They are my oldest and deadliest enemy. You cannot trust them.
If Hitler invaded Hell, I would give a favourable reference to the Devil.
Monday, January 23
9600!
I remember how great it was when 9600bps modems came out. You no longer had to w... a... i... t... for a screen to refresh. It was just blurrp. Done. Not quite instantaneous, but near enough. Compared to 2400 or worse, 1200, it was bliss.
Which is to say, I swapped modems, and I'm now running at 9600kbps. 9632kbps down, to be precise, and 1024kbps up. Yeah!
I seem to be running on the second oldest version of the firmware for this modem, so I'm going to upgrade it now. That should give me ADSL2+ support and other fun stuff. And if it doesn't work, I have Mister Poopy Modem to fall back on.
Update: 12283/1021. I sacrificed 3kbps of upload for 2651kbps of download. I think I can live with that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
01:40 AM
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1
*staring in open-billed shock*
Posted by: Wonderduck at Monday, January 23 2006 05:28 AM (zBXYv)
2
Yay! Just don't get a speeding ticket...;)
Posted by: Susie at Monday, January 23 2006 10:36 AM (a0oF7)
3
pixy, would you pleasepleaseplease email me?
i don't have your addr.
Posted by: matoko kusanagi at Wednesday, January 25 2006 01:27 AM (0v1hW)
4
Good lord, I need to move to Australia right NOW.
Posted by: Eric at Wednesday, February 08 2006 12:49 AM (Tikk+)
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Thursday, January 19
Good Enough For Now
I have ADSL.
Not ADSL 2+.
Not ADSL 2.
This modem doesn't support ADSL 2+ as far as I know, despite the lying weasel "2+" sticker. I tried using it with ADSL 2, and I got a connection at 10.8 Mbps down and 864 kbps up. Sometimes for as long as five or six seconds. Then it dropped out. Many many times.
After a certain amount of fiddling, I forced the modem into standard ADSL mode, and it's now running at 4544 kbps down, 960 kbps up. That's a fair way short of 24 Mbps, but its a lot better than 1500 / 256 that I had before I moved, and a whole lot better than the 64k I've been surviving on since then.
The connection's been stable for half an hour with no packet loss, which is a good sign. I might poke at it a bit to see if it will give me a higher speed - or I might leave it alone for now. Yeah, I think that's a better idea.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:03 AM
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Posted by: Susie at Thursday, January 19 2006 08:52 AM (a0oF7)
2
What brand and model is your modem? It might simply be your physical distance that is preventing you from connecting at ADSL2+ speeds.
Posted by: Jojo at Thursday, January 19 2006 06:03 PM (OYwJ2)
3
It's a Netcomm NB5. It's not a very good modem, as far as I can tell; Netcomm keep shipping them to us by mistake, so I got one for free.
I don't live that far from the exchange, maybe 1km, but there's no guarantee. I have another modem around here, a Netgear, but it's in a box somewhere.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, January 19 2006 06:18 PM (NCdT0)
4
Netcomm gear seems to be problematic the last few years.
I've set up an NB3 from memory. Certainly not the slickest admin interface around.
I hear alot of bad things about Netgear but I haven't personally had alot of problems. Certainly the DSL modems haven't been an issue.
Posted by: Andrew at Thursday, January 19 2006 08:00 PM (RWEVY)
5
Some NB5 modems might need either a hardware or a firmware upgrade to get ADSL2+ functionality. There was a big controversy about it a few months ago regarding misleading advertising. They have a free upgrade program running that may be worth looking at:
http://www.netcomm.com.au/Support/NB5/enquiry.php
Posted by: Jojo at Friday, January 20 2006 12:41 AM (OYwJ2)
6
Yep, I saw that. However, I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not a very good modem in general.
We sell NB3's, but only because they have a decent diagnostic routine. The diagnostics on the NB5 are the worst I've ever seen.
[For those who don't know, I work for a phone company. We sell ADSL, but we don't have any good high-end packages because we are re-selling Telstra products. So I went with iiNet, who are the reverse, a great ISP but a lousy phone company.]
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, January 20 2006 01:13 AM (RbYVY)
7
Oh. That explains your "...and I oughta know" comment a post or two earlier, then!
*snicker* Makes sense now!
Posted by: Wonderduck at Friday, January 20 2006 01:35 AM (mAAjO)
8
I considered iinet when I was reviewing my broadband. However I decided not to when the rep I was speaking too coudn't give me a definite answer about silent number (which I currently have).
I got a vague answer about Telstra settings coming across as are. But that they had no control over the landline config.
Pretty much figured the same as you, they are up on their internet but not their phones.
Posted by: Andrew at Friday, January 20 2006 02:07 AM (RWEVY)
9
Totally unrelated, but Pixy, you wouldn't happen to know what my mu.nu user name and password is to access http://blog.mu.nu:2082, would you? Could you please e-mail them to me? yossarian9@hotmail.com.
Posted by: Ryan at Saturday, January 21 2006 06:25 PM (b4JBG)
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Friday, January 13
Woohoo!
My ADSL is connected! I missed the email yesterday, or I would have tried it out last night.
I'll probably have to get myself a new modem, because my current one only does ADSL 2, not ADSL 2+. So I'd be limited to 12M instead of the full 24. Which would be very sad. But still slightly better than the 64k I've been stuck with for the last five weeks.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
08:20 PM
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1
Don't worry - it only took me a week and a half to get my DSL working properly.
Posted by: Kathy K at Saturday, January 14 2006 02:45 PM (ntspN)
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Wednesday, January 11
To Zoom Or Not To Zoom
Just got word from my ISP (who shall remain nameless until I have something good to say about them) that my ADSL is currently being provisioned, and within a week I should - if things go right - have a
24 Mbit internet connection.
Whee!
(If you saw that glitch, then yes, I've been spending too much time on web forums lately.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:37 PM
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1
bastard
Local cable ISP claims 5 Mbit, but never gets close. And I live too far from the switch to use ADSL, although they're only a 3 Mbit connection anyway. Canada is
seriously lacking in high-speed service, which is surprising, considering the high penetration rate.
Truth be told, all that speed wouldn't be much good anyway as monthly transfer is capped around 25 gigs.
What sort of transfer volume are you allowed at that speed, Pixy? And what's your cost like per month?
Paul
Posted by: Light & Dark at Thursday, January 12 2006 12:10 AM (M9GWX)
2
It's 80GB per month, and costs $90. The cost is tied to the cap rather than the speed - I could get 24M for $29.95, but with a 600MB cap.
Which would last a little over three minutes.
High speed ADSL only started rolling out in Australia last year, and the main phone company, Telstra, still doesn't have anything faster than 1.5M. So you can only get faster service in specific suburbs - something I checked carefully before I moved house. :)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, January 12 2006 12:49 AM (AIaDY)
3
Can I post ANYTHING without it being denied for questionable content? (testing)
Posted by: Sigivald at Thursday, January 12 2006 07:26 PM (4JnZM)
4
Evidently, the answer is Yes. Now, why couldn't my innocuous, on-topic post make it through?
Posted by: Sigivald at Thursday, January 12 2006 07:26 PM (4JnZM)
5
I've been on Road Runner for ten years and though the price has been a bit high, I have largely been pleased with the service.
Now I'm moving somewhere else, and I don't have any idea what I'll do for broadband, let alone for something that I can put my server on. Yikes!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thursday, January 12 2006 11:27 PM (CJBEv)
6
Sigivald, I think I need to go through the blacklist.
Ugh.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, January 12 2006 11:50 PM (AIaDY)
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My Ears Are Happy Again
I got myself a pair of
Sennheiser PX100s. I previously had some
Koss Porta Pros, but after a few years of going everywhere with me they were pretty much trashed, and I threw them out.*
I went to get a new set, but the only store nearby that had the Koss phones wanted $150. Since I only paid around $80 for the original set, and since they sell for around $35 retail in America, this seemed a bit excessive. Fortunately, I found the Sennheisers, which are nicer looking and more comfortable, distinctly cheaper (at least in Australia), and sound every bit as good.
It took me several minutes to work out how to unpack them, but you only need to do that once.
By the way, even Sennheiser make lousy headphones. These ones? Total rubbish. I don't know why a company like Sennheiser would even want to sell them. I can understand why people would buy them; you've just thrown your old headphones away only to find that replacing them is more expensive than you had expected, but you need something and - oh, those are cheap. Uh, for example. Unfortunately, they're complete crap.
* Apparently, "pretty much trashed" is covered under the warranty, but I didn't know that at the time.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
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1
I listen to most of my stuff at home nowadays.
So I have a pair of Sennheiser HD570s. Excellent headphones but you'd look pretty naff walking around the street with them.
Posted by: Andrew at Wednesday, January 11 2006 06:32 PM (0585Z)
2
Oooooooooohh. Senns!
I used to work in the Radio industry, and you could always tell who'd been in the biz the longest. Rookies had RadioShack cans. Middle-of-the-road had Shures. Lifers had Sennheiser or Koss.
I have a pair of Sony MDR-V100s. They cost me maybe $25, at least seven years ago (I think), and they
STILL kick the llama's butt.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Friday, January 13 2006 01:34 AM (HoSBk)
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Saturday, January 07
Brains, Minds and Consciousness
This is brilliant.
Its a series of videos taken at last year's Skeptics Society conference on, um, brains, minds and consciousness. It's so far covered evolutionary psychology (and why it is wrong), the neural correlates of consciousness (and why idealism is bunk), and where science comes from - and I'm less than a quarter of the way through. It's fascinating stuff and the speakers are wonderful.
It's a three gigabyte download for the "high quality" version (which suffers from some nasty compression artifacts), but that's about eight hours worth of video. Very highly recommended.
While you're waiting for the download, go here and vote for Yuri. This blog is running on Kei, but she's not in the poll.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
07:23 AM
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1
Already voted, thanks to SDB mentioning the poll. I was somewhat upset by the immense lack of Kei in the poll, though.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Saturday, January 07 2006 09:12 PM (KnWO3)
2
Kei will get her chance in the next poll.
Posted by: Don at Saturday, January 07 2006 09:38 PM (SfgwP)
3
*does happy duck dance*
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sunday, January 08 2006 01:22 AM (KnWO3)
4
Hey Pixy,
I need some help with my blog. I sent an email but I'm not sure it went to the right address. Email me when you have time. Thanks :-)
Posted by: Gir at Sunday, January 08 2006 11:28 PM (47IiO)
5
You can
vote for Kei now.
Posted by: Don at Thursday, January 19 2006 11:51 PM (9lP3k)
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