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Making your 3G cellular mobile Internet 10x faster for free

I've made a small script for greatly improving response time of 3G cellular data connections while only consuming a minimal amount of transfer quota. It is most noticable when browsing, having interactive ssh sessions and maybe for some remote desktop use cases. The result is basically reducing the 500ms-1500ms initial latency and random ping times to normal rates of below 80ms. Of course this assumes that you have no other problems like reflections, interference, signal strength or congestion. I've experimented with raw UDP, TCP and ICMP packets in different configurations, but sticked with this simple and efficient solution in the end. An even more advanced future implementation could involve STUN and an external server to steadily stream optimally sized and timed UDP packets to the client without ACK requirement. Also, a further enhanced version could closely monitor local transfer conditions and determine if any addition transfer should actually be done. Description fro...

My luck with google on Valentine's day (UNIX Epoch 1234567890)

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The day before yesterday, something remarkable happened. I was preparing to go to sleep and turn my computer off. I have closed all applications and almost hit the power button when something flashed into my mind. I forgot to check something important: I wanted to do a web search, so I fired up Google. And to my great surprise the standard Google logo was replaced with a very interesting one. It said the following: Google $ date +%s 1234567890 I have understood that immediately, but I hesitated for a few seconds because of the surprise. When I typed it in a terminal, the output was as expected: 1234567897 (because of the overall reaction time). I clicked on the logo to see the background story. I wonder for how long that logo was enabled. Was it there for only a second? Am I really so lucky to have snitched the exact second of that happening?! Add to the fact that it was Friday the 13th in UTC (but already Valentine's day in CET). It's a pretty odd event anyway if you ...