Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

telecom.csail.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 486 posts

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#201

Post by actionfromafar »

diogenes4 wrote: post #135
wkat4242 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

I just watched someone do a sale of a fully loaded glock for a zip during a smoke sesh. Loaded straight into fairly skinny jeans without checking the safety. Bear in mind that handguns are by far the largest contributors to domestic gun-related homicide (intentional and unintentional) and that most gun control safety targets "assault rifles" and other scary shapes. I don't think this is a nightmare we can exit any ti…

He can do 10 separate shootings and the gun and bullets would not be immediately traceable back to him?

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#202

Post by F-W-M »

Doxin wrote: post #187
Humboldtsnee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person holding the Glock? Because a Glock doesn't have a safety lever. It's built into the trigger mechanism.

> It's built into the trigger mechanism. What, so pressing the trigger automatically disengages the safety? As a non-gun-person that seems like an insane design decision.

With a modern holster there is no need for an additional safety. Keep gun in holster, holster protects trigger. If you really need a gun and be ready to fire and only then: get gun out of holster.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#203

Post by OhMeadhbh »

foobazgt wrote: post #172
thatoneguy wrote: post #31

I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…

A very long time ago I had internet (but not cable tv service) with Comcast. It was generally mediocre reliability, but it's the only option we had. At some point, the service just up and went out entirely. For approximately two months, we had absolutely zero internet service, while Comcast continued to collect our monthly fees. We kept calling, and they kept sending out tech after tech. I don't recall what the final…

In 2006 we lived at the end of a wooded street and the lineman told me squirrels would run along the elevated cables and after a couple years they would nick the insulation sufficiently for water to seep in and then suddenly the whole neighborhood would lose IP dialtone for several months while they replaced the cables.

Sometime around 2015, Comcast seemed to get better. I was able to get dual-stack v4/v6 to the house and bandwidth exceeded advertised rates. When I returned their cable modem after buying my own, returning it was zero-drama / no paperwork problems. Also... in 2015, if you got dual-stack, your support calls were handled by a group with better hold times and generally knew more about what was really going on (rather than reading off a script.)

My last experience with Lumen was pretty horrific. Worse than any problems I ever had with Comcast (including the time we didn't have internet service for 3 months.)

It's very strange to hear myself say this, but I now have a generally positive opinion of Comcast.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#204

Post by OhMeadhbh »

tamrix wrote: post #73
thatoneguy wrote: post #31

I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…

Sounds like a bigger problem with your society than the job.

Now now. Be nice.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#205

Post by solidsnack9000 »

Doxin wrote: post #187
Humboldtsnee wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person holding the Glock? Because a Glock doesn't have a safety lever. It's built into the trigger mechanism.

> It's built into the trigger mechanism. What, so pressing the trigger automatically disengages the safety? As a non-gun-person that seems like an insane design decision.

It is probably better to say that Glocks have no safety. This is actually quite safe in practice because pistols are holstered in common use -- this makes them very different from rifles, shotguns, &c. With a pistol safety, there is an intermediate, "unholstered-but-on-safe" state that doesn't exist with rifles. This turns out to be dangerous in practice because people can think the pistol is on safe when it isn't; or think it is ready to fire when they need it to and, lo and behold, it's not. It turns out to be safer in practice to just assume the gun is shootable when it's out of the holster -- and if that's not safe enough for the situation you're in, put it back in the holster!

Glocks have a system that is systems called "safe action" where there is a system of internal locks that prevents the weapon from firing in situations where the gun is dropped, hit by a car, struck from the side, &c -- this is not really what most people are thinking of when they think of a safety. It turns out to be very important in practice, though. If a police car gets hit by another car and the guns go off that's going to be a bad day for everyone.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#206

Post by watwut »

sublinear wrote: post #154
kmeisthax wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that the US is very proud of their trigger and muzzle discipline. Or at least half of it. The other half points loaded guns with the safeties off directly at their own crotches to own the libs[0]. Going a layer deeper, Americans really, really love to abuse the shit out of customer service workers. To put it extremely charitably, we're used to being fucked by corpos so we pre-emptively fuck them back in…

> Americans really, really love to abuse the shit out of customer service workers. That wasn't my experience when I worked in customer service for a few years. Maybe 10% of people were like that and it was always because they were tired of not getting solutions to their problems, and that was always because their account fell into a bad spot in the customer service flow policy (suspicious activity, low LTV, fraud, et…

10% of people being like that sounds like a lot to me.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#207

Post by solidsnack9000 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #89
thatoneguy wrote: post #31

I was a "broadband technician" around then and AT&T Broadband did not give AF if you were stealing cable or not. I only handled cable modem installs and quit after a year to go major in philosophy and because: - Getting quietly threatened once (with AR-15 up against the customer's front door) on a troubleshooting call that I wasn't able to leave until "the internet started working". - Having to increasingly go do cab…

The amount of incidents involving firearms is astonishing. I'm glad I live in Europe where literally nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals that only really use them to shoot their rivals. I thought most people in the US were proud of their firearm handling professionalism which of course includes not brandishing, threatening or murdering people. I'm really a bit surprised to hear this. I did a similar job…

In Europe, it is not literally true that "...nobody has guns except police and heavy criminals..."; but it is true that owning pistols and AR-15s is relatively rare in Europe. My understanding is that the only country with a well-established concealed carry community is Czechia.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#208

Post by Gud »

cinntaile wrote: post #199
Gud wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in Poland this is the issue, in the rest of Europe it is not.

You theory doesn't check out given the counter example.

There are very few MENA immigrants in Poland so it makes sense to me they would have few riots by MENA immigrants.

At the same time it is possible Polish sports fans are more rabid in their “support”.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#209

Post by grecy »

emodendroket wrote: post #15
Hizonner wrote: post #7

While Comcast should get plenty of blame here, it's also true that it's flat out dereliction of duty for a prosecutor to file a case based on nothing but an uninvestigated complaint from some random corporation. At least Comcast made some attempt to fix it... and also got stonewalled by the State's Attorney's office.

You know, I've had similar thoughts about the Hertz debacle where people were thrown in jail for having rented cars and used them as agreed. I don't think if I made a phone call to the local police department and told them so-and-so stole my car they'd throw them in jail without asking any questions (at least I hope not). Why is Hertz any different?

> Why is Hertz any different

The Police exist to protect the money of corporations.

Re: Get a cable modem, go to jail (1999)

#210

Post by actionfromafar »

smaudet wrote: post #149
wkat4242 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole concept of "carrying guns to prevent a police state from taking over our country" is a bit outdated. These days this is not done with bullets but with carefully planned public manipulation through media and social networks. And if it really comes down to bullets, the government owns a lot bigger guns than you do.

False dichotomy, corporations are another (somewhat powerful entity). They don't tend to use direct force either, but there are private militias...defending yourself from a gang or haywire corp is also an important thing. People like to take the big argument, defense from govt, and tear it down from a broad level, and then ignore the many other lethal threats posed. There have been a couple shootings in recent memory…

Guess what these axe wielders would have done if they had access to guns.
Post reply on HN