I would rather call it Workplace Internet Browsing for Leisure, otherwise known as WIBL.

"Hey Tony, I need you to collate those TPS reports."
"Yeah sure boss. Right after I get done wibbling a bit."

Yeah, that'll sure stop all those pesky computers from watching hulu! Maybe now they can get back to work!

Too bad we still can't get to youtube from within the .mil domain.

Ain't it great when lobbyists work in our favor?

- Step seven: You cut a hole in the box.
- Step eight: You put your junk in that box.

I think the problem isn't your safety features. It's that you folks over on that side of the water drive at ONLY 70 mph.

I CHOOSE to drive 70mph because driving on our autobahns at 130mph just wastes too much gas. But darn if I don't floor it sometimes just to feel better about not living in America anymore. ;)

And they all hide behind a lot of ink.

Wait a minute... that's MY IP ADDRESS! Don't send him after me! I'm innocent!!!1

I played Doom9 a few times. But DVD Fab turned out to be a better tool than most of what hey had to offer.

Insert snarky "No, YOU!" comment here.

Anyways, what you just said actually emphasizes what I was saying, more than it dismisses it. The military has specific areas that it needs support in, and it needs technical people who can work within the hierarchy to fix their problems. If you've ever scoured the regulations, which I know you haven't (ooo I just said you ig'nant!), you would know that the Army has plenty of proper policies and procedures in place to prevent attacks. Your example of casino computer systems being more secure is laughable when you consider they have handfuls of employees accessing their physical systems, while the military has hundreds of thousands of meat-puppet entry points for hackers to exploit.

The military doesn't need a bunch of computer nerds to run around with Google's 60/40 (or whatever percentage) development time where they spend like half their time working on personal projects. They don't need computer nerds who can't follow orders either.

And there's plenty of recognition available in the military for tech-savvy people, assuming they are intelligent enough to learn how to find the rewards. Sure they won't get it easy like the gym buffs who max their PT tests and get days off for it, but if that's the reward you're looking for, the military shouldn't have even been a career CONSIDERATION, let alone the final decision.

The military supports tech nerds as much as anyone else. You have to learn how to adapt yourself to what the military wants, rather than waiting for the military to adapt to you.

I've been actively practicing computer nerdity for a little over 15 years now, and what I've noticed in my last 7 years with the Army is that I can practice whatever I want during my free time, but applying my technical expertise during work hours was often ignored or even actively fought against until I started applying my skills directly to the job.

For example, I wanted to write code more, and maybe even design my own applications. I wanted to learn how to use microsoft tools with databases and whatnot. This never worked because it required too many changes to the system that was already in place, and it had a negligible gain to anyone besides myself. All I wanted was to learn. Eventually I ditched my idea and instead focused on learning VBA (visual basic for applications) to write macros that would drastically reduce redundancy in our office. For that I got some form of praise. Another example would be in Kuwait, where I used my photoshop skills to do graphics work for our unit. For this I got more recognition.

It's difficult to be selfish in the military. It's also difficult to work in a civilian job that has no overall purpose except to ship a couple more units of Product X.

Quake Live does a great thing by having you go up against a bot, and then determines your level of skill from that and then emphasizes those servers which are taylored to your skill level when you look through the server browser.

Of course you see people who play outside their skill level, but for the most part you are surrounded by people who play on your level.

Get a list of local ip ranges from local ISPs and whitelist them in your firewall. It'll take a lot of work, but that's what happens when you work against the openness of the internet.

As with all things, pride comes at a cost. If it's worth it to you to "finish" fewer projects at the expense of less $dollars, good for you. I'm with you on that one. But I totally respect anyone elses decision to go balls to the wall and ignore all proper coding technique so they can Get The Job Done and get paid. Especially with teh current economic climate.

if only the support channels weren't selective about their service and at least attempted to answer every question. Or at least reasonable ones. For example I have been attempting to address their pricing changes since late last year. Us AMERICAN soldiers stationed overseas are subjected to whatever pricing options they deem appropriate for our area, rather than change the prices for those of us coming from American-owned ips. You see, us soldiers have internet through a specific company here in germany, and the state that the ip address is registered to is an American military address. Porn advertisers have figured this out, as I get ads displayed on screens for "my local area" of APO (American Post Office). I spoke with Hulu.com about this, and they fixed it. Soldiers are now able to watch hulu videos because their service checks the ip addresses properly (or did, last I checked). Steam fails to do this. So after not receiving a reply to my support message about this, I sent another email saying that they should at least allow us the opportunity to mail in tax relief forms. We soldiers are not subjected to the 19% Value Added Tax present on every purchase made here in Germany, yet Steam forces us to pay this. And they didn't respond to that email either. So now I gotta pay long distance charges to attempt to call their offices during whatever their central time zone work hours are. GG Steam.