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US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's For 101 Years
An anonymous reader writes "Internet speeds of users nationwide shows that the United States has not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year, and if the average US Internet speed continues to improve only at the same rate it did from 2007 to 2008, the country won't catch up with Japan's current download speed for another 100 years, according to findings released by the Communications Workers of America's (CWA's) Speed Matters campaign." With enough statistical mangling, nearly anything can be presented as plausible, but that's not enough to cover up my envy of Asian broadband speeds.
Yes, because we all know upgrade paths are all completely linear...
In a hundred years I plan on living on Mars and the US broadband speed is WAY better than the one on Mars...
GO US!
We still have time to catch up with the books then.
Of course the United States could do better but in all fairness, the land area and population density are completely different:
United States:
9.8M square kilometers
Japan:
377K square kilometers
When you're running physical cable, this makes a huge difference.
Of course, I'm probably not the one to compare to because I have FIOS (up to 45 M/bps) and Cable (up to 16 M/bps) available to me. Currently I have FIOS @ 15 M/bps downstream and 2 M/bps upstream.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Yeah, like shorter work weeks, better insurance coverage, universal health care, more vacation time.
Really, people, lighten up!
Porn is better... ...in slow-motion.
US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's for 101 Years
Uh, could you somehow spin (regardless of truth) this as related to war and/or military prowess so our administration will mindlessly throw money at it instead of mindlessly ignoring it?
Like:
US Cyber Attacking Infrastructure Embarrassingly Lags Japan's
Japanese Identify US Broadband as "Ripe for the Pickin'"
Cyber Pearl Harbor Imminent
US President's Netflix Downloads 1/10 as Fast as Japanese President's
US Administration Idles as US-Japanese Broadband Gap Widens
Come on, these things basically write themselves! Turn it into a dick measuring contest or it's meaningless.
My work here is dung.
The Japanese are also at least a hundred years ahead of us in cartoon porn, particularly tentacle rape porn. This "tentacle gap", as I call it, cannot be allowed to continue.
Yeah like higher taxes.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
After reading this summary and feeling a sense of outrage rising in my stomach, I felt obliged to call the Japanese Internet Minister and set the story straight once and for all. After many hours of argument regarding relative price structures, exchange rates, and international broadband infrastructure, he assured me that I had a very large penis. He used such words to describe it such as 'gargantuan', 'mammoth', and 'really freakin huge', and that in comparison, his penis was microscopic. I for one applaud the Minister for his honesty. That is all.
And you wish to compare the entire USA, with it's HUGE wilderness areas to Japan?
You are surprised that a country that includes Alaska, a place so wild they have to pay people to live there, has a lower average broadband connection than a small, civilized, advanced Island nation.
Let me make this clear: It is a GOOD thing that the US is not moronic enough to wire our large, open country to the same extent that a small, island country can.
Next thing, someone will complain that Japan eats more fish per capita than the US does.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Are you talking about poor leaders, a growing economy crisis and unnecessary wars?
Full Tilt
The headline says 101, but the story says 100. Someone please clarify this critical discrepancy.
I didn't take the time to check Google maps, but I'm fairly sure that Japan!=Asia. If you look at all of Asia, I would guess that it has quite a ways to go to catch up to Japan as well.
Indeed. Yeah, so they have fast broadband. Turns out it's easy to build that type of infrastructure when you have a high population density, and theirs is so high that people live with their parents until they are in their 30s.
In the meantime, we've got areas with Fios, and 50/50Mbit symmetrical fiber connections to the 'net. So instead of moving to Japan, you can move to Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, or Texas... Or quit twisting statistics into lies and wait until the fiber gets run to where you are. Which probably won't take anywhere near 100 years.
Or keep believing the grass is greener somewhere else, and move. We're still waiting for all those people who said they were moving to Canada if Bush won in 2004 to make good though, so I won't hold my breath on that one.
Or like better beer, a rich regional culture and history, better cuisine, better wine.
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
God yeah, here I am in London, my boss is pushing me to take another two weeks holiday because I'm not using it up quickly enough. Might have done all my work by Thursday so can have a three day weekend. I'm annoyed that I pay nearly 2% of my gross wage (about average for programming in London) on insurance each year - car, buildings, contents, health, travel of course. Maybe I should buy a less powerful car...
Or I could work in the US, get like 2 hours holiday a year, get fired for turning up 1 minute late, pay all my money on health insurance.
Or maybe if you have skills in the US, you can bargain for better deals like 25 days holiday + national days, free healthcare, dental, etc. Maybe the US system encourages people to work hard, whereas laziness is often seen to be rewarded in the UK.
Internet access and health care are two perfect examples of why government can do good things, contrary to Republican dogma.
Proxy Servers.....big freakin' proxy servers...
Heck I bet they'll be owned by Google because instead of just cataloging the internet, Google will be cashing the internet.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
The Japanese do have universal health care, but compared to Americans they don't work fewer hours or get more vacation time. But the public transport sure is better.
Not the old "but America is rural!" chestnut again. Scandinavian countries have lower population densities than we do yet have much better access. And the "rural" argument might make sense for why you can't get good access on a farm in Kansas, but then why don't we have 100 Mbps consumer connections in San Francisco or Manhattan?
"Asian Pipe Envy"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Whether or not the prediciton is statistically shaky, the fact remains that there is a huge gap between the US and many other, quite dissimilar countries. The big question is "Why?" Japan and Korea aren't the only ones that far outclass American broadband speed, though they do have quite a speed lead.
Chart of Broadband Speeds by Country
And sure, in the US you can get FiOS at 30Mbps, but it will cost you $200/month and you have to live in a very limited area. You can get 50Mbps from Comcast only if you live in the Twin Cities (right now), but it's still $150/month.
I could point to the geography of the US, saying how its a much bigger area than the smaller countries at the top of those charts. Sure, Japan and Korea have an incredible population density. But not Finland, Sweden, France, etc. They have population densities several orders of magnitude smaller than even cities like Houston, Miami, Phoenix, or Chicago. Why aren't these cities more like those countries?
I could also try it from the angle of regulation/free market/competition. But I'm pretty sure those countries at the top aren't all the same in that regard.
Is it because our companies tend to each have local monopolies over large areas? That seems less likely considering how just about everyone in a metro area can get cable. So they have two companies, phone and cable, to compete with each other.
Is there something unique about our infrastructure? Did we make some horrible mistake that seemed like a good idea at the time but is now haunting us?
Is the US just in a perfect storm of craptitude where all these factors come into play?
Why would I need a faster connection to read 4chan?
-Cnik
what is going to happen for the next 100 or 101, depending on how you count. Give me a break and maybe you could use data from the last 20 to infer about what may happen in the next 100. Don't RTFA, all they want is advertising money, and getting a server /.'ed for the fame of it all. Wake me up when there is news that matters!
insert inflammatory comment here!
Most people use the internet for email and websurfing. The difference between 6mbps and 60mbps doesn't make a difference to the human. It's still all in the blink of an eye. Then there is the 1/3(?) of the US that doesn't even want to upgrade from their modems that was mentioned on /. earlier.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I lived in Japan for three years, and when I got there in 2002, the *basic* package offered by Yahoo! Japan was 12Mbps DSL for an intro rate of ¥2000 a month (about US $20), bumping up to ¥3500 a month later on. By the time I left in 2005, the *basic* package cost the same, but the *lowest* speed available was 18Mbps -- something that still doesn't even *exist* at the consumer level anywhere in the US (that I'm aware of) in 2008.
The US broadband market is suffocating under the rank hypocrisy and greed of the telcos, and the bald corruption and bribeability of the congress. Somehow the Japanese broadband market has a heck of a lot more internal competition, yet the companies there can still make a profit offering much higher speeds for relatively lower rates.
Frustratedly,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Japan's taxes are about the same as ours, and half of Europe and Canada pay less than 10% more than the US does. If that's the downside to working less and having access to healthcare, I'll take it.
The answer to why we don't have faster broadband speeds is simple: scarcity pays.
It is not in the interests of U.S. telecom providers to roll out high-speed bandwidth all at once. Thus we have a tiered service model, with people paying a little for 1Mb connections and substantially more to get higher speeds, regardless of what the telecom carriers' networks can handle.
Granted, some of the scarcity may be real and based on telecom companies dragging their feet on upgrading, but even if they could carry 100 times the traffic the can now it still would be in their corporate interest to artificially create a bandwidth scarcity to keep prices high.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
Enhancing the telco infrastructure, I would imagine, is more cost effective than in the US. There you have a few densely populated cities with a lot less geographical distance between them, which keeps your physical archetecture costs lower. The states (Canada even more so) you have densely populated cities with fewer people per square foot than in Japan and those cities are divided by longer distances, making the cost of laying all that cable higher.
I would have gotten it, but I'm posting from the damn slow U.S Broadband.
the US system encourages people to work hard, whereas laziness is often seen to be rewarded in the UK.
I am so totally moving to the UK.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Fortunately, extrapolation also shows us the solution. The number of Americans incarcerated in jails and prisons is doubling every decade. So in 80 years or so, we'll all be in jail. This makes broadband wiring much easier -- forget everywhere else and just wire up jails!
I am not a crackpot.
Actually according to the International Labour Organization and the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development, Americans work on average almost 100 hours more per year than Japanese. Mostly due to the fact that Japanese get 7 more vacation days per year on average.
Report on Productivity and Vacation
Go read the numbers before spouting off about things like this.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
At least, give them credit, that the CWA at least recognizes the need to have more communications product to get more communications workers.
This is my sig.
I live in Canada, and from talking to a couple Americans, my taxes seem to be right on pay with what they are paying, possibly a little higher. Once I count in all the benefits my government provides me, like free health care, I would probably say I pay less taxes than many Americans. Americans think they have less taxes, but if you really look into it, you'll find that logic flawed. They pay a little less, but get a lot less out of their government.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I live in Boston and can't get anything more than 8 down 768 up from Comcast or 3.0 down (something slow up) DSL. No other options. (No Fios in Boston proper).
Even if Fios were available I don't think there are any options that will give 63mbps download speeds. And that's the apparently the Japanese average...
What's the excuse here?
Perhaps one should try looking at a map. Japan is small, habitable areas even smaller. That means wires can be short and cheap. Japan's people are well-trained to pay any amount for whatever biz and govt say they should buy. So you end up with lots of wideband tubes, perhaps not being used to anywhere near capacity.
The USA however, is a BIG place. Expensive to wire up Montana and Texas and the rest. And consumers here while still mildly hypnotized by advertising, occasionally want a choice in speeds and costs.
You decide which regime you want to live under.
Really?
Are there any New Yorkers here with a 200Mbs/$20 per month unlimited connection?
The problem is that high population density areas here in the US are inferior to similar density areas in other countries. The US infrastructure is not keeping up due to the capitalistic way of looking at the infrastructure. It's a failed policy and it becomes more and more evident for each yer that passes.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
You say that, but I'll be you're too lazy to follow through with it.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Ahem... 46 years and counting, just manually compiled and dropped in a new 2.6.26 kernel on my Linux server, now off to smash teenager butt on "World Of Padman".
Anyway, sonny, your music is rubbish!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The thing is, Fios and other fiber connections are reaaally expensive compared to connections in Europe/Japan. They get 100Mbit for like $40/mo there.
They pay a little less, but get a lot less out of their government.
Personally, I'd like to pay even less and get even less from government.
Canadians also benefit from having very low military spending compared to the size of the territory.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The average population density of Japan is 339 people/km^2. The population density of New Jeresy is 453people/km2. Now tell me again why I can't get anything faster than 50/50Mbit which is STILL slower than the AVERAGE speed in Japan? It sure as heck isn't population density based because the numbers just show that the density here in New Jeresy would mean that we should be able to have higher speed rates than Japan if it was based on density.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
We're still waiting for all those people who said they were moving to Canada if Bush won in 2004 to make good though
You've been keeping up with a statistically relevent amount of them to know one way or the other?
Everything will be taken away from you.
The lack of fast internet in America is crippling all the business that relies on fast internet speeds. Sorry to burst your bubble but the Internet is actually used for more that just surfing the web. If America is supposed to be moving away from a manufacturing economy and toward a service economy (specifically an information service economy) then we need to have the infrastructure to handle the demands of that economy. Just like when we invested tons of money in the railroad infrastructure in the beginnings of the Industrial revolution and then again on our highway system in the 50â(TM)s for trucking; we need to invest heavily in our Internet infrastructure. If we donâ(TM)t then we will surely fail as an Information Economy. Iâ(TM)ve had direct experience with this as I worked for a Medical ASP and we were constantly crippled by crappy Internet speeds that would not have been an issue in most of Europe and much of Asia. Itâ(TM)s shameful how our economic growth is being hampered by a few very greedy Telco companies.
The US system encourages early death due to stress because of the lack of allowed time off from work, the obscene insurance costs, and the general poor treatment of employees.
I only wish I could pay 2% of my YEARLY income for all my insurance needs... health insurance would be a good quarter of my weekly income, and car insurance is 10% of my monthly income.
We reward hard work, all right... with ulcers and heart attacks. I've had the former already, and I'm not even 25 yet.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
So how com places like Finland, FFS, have better broadband? From Wikipedia (pop density) and TFA (download speeds):
31 people per sq km -- median download speed of 2.4Mbps
US population density for the whole country, but this is a red herring anyway, as we *still* can't get decent speeds even in extremely dense and high-tech areas like Silicon Valley...
337 people per sq km -- median download speed of 63 mbps
16 people per sq km -- median download speed of 21 mbps
I'll give you a hint -- US broadband sucks not because of different population densities. Instead, it's all about the profit margins.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I'm on NTT East Japan's Hikari Flets.
I -really do- get greater than 60Mbps sustained.
NTT provides the pipe and OCN provides the packets... it's cheaper than Rogers Cable was in canada (1/2 the price) and they throw in phone service (VoIP of course) all for $20/mo.
At my office we also have NTT East and OCN... it's guaranteed bandwidth and costs me less than $200/mo, can max out it's 100Mbps PPPoE to the Cisco and gives us 8 IPs. If you want gauranteed service in US or Canada it's T1s at $1000's/mo.
The telcos in Canada and the US are terrified that cheap IP will cost them their business.
...but for the rest of us with girlfriends, wives, zero personality problems & no desire to watch cartoons of Japanese schoolgirls being fornicated by huge alien tentacles, "up to 8MB" will be just fine and dandy.
I for one welcome you as one of our negative stereotype-reinforcing overlords! We need more of you, TV shows don't do enough of a job at depicting us all as Aspergers syndrome sufferers.
You just got troll'd!
In the meantime, we've got areas with Fios, and 50/50Mbit symmetrical fiber connections to the 'net. So instead of moving to Japan, you can move to Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, or Texas
Specifically, move to a limited amount of affluent, white suburbs in those states. Don't bother with big cities, either. Yes, there are areas with crazy-fast FiOS service, but Verizon is really only rolling it out in the areas that require less work: rich suburbs. More folks that are willing to pay for the service (and higher-level service), and stringing up fiber to individual homes is a bit simpler than dealing with apartments. Everywhere else they're seriously dragging their feet.
Lots of nerds praise FiOS and recommend it all the goddamn time, but it really isn't as available as it is often made out to be.
So how come, even in Silicon Valley, I can't get a consumer connection faster than 5Mbps? In 2008? Yet, when I moved to Japan in 2002, the *slowest* most *basic* package I could get (excepting dial-up, which was being phased out) was 12Mbps.
Fine, we get it, the US is huge. That's no excuse. The simple fact of the matter is that the telcos are much happier to sit there and overcharge for crappy service, as they have no compelling reason to upgrade. If population density and geography alone were the only limiting factors, US residents would still be able to get decent high-speed connections in the urban areas. But they don't exist. I mean, jebus, FINLAND has better download speeds, by a factor of almost 9x (2.4Mbps US vs 21Mbps Finland), despite a population density of about half the US (31/sq km US vs 16/sq km Finland).
So quit the hyperbole, and look at the basic facts -- we're getting shafted in the name of telco profits.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
didn't know whether to mod or comment...comment won out. 47, still current with today's tech world and wanting fast connection. Go kick their butts! +5 fun
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
The average population density of Japan is 339 people/km^2. The population density of New Jeresy is 453people/km2. Now tell me again why I can't get anything faster than 50/50Mbit which is STILL slower than the AVERAGE speed in Japan?
If all you had to wire was NJ, then you might have a point. But NJ does not sit in isolation.
Or like better beer, a rich regional culture and history, better cuisine, better wine.
The United States doesn't have rich regional cultures? I guess you've never been to New York City or New Orleans?
And the rest of those are purely subjective. Most of the mass market European beers (Heineken comes to mind) are just as crappy as the mass market American beers. Start talking about microbrews though I think you'll find a few American beers that stack up favorably. American wine came of age a long time ago and competes successfully on the world stage. And 'better cuisine'? Cuisine varies so much between regions (even within small countries -- ever traveled across Italy?) that I'm really interested to hear how you define "better".
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What, was there an earthquake?
They are interesting numbers considering the phenomenon of karoshi, which, AFAIK, is unique to Japan.
There is also a study about the growth of mental health problems in the workplace and the increased use of prolonged employee leaves.
So maybe it's not just the hours, but how intense those hours are.
It would also be interesting to know how the numbers were calculated and if they measure work times based on tools like Blackberry usage and VPNs, two things that "help" me work more hours than just those when I'm in the office. I couldn't find the report gaebler referenced. Quick googling didn't show it and the search function at JPC-SED is broken.
I think you're doing it wrong, Car insurance is running me 1% of my salary, I pay in about 4-5% to my HSA/FSA so that covers health insurance. Flexible schedule, payed holidays, and 2 weeks payed time off as a new employee (this increases by a week every 5 years of employment up to 5 weeks payed time off.) Indiana is the new Europe.
History - Can't argue that one.
Culture - Arguable.
Beer, wine, & cuisine - Um, no. Besides, most European beer, wine, & cuisine are readily available in the U.S.
Yeah, I sure wish I had access to health care 18.3 weeks from when I find out I need it
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/10/15/waittimes-fraser.html
So that's 5 in decimal, right?
True. However, Japan's elderly (those over 65) comprised 19% of the population as of 2003. By contrast, the United States elderly percentage (as of the 2000 census) was 12.4%*.
Granted, we're talking percentages rather than raw numbers, but those considered senior citizens comprise a larger portion of the overall population in Japan as compared to the U.S. That said, to see the baby boom generation and how their population affects the overall population, look at this 2005 graph from the census bureau.
Overall, it's not necessarily the older generation that "holds progress back" but rather, it is people in general who do not see the need for the newest and shiniest. Look at Blue Ray and HDTV to use two examples. DVDs are perfectly acceptable for the masses so most don't see the need to repurchase new media to play in their new (much more expensive) players.
*Scroll to the last page to see the percentage breaks outs and add the last three columns.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Kuato: Quaid. Quaid. Benny: Forget it, man, his fortune-telling days are over. Kuato: Start the reactor. Free Mars... Kuato Lives!
Was it you I fragged on the edge of the bathtub with my "Betty"?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
In the UK, It'll never get there.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Hooray for Indiana! My home state... ;-)
I've got a sweet job in Illinois (no where near Chicago) where I pay next to nothing for health insurance (HSA, and company pays the monthly premiums), my auto insurance is dirt cheap and dropping, and I have awesome flex time and vacation time as well.
Working in the midwest can have its perks sometimes.
I live in Boston UK, and I can't get anything more than 2 down, 400 up. And that is dropping out all of the time, and throttled to hell.
Cry me a river.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Since you ignored it the first time:
Scandinavian countries have lower population densities than we do yet have much better access. And the "rural" argument might make sense for why you can't get good access on a farm in Kansas, but then why don't we have 100 Mbps consumer connections in San Francisco or Manhattan?
Your post didn't answer the first point, and ignored the second. Finland has 5.3 million people in 130,000 square miles. Wisconsin has 5.7 million people in 65,000 square miles. So, obviously Finland is gong to have a lot more open areas than Wisconsin, yet it has a median download speed of 21 Mbps, compared to less than 2 Mbps for the United States. I don't have figures for Wisconsin, but what do you think the chances are they will be remotely close to Finland?
And I have yet to see any apologists offer a reason why you can't get access in densely populated American cities like Manhattan to match what Europe is able to deliver to their people in the sticks.
1. RIAA, MPAA, and disk drive manufacturers combine to provide a 50 mbps connection to everybody in the US. Just because they're nice guys.
2. Sales of offline storage go through the roof.
3. The Pirate Bay gets Slashdotted almost immediately and can't afford to lay on new servers to handle the load.
4. RIAA sues those lucky enough to connect for copyright violations.
5. ???
6. PROFIT!
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
I'll tell you what for: The more question marks you add on to your sentences, the more bandwidth I need. That's what.
The provider's point of view: 1. Bandwidth is not for the user, it's for us to make "premium content" available to the user. Premium content is anything we can up-charge for. 2. Premium content is compressable. We have not yet reached the limits of compression. Compression may degrade subjective quality, but if we label it HD, the end used will believe us not notice it's worse than SD.* 3. Since our primary goal can be reached through more compression, additional bandwith is not necessary. ----------------- *God should strike down UHD for showing beach volleyball so compressed that swinging ponytails morphed into oozing blobs.
New Mexico green chili. All the culture, food, and history you need. They just fired up the roasters this weekend. Sweet!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Wow, good argument. Touche.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
WTF are you doing that requires that much bandwidth?
I have 3G down, 768K up, and I really can't imagine what I'd do with more bandwidth than that in my home (well, 1.5 up would be nice).
Maybe it's just a demand issue? Maybe many Americans don't want more bandwidth?
Me? I wouldn't upgrade my bandwidth unless it costs the same or less than my current connection.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I think you're doing it wrong, Car insurance is running me 1% of my salary, I pay in about 4-5% to my HSA/FSA so that covers health insurance. Flexible schedule, payed holidays, and 2 weeks payed time off as a new employee (this increases by a week every 5 years of employment up to 5 weeks payed time off.) Indiana is the new Europe.
I got two weeks paid holiday on my 6-month work placement in the UK :-). I didn't have a car, and didn't need health insurance. My train ticket was a significant cost (15% of my salary) because I didn't want to move house for just 6 months and work wasn't exactly close to home, but for a permanent job I wouldn't be so stubborn and travel would be maybe 5%.
On the other hand, I expect my salary bought a bit less stuff (food, entertainment, gadgets) than the equivalent US one.
You aren't really going to argue that there was no "umbrella effect" for Canada, Western Europe, and Japan from this "overspending", are you?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yeah, I for one want to move to western Europe so that I can be lazy and get paid a whopping 400 euros per month or so (Germany). I'll be rich! My god, I'll almost be able to afford food along with my cardboard box!
Shorter work weeks - so when you need a real operation, you can travel to the US and pay for it instead of waiting for 10 years as your health deteriorates.
Better insurance/universal health care - just like the free clinics. Better chance of catching something while waiting with the poor than fixing anything.
More vacation time - so you can travel to a country that actually does more than fix minor problems without waiting for years.
Seriously, why do you think all the Canadians come to the US for health care when they need a major operation? Because with socialized medicine, the majority always gets priority. Good luck if you have a rare/uncommon disease. Just look at somewhere like John Hopkins, or the Mayo Clinic - which has served more kings/royalty than any other place in the world. There is a reason why people come to the US from other countries to get health care.
Whoops, 3M down, not 3G :)
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I lived in rural Japan for 15 months. I'm not talking about way up in the mountains, mind you, maybe about an hour's drive away from Utsunomiya.
The only broadband option was DSL from Yahoo. It was decently fast and only about $25 a month, but it wasn't light-years ahead or anything. I can drive an hour out from Indianapolis and find equally good service, probably from more than one provider.
If anything, my connection in Japan was slower because anything I wanted to access was coming over a trans-ocean link. I easily get 2x or 3x speed on most downloads now that I'm back in Indy and I only pay about 2x more. Sounds fair to me.
Also, my broadband was the only thing in Japan that was cheaper than in the USA.
So, yeah. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
I can trivially max out my downspeed connection at home with a single download. If someone else in the family (or even just me) wants to download something else, our individual speeds are cut in half. And I'm paying ~$70/mo for a higher-speed connection (and static IP addresses).
Most of NJ is already wired. FiOS coverage is way up there in terms of percentage (>70%) and population coverage (>90%) when compared with the rest of the US.
freeflux-powered open-source blog
...the CWA, who provides the labor to install broadband, would never bias a report in favor of sky-is-falling need to urgently spend a lot of money on speeding broadband installations...
Advice: on VPS providers
if only for their broadband.
Ohayo = Good morning!
Konnichiwa = Good afternoon!
Konbanwa = Good evening!
Okairi nasai mese goshiujin sama = I'm a gaijin otaku and all the japanese i've learned is from watching anime!
Hehe - I maxed out my 24MB bandwith just last night :-)
And that was with the TV off and without using the phone, of course.
Gotta love telecom deregulation in France - one thing they really did get right!
The story I hear about Manhattan, is that the city is requiring them to roll-out FiOS in low-income areas simultaneously with the richer areas. Verizon's reply was that they would not roll it out at all.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Maybe at one point. But not currently. Currently they seem to be spending a lot of money fighting Iraq, which most of the place you mentioned specifically were against, and still are against, the US being involved in. Also, the umbrella effect, as far as Canada is concerned, means that we have to go in after the fact, as is the case with Afghanistan, and clean up the mess that the US left behind.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Why would they give us (americans) all that speed at once? They can just feed us a trickle of an increase every so often and make us pay a premium for a "blazing speed extreme boost" or whatever they call the next marketing plot. That way in a few years your gas tank and your cable modem will cost you more than your house. We will all have to take the bus to internet cafes so we can play mmos like some other places.... (my first post, yay!)
The USA have a bigger problem to attend: most of the country was shaped on "oil high availability". The increase of the ratio (oil cost)/(household buying power) will have dramatic effects since the dependency is quite high. Basically, the USA do not have to waist their time on ADSL or such. If they have to spend "energy" that would be for the final IPv6/FTTH/mobile internet. Let Japan(asia?) and Europe fine tune this internet, then use the matured technology.
You can't get anything higher than 50/50 'cause there's no market for it. Most people don't even sign up for the 50/50... So they use the rest of the bandwidth for HDTV signals instead.
The Fiber you have connected to your house is capable of much higher speeds than that. Devices between your computer and the fiber probably can't even handle the full 50/50.
The population density in New Jersey is why you have fiber already while much of the country doesn't.
The grandparent poster probably made a judgement based on reputation of the country. In Europe, Belgium has some fabulous beers. France has a huge reputation in wines. When talking about European cuisine, what comes to mind are the italian pastas, French haute cuisine, Swedish smoked salmon, Spanish tapas, and wonderful cheese from all over. Every European country has their specialties, and the differences between those specialties are like day and night.
The average non-American is familiar with exactly two brands of American beer: Budweiser (which sounds very, very German) and Duff. The Californians are known for their wines (and they're good value for money) but we don't see an awful lot of Californian wine over a decade old on the shelves here (whereas I'm sure the opposite is true). As for American cuisine, the most well-known dishes to the outside world are hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs, KFC and Thanksgiving turkey. The burgers, hot dogs and pizza (and the fries with that) aren't even American by origin.
Obviously, this is not the entire picture, and I'm sure that actual US cuisine is a lot more varied than the picture I just painted. But I can see why the grandparent poster thinks Europe has better food and drink.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Um, are you joking. I'm from the UK. I get 5 weeks holiday as a starting employee. Its a government job, technically so its a little on the good side for the UK but the rest of europe has it better. This amount of holiday increases with time served too...
I've lived in the states, and in my experience car insurance is cheaper there but in the UK we have higher salaries so it probably evens out.
As for health insurance, national insurance is about 7% of my salary (before tax) so you're doing a bit better there but this also will provide me a small pension (in theory, maybe, its something but you need something else too)
Japan's Population 127,433,494/147,116 square miles
USA's Population 301,139,947/3,537,441 square miles
The USA has about 2.5x the population covering 24x the amount of real estate
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Lucky you. I have an Indiana job and I didn't get health coverage till 3 months, I don't get IRA until 1 year, and I only got 4 days paid vacation year #1.
On top of that, I think I'll be lucky if I get a 5% raise, despite the fact that I've been pushing and getting the ideas out there that are revamping a lot of the IT infrastructure for the better.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
So, your lack of imagination is justification for the retaining of status quo, eh?
You pay for health insurance right? Whats the difference between that and a tax? Oh yea. (warning PDF) It universally costs less to socialize it (to any degree more than what the US is right now).
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Personally, I would be happy to have my government return to what it's scope was intended to be. (As little as necessary to function). I do not need a big brother watching out for me, while robbing me blind.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
Mr. President, we must not allow a broadband gap!
Proverbs 21:19
Waddya talking about offtopic? Once we get out, we might have some money to build up the infrastructure. You don't expect the "free" market to do it, do you. Did the free market build the interstate system? Or Hoover Dam? Or put a man on the moon? We will catch up when we make it a national priority.
What?
Access to a waiting list is not access to health care
Existing taxes could finance decent preventive medicine, but that would mean getting rid of the congressional pork trough, subsidizing industries that don't need it, canceling useless weapons systems and insuring property in areas prone to disasters.
Some very specific areas in the US have ridiculously good quality broadband access and others, the majority portion, do not. The biggest reason why is because service/utility providers are too often allowed to cherry pick where they will provide service and where they will not. If an area isn't profitable, or quite as profitable as others, they simply won't install or upgrade the infrastructure there.
The utilities commissions exist to prevent this problem from happening. This is their purpose for existence. They regulate the quality and distribution requirements for utilities.
If they aren't serving the PUBLIC (you know, the guys who ultimately pay their salaries with taxes) then they should be fired so they can hire someone that will. The trouble is that for some reason, the service providers have a much more audible voice with the utilities commissions out there and they can't see or hear the public's interests.
And before anyone says that "deregulation" is the answer, and not more regulation, I will say that this experiment has been tried and is a demonstrable failure. Texas and California went with deregulation for electric power and California became famous for "rolling blackouts" and the highest prices in the nation for electric power. Texas has pretty damned expensive power rates as well... higher than just about all other states except California and with NO improvement in quality or delivery. Meanwhile these poor, abused and regulated utilities in other states are far from going out of business and they are still raking in billions in profits every month. Deregulation demonstrably hurts the public. Regulation demonstrably doesn't hurt the utilities.
If the UC's would just do the jobs they were created for, we'd have great quality of service all over the nation. Instead, I get bittorrent sustained download speeds on my cable exceeding 1Mbyte/sec, and a few miles away, a co-worker can't even get broadband access AT ALL. (Is ridiculously expensive and poor performing satellite considered broadband? I know I wouldn't consider it as such, and not everyone will buy a T-1 because theoretically, that's "available" too.)
Maybe at one point. But not currently.
So, for 40 years Canada benefited by not having to spend much on their military.
Granted, the need for defense is not what it was in the 50s through early 90s, but whittling the military down to nothing while the rising powers of the world dramatically increase spending is very, very near-sighted.
Also, the umbrella effect, as far as Canada is concerned, means that we have to go in after the fact, as is the case with Afghanistan, and clean up the mess that the US left behind.
Oh, boo-hoo. So as part of NATO, Canada has had to fight... twice? Once at the behest of Europe and once at the behest of the US. And they might spend $1 billion in Afghanistan over 8 or 9 years? Don't you think that they benefited a tad more that $1 billion from the alliance over the past couple of decades?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Media conglomerates don't want faster broadband in the U.S., and all of them have some stake in the companies that could deliver it. Their assets lose value unless they can keep our attention focused on and paying for their products. People on Slashdot seem to think the challenge is technological, when technology has little to do with it. The raw truth is that Big Media has so much influence over politics in the U.S. that broadband policy is completely subject to their approval. Their influence is impossible to overstate. No candidate running for office can risk running afoul of the news media monoculture, which means that the political parties, not just individuals, are held hostage.
So forget your arguments about population density and so on, they are completely naive. And imagining that only private enterprise can solve the problem, a public utility problem, also serves the interests of NBC Universal, Viacom, Disney, News Corporation, and Time Warner
This is definitely a YMMV kind of deal. :)
When I moved from Tokyo to the SF Bay area, I was crushed by how much *more* expensive things were in CA. The one thing that was cheaper was housing by the square foot -- but then again, housing by apartment was more expensive (i.e. a 1BR in San Carlos, smack dab between SF and SJ, cost more than a 1BR in Nakano-ku, but is generally somewhat larger).
I also once worked out price comparisons for services, and found that my cell phone bill in CA was about twice what it was in Tokyo -- for worse service. Sound quality was worse, and calls dropped more frequently, or sometimes just never came through. Our apartment was a bit north of Google HQ at Moffett Field, and my wife worked a bit south. Driving along 101, though, calls would often drop unexpectedly, and reverbs, echoes, and static were not uncommon. Meanwhile, riding the Ôedo line, the Tokyo subway line deepest underground, call quality was generally close to regular POTS, and they didn't seem to drop as often.
DSL was also cheaper and better in Tokyo, with a 12Mbps line going for $35/mo. It was upgraded (at no cost to me) a couple years after I signed up to 18Mbps. Meanwhile, despite being in Silicon Valley and so close to Google HQ, the best consumer line I could get in CA was 5Mbps, for $65/mo. WTF? More money, for less. Whee.
Incidentally, where were you in Tochigi? Nikkô, perhaps? I spent two years living in Utsunomiya. Tough town -- all the local gaijin called it "Utsunomiya-da". I once had an almost-argument with a JR ticket booth operator in Kyoto about buying return tickets to Utsunomiya. Imagine a gruff, balding 50-something fellow behind the window:
Me: Utsunomiya made ni mai onegaishimasu.
Tix: Ômiya?
Me: Utsunomiya.
Tix: Oyama?
Me: Iya, U tsu no mi ya desu.
Tix: Naze sou iu tokoro ni ikimasu ka?
Me: Achira ni sunde imasu kara.
Tix: Ki no doku...
From his expression and body language, it was clear that he was baffled why any gaijin would go there, and then baffled why any gaijin would live there. Given that the mob ran (still runs?) the city government, and given their and the local townspeople's notable unfriendliness to gaijin, it's not too surprising.
Gotta feel the love...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's For 101 Years "
And? Honestly, why should I care? In Japan, the government is intimately involved with the affairs of the businesses and that has a tendency to remove barriers. In America, we don't want our government sticking its nose in corporate business (anymore than it already is). As result, expansion happens in the profitable markets. The loss-markets may or may not ever see the service.
That is the up and down side to a capitalist economy. I prefer it this way. There are many aspects of Japanese culture I would rather not imitate, and this just one of them.
Bearded Dragon
And 'better cuisine'? Cuisine varies so much between regions (even within small countries -- ever traveled across Italy?) that I'm really interested to hear how you define "better".
If you ask most people what cuisine America is most famous for, the answer will probably be "fast food" or "junk food" (actual answers may also include supersize me-burgers, american pizza, fried chicken and so on). France isn't all about cheese and wine, Germany beer and sausages, Italy pizza, Japan sushi and so on but in the game of cuisine stereotypes America is pretty much bottom of the barrel. You can find good food everywhere, good local cafes and restaurants are in every city but the question is what's common and abundant. And from my slim anecdotal experience the US reputation is not entirely undeserved...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Does Japan have download/upload caps like some providers in the US? And what about p2p transfers? 50-100Mbps with no restrictions would be incredible.
And from what I can tell in my corner of the state, they are brutalizing Comcast in their own backyard. At least for the time being, I suppose there could be a backlash against Verizon, it is happening to Comcast at the moment after all.
That's assuming there is a United States in 100 years.
But I aways thought the Wi-Neron Internet would fix that issue anyways.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
There's more to life than how fast you can download porn
[citation needed]
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
This suggests that there may be room for a new indicator of technological advancement...or the lack of it. Figure out the degree by which several countries differ in the implementation of well-understood technology, and you'll have an idea of how much influence special interest groups have on enforcing the status quo. You could use the amount of money lobbyists spend in the country's capital as another indicator.
Cable television, cell phones with disabled features, broadband, development of alternative energy sources...there's quite a few places where such a measurement might help show a path through the bullshit and spin and excuses to something resembling the real story.
Any suggestions for a name? Everything I thought of (the "Ludd(ite)", the "Lobby Brake", etc. sounds lame.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
And the US is a 101 times as large as Japan. Could that possibly have something to do with it? If every person living in a major US city had ultra high speed internet that would still leave 99% of the country without. You might as well say they are years ahead of us in carpeting. Most of the US still not carpeted.
The average non-American is familiar with exactly two brands of American beer: Budweiser (which sounds very, very German) and Duff
Eh, then familiarize yourself with more before you make a blanket statement that all American beer sucks. I wouldn't presume to think that all European beer sucks just because Heineken tastes like skunky piss water.
but we don't see an awful lot of Californian wine over a decade old on the shelves here
Well, for starters California doesn't have a monopoly on American wine. Most American states produce small amounts of wine and at least three of them (New York, Oregon and Washington) have well developed wine industries that compete favorably with anything that comes out of California.
Besides that, I've been to Europe. Most of the liquor stores that I visited had a rather depressing selection of American wine. I actually saw a bottle of Sutter Homes white zin in Florence that was going for around 40 Euros. Here in the states that would sell for $4-$5 a bottle and would be considered the budweiser of the wine world. It made me wonder if all the European wines that I see on my liquor store shelves also represent the bottom of the barrel ;)
The burgers, hot dogs and pizza (and the fries with that) aren't even American by origin.
America is a nation of immigrants from different cultures and countries. Each of them have brought a unique piece of their own culture to this country. Eventually those different cultures assimilate into something that's uniquely American. Hamburgers and hot dogs weren't invented here but does anybody really think of them as German any longer?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It would be trivial to set up a 54mb network all over the place. If every geek in the country bought 3 wireless routers, and added them to their LAN (at the end of some really long cat5), there'd be FREE 54mb (assuming 802.11g) internet all over the place. Ok, so it's technically not "54mb internet", but still... a network is a network, and if it's there, people will use it.
I'm already doing this in my house with a wireless router plugged into my linux router. I've given it the SSID "FreeInternet", and blocked the router's (static) IP from accessing my local network (iptables rules to drop packets from the wireless router's ip to 192.168.0.0/16 (except for 53 (DNS) which is pointed at the "real" router) seems to work quite nicely.) My LAN is safe from lurking WiFi Demons, and I'm providing a free service to my neighborhood. I'll add some more access points later this year, on opposite ends of really long cables to maximize my wireless footprint.
The downside, of course, is that no one who doesn't know me knows that it's actually safe to use the "unsecured" "FreeInternet" WiFi, and that it's not one of those "honeypot" systems designed to trick people into connecting so that they can try to break into your system while you're surfing porn in your hotel room.
If anyone has any ideas on how best to implement a splash screen (like the ones you'll see if you fire up your wifi-enabled laptop's web browser while standing in the lobby of a hotel), feel free to respond.
My goal is to allow "unauthenticated" access to port 80 (and 53, of course, although 443 can go hang - if it's untrusted, it sure ain't secure) without requiring a login, and to allow "registered" users to access the entire port range (or maybe just common services, secure communications, etc. - it depends on whether I want to get into logging IP addresses and mapping them to credentials. There's sticky legal bits about sharing out my 'net, ya dig? I don't want to watch my traffic, but I do want to be able to give a list of connected users if the gub'mint decides to come down on me cuz someone was pirating on my "unsecured" wifi).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
the universal service fund is there to make sure that the same level of service is available everywhere in the US. I currently have 40Mbit cable with 2Mbit upstream.
does everyone else have this? NO. My dad who lives 45 miles away has the same ISP and service, but his is much slower because it runs over copper. Mine is fiber up to the demarc.
and it's in Miami, FL. No podunk midwest here. On the same token, AT&T will soon start offering 100Mbps service. Here, it's actually just an ethernet connection straight to the demarc. The problem is, they want to charge $199 a month for asynchronous service.
That's why the US will never catch up. That's why AT&T is still offering 256Kbps service for $25 a month.
The Japanese service costs that much for 20Mbps lines.
It's easy to see how, at this point, global innovation is being stifled by lack of speed. Netflix could be rolling out HD video on demand right now if customers could handle the bandwidth.
And throughput limits, AKA usage caps, are just plain wrong. US ISPs are just now implementing caps and blocking because they are selling new accounts and aren't improving network capacity and infrastructure. Which is what the universal service fund is supposed to pay for.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Canada has 1/9 the population of the US, not 1/100 (approx. 35 million people compared to the US population of 300 million.) And yes, Canada has more land mass, but the dispersion is still the same as the US as both countries have large uninhabited regions and dense population clusters. The level of infrastructure in both countries is also directly comparable. So your claim that Canada isn't remotely similar because of "permafrost and those areas" doesn't really hold water.
Basically Japan is ahead because telecom companies are too busy squabbling over net neutrality and locking its customers into spartan agreements. US Telecom companies have very little incentive to innovate because they are all members of virtual cartel where there is no need to spend money to improve technology because they control the marketplace. You've only got a select few number of companies that you can use and, for all intents and purposes, they are one and the same. The only possible exception is Verizon FiOS. But, when compared to Japan, Verizon FiOS doesn't really stand a chance. In summary, the telecom cartel is really holding us technologically back.
As a non college graduate under 25, I get whomped on car insurance costs. I make $1050/mo, and insurance is $125 of that.
You're probably not working in retail, with compensation like that.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
If you ask most people what cuisine America is most famous for, the answer will probably be "fast food" or "junk food" (actual answers may also include supersize me-burgers, american pizza, fried chicken and so on). France isn't all about cheese and wine, Germany beer and sausages, Italy pizza, Japan sushi and so on but in the game of cuisine stereotypes America is pretty much bottom of the barrel
Well if you want to compare stereotypes then there probably isn't much point in having this discussion. We are stereotyped as arrogant and lazy. The French are stereotyped as being quick to surrender. The Germans are stereotyped as genocidal nutjobs.
If you want to compare actual foods then I would again ask how one can claim that the cuisine in Europe is "better". Cuisine is a highly subjective subject and depending upon the taste of the individual that you are talking to you will get twenty different answers as to what's "better". I would argue that American cuisine is as rich and diverse as European cuisine. I won't try to claim that one is "better" than the other.
And from my slim anecdotal experience the US reputation is not entirely undeserved...
At least you admit that you have no idea what you are talking about. Have you ever been to the United States? Because I've actually been in Europe. I didn't like all of it (French cooking has never sat well with my stomach) but European cuisine is so varied that sooner or later you are bound to find something that you'll fall in love with. I suspect that if you came to the United States with an open mind the same would apply.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No budget is in irretrievable deficit when you have missiles large enough to level any bank that tries to get back what you owe them :)
You can always find statistics to make one country look bad. This happens to the US far too often.
There's one fairly simple measure of a country's success, and that's how willing its occupants are to leave if they get the chance. You could offer free emigration to all US citizens, and I bet hardly any would take up the offer.
Sure it has problems, and to be honest, for the country that 'invented' the internet, your connection speed is a joke, seriously.
On the other hand, and American can get in a car and drive thousands of miles without crossing national borders or having their right to travel questioned.
That's a pretty big thing in my opinion, something to be proud of in fact.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I was talking with a CEO of a large entertainment company in an Asian nation. (I won't mention where). When I expressed disbelief that he wanted to stream full HD resolution movies over the internet to his customers, he explained that internet usage is much different in his country. Everyone uses their ubiquitous cellphones for email, and hardly anyone has a computer. Real time connections are not in demand, so it's okay if video hogs all the bandwidth because no one will care. Their infrastructure is geared towards high volume streaming rather than low volume connections.
It all comes down to the economics. Supply is a response to demand, and follows the market. In the US we have a different demand profile. Sure we want more bandwidth and higher speeds. But we're satisfied with what we got. We get our movies from cable, so we don't have a huge demand for instant 4gig downloads. Hell, we have subsidized HD converters and a lot of people still aren't switching! (Remember, the Slashdot readership does NOT represent the general public).
p.s. Of course, part of the problem is because local governments want to direct things. Thanks to them we have entrenched phone and cable monopolies, municipal networks crowding out competition, etc. To top it off we have Net Neutrality advocates lobbying to get the federal government involved.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
One flaw with your railroad/roading infrastructure argument though: internet infrastructure does not last as long and nobody is keen to make the investment in something that will be obsolete in three years.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Yes NYC is extremely densely populated, but it's rather difficult to develop technology, and then roll it out for only certain small portions of the country where the development costs won't be recooperated. Since Japan is much more homogeneous and densely populated, it is easier to roll out a single type of service, since equipment costs can be scaled easily.
In fact, most of the center of the country, between the mountain ranges (with the exception of the few big cities), has their infrastructure subsidized by the rest of the country. It will always be minimally/non-profitable to set up infrastructure in these sparsley populated areas, and thus the coast dwellers pay for, and support this.
50% !! of Americas population lives within 50 miles of the coasts, and appoximately 80% lives within 200 miles of a coast.
..........FULL STOP.
. . . American internet access providers are exercising their inalienable rights to use planned obsolescence!
I have the same speed as you. Offline backup is my main frustration. With Mozy offering $5/month for unlimited backup, it currently takes over a month to upload my 300GB - much shorter for incremental.
Also, at a high enough speed, truly on-demand high-def TV becomes feasible... no more cable company, yea!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Actually according to the International Labour Organization and the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development, Americans work on average almost 100 hours more per year than Japanese. Mostly due to the fact that Japanese get 7 more vacation days per year on average.
And then there are folks like me. I get 2 weeks a year and rarely use it. We can only roll over 240 hours at the end of the year and some time in October my supervisor comes by to get me to use some of that 350+ hours of vacation time. They don't really want me to take most of November and December off. (Not that I'd like to.) I generally do take the week off around Christmas, but I'm gaining more time around holidays since I get all the major holidays anyway. I usually end up taking random Fridays off to spend with the wife while the kids are at school. Its actually more "work" if I'm off any during summer since then I gotta help watch the kids. ;)
There is only so much playing Disgaea, Disgaea 2, Rogue Galaxy, XenoSaga 1, 2, & 3 or heck playing Civ 4 that I can handle before I feel like I better clean up and go back to work. Heck, I get home about 5:30 pm and have then until midnight to eat, play games, browse the net, or watch movies. I'm living in a golden age as it is and get tones of time off and plenty of entertainment to keep me occupied when I'm not at work. What the hell would I do with another 1-2 weeks of vacation time? I wouldn't have any additional money to spend, so I'd pretty much be limited to playing with my existing toys.
Aren't the telcos in the US required to subsidize the rural service with the urban service?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Am I the only one who thinks this is no big deal? I use the internet every day, and I like having broadband, but low-level DSL serves me just fine.
Sure, I could get more entertainment out of a super-fast connection. But most of the economic impact the internet has on me wouldn't change. I don't need an uber-gigabit connection to order stuff on Amazon and do job searches.
Would there really be enough impact on our economy to justify government investment in broadband? Or should we just leave this one to supply and demand?
Um do you have any proof other than your "worked for" job. Did you check and see if the President/CEO/Owner was just cheap and didn't buy faster service? I've been doing this for 17 years now and have used just about everything except the OC family of lines and have never had a problem.
I take that back, Dell's website is slow. Its slow on both my work networks, seperate two T1's and one 6mb DSL, my home cable connection, 10mb cable that consistantly runs at 1000+kb, and just about every other connection I've been on. Same with with company website we use also.
There is a shitload of fiber all over this country. You must be a young'n, don't you remember all the money spent in the 90's on fiber? The infrastructure is there, its just not being utilized because so many telecom companies got burned after the bubble burst in the late 90's.
Also, Japan would fit in my basement. Easy to network it.
So not in 5 years, but in 6 maybe?
You can't handle the truth.
I think part of the problem there is that non-Americans focus on chain restaurants and identify that with the U.S. So it makes perfect sense that Europeans would answer "supersize me-burgers, american pizza, fried chicken." When I was in Germany, the American restaurants in the area were McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Because that's what the locals want - a slice of Americana.
It's a bit odd that you state European countries are more than their obvious sterotypes but then you use "slim anecdotal experience" to affirm the U.S. stereo type. Double standard?
Part of the problem is that Europeans are, in general, much more ignorant of American cuisine than Americans are of European cuisine. Why? Because the U.S. has a large percentage of people of European descent, which is why we also have so many European style restaurants (Italian, Greek, French, Spanish, etc.), in addition to Middle Eastern, Asian, and Central/South American.
Can you describe "European food"? Probably not. You can describe French, Italian, etc. But there's not enough commonality to lump it all together into "European." Yet, presumably because it's a single nation, the entire U.S. gets lumped into "American food." But American cuisine various regionally just as European cuisine does. I could describe Cajun/Creole, Southern, Carolina Barbecue, Tex-Mex, etc. but I can't describe "American" cuisine, because it isn't that homogeneous.
But I should mention - Americans eat way too much junk food.
Has no one thought of the capital required to upgrade the US broadband infrastructure versus the Japanese broadband infrastructure?
Japan is 145,883 square miles. That's ~20,000 square miles smaller than California.
The US is 3,794,066 square miles.
See the difference.
After all the debate and pomp and circumstance, it's just another depressing fact about the future of north american infrastructure. also, Yet another reason to move to Japan, and failing that, Amsterdam XD.
No, the problem is more that most of the players racked up massive debt during the .com boom and due to several factors including the erosion of customers in their land phone base and loss of long distance revenue, they have lacked money to dump into infrastructure. Every single one of the has a massive debt.
Verizon with one of the smallest networks in the most populous part of the country invested in more infrastructure, despite its debt (something like 40 billion). AT&T merged and merged and the other player, Qwest, bought out US West (jokingly called US Worst by some customers, like me - terrible service, terrible DSL speeds priced 2-5x competition, and terrible tech support) but then had to ditch their lucrative Yellow Pages to avoid going junk in 2002.
Basically, we now have this picture in the US: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080424-qwest-finally-gets-in-the-fiber-game-with.html
With 50Mbit service at around $150 (+ fees and tax), 200Mbps service would be over $600, so no, we'd have to pay about 30x that or about $7200 per year compared to $240 (plus WoW fees...).
actually, it's also why New York (and parts of New Jersey) and Virginia pay $90 for 50Mbps and the rest of us pay $140-150 + fees.
In some parts of the country you pay $100+ for 6-10Mbit service.
I've always found broadband propagation strange.
When I lived in Atlanta, I had a 6mbit/down connection, or I could upgrade to 10mbit. I moved to Kentucky and have a ~34mbit down connection for around the same price.
---
Rob Flynn
Pidgin
So the US can catch up in 5 decimal years
Thanks for answering my question above posed to the AC, as to why FiOS is relevant here. I didn't know they were offering up to 20Mbps down; the best I've heard of before your post was 10Mbps, and I couldn't even get that where I was living in San Carlos (very far from the sticks, on the north end of Silicon Valley, think smack-dab between SF and SJ, only a few miles up 101 from Google HQ). 10Mbps is also the best available here on the San Juan Islands -- but not in my neighborhood, not for another year or two. Apparently the telco laid the cable this summer, but hasn't gotten around to upgrading the switches at the local junction box, and won't for a while yet, leaving me stuck with 1.5Mbps.
Anyway, thanks for the update. :)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I agree, less taxes and less involvement from the US Govt. They're already WAY to much into our business. They pass too many useless laws, stick their nose into Baseball, child rearing, religion, many places they don't need to be.
The size of the Govt is too big too, we need to scale it down, Police and Military, that's all we need them for. Privatize everything else and lower taxes. Get rid of Social Security, welfare and all other socialist programs, bring the country back to what it was when it was first founded (or at least the idea of it).
I agree with you, the population density excuse is a lame duck that needs to be shot and hung up in some Chinese butcher shop. As others and I have both noted in other posts in this thread, population density cannot explain why the very dense US northeast has such crappy speeds, nor why extremely sparse Finland boasts a median download speed of almost 9x the US (21Mbps vs 2.4Mbps). It all seems to come down to greed, lack of competition, and congress being up for sale.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Amen. I live in a town of about 3500. Verizon does not offer DSL for internet, they only use it to multiplex up to four lines on a single cable pair. They have reduced their workforce to the point that it takes three days to get someone to work on a POTS line. They will move faster on a special circuit problem, but if you have a new location, with new cable, where engineering has to get involved.... It's like pulling teeth.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Part of it is a basic underlying market structure that differs dramatically from the US -- Generally speaking, NTT owns the physical lines, and someone else provides the packets, meaning you get freewheeling competition to provide ISP services. In the US, the company that owns the lines typically also has the final say on who you get to use as your ISP -- surprise surprise, it's almost always the same company that owns the lines. And in a disturbing trend, what with consolidations and mergers, these same companies are owning more and more of the content end of things as well.
So in the US, you get a trifecta of conflicting interests, where one company owns the lines, the rights to use those lines (and decide how much service to provide), and the media sites whose data is sent along those lines. This combines to lead to exactly the kind of monopolistic, high-priced bad service, complete with fact-bending and underhanded competing (denying packets the ISP doesn't like, c.f. BitTorrent and various other snafus, site and IP address blocking, and the dire implications of deep packet inspection and on-the-fly replacement of online content, so you're never sure if what you see in your browser is actually what the server sent you, or if it's something your ISP "edited" for you).
Hope that helps explain things a bit.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Occam's Razor would suggest that, given the amount of time the systems have been around, the amount of research done, the fact that the US is the only country in the world with a healthcare system like this, that every other "first world" country uses socialized medicine to a large or exclusive degree, that the answer is not "they're all stupid", but "what's wrong here that NO other country WANTS to do it the way we do it?".
Ostrich syndrome is alive and well.
Where *are* you? I assumed that the Silicon Valley area would have the best internet accessibility, but it seems I was sorely mistaken. The best I ever heard about when I was living in San Carlos, smack-dab between SF and SJ along 101, was 10Mbps, and that wasn't even available in my neighborhood. My only two choices were DSL (5Mbps) or cable (6Mbps, but more expensive). Where are you that they're running fiber like that?
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I run a subversion server at home for various uses, including international projects. As soon as I can be bothered, I'll also set it up to stream my music to me wherever I am. It's currently hosting my pictures for sharing with people. Are you saying I don't need good bandwidth at home for that?
And, for the record, I'm also in IT, though not for decades, and let me tell you, if you've ever gone to a partner company's office to download the VPN client to their computers only to find that they're on some 512Kbps DSL line shared with eight people, you'll understand the need for faster connections. (I do realize you conceded that businesses might need faster connections.)
Imagine a hypothetical home with five children and two computers in the home office. Three kids have their own computers. There's a Wii in the basement and a PS2 and/or PS3 upstairs (the kids like Final Fantasy XI online).
So you've got three kids upstairs watching youtube and/or pirating stuff (they think Dad doesn't know, I'm sure), or downloading music on iTunes, or watching TV on Netflix, or playing games, two kids on the two consoles, Dad is in the office playing Counter-Strike: Source, and Mom is watching re-broadcasts of Oprah online.
18Mbps can run out pretty quick.
sorry about that.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
Yeah, if you by that you mean low wages, no prospects or scraping by on benefits as "reward".
It's actually the other way around - working hard does not bring great rewards these days. The gap between rich and poor is widening. The idea that if you work hard you do well is just our version of the American Dream, which of course for 99.999% of people doesn't happen.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
US data is taken from speedmatters at 2.3Mbps
International data taken from theInformation Technology and
Innovation Foundation at http://www.itif.org/files/2008BBRankings.pdf
This report shows US at 4.9Mbps
A significant difference in findings between the two. Ill let you draw the conclusions
Very interesting article that highlights the problems with broadband in this country. Personally, 1.5mpbs DSL that I have now is adequate for me. However, I have put a lot of thought into how this situation can improve. Part of it would require some governmental motivation. Also, the phone companies and the cable companies do seem to be working on the next generation of broadband for us although it is still not nearly as good as what Japan, S. Korea and some european nations have access to. It seems like the phone companies could have enough DSLAM's installed in Remote Terminals and even build new ones that would allow for 20+mpbs internet service using VDSL2. I know that AT&T U-Verse is going this route although because they are using HD streams for video it only leaves about 6mpbs for internet and now they are improving that to 10mpbs. Another factor from the cable companies is DOCSIS 3.0 which is now ready and will eventually allow the cable companies to offer 20, 30, 40, 50mpbs service. All of this is nice but the question is will stuff continue to cost a fortune if you want it. Where I live in Boone, NC (I go to school at Appalachian State University) the fastest plans I can get are 6Mpbs up/512kpbs down from AT&T FastAccess DSL or Charter Commmunications offers 10MPbs up/1Mpbs up. There have been rumors that 16Mpbs down is available from Charter or soon will be. However, although those are reasonable data rates for me at 6mpbs from AT&T and 10mpbs from Charter it is still a fortune to get it. Also, even then the data rates are nothing like the Asian and Scandinavian countries. And I won't even get into thinking about where this stuff is even available in this county. The outlying areas of beyond town are serviced by a local telephone coop and not by AT&T and their DSL is 1.5mpbs down/256K up ONLY and then its about $45 which is a bit silly. Anyway, anymore ideas? How do we fix this? Should government regulate broadband like other utilities including POTS phone and electrical utilities? I think it would help.
"If America is supposed to be moving away from a manufacturing economy and toward a service economy"..that's the theory the wall street pirates have pushed while they sold off everything they could. If that theory actually worked, the USA would be the ones holding all the balance of trade surpluses. What we are holding is the largest debt ever even conceived of on the planet, all the banks in big trouble, a dollar dropping in worth by the year, government that has to keep rearranging their economic stats to make it look better than it is, and so on.
It sounds great to those making 7 or 8 figures a year, Because they are in a position to arbitrage digital bits fast for alleged "work", so they keep pushing the fairy tale that "you too, joe sixpack" will be getting that. It's only taken them one generation of pushing that notion to destroy the economy, it is cruising on inertia now as all the foreigners sitting on buckets of dollars are trying to figure out how to convert them to "anything but more pieces of government or big bank IOU paper" as fast as possible without it turning to a full scale rout.
The latest is big sovereign wealth funds snapping up residential and commercial properties for dimes on the dollar from two years ago.
Sure, it looks just wonderful when you sell off all your real wealth and go into bondage for it. The only reason the middle class has the illusion of wealth and prosperity now is because by and large they have hocked everything they have including their grandchildren's labor to living large now. they just siucked that in and ran with it, thinking it could last forever, short term wealth for longer term destitution and transfer who gets to pay the tab to the next two generations.
I've used an analogy before for our economy over the last 25 years. A carpenter or mechanic can pawn all his tools and truck friday night and have a helluva "rich" weekend, man, the economy is great! Look at all the money!
Uh huh.
Eventually monday comes around and you need to work but can't, and the bills keep coming in. We are right about at monday morning now after a rich one generation long weekend.
Servicing wealth does not create wealth. Managing wealth does not create wealth. Writing about wealth or having a TV show about wealth does not create wealth. Repackaging IOUs into different bundles and giving them new names does not create any new wealth. Governing wealth does not create wealth (in spades, it is the anti-wealth). Playing sports and games and having entertainments around wealth does not create wealth.
You create wealth, or you rearrange who has it and dilute wealth, that's about it.
Manufacturing creates wealth by taking cheaper raw materials, leveraging human smarts and labor, and turning them into something useful. Servicing that is just a negative cost of wealth, every penny in service detracts from the value, and it in no way constitutes creating it.
And for that matter, all these places that now create wealth are finding out they can do their own servicing, whatever is necessary. They built up their manufacturing bases with the help of the wall street looters and their scientific and engineering bases with the connivance of the US government looking the other way as it all got hijacked, to the point now, ya, they'll keep sucking as much free and cheap R&D from the US that they can, but it is no longer strictly necessary either. That hit an "enough" stage a little while ago. From here on out everything they can get is gravy, but they don't really need it either.
The US is becoming redundant, an expensive redundancy to the planet, and as soon as all those foreign piles of dollars are transferred into something tangible and useful then that's it, the weekend binge and party is over, full daylight on Monday morning. Here is an example of what is happening, China is just *buying* Africa, all the good bits, all the critical minerals, all the good farmland, etc, by helping those folks bu
So once again, it takes a city government to build in what the telcos can't be bothered to implement. And then it takes the telcos to "buy" it underhandedly and jack the prices up.
Gotta love it. What was someone else saying about "leave it up to the free market"? The ironies...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I was gonna say the same thing. 100 years? Smells like union FUD.
Got to love the manipulation of good ol' American pride.
Bang-on.
You know how long my girlfriend has been waiting to get a simple imaging done on her leg? Over 3 years. For her, 18.3 weeks would be a fucking godsend. And yes, this *is* in america.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
You don't want to be the generation that carries their children for 20 years and their parents for 80.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I live in Los Angeles and after having lived in various places in Canada, I have now witnessed the worst laid out roads ever, with more potholes and disrepair than I ever thought occurred in the civilized world.
The BQE in New York beats that any day - it's like the surface of the moon.
That's actually a perfect example... our gas tax is very, very low compared to Canada and (surprise!) you guys spend more money at the Federal level on roads. Personally, I feel that gas tax is not really such a bad tax - it takes usage into account and penalizes people using heavier (an thus more fuel thirsty) cars - which roughly correlates to wear on the roads.
The problem with Federal gas tax is that it gets dished out according to political whim and not based on usage. If you had driven through West Virginia instead of California, you would have experienced some of the finest and emptiest roads in the country. Why? Because they have a powerful Senator.
And THAT is why I'm for a small federal government :) Let the states collect the fuel tax, or put up tolls. Yeah, tolls suck - but at least the money is more likely to stay where the drivers are. And collection systems like EZ-Pass make it much less painful.
As for health care, well part of the reason that it's a mess is the government is actually running 3 systems: a regulated private system, medicare/medicaid, and the VA. The regulated private system has some really shitty rules, like I can't create a non-profit with the purpose of negotiating health insurance for my members - I can only do that with employees... wtf? Hospitals MUST treat patients at their emergency rooms, but patients don't have to pay... what do you think that does to the costs of paying customers? Then, they under-pay doctors and hospitals in the medicare/medicaid programs, further shifting the burden to paying patients. Then they have the VA... a completely independent system where everyone is a government employee. I've heard it's a great place to WORK. The care at these is very cyclical... in the 90's they were absolutely horrendous and now they are hailed as the best health care in the world.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'll give you a hint -- US broadband sucks not because of different population densities. Instead, it's all about the profit margins.
You're entirely correct. Business must make a profit or they cease to stay in business. Places like Japan and Finland support broadband with government subsidies, which are obtained by higher tax rates than anything we have in the States.
Now, dear sir, if you think their method is better, I strongly suggest you whip our your checkbook and write a large check to the IRS as soon as possible. You seem to be rather free with spending so long as it's not your money you're spending. I'd rather your decision be based on what it would cost you rather than what it would cost me, if it's all the same to you.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
the us won't catch up to japan in population density for 101 years either. or korea, or china
that's the REAL metric involved here
adjust broadband penetration for population density, and then you have a valid metric. otherwise, nothing interesting in this figure
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
2.3mbps in 2008, vs 1.9 in 2007.
That's 1.2x better per year.
Japan to US ratio = 63.6mbps / 2.3mbps = 27.65x better
27.65 = (1.2)**N ; increasing at 1.2x for for N years
ln(27.65) = N*ln(1.2)
N = 18.2 years.
Of course, this ignores that Japan's rate would also be increasing over that period. The article neglects to mention how fast their bandwidth is improving.
Those seven days is what's called "Golden Week" It's a string of holidays.... We have no such string of holidays. If anything I'd say we work 40 more hours, since that's what most people work in a week.
Yeah, and land area of Japan is smaller than the land area of the state of Texas. I wonder if that might have a little to do with it? Gee...you think? Japan has ONE time zone. USA has (continental U.S.) four. Japan has one telephone company. The U.S. has local, long distance, wireless etc... So, the article is moot, because there are too many variables.
that the survey cited was put together by "the Communications Workers of America"? A division of the AFL-CIO? How objective do you think this report is? Does anyone think it might be in this union's best interest to convince America that we are woefully underserved in terms of communications capacity? Maybe we are. Maybe we are. I guess I'd just encourage everyone to consider the source.
I am not left-handed, either!
bahahahaha!!
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
He's also too lazy to reply.
I checked my bandwidth on a Japanese based bandwidth testing site, and it WAS SLOWER!!!
When I use a U.S. bandwidth testing site, I'm always faster.
This article is just wrong, we are faster here in the states.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Also, Americans have low taxes, but they have to get insurances in order to cover medical help and large savings in order to get higher education for their children. How do you do that if you are unemployed or happen to born into a poor family (which is not very uncommon these days)?
A quote.
The only way you can say that everyone in Germany has high speed is if you define high speed as ISDN. ISDN has about 100% availability.
However for high speed 2/4/16Mbps that is alot less if you go outside any large population center. For instance I live less then 10km from a city of around 99,000 and can only get 2Mbps if you go just 2km more then the towns around there just got 2Mbps last year in parts of the towns.
Dude, that horse you're on is looking mighty tall. Have a look-see here about Japanese taxes -- you might be surprised to hear that they are generally lower for the individual than they are in the US. And I can back that article up with anecdotal evidence from my own experience living there, filing in Japan, and from talking to Japanese colleagues. Oh, look, the Izumi Garden Tower -- I used to work there (follow the link to view).
Another vital part of why the ISP sector has evolved so differently in Japan in particular has to do with ownership -- NTT owns the lines, and umpteen other companies compete to offer ISP services over those lines. In the US, one company owns the lines (often AT&T for the phone lines, Comcast for the cable lines), and *that very same company offers ISP services*. This leads to all kinds of fun conflicts of interest, which I'll leave to the readers to think about. Fun, fun. Even more so once those same line-owning, ISP-operating companies start also buying up the content creators as well -- even more conflicts of interest. These conflicts happen in the US internet services market, but notably *not* in Japan.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Dude, that horse you're on is looking mighty tall. Have a look-see here regarding Japanese taxes -- you might be surprised to hear that taxes for individuals are actually higher in the US. And I can back that article up with anecdotal evidence from my own life living in Japan, filing taxes there, and talking with my Japanese colleagues. Oo, look, the Izumi Garden Tower -- I used to work there (follow link to view).
Another important factor in why the internet services market in Japan is so different has to do with ownership -- NTT owns the lines, and umpteen other companies compete to offer ISP services over those lines. This is in contrast to the situation in the US, where one company owns the lines (often AT&T for the phone lines, and Comcast for the cable lines), and *that same company offers ISP services via those lines*. Can I get Bob's Friendly Neighborhood ISP via Comcast's lines? Nope. This leads to all sorts of fun conflicts of interest, which I'll leave to the reader to think about. Fun, fun. Even more so when those same line-owning, ISP-monopolizing companies start buying up the content creators. These conflicts of interest are the order of the day in the US market, but are notably absent in Japan. Different rules there, encouraging more competition, and inhibiting the kind of monopolies that seem rife in the US.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
That strikes me as dodgy in the extreme -- were either of these companies implicated in the shady ownership transfer deal with Broadweave? To have a kick-ass service like that, for what you're saying is a very reasonable price, and *not* to be crowing about it from the rooftops to bring in business, suggests that something else was going on. Sure, fine, incompetence vs conspiracy and all that, but for companies to sit on their assets and not make a buck when it's there for the taking, that looks more than a little not right...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
*Very* interesting. And sensible -- the internet is, anymore, a basic fundamental part of modern life, on the same order of importance as garbage pickup and telephone service. I'm envious, it seems you Finns have held onto all the smart people in government. :) Meanwhile, we usians are lucky if our government simply doesn't embarrass us or inconvenience us too badly. :( Canadia is looking better and better. (yes, that spelling is a joke)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
One of the largest factors preventing adequate broadband growth here in the U.S. is figuring out how to both provide faster service while containing piracy of various copyrighted media well enough not to get sued. After all, it's the responsibility of the service provider for the collective actions of their customer base... at least in the U.S., where we all sue the guy with the most money before suing those actually responsible for our culture's problems.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I got a call from BrightHouse the other day, trying to sell me TV service to go with my internet. I said I didn't want it, but wanted to talk about upgrading to their new 15mbps plan. I was told that I could because "your equipment couldn't handle it unless you also bought TV and Phone service from us." ... WTF? Make up a better lie next time. Rather than argue, I just said I didn't want any of it then.
So it's not that I can't get 15mpbs, I just have to be willing to pay for services I don't want or use in order to get it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
This is the opposite of what I encountered after moving to Japan. Japanese people work way longer, and have less paid vacation. This is slightly counter balanced by more public holidays but my experience is that people take vacation less. In the states' employees where I worked had at least 3 weeks vacation per year and many had as much as 6. People regularly took 1,2 and sometimes 3 week vacations; something that is practically unheard of in Japan. My parents' vacation rolls over so they have practically unlimited vacation and take it whenever it pleases them. Another thing that pretty much doesn't exist in Japan.
-Ian
With that time free you could help with Big Brothers / Big Sisters, Boy Scouts, or any other non-profit and make a world of difference.
Volunteer to be a week long guide at any of the various boy scout camps. If you're not the outdoorsy type they even have specialized camps for those who are after the technology, rocketry, etc badges. Helping bring out the inner geek of the next generation is a great way to spend some free time.
Don't like kids? Help out at a local zoo, they're always desperate for more hands. It's not hard to find something to do that's fun, but also positive, if you have free time to kill.
Sounds like you'd like me to take a "week vacation" and do 10x the work at the hobby of your interest. ;) I like family and kids, but I don't really have a thing for just helping random stranger kids. Um, on the zoo note. I could careless if we had a single zoo in this country. I'm not an animal person. I really hate pets with a passion. My mom is an animal person and I see her and a few of her friends lavish more attention onto their pets than they do their kids. There is a part of me that thinks pets should be outlawed for the harm they do to kids. (O.k. just outlaw 'em for families with kids. Then I'd be happy.)
I like to have my fun. Your fun sounds like that mandatory volunteer work that some of my college professors liked to try to assign. I call it forced slave labor for their pet project. (It is indeed forced if your grade is held ransom for your "work" at "volunteering.") It's crap like that makes me always not give money or time to certain organizations. Red Cross and United Way were the to big offenders. I'm sure they do some decent work somewhere. Let the locals there volunteer for them. Don't force me to work there, and then call it unpaid volunteer work that I "have to do" on my vacation time. Nothing makes me angrier than that. ;)
Their is a big part of me that says let 'em figure out something to do. I did before video games. I didn't have strict adult supervision on my play time. Why should their kids need me? Also why should they trust random people like me with their kids? On the flip side, I wouldn't want the liability of being around kids that could easily get me in jail for ganging up and agreeing to slant a story against me. True most people don't belong in jail, but its just that paranoid part of me that says its easier if I don't automatically trust any random strange kids.
New Orleans has its charms, but in Europe we have the rich regional cultures of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Troy. Ruins get better with age.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
New Orleans has its charms, but in Europe we have the rich regional cultures of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Troy. Ruins get better with age.
Umm, it sounds to me like you are talking about more about archeology/history and less about culture. Unless you can enjoy Marti Gras or take in a Broadway show in Pompeii ;)
Don't get me wrong. Not trying to downplay the significance of the places you mentioned. I actually got a chance to see some Etruscan ruins when I was in Italy -- pretty amazing to see something that old.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
There are many in the U.S. who *WISH* they only had to wait 18.3 weeks. They've been waiting years to have enough cash for the procedure.
But Bush says all's well since all you have to do is camp out next to the ER until your condition becomes life threatening enough that the hospital will fear that you'll die before they can make you someone else's problem.
I would imagine that USA, which is held as the 'low taxes, everyone fend for themselves' country (ok, exaggerated, I know) would pay a lot less than that.
You might think so, but you'd be wrong. We just split the taxes up so they seem lower until you sum them up again.
If you really want to examine a country for taxes, then take a look at Hong Kong. There are 4 tax tiers starting at 2% and the highest is 20%. I think most would fit into the 8% and 14% tier though. However, despite these low taxes there is public health care. Go figure.
Also there is no sales tax in Hong Kong either.
Okay, I just convinced myself; I'm packing my bags.
Well, if we go to war with Russia, we might just be able to get two of the three.
I have the same speed as you. Offline backup is my main frustration. With Mozy offering $5/month for unlimited backup, it currently takes over a month to upload my 300GB - much shorter for incremental.
Okay, I get that.
Also, at a high enough speed, truly on-demand high-def TV becomes feasible... no more cable company, yea!
Well, I guess if that's what you need for entertainment. Video entertainment is crack for the masses, though.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Who wrote this, Thomas Malthus?
I'm a troll for being sick of the crappy attitude people have where they have blinders on about Europe/Japan being so much cooler? It's a legitimate opinion/gripe.
i am a soviet space shuttle