Some of us might want to take up birding

[Bernd]

Just got this off of Russ Keplers machining list. Since we were running a bit slow this alternative might work. 

>IT specialists in South Africa have proven that ADSL from the country's
>biggest web firm Telkom is slower than a carrier pigeon.
>
>An IT company in Durban decided to race the pigeon against uploading
>data over ADSL from it's call centre in Howick to it's office in Durban.
>'Winston' the pigeon carried a 4GB microSD memory card between the sites
>which are approximately 60 km apart. To ensure the test was fair, rules
>of the test included "no cats allowed" and "birdseed must not have any
>performance-enhancing seeds within".
>
>The results of the test showed that Winston completed the transfer in
>2hrs 6 minutes and 57 seconds (from uploading data on the card to
>completion of download from the card) giving a transfer rate of 4.2 Mbps
>(megabits per second).
>
>The ADSL transfer of the same data was only 4% complete when the pigeon
>won the race.
>
>Telkom, the ADSL provider said it wasn't to blame for the slow broadband
>speeds. A Telkom spokesperson said
>
>"Several recommendations have been made to the customer but none of
>these have, to date, been accepted."
>
>More details about the race, including the rules and Winston's route can
>be found at www.pigeonrace2009.co.za.

[Gerhard Olivier]

That is just right -My parents life in Durban- If we send them pics of the kids etc.  they have to open the email and then go have their breakfast and maybe after their meal MAYBE the pics would be downloaded.  That is download speed - and there is also every possibility that the Electric could be allocated to another area in that time leaving them with no power for an hour or four.
 
Gerhard :

[arnoldb]

Yup - I have first-hand experience of this, as Namibia is to a large part dependent on electricity import from RSA, as well as data communications via RSA to the rest of the world...
I'm fortunate with the datacomms though; as I need it for my work, I get a bit of an allowance to have a better Internet connection at home - horrendously expensive though; about 100 pounds per month for a 384k link.

Anybody ever had the power fail on that last finishing cut on a precision shaft that took hours to turn  ? - Got the T-Shirt, and Shrek the African Grey learned a few choice phrases in the process, which he will happily repeat in front of visitors 

I've started considering an automatic electricity cut-out that will keep electricity to my shop turned off when electricity comes back on after a power failure - just in case I forget to turn off any electrical appliances when the power fails...

  Arnold