Slashdot Mirror


Why the Coming Data Flood Won't Drown the Internet

High Waters writes "Ars Technica examines predictions of an 'exaflood' of data that some alarmists believe will overwhelm the Internet. A closer look reveals that many of those raising the alarm about an exaflood are generally doing so to make the case against internet neutrality regulation. 'There's a reason that "exaflood" sounds scary. It's supposed to. Though Brett Swanson's Wall Street Journal piece tried to avoid alarmism, it did have an explicitly political point in mind: net neutrality is bad, and it could turn the coming exaflood into a real disaster'."

14 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Quick get to work! by guysmilee · · Score: 5, Funny

    Grab two of every packet and burn them to a HDVD!

    1. Re:Quick get to work! by Zigmun_Barsac · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Imminent death of the net predicted, news at eleven."

  2. This is a really old story by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    5 And the ISPs saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, swapping copyrighted music, filching pre-release movies, placing phone calls all about the earth as if information were a mere fluid, like the sea.
    6 And it repented the ISP that Oscar winner, Nobel laureate, and all around handsome fellow Al Gore, Junior, had made man to surf on the Internet, and it grieved them at their heart.
    7 And the ISPs said, we will destroy the neutral face of the Internet, (which we have implemented from the primordial swellness of Gore) from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth us that we have made them to access information in an inexpensive and convenient way.
    8 But NOAA found grace in the eyes of the ISPs.
    9 These are the generations of NOAA: NOAA was a tidy little bureaucracy, and perfect in its generations, and NOAA walked with the ISPs.
    10 And NOAA begat three acronyms: SHEM, HAM, and JAPHETH, which are not relevant to this jape at the moment, but will be cleverly decoded later for humorous effect if need be.
    11 The Internet also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with sex and violence, because it was just another show, like the news.
    12 And the ISPs looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
    13 And God said unto NOAA, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth with a bolt from my wand of bogus legislation. 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
    15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. If ye know not the length of the cubit, check http://www.wikipedia.org/ but make haste, because Moby Dick shall be sent to devour Jimmy Wales shortly after this post self-destructs.
    16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. And though shalt part one mother of a datacenter therein; such that yea, even Marc Andreesen shall be made to blush at the smoking bandwidth thereof.
    17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring an exaflood of data upon the earth, to destroy all data, wherein is the breath of binary life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall crash like Internet Explorer.
    18 But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy acronyms, and thy support contractor, and thy acronyms' support contractors with thee.
    19 And of every living thing of all data, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be stored at RAID99.
    20 Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive, but they only need, say, RAID5.
    21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them: plenty of frozen pizza and jolt.
    22 Thus did NOAA; according to all that God commanded him, so did they, once they got the budget plus-up.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    1. Re:This is a really old story by bhima · · Score: 1, Funny

      generally, I'm pretty cranky about the Al Gore created teh internet bullshit.

      However "Implemented from the primordial swellness of Gore" is pure gold.

      Keep up the good work!

      --
      Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
  3. No need to fear! by DeeQ · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've built an ark out of Ethernet cables and welcome all of slashdot onboard!

    1. Re:No need to fear! by 4solarisinfo · · Score: 4, Funny

      But how sustainable is that, you'll need women too!

    2. Re:No need to fear! by kilo_foxtrot84 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You must be new here.

    3. Re:No need to fear! by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've built an ark out of Ethernet cables and welcome all of slashdot onboard!

      And two by two, the meme's were entered into the ark made from Ethernet. First boarded the "all your base are belong to us's", then the "welcome to our new [] overload's", and so on and so forth, until after "?????" boarded, at last "Profit" came on board. And lo, as "Profit" entered, so the ark was raised into such a ruckus, with some of the OSS repositories that had come on board disembarking from the ark, and some did turn into the dreaded "closed-source" thus infected the post flood world. Some even forked and did more than one of these.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    4. Re:No need to fear! by MSZ · · Score: 5, Funny

      Worry not, for he has gathered whole exabyte of women. A purest selection of JPEG graven images and HD video with 7.1 sound.

      --
      The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
  4. Pointless exercise by CarpetShark · · Score: 2, Funny

    Inviting slashdot onto an ark? Aren't you kind of missing the whole repopulate the earth thing? Or were you hoping they'd get laid in close quarters, where the opposite sex has no where to hide?

  5. Re:Brett Swanson? by westyx · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess the internet isn't intelligently designed.

  6. Good thing we're not using SI units by charlesbakerharris · · Score: 4, Funny

    I have to say, an exaflood really *does* sound about a thousand times worse than a petaflood.

  7. Re:Drown the internet? by somersault · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm glad that the exaflood is coming, it gives more warning that goatse is about to appear on my screen when I dont read links carefully enough (about 5% of the picture loaded before I was like wtfx0rz I'm at work and my boss is sitting behind me talking to someone and goatse is appearing on my screen!)

    --
    which is totally what she said
  8. and after the exaflood came... by srijon · · Score: 2, Funny

    The exaspam!