Slashdot Mirror
How The Internet Works - With Tubes
Chardish writes "In an attempt to explain his reasons for voting against a Net Neutrality bill this past Thursday, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens delivered a jaw-dropping attempt to explain how the Internet works. Said Stevens: 'They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.'"
Isn't it bizarre having sub-literate legislators who determine the future of our livelihood: the internet?
Network engineers talk about 'pipes' all the time when it comes to internet links. Tubes, pipes, same thing no?
Sounds like a good analogy to me.
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
...the quote in the summary is actually the most accurate thing he said.
"I don't have to have the type of speed they're introducing, but the people who are streaming through 10-12 movies at a time or a whole book at a time... for consumers use, those are not you and me, they're not the consumers, those are providers."
I don't understand what it is about."
Politicians can't know everything, but they could have the decency to let others do the talking (and voting) when they themselves have no clue. The funny (sad funny) thing is that Stevens argues one shouldn't regulate without understanding if network neutrality is really needed, and then he goes on and gives these stupid, wrong and incoherent arguments why network neutrality is bad. It's bizarre.
When they mention families, duct tape your ass cheeks together.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Judging by the almost complete lack of any real grasp of the English language or how the internet works, could it be that his email was delayed by the fact that he had no idea what the internet was until one of his staff had asked why he hadn't replyed to his emails?
If this were really happening, what would you think?
A majority of the US population seem to have taken variations of this advice already.
Besides, this is a variantion of the whole 'only the intelligent know they're stupid'-problem.. if you have everybody who realise they're wrong withdraw because of their own perceived stupidity, you'll just be left with the people who weren't capable of realising their errors. Learning is doing mistakes; people who never do mistakes are just good at shifting blame.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
He has obviously been reading Slashdot.
Internet Access Via Pneumatic Tubes -- Whooosh!
No, but understanding the difference between an "internet" and (one assumes) an "e-mail" might be a start. Also useful would be understanding the notion that the presumed delayed e-mail was not delayed because I was downloading Superman Returns, for example.
This reminds me a lot of how ancient cultures would witness natural phenomena and make up elaborate mythologies to explain them. The Greeks And Romans had their pantheons, the Native Americans had earth spirits, etc, etc...
It seems that to this otherwise well-educated lawmaker, the internet is quite literally such a mystical place that he has concocted an elaborate, entirely false explanation for how it works to appease his human desire to explain things. It's fascinating really.
Of course, I'm sure he's not the only lawmaker who happens to be this far removed from the realities of the tech that we are all so familiar with. This leads to simply ridiculous laws regarding this tech (**AA's, the whole net neutrality thing, etc), and should clearly illustrate the fact that someone needs to educate these people or tell them to sit down and stop putting their nose into grown up business.
So the guy says tubes when he really means pipes. Given that his generation didn't even have an internet, at least he got somewhere in the ballpark.
Except that this isn't your clueless uncle we're talking about. We're talking about someone who will be deciding the future of something he doesn't understand. Understanding basic concepts like this is this man's entire job.
So, yes, it is a problem. The man's not doing his job, and we're all going to suffer for it.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Slashdot has moderation. The Senate doesn't. On Slashdot, Sen. Stevens would be moderated "-1 Troll" in about 10 seconds.
- Robin
Maybe I should have bolded the part you ignored:
without consideration for others
If this were not true, then murder would be perfectly acceptable method to accumulate wealth.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Yup it is like the /. editors. Some of the articles they post Are just plain trolls. Sometimes it is even clear they did not read the article at all. SO it is like shashdot at the end, for the important people it is allowed to post trolls.
Wow, congratulations for you on your ability to pay your way into your proposed elite circle of law-abiding rich Americans. But what of all the people who have enough trouble simply connecting to the internet in the first place? What of the rampant inaccuracy of your lame ad-hominem against apparently the entire Slashdot 'collective'? Are you so bigoted that you really think that the proponents of net neutrality are secretly just protecting their bittorrent download speeds?
What of the fact that a US implementation of this idea would harm foreign connections to/through the country so much that the rest of the world would finally be motivated to build some decent infrastructure around you? I suppose in that case, you would be right there with your wallet out, ready to pay to ameliorate your overseas connections, right?
God sir - It was not his use of "tubes" instead of "pipes" that was disturbing. I can even forgive (since I am such a nice guy) him saying, "He got an internet delivered..." because it was pretty clear that he meant "email". What I can't forgive is blaming significant latency on his email system to "net congestion". Taking that fact into account, the other seemingly harmless mistakes ( tubes = pipes, Internet = email) seem less like an outsider using his own terminology and more like someone who doesn't know what he is talking about.
Senator Stevens doesn't sound stupid to me at all. It sounds like a technical staffer explained things to him with the pipe analogy, and the Senator understood the analogy perfectly well. I see no sign in the article that he thinks there are literal tubes or pipes. Internet connections really do have limited bandwidth - but just like with physical pipes, it's all a question of where the 'bottle neck' is.
It is obvious to me that the Telcos are trying for the big scam, but that doesn't make Senator Stevens stupid, or the Net Neutrality bill a good idea. Personally, I disliked the NetNeutrality bill as much as the Telco scams. Rather than goverment regulating the internet, I would like to see more broadband provider choices at the consumer level so that I can thumb my nose at Telcos that try to abuse QOS technology. The only reason Telcos can get away with this crap is because they are an effective monopoly for too many customers.
"he actually did damned good in my not so humble opinion"
are you serious? this guy is a COMPLETE douche. forget the fact that he got the terminology off, he completely misunderstood how the internet works. it is so blatantly obvious he's bought and paid for.
following the tubes comment, he says:
"And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?
Do you know why?
Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people."
Regardless of the terminology, this guy shows he didn't even bother to educate himself, or if he did, HE IS A MORON. either way, i'm sure there are many people way more qualified to be a senator than that douche. isn't that the real problem here? out of all the smart, qualified, knowledgable people in this country, bush is president, and this guy is third in line. wow.
Stevens, and others in Congress, are what the great comedy troup Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie called 12 o'clock flashers. Every electronic device in their house is always flashing 12:00. It is physically impossible, no matter how much you dumb down the terms, to explain the concept of the internet to the feeble brain of a 12 o'clock flasher. You might as well read them the writings of Stephen Hawking in Dutch. No matter how simply you dumb down the concept of email, they are still receiving an "internet", they boot to "Microsoft", Windows are what line the walls of their office, and rebooting involves kicking more than once. These are the same guys who break their "cupholders" and scream at tech support for their incompetence when they don't realize they have the program minimized. I know there are many here in this august body who have greying hair as a result of these lusers and can attest to Mr. Stevens incompetence just by hearing about his reciept of an "internet". He probably asked his secretary to download the "internet" to a floppy so he could read it in his spare time.
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Currently, commuting between Ketchikan and the airport requires taking one of two ferries, which are limited in capacity. During the summer when all the rich tourists are up catching their salmon, the ferries are somewhat packed.
Ahh.. so to make this somewhat on topic, Alaska simply needs to inact an anti-ferry neutrality bill. Rather than allow anyone to use the limited "pipes" (Ferry bandwidth), more "legitimate" traffic (local commuters) should get priority over junk traffic (rich tourists). Just have a special line for folks with monthly passes, and load them first before you take anyone with a day pass.
Oh wait, you want the tourists, too? How about a $1-3 surcharge on all 1, 2, and 3 day passes, put into a bank account, that will eventually pay for a bridge? That's better than me or anyone else in the rest of the United States paying for a bridge to help your tourism industry.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Stevens is a total, complete, asshole of the very brownest kind. Alaska actually gives money to its' tax "payers" every year from all the income they get from oil kickbacks...sorry, "usage fees"...yet Alaska is still consistantly the 2nd or 3rd in the country for Federal revenue payments. Stevens (and I am NOT making this up) is the same genius who stood up at the podium in the Senate and screamed "NO!" when someone suggested they give up some of their Federal - not state, not oil, just Federal, and not all of them by any means - funds to help cover the disaster in New Orleans. And he did keep them from cutting a single dime from the bushels of money earmarked for Alaska.
The man is an unmitigated disgrace. In a sane government he would have been tossed into prison years ago.
Food, Shelter, Clothing:
The Internet allows us to buy different versions of the same, but it doesn't provide, or really do a lot to produce the things that are really important. Maybe there is an automated watering system out there, but most cornfields don't need IP addresses.
Family, Religion, Education:
The Internet can be useful for these things, but they all were available, and would still be available if the whole 'net shut down right now.
Police, Fire Fighters, Medical care:
In some ways, these things are complicated by the Internet, 911 over VOIP is a problem, as well as quack devices/drugs bought online.
I'd be perfectly happy if the government never passed any laws specifically for the Internet. it's fun and all that, but I could live without it.
That's what happened to me. Lots of Funny and a little Troll means I now post at -1. (Yes, borking moderation mememe)