Older Off Topic entries

Verison DSL = Bait and Switch

(Update: DSL seems fine now. Not sure why. I called support and they didn’t know why either.)

Version DSL is bullshit. I just got it and for 30 days it worked flawlessly, then all of a sudden, the upload speed drops to near unusable speeds. I can no longer video chat using iChat. When I’m video chatting, it’s fast for exactly 20 seconds, then version’s bandwidth limiter kicks in an I get about 1 fps.

I figure that 20 seconds is just enough time to fool the speed test web sites. Everyone will test it and it will appear fast, but under sustained load, Verision decides your must be having way too much fun and limits your speed.

There’s a 30 day money back guarantee, so it seems they only limit your bandwidth after 30 day trial has expired. Any lawyers out there who want to start a class-action? This is a clear case of Bait and switch. Verison describes their DSL as “Super High Speed” Give me a break. I think I can pay $10 a month and get the speed bumped. I’ll do it and report back.

The USA is falling further behind the rest of the world when it comes to affordable true broadband. SBC, Verison and Adelphia need to be broken up. There’s not enough competition in the industry. Broadband speeds still need to be about 20x faster to become usable without frustration.

If Bush had a clue, he would be more worried about broadband than Terri Shiavo!! We need an geek in the White House!

No child left behind - NOT!

Pretty funny story today on the net.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/050630/b0630102.html

Toyota just announced plans to open a new auto plant in Ontario Canada, even though states in the USA offered larger subsidies.

Toyota’s reasons where clear. The American workforce is too hard to train. Completely illiterate in some areas. The higher subsidies offered by the US states would have been wasted on additional training.

Some quotes:

“He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use “pictorials” to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.”

“The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States,”

“Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs”

Adelphia Broadband is Crap

I recently canceled my DSL and got Adelphia high speed internet access.

It was a complete disaster. Adelphia is pathetic. It’s super slow and between the hours of 6pm and 1am. It’s not even usable.

The problem is that each area is controlled by a server and if that server gets bogged down, it grinds to a halt. It makes sense that around 6pm, people get off work and go home and get online.

My office which is a few miles from my home has the exact same pattern. After 6pm, don’t even bother using it, it’s super slow. Slower than a 300bps modem. I can’t believe these companies think this is acceptable.

I just ordered DSL again and canceled Adelphia. Beware of Adelphia cable, it’s a scam.

Ted Nugent: Dumbass

Quote from Ted:

“Remember the Alamo! Shoot ‘em!” he screamed to applause. “To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want ‘em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot ‘em.” - link

Sounds like a great idea Ted, but guess what. If everyone has guns, and everyone is ready to kill at a moments notice, don’t you think the rapists, burglars, and child molesters will have guns too?

Who’s going to win in a gun battle: a housewife with a 22 pistol in her purse, or a professional criminal jumping out of the bushes gun in hand?

I understand your point of wanting to eliminate crime. Everyone wants that. But promoting an arms race between the common citizen and criminals isn’t going to work.

Killing the criminal is just a solving the symptom rather than the cause. Why do these people become criminals in the first place? Maybe they are uneducated because they went to a shitty inner city school. Maybe they are mentally unstable and need to be hospitalized or counseling.

If this society keeps producing criminals year after year, figure out why and solve that problem first. Then you won’t need guns.

BTW: I’m not anti-gun. Own one if you want, but I would rather work towards making them obsolete than to promote their spread. I’m 36 years old, and I’ve never been in a situation where I needed to kill another human being. The USA is one of the safest places to live on the planet. Let’s work towards making it safer. Everyone buying guns isn’t the right way to achieve this.

Food for thought: Look at the gangs in the major US cities. Everyone has guns, but has that stopped crime and violence? No, the opposite has happened. Armed inner city gang members have the lowest life expectancy of any other group. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for young men in some cities. According to Ted’s logic, the inner cities should be peaceful and crime free.

Jesse Jackson: Moron extraordinaire

Just when you thought Jesse Jackson couldn’t get any stupider, he now says he’s supporting to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

This guy really craves the spotlight, and this late announcement to support Terri Schiavo’s parents seems to me to be a ploy to get some appearances on Larry King, or maybe a spot on the O’Reilly Factor.

When are the black people of this country going to stand up and demand a real leader? He’s an embarrassment!

Symantec: Don’t fall for their lies

Symantec is one of the sleaziest companies in the tech world. After scaring Windows users into buying their worthless software, now there trying to scare Mac users into buying their “security” software.

This is bull$hit. Obviously if Symantec’s software worked as advertised, the Windows world wouldn’t be overrun with spyware, viruses and hackers.

Symantec couldn’t make it building it quality software, so they become the masters of fearmongering and made billions. They have the perfect scam. Scare people, then sell them the “solution” This is stupid. Don’t support Symantec!