Leapin' lizards - consumer LAN: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1217535 No wonder some European providers have a hard time controlling abuse. Not sure how feasible extensive logging and monitoring would be in such an environment. I'm sure they do their best, revenue (at least) has to be a factor. But not what I had envisaged as a 'wired community'. Showcasing my lack of depth once more but I wonder how much Eurospam has the fingerprints of just such sources?

That does give a whole new meaning to "Open to the public"!

Some people complain when their cable slows down. Question: How many mp3 downloads does it take to choke a 10/100 LAN?

You are a piker. You need to fill that puppy up with 1-GByte DIVX movie torrents!

Years ago, back when most Ethernets had multiple stations on a wire (via hubs or repeaters), I was told that the Ethernet would saturate when offered traffic reached about 35% of its top rate (so, about 3.5 or 35 Mbits/s for a 10BASE or 100BASE network respectively). Nowadays, I expect these fortunate souls are connected directly to a switch somewhere so they have no other stations on their local wires, so maybe they can go a bit higher. Ultimately, however, it would probably depend upon the bandwidth on the other side of the switch, not to mention the normal latencies of internet servers and the limitations on their bandwidth.

My DSL is rated at 3Mbits/s, but more often operates at about 2.7, and I find that if I get on a fast server with a good connection it will run flat-out at that rate. Of course, the DSL carrier disappears with alarming frequency for reasons that Verizon can't or won't figure out.

-- rick

I hate to disappoint Americans, but in all the European countries I know well, including the one I live in, ADSL and/or coax/fibre-optic broadband systems are standard. I've never heard of ethernet cables running under the streets. I suspect someone was having the (quoted) OP on. Apparently some Americans believe we eat squirrels too. (Of course everyone here knows only Australians do that :)

Cat5 Ethernet cables under the streets would not be very effective, since you are limited to a 300 foot run from the switch. On the other hand, you could run fiber direct to each house, as several carriers (such as Verizon FIOS) are doing here in the U.S. With fiber, the bandwidth would only be effectively limited by what the carrier wants to push down it, and the distance is virtually unlimited. I have personally seen 1Gb pushed over 20km of fiber with no repeater stations, though admittedly this was in a dedicated situation.

Oddly enough, squirrels are about the only introduced beast or plant that hasn't gone feral in Australia (yet). Just as well, those little devils are fast! But, for the more fortunate with access to them, here's a fine European (well, British) recipe from an American source: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Recipes/story?id=2994986 Wazoo is more than welcome to add it to the geek food forum though I fear it's more the *other* sort of geek.

Yes, I think we all realized Western Europe is technologically advanced, I believe the original (other) forum source might have mentioned/suggested Eastern Europe. Sorry if it might have come across as branding all of Europe as somewhat neolithic. We know that is utterly untrue. It was just that, with all those teensy little countries all jumbled together there, it seemed a bit cruel to subdivide your continent. My mistake.

And, indeed, as Will alludes, whole communities, towns like Parthenay networked with their own core fibre optical cabling are not only feasible but have long been the envy of forward-looking, wishful-thinking folk elsewhere. I would trust your advice absolutely that they've also given up eating squirrels there.

You mean that Australians keep squirrels as pets? Or raise them to eat? (as opposed to feral)

Squirrels are only feral in the US. And they taste just like chicken - which is a little bit of a joke. At least, you cook them like chicken or rabbit. I think it is more of a Southern US dish - at least rural US since hunting is not allowed in the city and town where lots of squirrels live. People hunt them like rabbit though I don't know anyone who raises squirrels to eat the way people raise rabbits.

And, I don't know if people still do hunt and eat squirrel - they did when I was younger.

Miss Betsy

You gently jest, Miss Betsy? No, they're only in zoos - and the inevitable escapees in a few of the suburbs immediately surrounding zoos, so you could say there is a small feral population. But not enough to be a dietary staple. "Ownership" of an alien non-domestic animal would certainly be prohibited. In almost every instance (other than squirrels) introduced species have been an unmitigated ecological disaster. Rabbits and cane toads are probably the most spectacular but there are many, many more. Starting with humans (at about 55,000 BP) the extinct megafauna might say. Except they're extinct and couldn't talk even when they weren't, as far as we know. And it is very politically incorrect to point to the coincidence of their demise and the arrival of the first people. But I digress. We do eat camels - as well as export them to Arab countries (finest feral stock extant). But I don't think the Arabs want particularly to eat them, they breed from them (lady camels with gentlemen camels in case there is any risk of ambiguity on the point). Darn, I've digressed again.

No, we don't keep squirrels as pets and I hazard to guess very few Australians have ever eaten a squirrel. Or a camel, to be perfectly truthful (that is a LARGE animal). No, no, I mean camel is a very recent addition to the tables of only the most adventurous of antipodean gourmands.

'sokay, our quondam vice-presidential candidate eats moose meat (which she might "bag" herself from a helicopter). I heard that the best way to age a moose steak is to let it start growing mold, then scrape of the mold and cook the steak.

-- rick

...The month ain't over yet but here's my nomination for "post of the month" -- in fact, this whole "thread" is my nomination for "'thread' of the month!" <g>

Moose is very good. That I had in Alaska. However, it took me two years to figure how to cook the rabbits - I finally found a recipe for hassenpfeffer and that did the trick.

We also often had trout for breakfast.

Miss Betsy

They have frozen rabbits at the Korean supermarket not too far from here; I'm not sure I could cook and eat a whole one myself, apart from which is the icky hairless dead bunny issue (too many Elmer Fudd flashbacks). Trout for breakfast is good, though, if you can't get salmon.

-- rick

Well ... in England it is/was traditional to hang game meat until it had a crisp black surface which is shucked off before cooking. I guess if you could eat it and keep it down, you proved you were of the gentry born and bred. I am totally uncertain why we retain this lore in a fly-infested continent with a generally hot climate where the method is utterly unusable in most places at most times. In memory of what we are missing, I guess . We eat our game much fresher, maybe cooked with bacon and/or onion if the taste needs modification, maybe done in a pressure cooker if the meat needs tenderizing.At least the rabbit is easier to skin and clean. I haven't tried to lift a moose, but ... Well, I once went three days with nothing to eat but rabbit. I think I would have eaten a moose raw/on the hoof at the end of it, had one happened by. But none were to be had in Oz. And we don't want any, really. They'd go feral, probably mutate and eat sheep.