Yet another cable upgrade:
!/images/8megsnetpersec.jpg!
To try and get a handle on it, I think back to 1994 and 9600 baud modems that couldn’t even load the images in the whitehouse.gov website. But though I couldn’t see pictures of Bill and Hillary and whatever the White House dog or cat was, I could get the amazing new Yahoo and Lycos sites, which were basically text. And text only usenet was a blast. And even though it used to take me about a hundred tries to connect to Netcom with my dial up modem, there was a much greater Gee-Whiz factor to the thing.
These days, blogs like mine are a dime a hundred-thousand and some of the more interesting blogs have an unbelievable noise factor in the Comments sections. I downloaded a linux ISO, 650 megs in about 11 minutes this morning, but I’m not sure I have any use for it; I’m happy with my Ubuntu install and the new version won’t be out for a couple months. I read a news report that Tivo is making a deal with Netflix where we can download DVDs directly to our Tivo boxes. That’s nice, I guess. I wonder if there are any movies worth watching to download?
Tivo and speed demon internet are okay, but good people are being blown to bits daily in Iraq, smirking power-mongers seem to be in total control of the nation, and subdivision-nazis just fined us for parking a car on the street outside our house. Yeah, yeah, quit bitchin’, things could be much worse. There could be a 10 Commandments statue outside our local courthouse. Huh? What? Really. Uh, I guess there *is* a 10 Commandments statue outside my local courthouse, sorry ’bout that.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use a Gee-Whiz factor or two when I wake up in the morning. Hell, I’d even pay cash.
Here’s your “Gee Whiz”: your upload speed is now faster than my download speed, by a margin of about one 56k dialup modem.
Or, a margin about 6 times faster than that old 9600 baud modem of yours.
But to tell you the truth, but for the occasional linux .iso and my two voip phone lines, I can’t tell the difference. And the last time I was listening “reel hard” to hear the answer to “are we having fun yet?”, the subdivision nazis fined me for “substantial” weeds and sloppy edging. Not to whine, but….
Fined for substantial weeds, sloppy edging, and an improperly parked car?
What has happened to the rural South, a place a man could once proudly park his car on cinder blocks in the front yard and let the weeds grow as they may? My advice? Pave it. Paint it green. Or get some of that Dome turf installed.
I’m finally feeling a bit of speed limitation from 1.5mb DSL. But only because I now have an additional software hungry Mac that’s been sucking down new stuff … during which I notice how slow my PC surfing has gotten.
Maybe I need two DSL connections…
“What has happened to the rural South, a place a man could once proudly park his car on cinder blocks in the front yard and let the weeds grow as they may?”
That would be the old house in Doraville. Out here everything must be as slick as a Humvee with a W sticker on the back.
As a Professional, you’ll need both a dsl and a cable connection. The Mac can slurp down all its needs over cable, while the dsl connection with the liberal AUP can run the web server. That monster router you bought can tell what goes where. I’m not sure what the deal is with Earthlink; maybe you’re limited through Bellsouth there. But I know in most areas, Bellsouth is offering 3-4 megs (soon to go to 6megs/784) with a 384 upload that would help. With all those computers going at once, your upstream traffic is getting saturated, slowing your overall connection. What’s Earthlink give you? 128 up? Or is it 256 now? If your line is cabable, you can get 3/384 from Speedfactory and they’ll let you run servers.
When I went voip, the two lines would only work without breaking up over cable. The (2 biz lines) monthly bill went from $180 to $67 through voip. Add $52 for the cable and my business was still way ahead. I kept my dsl line for 6 months to run my mail server over, because Speedfactory allowed that. But after awhile, a mail server that didn’t really do anything except send out 1 or 2 elburro mails per month seemed like an expensive luxury, even for a Professional.
It was 0-dark-thirty on Monday night/Tuesday morning when I drove past the Kennesaw exit, headed north on I-75. Thought about ringing you just to disturb your REM patterns but an uncommon burst of civility and common sense dissuaded me. You live in freakin’ Kennesaw, for cryin out loud, and your arsenal may have expanded to include fairly sophisiticated rocks by now. The massive caffeine load I was carrying at the time would probably have resulted in insensible babbling and uncontrolled trembling at any rate. Did you know they now have drive-through Starbucks in places like Tifton? Excellent idea for late night 90 mph top down mp3 blasting fiends, but there is a certain dissonance seeing the locals sitting on the curbside with a grande mocha low fat double froth latte hold the nutmeg do ya like the new rebel decals on my four by?
The Marietta opportunity imploded in a whimper of unexplainable responsibilities and unclear objectives, leavened with fluctuating org charts. It seems they succeed in spite of themselves, and without the sense of fun often found in unstructured organizations. At least without that move I don’t have to burn certain items of clothing.
I’ve soldiered manfully on since, and a friend referred me to a good opportunity with his company’s southwest Florida operations. Had two interviews with them before I headed back to KY, and spoke with actual adults! I’m getting excellent feedback from them and the job sounds challenging and fun. Ought to know something soon about going back for the final interview. Let me know if you have any shows/calls in that area, or if you just want to get out into the Glades or the Gulf. It’s also only a 2 1/2 – 3 hour drive to Marathon and some excellent diving and my favorite restaurant on the Keys, the Quay.
Saw you’d commented on Reid’s blog and thought I’d drop you a line. At this point my web-savvy is so 1998, usenet is dead except for , and the only way I see some old friends is on blogs. We’ll be in a commuter marriage for a while if this thing works out, so maybe I’ll update my skillz and start a blog while I’m living by myself during the week days, but probably not … I hear the call of the water.
Or golf. Yeah, I play golf now. Aging is such a brutal bitch … but I take solace in knowing that Reid is a month older than I am.
I love the Florida west coast, good move. I have an old college friend who runs a golf course somewhere around there, but I suspect he still indulges in rock concerts and heavy use of LSD, so the weirdness factor may be too great for you.
In July, I did the Gift Show in Chicago and actually drove up (long story about an altercation with security at the Atlanta airport that we won’t get into here). I passed Owensboro and came close to stopping in. Too bad. The Chicago show was great and I’m now trying to figure out how to move up there. Believe it or not, I didn’t find one 10 Commandments statue at every courthouse I went past.
Unfortunately, I’m a Golf Professional, so there are many courses I’m not allowed into (I was a caddy for years, then there were all the drugs). I’ll bet Jon would let me into his, even if all I could do was caddy.
“I take solace in knowing that Reid is a month older than I am.”
Enjoy it while you can. It’s been determined that due to a lack of interest, this year’s birthday is being cancelled. So I’ll soon be 11 months younger than you.