Sacrificial Broadband?

BitGuy asks: "SBC's VP of Network Engineering reckons that 78% of broadband users would give up their daily newspaper instead of living without their broadband connection (hmm, being a broadband user, I don't need a newspaper), and 63% said they'd give up their morning coffee (the freaks!). Personally I'd rather give up watching TV - what would the rest of Slashdot give up to keep your real sweet net access?"

Comments

teh vermillion futare of slash shit phirst poast

[Anonymous Coward]

The Future of SLASHDOT.

2002. Slashdot publishes 1,000,000th rumor passed off as actual story. The story generates 480 comments, 263 of which agree with the article, and 107 of which point out it's a rumor and are modded down as redundant. The remaining comments are all "first posts." or posts that contain any rational insight are modded "troll."
2002. CmdrTaco married to a human female, reports are that she does not have 46 chromosomes, however. Fent does display tendency to retardation.
2002. Slashdot parent corporation VA Research^W Linux^W Software stock worth 35 cents. Rumors that AOL, Microsoft, or even Jimmy the hobo who lives under the Longfellow Bridge may buy it.
2003. VA Software bought by Microsoft for a cup of coffee and a donut. All Microsoft-critical articles mysteriously disappear from Slashdot. Bill Gates as Borg logo replaced with Bill Gates as God. (Taco suggested that in order to be "God," or his vision of God, Gates would have to be seen in a NAMBLA T-shirt. Luckily good taste prevails in favor of the old man image in glowing aura.)
2004. CmdrTaco loses virginity, well, not sex with men virginity, that's long since gone, and not sex with anime blow up dolls, this time, real sex.
2004. The WIPO Troll returns again, showering Slashdot in 45,000 copies of the same post: "Lick my crotch hairs." Slashdot, despite running on 18 redundant IIS/8.0Beta6 servers, buckles under the load. The term "Slashdotted" is replaced with "WIPO-Trolled."
2004. Slashdot officially shut down. Millions of screaming, unwashed geeks invade Redmond campus and lynch Bill Gates.
2005. Linus Torvalds and Anal Cox found dead along with six penguins, a tub of crisco and several used condoms. FreeBSD users are glad the insanity is dying.
2005. CmdrTaco rumored to have had sex again, even with constant Viagra therapy, it took this long. He complains, I can be ready to go again in five minutes if I was looking at a nude man, to the dyslexic Fent.
2006. CowboiKneel found dead in hotel room with 56 pizza boxes covering his bloated corpse. Three suffocated gay prostitutes are extracted from beneath his body as police remove it with a backhoe.
2007. CmdrTaco actually has sex again, this time plugging Fent in the ass for a more manlike feel.
2007. BSD is still officially "dying." No word on when its demise will take place. FreeBSD 9 is delivered in perfect working order in a coherent superior, commercially viable and useable fashion with real documentation, the same practice followed since inception. Linux lunatics, after the death of Cox, are still trying to perfect the Trident driver while ignoring the existence of the GeForce 9 [Anyone have one of these? There are only 3 known Trident based cards left in the whole world? Please Contact Marcelo Tosatti. Expect a short, rude reply.]. Netcraft dies along with all the surveys they held on Microsoft and Linux servers are lost as well.
2007. CmdrTaco starts new weblog to replace Slashdot, creatively named Dotslash. Remainder of Linux users flock to the site and immediate WIPO-Troll it out of existence.
2007. Box running FreeBSD for 6 years sets world record for Unix uptime on consumer hardware.
2008. CmdrTaco has sex with his wife for the first time without thinking of men. He has dawned on the extra sexual pick me up for his twisted mind, small children.
2009. Marcelo Tosatti finally releases a version of the 2.4 Linux Kernel that is useable 2.4.29-RC2099.alpha.stage.99 (not -STABLE!). Fuck you Marcelo, YOU SUCK as a MAINTAINER.

What do I have to give up?

[Louis_Wu]

My girlfriend ... whoops.

My ocean view ... whoops.

My crime-free neighborhood ... whoops.

Well, I might give up TV for broadband. But not coffee.

Re:What do I have to give up?

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up you dumb motherfucking chink gook zipper head. i hate you fucking yellow bastard mother fuck. i hope everyone in your family dies, but you. you yellow piss colored slant motherfucker. you have no girlfriend, but that aids infected thai bitch you bought. you have no ocean view because you dirty motherfuckin chinks polluted the shit out of it. you dirty foul chinks and stupid triad fucks make no neighborhood safe, you chink motherfuck. you stole my TV you drug selling cat eating fucking dishonest dirty chink. and coffee, another thing the chinks fould disgusting chinks cant do. louis you are a fould dirty shitty chink. you and your dong feng missle toting fuckers. long live taiwan! free the people of taipei from these dirty PROC chinks! death to manland, death to the dirty foul chinks fuck them fags!

Re:What do I have to give up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that very enlightening response... I'm not certain about the "fucking yellow bastard mother fuck" (as you so eloquently described him), but you have to the most toothless, RIA lovin', KKK preachin', barely literate inbreed motherfucker to ever come out of your mother's womb. Please be sure to ask your brother to wear a condom next time he fucks your mom so the world is not burdened by more morons like yourself.

Re:What do I have to give up?

[Soul-Burn666]

You are a geek, you can't possibly have a girlfriend.

Re:What do I have to give up?

[Louis_Wu]

Exactly.

My girlfriend ... whoops.

The "whoops" is my overly-subtle way of saying that I don't have a girlfriend. Or an ocean view, or a crime-free neighborhood.

Re:What do I have to give up?

[DEBEDb]

Grumpy we didn't get FP, aren't we? :)

Got speed?

[Futurepower(R)]

Don't need to give up anything... In Portland, Oregon, DSL by Hevanet is wonderful.

Sex!

[thecampbeln]

Oh, wait...

I'd give up...my computer!

[blastedtokyo]

oops. That was pretty stupid.

My TV is the closet.

[km790816]

I second giving up TV. Smartest thing I did when I moved was not getting cable.

Splurge and get the extra 256k download and you'll still be money a head.

I have a lot of friends that say "Yeah, but there are great shows on." True, but for every 1 good show I watch 3 horrible ones. It's too damn easy to come home and hit the power button. You just sit and watch and suddenly 2 hours is wasted out of an already short day. After 3 months, I'm over $100 richer and I've read more than I have in the past year. I go to my friends place on Monday for the important shows on Fox. It's amazing how annoying commercials are after not seeing them.

Try it for a few months! If you need an entertainment fix, listen to radio streaming off the net.

Re:My TV is the closet.

[angelo]

True, but for every 1 good show I watch 3 horrible ones.

Then you are the problem, not television. You see, that remote control is for changing the channel when the show sucks. Better yet, record what you like, and watch it at your leisure. I never have to worry about watching commercials on a premiere night for a show I like when I can just start 15 minutes late and skip the commercials.

Re:My TV is the closet.

[dattaway]

Its not just him. A remote control that can select from 1000 channels of canned and rehashed content of baby food that are offered by a close group of vendors cannot be compared to the openness of two way communication provided by the internet.

If a person cannot adapt to the communications possibilities provided by this network, then perhaps television is their vice.

Re:My TV is the closet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, right. Self control...

Re:My TV is the closet.

[Quinn]

After no TV for months, I watched the tomb opening on FOX and was disgusted at the quick-cut hip-hop in-your-face commercials and the robotically insincere "we care" talking heads on the local news!

Before the special started, I was telling my wife I'd like to get cable at the new house, just for TLC, Discovery, and the other "edutainment" channels, but after that barrage of primetime pablum, I'd changed my mind.

Sure, one can always turn the channel, but why? Why force yourself to find something else to /watch/, when there are other things to /do/?

I still miss classic movies on AMC and TMC, but beyond that, I can get all the entertainment I need from broadband and DVD.

Oh, and the wife, of course. :)

Re:My TV is the closet.

[rthille]

When we moved, we got cable. But we also got a Tivo. You don't want one. I watch too much TV now, but at least it's 'good' TV (The West Wing, Simpsons, various outdoors programs).

What I would sacrifice.

[Associate]

I wouldn't mind sacrificing a few trolls or Bill Gates or Louis Gerstner in the name of broadband. Hell, I'd sacrifice them for no good reason at all.

10 Euros

[oever]

I'd give up 10 euros a month for a 100 MBit connection to the internet.
That's actually what I'm paying now. :^)
Ok, maybe I'd pay 15 euros.

Re:10 Euros

[OneFix]

I'ld really like to know how you are getting 100Mbit at such a low price. I know you don't have an OC-3 for that price. Are you sure that's not 512k? The speed of your LAN doesn't count. It's the speed from your provider. For 99% of the sites out there, you can only get 1.5Mbit (and that's perfect conditions).

Re:10 Euros

[Golthar]

He is probably living on a Dutch campus.

I know someone who has a setup like that, I verified the speed and its good.

Ofcourse you arent having the 100 mbit all to yourself there :)

Re:10 Euros

[OneFix]

Well, that might explain it. But I personally don't think an on campus network counts. First thing is, I don't know of many ppl that get a newspaper in their dorm :) Second, you should only be there for ~4 years (6 for a masters). This is not a long term solution. The chances are that there are probably multiple T-1s in use at the college and you are only getting 100Mbit in the school network. I'ld also be interested in finding out if you get 100Mbit across campus, or only 10Mbit. Chances are that 100Mbit only works for his floor/building. Granted, that's nice...you can play network games, share files, etc over the network, but it's hardly the whole internet :)

Plus, as you say, that's shared...and if it's in a dorm, it's heavily shared...100 rooms on a 1.5Mbit T-1 is going to quickly saturate the line...I'ld be impressed if you were getting a sustained 128k at night under those conditions.

Re:10 Euros

[oever]

Well, I can transfer a full Linux kernel tree from Utrecht to Wageningen (approx. 60 km) in 3 seconds. So the speed is not really 100MBit, but I'll settle for it. 7 Mb/sec is acceptable. :^)

In Wageningen all people who rent at the social housing receive this network connectivity. I live in a small house with 6 people. We actually have a glass fibre running into our house.

Re:10 Euros

[oever]

As a matter of fact, we do have a newspaper and a coffee shop 100 metres away. I also have a small beach and a big garden. Too bad I'll probably have left in a year. I'm sure I'll never be able to adjust anywhere else.
The housing is not really like a campus, since it's independent from the university. So you can keep on living there after you finish you education.

Since Wageningen Univerisity can offer such a good connection to the internet, I don't see why the commercial providers can't. It must be due to their monopoly position on the last mile.

Re:10 Euros

[oever]

Oh I forgot to mention, since I'm living outside Wageningen, the city doesn't think it's viable to give us cable, so while we have this fast internet connection, we can only receive 3 television stations with our antenna.

And for the Dutch readers: yes this is the place Volkert vd G used to live. I didn't know him, and he left long before the fast network came, so its is not bad for your mental health.

Newspapers aren't much...

[OneFix]

At least here, all of our major newspapers are online. All of their articles are online and all of the classifieds are online. The only things you don't get are coupons, comics and "fillers" (like the political cartoons). But you can get most those in other places. The other advantage of online news is you get the exact amount of coverage you want for what you want, and in many cases quicker than even the 24/7 TV networks can get it.

For TV...I'ld give it a few years and we'll probably be getting all of our TV over a broadband connection. For those that don't know, there are already services that deliver pre-recorded international television (Japan, India, UK, etc) over the internet. All of the major US TV shows (i.e. Enterprise) are already being posted to usenet the same day they are shown.

You can also get phone service online. And for many with Cell Phone service, they have already dropped their land line.

I think there are quite a few things that you can give up to keep a broadband connection if you think about it.

A kidney

[nzelnick]

Not _my_ kidney of course. I'm not an idiot..

nzelnick(tm)
I just bought the original painting
"Andalusian Dogs Playing Poker" on e-bay
Look upon my works and despair

Re:What do I have to give up? vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck my nuts, toad fucker. That yellow bastard zipper head will be planting his boot on your throat, and I want to hear you talking your shit towards me as I save your fucking faggot leftist liberal ass from chink death. I have no cavities, I have no discernable accent, I hate the KKK as much as yellow chinks, my literacy level is quite high and would suspect is superior to yours, and since I don't fuck my mother, as you do, then the term mother fucker doesn't apply in my case.

In any case. I hate you. I hate chink zipper head. I hate fascists, liberals, socialists and communists. I had religious people. I hate Mac Zealots [see religion.] I hate fat sexless LOTR obsessed closet fags. I read Tolkein, but give it rest, 20 sided die fags. I like weapons. I like Dr. Strangelove. I want to fuck my wife on the cone of a large nuclear weapon, and pray that it goes off over some stinking Towel Head Sand Nigger Camel Jockey nigger-hole of a shit city somewhere, and know my cumstains were infused in all the vaporized animals.

I hate white trash, niggers, Jews [when they pull being Jewish to get days off of work], Islam. I hate chinks from PROC. I hate Pakistan. I hate Saudi Arabia. I hate you. I hate clitoris chopping nigger Islamsits. I hate Nigger Mandela and his communist Quadaffi loving shit. I like Colin Powell and Chris Rock ad Denzel Washington. How about that. Hard to characterize.

You stupid ignoramus. You are as judgmental as a "KKK" guy, projecting your weak impressions of me to the world, in a forum, looking the part of the ass. I am hater of all, and those who would be useful must be aprecated by me. For so it is written.

You are an imbalanced wanna be do-gooder. You senseless fuck. Say hi to your pillow when you make love to it tonight.

john ashcroft's genitalia

[aminorex]

i'd gladly sacrifice these if it meant my
ping times would drop by half.

conventional media

[adolf]

In the breakroom at work, the TV continually blasts CNN and there are at least two different newspapers scattered around the tables.

I read the newspapers - usually, all of them. I stare blindly at Connie Chung as she goes on another heart-felt tirade against x with a sorry, pathetic half-smile on her face.

But that's really just to kill time while smoking a cigarette and downing a Dew during a union break. Given the choice, I'd rather be reading Salon.

I never feel like I learn anything from the AP stories carried in the paper. They're continually filled with strange, misleading errors and missing information, or (perhaps worse) dumbed-down numbers.

I never feel like I get anything from CNN these days, as they nowseem to carry everything but news. I find myself squinting at the ticker at the bottom of the screen, trying to decipher from their broken half-sentance synopsis whether or not anything important is happening in the world, and usually failing.

At home, the only thing I ever watch is the History Channel, TLC, and Discovery. The latter two have seen better days, much as CNN and MTV (I do remember, long ago, that MTV did play music), while the history channel remains largely OK with the exception of their exceptionally inane game shows.

I do like auto racing, but I can't get Speed from Time Warner without paying a king's ransom on top of the already high bill for a digital box and a new service tier.

Of course, these somewhat desirous networks all kick over to informercials during my prime viewing hours, which greatly inhibits my ability to watch them.

That all said, were it not for my 2-year-old's healthy addiction to Spongebob, I'd have dropped cable TV a long time ago. I still may - I've been considering programming the TiVo at my parents' house to keep a few fresh episodes of her favorite shows, and dumping them to VHS on an as-needed asis.

As far as the newspaper, I don't care much about it. The local news rag carries all of their own stories on-line for free, in a much easier-to-follow format. For other stuff, there's Salon[1].

1: Slashdot omitted due to lack of news, and a dearth of stuff that matters.

Such Sacrifices!

[Terminus0]

Well, after careful thought and deliberation I have decided that in return for the almighty broadband access granted to me, I would be willing to give up God.
Yes, God.
So, see ya later, I have the combined knowledge of the human race, and you just don't make sense anymore.
-peace sign-

I've chosen to live without ANY connection.

[arcade]

After having some way or another to connect myself first to BBS'es, and then to the Internet since December'94 - i finally got disconnected in July this year (2002). And a wonderful thing it has been.

I'm still connected to the internet from the university or from my workplaces - but after work/study hours, I'm free.

I've actually started reading books again! Yay! I've started walking in the the woods again! Even started watching a tiny little bit of TV (Less than 3 hours a week I would guess). I've started working out again. I've started to hack on my laptop again, instead of wasting time on IRC. I've started watching movies with friends again.

Hell I enjoy beeing disconnected at home. I'm NOT planning on getting an Internet connection at home any time soon. _Maybe_ I'll set up a radio network with friends - but there is just NO WAY i'm gonna get connected 24/7 again. Or have any way of using dialup. :)

So, what would I give up to keep my broadband connection? Nothing! I've given it up without having to. I don't miss it. I don't want it back.

Re:I've chosen to live without ANY connection.

[vasah20]

I just got my broadband connection a month ago, but in conjunction with that I got two roommates as well.

Two roommates, who are not geeks. This, has greatly improved my social life and happiness. And we don't even have cable.

Admittedly, I drink much more, but that's probably a topic best left for another day.

Re:I've chosen to live without ANY connection.

[photon317]

I've twice taken breaks from home connectivity, about 6-9 months each time, roughly same time frame as the above poster (net since around 94, BBSes before that). I didn't do any excersizing or woods-walking, but I do get a lot more productive on my home computers. I would work on real code a lot more often, instead of getting sucked into mindless browsing and slashdotting. If I needed some faqs, manuals, source code, etc from the web, I'd just sneaker-net home whatever I needed on an LS-120 floppy from work, or from the free net access at the community college down the street from my apartment.

My daily newspaper is free !

[Monsieur_F]

I pay nothing to get my daily newspaper (called "20 minutes", or "Metro"), it is free. I can take it at the train/metro station every morning.

I wish I'd pay the same for my internet connection !

What I have given up...

[bolind]

-Female company
-Contact to the world
-Discussions that can go on for more than 2 minutes without differential equations being drawn in.

That's life at engineering school, but I have access to that sweet, sweet 100mbit university network and 24 way Sun E10K's.

Bo

Re:What do I have to give up? vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets go point by point, shall we...

1. Never been a fan of nuts, as for toads how could you not use their big mouths for SOMETHING good!?!
2. Thanks for being willing to save my "fucking faggot leftist liberal ass from chink death" despite anything to the contrary, I would appreciate such a grand gesture despite our apparent differences.
3. Cavities only appear on teeth, I specifically said that you were toothless, please remember to read a little more carefully next time.
4. As for "no discernable accent", I'll assume that is outside of the American, European or whatever country you call home's accent is? In any case, no accent is still an accent, just so you know.
5. Hating the KKK is good, hating the "yellow chinks" via a carte blanche (that's french for 'blank ticket', by the way) opinion based solely on a last name isn't so good.
6. As for your literacy level, please refer back to the third point, as well as the seventh point (below).
7. As for you fucking your mother, I never made the claim that you did indeed fuck your mother. I did refer to you by the term 'motherfucker' (note that in it's slang form it is one word, not two) which is merely a slang term used to label you as an undesirable individual. So in its intended form, it does apply in your case.
8. As for hating me, agh... bummer.
9. As for you hating "chink zipperhead", good for you I guess. My guess is that "chink zipperhead" doesn't think too much of you either.
10. As for hating "fascists, liberals, socialists and communists"... good great awesome and way to have an opinion on most forms of society. Do you have any wisdom to bestow on capitalism while we're at it? Just to seed the discussion, describe your option on the Enron, Global Crossing and Worldcom scandals, how those events have effected the world view of capitalism and what their long term effect will be on the concept of a society based on capitalism.
11. As for hating religious people, cool, grate awesome. I have to actually agree with you here... religion is the opiate for the masses after all.
12. As for the Mac Zealots, Zealots are bad, even over rice (funny ha ha).
13. "fat sexless LOTR obsessed closet fags", they ain't as bad as those Trekkies or Star Wars freaks.
14. As for a 20 sided die... to each his own.
15. (we'll just skip a few in the interest of time as you seem to hate ALOT of people, oh yea... 'Islamsits' is spelt Islamist)
16. "ignoramus"... bravo! You are now educated in my mind! A full 4 syllables! Impressive
17. As for being "judgmental"... pot, kettle, black.
18. Looking the part of an ass? I'll guess that is referring to me, as it is not apparent by your chosen sentence structure. So with that assumption, exactly which part of the ass? Left cheek? An ass hair covered in shit possibility? Please tell me as I'm dieing to know!
19. "I am hater of all, and those who would be useful must be aprecated by me. For so it is written." First off, 'aprecated' is spelt appreciated, and second can I get a business card of yours that states "master of the universe" or optionally "god of everything"?
20. "You are an imbalanced wanna be do-gooder" Imbalanced eh? Please refer to point 17
21. "Say hi to your pillow when you make love to it tonight." Will do, is there anything you would like me to mention to it? Anything would help to get it wetter then your 'wife' (please note the cheep shot I just took there). You don't mind that I'll be thinking of you while it rub one off, right? Then again it might be a lil anti-climatic seeing as how you're a big asshole and would therefore not offer much in the way of stimulation.

Well, I'm off to bed to rub up against that dry pillow (then again, you should know how that goes).

Remember, proper use of a condom could have prevented this conversation (now I'm anxiously awaiting the response to my own detriment on this comment =).

PS- vermillion? So am I vivid red or reddish orange?

my girlfriend?

[lovebyte]

Who needs a girlfriend when you can have high-speed porn?

Re:my girlfriend?

[ActiveSX]

People who prefer sex over The Real Thing (TM), of course.

What to Sacrifice

[Treeluvinhippy]

Archeologists belive the Aztecs commited ritual human sacrice to postpone the end of the world.

Maybe if we take all the worthless people (McDonalds Managers, all the Democrats, every Republican over the age of twenty-five, pedophiles and those guys who host religous programming on public access) and commit ritual human sacrifice for ping times.

As proof of concept that Human Sacrifice works I would like to point out that the world hasn't ended yet.

Paperwaste and modems

[e8johan]

I subscribed for the major newspaper in my region (western Sweden) and decided to drop my subscription after three months due to two problems: 1) I have to carry my paper recycling to the recycle station once a week instead of once every other month, 2) I had to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual each morning because I browsed the articles and always found something interesting.
Now I read the same articles on quiets moments from work, where I also do my bigger downloads and burn them out on a CDRW and bring them home. At home I have a 56k modem which is good enough for mail and /. on the weekends and the odd app that needs registration.
As for giving up TV, yes, it is a good idea. I think that I will miss the local news though, as they are difficult to find on the net.

Spongebob

[angelo]

Spongebob already has 6 half-hour episodes on DVD.. Where have you been?

Re:What do I have to give up? -Never the Coffee!!

[k_stamour]

Never give up the Coffee!! ....Never give Up! Never Surrender!

Have broadband, but it's cable...

[dpilot]

I have broadband, and occasionally think about going back to dialup. The Terms Of Service are absolutely ludicrous. "No servers of any kind," give me a break. Many things run poorly without at least a dummy (or tcp rst) Ident, and tcp/ip is just plain broken without some amount of ICMP. "Only one PC connection," I have a firewall and one desktop back of it, so they get no more traffic than if the firewall weren't there - less, because I proxy/cache on that machine, too.

I stick by the spirit of my original TOS, and run a few highly restricted services for my own use, only. The speed is nice, but if they ever started cracking down and *really* enforcing the rules, I'd probably have to go back to dialup. I just wish I were close enough for DSL.

Gave up TV and a funny story

[mfos.org]

Since I'm a poor college student I had to choose between cable TV and broadband. Easiest choice I ever made.

On a related note, someone I know went to get cable internet but not cable TV. So the cable TV people sent a salesperson over (who, ironically arrived a day before the internet installer) who tried to push cable and premium channels, about how they had a great deal going for $50 bucks a month and how you got some nice premium channels with that as well.

This guy told her, "Why should I spend and extra $50 bucks a month, when I can download most of those movies over *your* cable internet connection"

one word

[rogerl]

sex

oh wait... I am married

Re:one word

[BJH]

Have kids - that takes care of the sex "problem" pretty well.

id give up my...

[cybergeak]

virginity!

Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, Jugs, subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the porn on the net, I wouldn't need the magazines.

I would give up...

[Tom7]

... the C programming language.

Re:I would give up...

[GoRK]

... the C# programming language.

Me Too

[Yohahn]

I cannot say enough about how nice life is without TV and only a net connection and radio.

I still get current news and the like, but when people are complaining about getting inundated with stuff (christmas ads, particular news stories) I'm perfectly happy.

Try this just for a month and you'll see what I mean.

On giving up TV...

[GoRK]

For those who say they'd give up their TV's.... you probably don't have a TiVo, do you?

I would probably pick broadband over TV, but consider this: If someone asked me to choose between the TiVo on a 2" black and white TV or the 42" color TV without a TiVo, I'd choose the 2" black and white TV. Yep, it makes *that* much of a difference.

~GoRK

Re:On giving up TV...

[SN74S181]

I'd choose neither of the above. There's probably some useful hardware I could strip out of the TiVo before tossing the chassis, isn't there? There are useful electronic parts in a Television set that can similarly be recovered for productive use.

What would I do?

[Locke!Erasmus]

I'd rather lick all the fur off my cat when she's shedding than go without broadband.

Ive given thought to this.

[Unknown Poltroon]

The only difficulty is that i find it too damn usefull for answering those odd questions tha pop into my head. Whats the flying speed of an english sparrow? What time was that movie again? WHy are we invading Iraq again?

Re:Ive given thought to this.

[BJH]

WHy are we invading Iraq again?

Even the Internet can't tell you that...

Re:Ive given thought to this.

[barzok]

So write them down and run the search the next time you're connected. Maybe hack together an app to store your odd questions then use Google's API to run the queries when you get online and dump the results to your hard drive.

Jack up the rates.

[Verence]

This type of question, as humorous as it may be, is exactly what the carriers love. Ask the people who complain the most about the prices of their broadband connection ' What would you give up most?' and you find out exactly how much more theyr'e willing to pay. I am personally tired of seeing the rates increase about what seems like once a month.

give up...

[mmport80]

i would gladly give up my (offline) life for broadband - seems i already have...

ReplayTV/TiVo

[crow]

I have ReplayTV, and it has totally changed how I watch TV. I don't sit down and surf to whatever is on; I sit down and watch something that I already decided I was interested in. And I agree, commercials are so much more annoying now that I don't see them at home.

Should have been

[dar]

Seems like this should have been a poll:

What would you give up to keep your broadband connection:
- coffee
- chocolate
- David Letterman
- baseball
- foosball
- Cowboy Neil's kidney

slashdot

[oyenstikker]

I'd give up slashdot in a second.

Since I just made that choice last night....

[haplo21112]

I can confidently say that inorder to keep my 1.5MB cable line...
I would do with out:
1. Repairing a non-performance affecting electrical problem with my car.
2. Pay channels on my cable
3. ST:TNG Season 4 DVD's
4. Warcraft 3
5. 2 magazine subscriptions
6. cut the cost of lunch from $7+ to $5.00

metamods: i plead self-defense!

[aminorex]

Dear Mr. I-can't-tell-sarcasm-from-a-troll-from-my-arse:

I also hope you get your wick trimmed in meta-mod.

Re:metamods: i plead self-defense!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mister 'My-karma-means-so-mutherfucking-much':

Get a fucking life.

That's an easy one

[poincaraux]

I'd give up $19.95 a month.

Keep?

[Bobo_The_Boinger]

What would I give up to KEEP my broadband? Hell, where do I GET my broadband in the first place??

DUH!!

[amarodeeps]

Man, google would've given you this answer in a second!! God I'm sick of these obvious ask slashdot questions...

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22what+would+dave+ give+up+to+keep+his+broadband%22

Re:DUH!!

[Yottabyte84]

Your search - "what would dave give up to keep his broadband" - did not match any documents

My computer

[PD]

I'd give up my computer to keep high speed access.

Is this serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would sell my family without hesitation...

In all seriousness though, I have discovered that I primarily use my broadband connection for on-line gaming and system maintenence-related downloads
(*kicks Mr. Gates squarely in the nutz*).

Re:What do I have to give up? vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been trolled so badly you're flipping around in the bottom of the boat now, motherfucker.

Re:What do I have to give up? -Never the Coffee!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Death before decaf!

hmmm I know..

[josepha48]

I'd give up paying for it

I'd giv up th lttr 'e'

[jayayeem]

n fct 'd gv p ll th vwls

money

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I'd rather give up watching TV - what would the rest of Slashdot give up to keep your real sweet net access?

$40/month

Re:What do I have to give up? vermillion

[Anonymous Coward]

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Oh, and.

Fuck you.

Oh, and fuck the lameness compression filter.

I don't watch TV

[epsalon]

Actually, I watch TV only when I feel like it. I don't have cable, so I we get only TWO channels, and only one of these has anything good on. My mother tapes a few programs I watch, and once in a while I watch an entire season in a row.
I only watch live TV when there's important news (and as I live in Israel, it's more often than most places).