Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Supercool Verizon DSL, Missle Defense and the Power of Knowledge


DSL has come a long way. I put in an order with Verizon over the weekend and I'm up. Compare that to the first time I tried to get DSL back in 1999, and that was when I worked for Southwestern Bell Network Integration. It took like 5 months and I had quit by the time the order finally came through.

All in all no complaints. And more importantly my wife won't keep telling me how horrible our Internet his here. My short experiment of running 4-6 computers through a single EVDO connection is over. Too many user revolts and Verizon was too cheap.

A few minor glitches, had to call tech support, and their IVR was totally hosed, but the first tech I got solved the problem. Hell of a lot better than my experience with Comcast in Vernon Hills when it took over 2 hours after the initial install. RCN was good when it didn't snow, which was a bit of a problem in Chicago

But on the way home from work today listening to C-SPAN Radio, I heard some 3-star director of the the Middle Defense Agency briefing the folks at the Pentagon today. Very impressive and after hearing about this, I'm all for the interceptors they are putting in Eastern Europe. Silly Russians. He was rattling off stuff about azimuths, frequencies, correlation, simulations, various types of radars. Good stuff.

Who knows if it was accurate. The great thing technical knowledge (especially if it is classified) is you never know if they are right or wrong or even telling the truth, but this guy was a good briefer.

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