, the police need to stop thinking about how this will affect the perpetrator, and instead think about how to quickly resolve a situation for the benefit of everyone else.
He clearly felt his options were:
a) Shoot her with a tazer
b) Pepper spray
c) Shoot her
Ideally, he should have called for back up and waited, or been a bit more manly and cuffed a 8 stone woman. Perhaps there was no backup available, perhaps he felt that physically restraining her until backup arrived would be more harmful than the tazer.
What is it about Tony Abbott and his desire to resort to dubious legal action to get the political result he wants? Before this, he funded legal action against One Nation/Pauline Hanson (aka, 'that daft racist') on electoral fraud grounds, getting them imprisoned before it was all overturned. In that case, he established a secret trust fund and recruited potential litigants, in order to stop a candidate from standing.
It's all so underhand and seamy.
I pay £15/month for unlimited 3G internet, 6000 minutes, unlimited texts. I use on average between 300MB and 3 GB a month, with a peak usage of 8 GB, mainly subscription music and TV services. Watching TV on my phone for around 6 hours a day - I like to have the cricket on at work - uses about a GB of data.