If you do lots buddy pounces in pidgin, and make them launch “echo Dave returned from away @ `date` >> /tmp/pidgin.log”, you can log people!

I love the sound deadlines make as they whoosh past.

@bjgrainger I found skype works flawlessly, but that might be more to do with *buntu jaunty’s cross the board netbook support.

My favourite OS is releasing soon.

Why do we all try to impose our opinions one everyone else? And why do we do it on twttr and utube? I’d love to talk with some people IRL.

Hate the plan to give £2k to anyone scrapping their car, even if it’s just off a new one, scrapping by proxy will occur. No cars under 2k

There’s been quite some angst about ISPs throttling customers in recent years. Lots of accusations, insults and negative press has been flung squarely at the ISPs, and a good thing too! But I don’t think they are always getting it wrong…

Take Comcast for example, their initial stance was to place sanctions on anyone whose connection was observed to be “impacting other users”. The form the sanctions took were a blanket cap, which would be lifted when after a period of time. This is bad, very bad, why? It’s basically punishing you for something you didn’t know you were doing. Imagine me passing a law saying “You may not eat so many toffees, that there aren’t enough to go around. But I’m not going to tell you how many toffees there are.” What?

Comcast’s second tactic is even worse. They would inspect every packet sent from your computer, and effectively block any which belong to the bittorrent protocol, specifically seeding activity. They seem to be skipping the fact that bittorrent is a perfectly legitimate internet protocol. It is as easy to download a film illegally through the HTTP protocol, it’s just this is less common, and the HTTP protocol is what you are using to view this page, so they clearly couldn’t block that and get away with it for so long. This method is like me selling you a car but saying “You can’t drive on B roads in this car.” Equally stupid.

Now, the problem; if you use an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), chances are – as I write this – you are on a 50:1 ratio. This means that for every 50 ADSL lines, only one can use their connection to its maximum capacity at any one time. Not a problem for web browsing, you spend most of the time reading the page, and very little time loading pages, but bittorrent will push a connection to it’s limits. When we go over this 50:1 ratio, everyone on your exchange experiences a performance hit, so your torrents all slow down like everyone else’s, cool, we’re sharing fairly. But wait, I’m trying to make an important call on skype, I’m, sending far less data than the rest of you, but because of your greedy torrenting, my packets aren’t getting through fast enough, and my conversation is incomprehensible, we clearly need a better way of sharing.

Comcast have a addressed this rather well I would say they will cap your for a mere 15 minutes if, and only if, you are using more than your share AND the exchange is over the 50:1 ratio. If you then need to make a call on skype, or do something which requires a speedy connection yet relatively low quantities of data to be exchanges, stop your torrents, wait 15 minuets, and you can use your connection at full speed, because nobody can overstress the network any more. And the most important thing, it’s blind to the protocol you’re abusing, true net neutrality.

And to those who still say that all throttling is the work of the devil: If the network was upgraded to support everybody torrenting – and not everyone wants to – then the service would simply cost more. But there are already more expensive services available, just switch to one of those. Not doing so is like us buying a car and saying “I want this car to carry 50 tons of fruit to Jamaica at 500mph, and I don’t want to stop for petrol on the way.” Clearly insane, but within the realm of a big jet.

Bootnote: I am aware that some rural areas – like the one in which I live – have limited options with regards to internet connections, but you can always pay thousands to have a fibre run to your house, or you could compromise, and learn to work with ADSL.

OMG: Lotus Notes notices when xlock is used, sets my status to away. More amazing when you think how many linux screen lockers there are.

USB, CD, Tuner, EPIC WIN!

Installation went better than I could have ever hoped:

• Old HU was removed by simply pulling.
• Old cage came out with old HU.
• Wiring was as it left the factory, and is 100% compatible with the new HU, right down to the actions it does when you turn the sidelights on (dims the screen when on, lights up the power button when off).
• AND THEN I FOUND MONEY!! Ten English pounds!!!!!

The menus for the USB are quite smart, there are 2 modes.

• Hierarchical folder views, fully navigable.
• Single track view, up and down changes album, right and left changes track.

The recent slowness is down to a sustained DDOS attack, it has been revealed. Anyone who has any details which could lead to a convioction should contact the site admin, could be worth your while.