i recently had a nasty experience with dsl providers, i was paying and i *thought* that the dsl account on the line was actually in my name, and that the lessor of the line was going to be reasonably prompt about changing the name of the owner of the line to me, but nuuuu - the stupid dsl provider of my flatmate (telstra, by the way) churned my connect off the line leaving me with not being able to connect to the line even though it clearly appeared to be active, and now i look at the change of owner of account form and it's like 7 pages long and even if i filled it out due to possible credit fail i may not even succeed in changing over.

almost a month after this monumental botch-up of a farce i still can't use the dsl account i am paying for, fortunately the contract ends at the end of this month. the dsl provider that cut off my internet connection didn't do the right thing and return the connection to my provider.

it took a whole week for me to finally find out the full story.

shortly after i figured out what was going on i decided that i was sick of chatting checking my email on my mobile phone, handy as that is (you should try chatting with T9 predictive input sometime on a phone with fairly stupid software, ok it's not too bad but when a word is not in the dictionary it sucks and then for some reason inside java apps when i teach it new words it never remembers) - i decided to get virgin broadband's broadband at home service, which is a 3g (umts/hsdpa) modem with wifi, 1 ethernet port and a 'landline' phone socket which has 'unlimited' national calls.

the latency is much better than i remember from my first time using 3g with an ipwireless modem when i lived in aukland, usually my ping to texas based irc servers from queensland, australia is around 300ms which is only 100ms slower than dsl. the cost of the service is quite decent too. it only has 4gb of full speed quota for the $70 a month but the lack of bullshit and the fact that i can relocate this service should i need to, to anywhere in this country with 3g coverage, and the very decent price on phone service, i'm much happier.

personally, unless the service is optical fibre to my router inside my house, i'm done with wires and their implicit tie to the monopoly of the old school of telecoms companies. i work as a freelance computer technician primarily working with domestic clients and i am also finding that the service provided by cable internet services is crap, they provide routers that are crippled and are unreliable (motorola surfboards seem to be the flavour of the month for optus and telstra here).

virgin broadband, on the other hand, arrived 3 days after i submitted my application online, no credit card details required up front. i had a little bit of trouble getting the service to register my new connection, once i did, it worked great, i filled out the payment authorisation form and popped it into the free postage letter they gave to pay my monthly fees and i've never looked back. about 3 hours of frustration with the registration system, and an hour on the phone, but that got it working.

i can't believe it took almost 3 weeks to finally get to the point where i got sent a change of account form from the phone line lessor. i actually need the internet to do the work i do and when 2 weeks offline was looming i decided i was sick of saying to clients that i might take longer to fix their computer because my internet was disconnected due to stupidity.

dsl providers, on the whole, are retarded, in australia, with the exception of iinet, whose prices and service is the best i've seen. even their helpdesk line has prompt response (it would be awesome if they could get into wireless, but i don't trust most of the wholesalers/infrastructure providers to do a good job). i have no idea what american providers are like but i keep hearing these horror stories about verizon and comcast and qwest and whatnot and i do wonder whether there is actually any good dsl providers in the usa.

i have to say i get a bit tired of this 'i can't read it online' claptrap. just have a look at this comments page. have a look at the front page of boingboing. have a look at slashdot. every website has at least 1000-3000 words on the front page. you don't like reading off a screen? pshh give me a break.

free my ass. i didn't read all of cory's commentary about it before i clicked. it was horrible. i was like... uh... where do you exactly expect me to read this? i can't put it on my ipod or mobile phone to read it when i'm waiting for transit to occur?

i think it is good that now they are starting to see that selling 'property' is not what it's all about. in theory, you could read the whole book. that's a major concession from these morons.

give them time. it is significant that such a major publisher is testing the water. i certainly hope they pay attention that a decently well selling author is calling them lame for their half-assed efforts. i was not the slightest bit impressed. i've bought many books on the harper collins label before. that was so the 'free*' *not really free. kinda thing that makes me want to hurt people. LIARS.

i work with computer hardware a lot and it is a constant phenomena when i hard-power-down a motherboard it's about 8 seconds before the motherboard power indicator dims.

this exploit is a pretty difficult one to perpetuate but i can see some possible methods, specifically involving hijacking power management software.

on a somewhat side subject, i wonder why every household doesn't have a nice gigafarad capacitor on the power line to buffer those sub-minute glitches we get here so much - how much would it cost, and what is there to stop one putting it in anyway? a big fat parallel array of high capacity capacitors and something to absorb the excessive voltage spikes before it. i have a ups on my server but i wish i didn't need it to stop power glitches shorter than a minute.

i think they look hot! i have had times when i've got nasty dermatitis which i finally traced back to sulphites and thus have got it sorted now, but those things are sexy! seriously! i do hope it's two piece or has openings in certain places so you can access your (or another's) bits for the various purposes one wants to access bits for :)

i think it is art when it's done well. i used to work in a computer repair department and i really loved the way the system builders artfully routed cables around and hitched them to various other things, the tech who worked next to me (i was basically the receptionist) taught me a neat trick with coiling the cables to reduce their tangle factor and i use it all the time now when i build computers. a well thought out cabling setup is a delight to behold and easy to work with, perhaps it is not an artform that regular people would appreciate but it gives geeks a warm fuzzy glow in their heart to see an efficient and tidy wiring job.

i want that album!!!! quarterstick records wasn't selling them last time i looked :( well not on cd anyway.

scrummy mushrooms, and trips... i have to be forgiven. and i am also hopeful. i know from reading certain tomes from bruce sterling that gave me the distinct impression he knew what he was talking about...

let's just say it is research :)

I used to work in the industry myself. It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy the work, there is a certain kind of cynical contempt that you have to have, and be able to fake not having it for the clients. I didn't mind the work, I just didn't jazz the clients all that much and I gradually ran out of work because I wasn't getting many regulars. I quit just because I was sick of going several nights in a row making no money at all.

Cory: I think that reviews come under the same category as remixes and riffs. They refer to the work. Thus they are free advertising also.

Regarding the Star Wars derivative works, that comes under trademark not copyright. I think that any fictional universes would fit into the same category, usually franchises involve a trademarked logo. Trademarks require an ongoing maintenance cost by the owners. I think even still, derivative work which is not charged for is permissible, again, it refers to the original works, it does not substitute. If one wanted to charge for such work because it is trademarked there would need to be a profit sharing deal negotiated. This is what registering trademarks is for. To license the use of a brand in the sale of a product. If the material is not sold, then the trademark is not being violated. Or at least it shouldn't be.

Expanding copyright is not neccessary, it needs to be cut right back to the bare basics if you ask me. Copyright is just about giving the originator of a work the exclusive right to profit from the work for a period of time which benefits society by encouraging the production of original work. Anything more than this is nonsense.

Material that is distributed without charge but not under the authorisation of the originator of the work is not displacing any real sales. There may be some losses caused by this and setting up some kind of system where recording media has a nominal tax on it which is distributed to creators of work in proportion with the rates of sales would more than compensate for these losses. This has got to be more cost-effective for the publishers than paying stupid amounts of money to lawyers to try and bully fans into not putting their energy into promoting the published works.

Just to exemplify why this is a good thing, think about how much awesome work was done by fans for the Matrix universe? Would anyone be so stupid as to say that it took anything away from the original works?

i said this on slashdot recently, and i think this is relevant here because the topic is the same:

"I've never understood why it isn't simple - if you make money off it, it's piracy, unless you negotiate a distribution license. Everything else is fair use. This breaks down a little bit in the context of sites like youtube or showing them on a television show. Thinking it through, I think that such a form of distribution is actually advertising and the copyright holders should leave them alone because it's advertising that reaches fans directly, the people who they are marketing to, right?"

i imagine this would be very useful for robotics too, there is many tasks that could be undertaken by robots if their sense of touch was fine enough

the problem is, preventing bypassing of the security of public transport is prohibitive, because public transport implicitly runs at a loss anyway. in most pre-rfid districts anyone with the will can fabricate perfectly acceptable public transport tickets. and i doubt there will be any difference post-rfid, except increasing the losses to the city councils operating them.

i agree with the sentiment about making public transport free. the problem is, when it comes down to it, the cost of it will only increase the more that operators try to prevent free riders.

perhaps it would be a more beneficial view of it to think of public transport as a means to facilitate greater levels of trade, which indirectly improves rates of taxation revenue.

so all we have to do is get rid of this federal tax nonsense and let taxation operate on a regional basis with a transparent purpose rather than the present obfuscation and diversion of the majority of it to military and intelligence operations. then people could develop a more region-appropriate type of defense, rather than this nonsensical nationalistic militarism. (if you talk to any military person they will tell you straight up that every territory has different defense characteristics, some areas are indefensible, some are easy to defend, some have nothing worth defending...)

amongst other things.

life imitates art?

i doubt it will be possible for me to set up a node anytime too soon, but my node is already open... it'd be sweet to spread the word in my neighbourhood though. i am pimping ubuntu along with my quality technical support service :)

yeah, uhm... i thought he was on ice?

if the O and 0 get fixed i'll use it. i'm using consolas at the moment but i do prefer to have zeroes with the slash, or at least a dot or something, or broad O's and very elliptical 0's either works for me.

sorry for a double comment but i forgot to say it only took me 5 days to get to about 30wpm on dvorak, and in two months i was typing the same speed as before, except with less pain, and i didn't change any of my other ergonomics, which are generally bad, but even with the dvorak layout, there is still one finger i get pain with - the right thumb. the spacebar needs to be lower so i can stretch my thumb more, and it would be good to make my left thumb do something useful, i think it could definitely do shift... as it is, it does nothing, and using the pinky to operate shift is plain stupid when there is clearly a key going begging. i suppose the spacebar is huge like that because a substantial and balanced force is needed to make the carriage jump. as you can see, i am loath to use the shift key.

i just don't buy this nonsense about there being no benefit. if ergonomics had been the primary factor in designing the original keyboard layout, overall levels of stretching while typing english would have been the primary criteria, as would placing the hands in the least contorting position for the wrists and elbows.

as long as everyone who knows there is a difference continues to defer from demanding that they be able to easily switch work computers to dvorak, there will be no change in corporate policies about it. stand up for your right to choose how you type!

Cory: i really don't think you would have that much trouble doing a switch if you gave yourself two weeks time away from boingboing and writing.

i don't care what these people say about there being limited ergonomic improvements and speed improvements. for me the speed improvement is more than 10% and accuracy easily more than 30%. not having to stretch for the most commonly typed letters does improve accuracy. that means less moving your right hand off the home row and using your weakest finger to backspace. which is of course another source of accuracy loss, when you miss the home row upon return.

i switched to dvorak about 3 years ago and i don't regret it one bit. the reason why i did it was i was spending way too many hours on irc and i was getting really nasty rsi. since switching i never get any rsi ever. i am using a typematrix keybeord now, which is better in some ways but not perfect, but the compact size of it is helpful, i just think it's a bit too easy to hit the enter key, which can be irritating.

i haven't bothered re-learning qwerty, because all computers i've had to work on so far i've had access to the keyboard layout settings, there's no real reason why one should have to, since dvorak clearly reduces liability to a company to pay for physiotherapy or ergonomics if a person develops debilitating problems.

i did get a little faster when i switched too. only like, 10wpm but still, that's a benefit, typing a little faster as well as getting no pain.

the staggered layout of standard keyboards is another example of anachronism, the reason for it was for the old swing arm typewriters which became all but obsolete in the 60s.

I just love how they never specify exactly how a plastic solvent has anything to do with GHB. GHB is a water soluble substance, usually found as a salt with potassium or sodium. What they must surely be talking about is GBL, gamma butyrlactone, a substance found in much higher quantities in nailpolish removers commonly.

If you ask me this whole story is a media beat-up, it's nonsense that residue of GBL in solid plastics would be sufficient to cause intoxication let alone death, before choking, in the scale of risks of such a product, except perhaps in a child under the age of 3 months. I believe that risk is usually covered by the 'not suitable for children under 5' or some such notice on the package, putting the danger liability onto the parents/guardians of children.

yay, i've been learning german, now i can read your book in german and english side by side und veilleicht grok etwas mehr deutsch =)

this is relevant to me in the convict colonies. recently, it appears, federally, and state-wise, it has become illegal to carry any kind of knife, in a public place. it appears there is no conditions to this but i don't hear about any questions about people buying kitchen knives and pocket knives from shops. in theory, anyone buying a knife from a shop, of any kind, could theoretically be arrested. nobody talks about this of course.

so, in other words, if the police decide that you are a bad guy, for whatever reason, they will be able to increase your penalty, whatever it may be, by finding a victorinox folding knife or, worse, a leatherman, in your possession, they can slap you for an extra fine (i think it's about 500 aud). i think, theoretically they can trump your charges to much more nasty ones like attempted murder, on this basis.

never mind the fact that the majority of devices on your average swiss army knife or leatherman is actual *tools*, are not knives, and that they are physically, nearly useless as weapons in a hand to hand combat situation.

since i recently unfortunately got caught in the legal web, i sat in on a bunch of minor legal cases, and i saw a case where the possession of a knife, which was, according to the testimony of the accused, in the possession of the accused due to taking said blade away from a person who was interested in committing suicide... and then, this poor woman got into more trouble due to this stupid recently introduced law, on top of a simple domestic complaint, in other words, because an ex boyfriend started harranguing her in a public place, and she didn't just run away...

it's very disturbing. where do you draw lines on such a law? possession of a sharp implement in public??? who defines what that means, who defines what is legitimate and what is 'illegal'?