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Snails Edge Out ADSL
Anonymous writes "Dear Sirs,
Following our experiment last year, and after long preparations, we have successfully proved that certain gastropods called African giant snails can be faster then ADSL and ... pigeons. The system we have used, called SNAP (SNAil-based data transfer Protocol), uses biological carriers (snails), and, for the first time, taking advantages of the unique merits of the wheel for data transfer. More details can be found here."
So... we can expect new snail-mail any day soon?
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Soldier 1- African giant snails CAN be faster then ADSL.
Soldier 2- Oh, yeah, an African giant snail maybe, but not a European giant snail. That's my point.
But I bet it is April 1 in some universe somewhere. I wonder if a grain or two of salt increases throughput or causes more transmission errors?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Yeah but the lag sucks!
I didn't see any snail recipes. Are they cooked French- or African-style? Are there any stores in the U.S. that sell these snails?
/. was turning into the Food Network. :P
I didn't know that
Nothing beats the sheer bandwidth of a 767 filled with dual-layer DVDs sent hurtling at some destination.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
The ping on that must suck really bad though.
If you want a really high bandwidth, get a truckload of hard drives.
I just don't trust anything that starts with "Dear Sir" from Africa, especially when it concerns something quite unbelievable.
He talks about an Australian lawyer who patented the wheel.
"In particular, Mr. John Keogh, a Melbourne lawyer, was issued in 2001 a patent for "a circular transportation facilitation device", more commonly known as a wheel.
And people talk trash about America's patent system. Looks like we're not the only ones with problems.
This guy is way out there
We slashdotted a snail!
In some regions, most notably France, culinary habits may pose a denial-of-service (DOS) risk.
I don't think you are allowed to bring African Giant snails in the US without a special permit. They reproduce very quickly and are quite destructive to vegitaion.
Though I though African giant snails were the size of a fist.
Does it say "dropped packet"?
Ig Nobel Prize!
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Just add a little salt and down goes the network.
I for one welcome our new african snail overloards. But I wonder how the email service you get with our snail overloars would compare to my curent ADSL provider
Just load the same 767 with 500GB Hitachi hard drives.
Oh sure, it sounds good at first, but beware of the Curse of the Fast Snails!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I think:
"In particular, French users will have to choose whether they want to be served data-ex-cargo or an escargot."
comes near the top of the list.
I think if we are going to establish bandwidth records we need to establish distance too. I suggest 100kms is probably a pretty good minimum measure to make sense.
Shouldn't the time to burn the dvds be calculated and added to the transfer time?
And I'm trying so hard to take this seriously
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
IBM: The world will only need five snails.
DEC: Nobody wants a snail in their home.
Microsoft: The new Longhorned snail is shipping.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Dear Editors:
Faster THAN. Faster THAN. Faster THAN.
Same as:
Smarter THAN. Better THAN. Other THAN. Fatter THAN. Uglier THAN. Costs more THAN. Performs better THAN. More difficult THAN. Takes more effort THAN. Tastes better THAN. Prints more clearly THAN. More structured THAN. More anonymous THAN. More cowardly THAN. More falsely THAN.
Basic idea:
THAN - used in comparison statements.
THEN - used to demonstrate cause-and-effect
I can now proudly say that my school's internet connection is literally slower than a snail (10Mbps).
But let's see...
will easily beat that!
my sstream of consciousness
LuxDsl -- Slower than snails, and proud of it!
Also, they think that expressing the subscription price per day will make it look cheaper (well, at least, it's less expensive than before: it used to cost double than the current, still outrageous prices...)
Does this mean I've got to learn how to write "shell" scripts to run my mail now? And what a boon to tracking spammers. Just follow that slime back to source.
Do the numbers in the article include time to burn the snail DVDs and then read the data back off of them at the end point? What about the time required to attach the DVDs to the snail harness (I'll assume they've got a harnessed snail ready while burning the DVDs)...
Probably still several orders of magnitude faster than dial-up.
- chrish