Cop: "Mr. Blackthorne, you're under arrest for breaking the XYZ law"
Me: "But the laws are copyrighted and I don't have access to them!"
Cop: "Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse. You're going to jail."
..or, it would go like this:
Civil Prosecutor: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we're here to prove that Mr. Blackthorne over there willfully violated copyright laws by illegally copying California State law text. We'll expect thousands of dollars in damages in addition to a court order preventing Mr. Blackthorne from using a computer ever again."
Me: "But, damnit all, how can I obey the laws if I don't know what they are!?"
Civil Prosecutor: "That's no excuse for violating copyright laws. You're going to pay, Mr. Blackthorne."
Stupid. Just plain stupid. Either that, or it's some sort of Neo-Conservative ploy to create an environment where ANYbody can be arrested and detained with NO CAUSE.
Our government may be really, really fucked up because of Republican control of this country, but I'll tell you this right now: If the effing government tosses aside the 1st Amendment so easily and starts shutting down websites just because they don't like them, then it's time for CIVIL WAR in the United States -- because it's all gone to hell at that point, and it's time for the PEOPLE to take the country BACK. Oh, and by the way, Rest Of The World? Kiss you asses goodbye at that point, because everything else will destabilize in the meantime. Likely U.S. Civil War would degenerate into World War III.
..so in conclusion, it's not going to happen. Our leadership may be completely fucked up, but they're not so insane as to allow the whole planet to fall into chaos, just so they can push their personal agendas. U.S., keep voting AGAINST the morons, losers, and criminals though, it'll take DECADES to repair the damage as it is.
So, you're saying that you can divorce WinNT4, Win2K, WinXP, or Vista's GUI from the rest of the OS, and still be able to call it an OS? Yes, I realize that you CAN do that with *NIX (because X-Windows does run over the top of the core OS). I also admit that you can do that with Win98, Win95, and older MS Windows products, but that's not really what I was referring to now was it?
Hmm.. LCARS doesn't look like it would adapt well as a general-purpose UI either, it's better for what it was originally intended for: a UI for control systems aboard a starship.;-) If I were designing a touchscreen control system for something I might use that design.
Cute. Very cute. Unfortunately it's not the UI for an OS, it's an electronic musical instrument, and secondly if you made it into a general-purpose UI, it's market appeal would have to be specialized towards preschoolers.:p
It's not accurate to assess my creative capacities as being incapable of conceptualizing a new, innovative user interface for a modern OS. More accurately, I'm not interested enough in the subject to apply myself to it. This is likely the definitive reason people like myself aren't as rich as Bill Gates.:p Oh, and for the record, I liked using DOS. I liked using CP/M, before that. 64K just wasn't enough after a while though. If I was actually interested enough in computers and writing code anymore (I'd rather be doing something outside) I'd likely be a *NIX command-line guru, like I was with CP/M and DOS.
If you've got some fresh ideas on a UI, then I'd suggest you start coding for them, or get with some buddies who can and start a project on Sourceforge. Please. You may do us all a big favor.
I'd still be running Win98SE myself. Goddamned thing won't run stable on a GHz+ processor. My Win2K installation looks as much like '98SE as I can make it, and all non-essential services are disabled. Have to admit it's more stable in many ways than '98 was, and gives me more control over what's going on.
To answer your generalized question: No, there weren't older-tech versions of those types of video games. First-person-shooters were a relatively fresh take on the old concept of shoot-em-up, which is one of the reasons why it took off as well as it did; another is that starting with Wolfenstein 3D the computing power and programming skill existed to produce such things. Previous to that, arcade games used multiple layers of scrolling backgrounds and motion-object sprites, all done in hardware (with the graphic data burned into EPROMS, inaccessible to CPU busses); 3D rendering was a technological impossibility, at least for any reasonable amount of money (arcade game operators wouldn't or couldn't spend $50,000 for a single game). Another was the advent of online multi-player capabilities (something that contributed to the downfall of the coin-op industry). In general though the basic themes haven't changed though. Do you have any idea how many times Breakout has been redone in one form or another? Can you count how many side-scrolling shooters have been made, and how alike they are? How many times can something be redone before you decide that you've seen it enough and move on? I'd had my fill of arcade games back in 1989, and I'd had my fill of online gaming (and computer gaming in general) about 10 years ago, because it's more or less all the same. Never got into console gaming because it seems like a gigantic waste of money for a specialized computing device that will be obsolete at least as soon if not sooner than a general computing device would be; I'd had enough of that routine with streaming tape backups, too.
Lets see here..
The world hates America and Americans: Check
World War III may start at any moment: Check
In regards to the above, America may start it: Check
Our country is filled with idiots: Check
Our leadership doesn't give a RATS ASS about it's constituency beyond getting their votes: Check
Our public school system is hopelessly broken and nobody gives a damn (see above): Check
If I was growing up in the world of today, I'd probably rather hide in Worlds of Warcraft than face how hopelessly fucked up things are. Hell, if I hadn't already gone through the whole online gaming phase back in the 90's, I'd probably be doing that right now!
Want to know why there is a "video game addiction" problem? Re-read the above!
I'm 43 years old. I've been futzing around with computers since before the IBM model 5150 was released -- and I had the audacity to scoff at it when it did. Furthermore I shunned Windows for quite a long time, and for the most part still do -- in the form of being ultra-conservative when it comes to Windows releases (my main desktop is still running Win2K SP4). I have programming skills (out-of-date from disuse, but it's like riding a bicycle) and I work electronics for a living for my entire adult life.
Now that I've established my street cred for you young whippersnappers, let me tell you how it is:
I'm sure you've noticed how there's nothing new coming out of Hollywood? Just the same old stories, over and over again. They've even resorted to crappy old TV shows, trying to find a new angle. There are only so many ideas out there to build on, and in about 100 years, they've gone through them all at least once.
Same thing with video games: I used to repair arcade games, so I saw every game imaginable for 15 years. They too started repeating after a while, didn't they?
The same goes for Operating Systems. There's only so many ways you can engineer a user interface, because Humans are as finite as everything else in this godforsaken Universe we live in -- and what's worse, we're just slightly smarter animals than the rest of the meat on this planet. That's one of the main reasons that Windows has been so succesful (aside from marketing skills): It caters to some of the lowest common denominators of humanity, and it does it well.
I will assign MacOS as being the second place OS, and all flavors of *NIX as third place. But there is a common thread between all of them, now isn't there? It's just like Hollywood, or video games, or novels for that matter: There are only so many ways you can do a specific thing, and after a while the themes just repeat. At their most basic, all GUIs are basically the same, aren't they? There are specific details that are different, and I'm not taking technical issues like stability into account (because the average end-user doesn't give a damn about that until something goes wrong). In the final analysis, you have icons, you have a desktop, and you have a pointing device and you click on things with it. The rest is all window-dressing (excuse the poor, unintentional pun).
So: Don't be bringin' your "revolutionary OS" talk around here, laddy-buck. Now be a good boy, and get off my lawn, K?
I see something like this in a different light. I see it as a government encouraging some of the worst traits that human beings have to offer, and no good will come of it. Even if I try to spin it in a positive direction, the fact of the matter is that they're going to be considering untrained average people as trusted authority figures, automatically giving creedence to whatever they're reporting. Nice on paper -- just like communism is "nice on paper", and how capitalism is "nice on paper". The sad reality of human beings is that it'll end up being used as a tool by these chosen informants against neighbors they don't like, or to further other personal agendas. It's bad enough that actual police, screened and trained, still can suffer from these same shortcomings, with average people in the mix, there'll be witch-hunts going on all over the place. It's bad enough that the UK government has wasted so much money planting CCTV cameras all over the place with little to no effect, now they're going to make up for the budgetary loss this way, simultaneously making the situation worse.
Oh, sure. Because the media always reports the unadulterated, unbiased truth, right? Of course they do. No chance whatsoever that they could be.. *** BIASED ***.. in any way, right? That would be bad journalism. Unless you were there yourself you can't say what really was happening there. Even if you personally know someone who was there, who you trust 100%, you'll still only get a partially factual account.
17th of Never. I'll pay online because it's less hassle than having to write out checks every month and rely on our leaky, squeaky, un-reliable USPS, but nobody gets to automatically debit my account -- except my gym, which doesn't give me a choice in the matter, but that's only $20/month. If you're one of those people who have so much money that you don't even bother to keep debit/ATM receipts, balance your checkbook monthly, or even keep a checkbook register anywhere, and you don't have to worry about when someone debits your account, then I'm somewhat jealous of you (although I think you're idiots). For the rest of us, I need to be able to make the conscious decision between paying a bill on time and putting gas in the tank or food on the table. I'm sure creditors love auto-payment, but I personally think anyone who allows their income to be controlled by creditors is an abject idiot and you'll deserve it when you're broke because one of them fucked it up.
BTW I found that it's necessary to power-cycle the cable modem when doing this otherwise you do get the problem you describe of it "not allowing you to talk".
I know some ISPs work differently, but on Comcast cable modems the serial number of the cable modem is what's used for authentication on their network, and the MAC of the computer (or router in this case) is what's used for obtaining a DHCP lease, which is why this works for me. Your mileage may vary. You can try it and see if it works for you or not, if it doesn't, then put it back the way it was and no harm done.
Imagine this: You ask someone working at a public information booth somewhere for a common bit of information. You come back a couple days later and the same person is working there, you try to chat them up, but they don't remember who you are. Why? They talk to hundreds of people per day, and you saw them once, so unless their memory is remarkable, they aren't going to remember you. Similarly a large ISP like Comcast doesn't log every single packet that comes through their network; at best if you attract their attention then they might log all the traffic that you are generating.
I ignored it because I don't consider it relevant. You could also have a meteorite fall on your house while you're sleeping and kill you, but what's the point of worrying about it? It's not something you can easily predict, now is it? Same with getting someone else's IP address; how can you tell? Besides which what's the ratio of non-P2P users to that of heavy P2P users? Probably very small, a fraction of a percent I'd wager. If you hold true that a heavy P2P user's IP address is going to be pounded by other P2P users waiting for them to come back online, then every time I've done the above I'd see all sorts of random traffic in the form of blinking activity lights on my cable modem -- which I do not.
There is a way to prevent this post-P2P scenario you present. Most broadband routers have a MAC address spoofing feature; use it as follows:
1) Finish your P2P download
2) Release your DHCP lease
3) Power down the cable modem
4) Increment the MAC address on the WAN side of your router, or use a random MAC address
5) Power up the cable modem
When it all comes back up and you get your DHCP lease, you should have a different IP address on the WAN side. I mainly use this because every time I use BitTorrent (even for something like Fedora distro downloads) I get slammed by DoS attacks of some sort or other, so it's in my best interests to change my IP address afterwards.
"The Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona was an appropriate setting for Zephyr's world beating flight as many landmark aviation developments have taken place there in recent years," Simon Bennett, managing director of QinetiQ's Applied Technologies business, said in an announcement. "In addition to setting a new unofficial record, the trial is a step towards the delivery of Zephyr's capability for joint, real-time, battlefield persistent surveillance and communications to forces in the field at the earliest opportunity." [emphasis mine]
*nodding* sure thing. If I were the Systems Engineer for the project, I'd have it only spit a stream of data at my satellite when I asked it to. In the meantime though it's not a very effective surveillance device if you can see it on radar easily and arrange a small "accident" for it..
Thanks for informing me of yet another thing that might kill me to add to the list of a gazillion things that will also kill me. Unfortunately since neither I nor anyone else I know is willing to go live in a nice dry cave somewhere, wear animal skins, and forrage to survive on whatever the land naturally provides, all this information effectively does is add to my overall stress load, which is already at an all-time high. I can't fault you for trying though -- although one might be of the opinion that in this case you're being counterproductive, since we (according to some) shouldn't use incandescent bulbs for light (because they're energy inefficient), shouldn't use compact fluorescents (because they contain mercury), and now you're going to say that we shouldn't use LEDs (because they contain gallium arsenide, which is toxic). We can't go back to candles and torches, because of fire hazard and carbon footprint. You're not leaving us much choice, other than going back to being in the dark all the time -- so perhaps you should back off a bit on trying to spook us? Thanks, in advance.
Sincerely,
A Native Californian
P.S.: This note was written on a device just loaded with toxic materials, so I guess I'm the luckiest man alive, since my body doesn't appear to be riddled with cancer yet. Go me!
If my hunch is correct, then QinetiQ isn't very upset by not being listed as a world-record-breaker with this flight. Qinetic is a military contractor. Unless I'm completely mistaken, this plane being constructed with so much carbon fiber, wouldn't it have a very small (perhaps non-existent) radar signature? I'm sure it could carry a small payload, like reconnaisance cameras, for instance? All that plus no need to refuel, and I'd say that the military would be very interested in contracting QinetiQ to build a fleet of these for them. I'd also imagine that you could include a satellite uplink to the payload, and never have to even have the thing land in order to download it's recorded recon data.
You likely won't get away with the bandwidth you'll use doing this -- especially if it's Comcast. Inside the first month, they'll be all up in your business, threatening to shut you down, etc. because you dare to use the bandwidth you're paying for. I don't imagine it's going to be any better with any other ISP either, unless you buy business-class service, in which case they have less of a right to "manage" the bandwidth you're paying (way too much) for. A better idea would be to have a video link-on-demand instead of 24/7; sorry, pal.:-/
Slashdot Mirror
Me: "But the laws are copyrighted and I don't have access to them!"
Cop: "Ignorance of the law has never been an excuse. You're going to jail."
Civil Prosecutor: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we're here to prove that Mr. Blackthorne over there willfully violated copyright laws by illegally copying California State law text. We'll expect thousands of dollars in damages in addition to a court order preventing Mr. Blackthorne from using a computer ever again."
Me: "But, damnit all, how can I obey the laws if I don't know what they are!?"
Civil Prosecutor: "That's no excuse for violating copyright laws. You're going to pay, Mr. Blackthorne."
Stupid. Just plain stupid. Either that, or it's some sort of Neo-Conservative ploy to create an environment where ANYbody can be arrested and detained with NO CAUSE.
Then please, for fuck's sake, go on and develop one!
So, you're saying that you can divorce WinNT4, Win2K, WinXP, or Vista's GUI from the rest of the OS, and still be able to call it an OS? Yes, I realize that you CAN do that with *NIX (because X-Windows does run over the top of the core OS). I also admit that you can do that with Win98, Win95, and older MS Windows products, but that's not really what I was referring to now was it?
I'm chiefly referring to WinNT4 and later here.
Hmm.. LCARS doesn't look like it would adapt well as a general-purpose UI either, it's better for what it was originally intended for: a UI for control systems aboard a starship. ;-) If I were designing a touchscreen control system for something I might use that design.
Cute. Very cute. Unfortunately it's not the UI for an OS, it's an electronic musical instrument, and secondly if you made it into a general-purpose UI, it's market appeal would have to be specialized towards preschoolers. :p
If you've got some fresh ideas on a UI, then I'd suggest you start coding for them, or get with some buddies who can and start a project on Sourceforge. Please. You may do us all a big favor.
I'd still be running Win98SE myself. Goddamned thing won't run stable on a GHz+ processor. My Win2K installation looks as much like '98SE as I can make it, and all non-essential services are disabled. Have to admit it's more stable in many ways than '98 was, and gives me more control over what's going on.
To answer your generalized question: No, there weren't older-tech versions of those types of video games. First-person-shooters were a relatively fresh take on the old concept of shoot-em-up, which is one of the reasons why it took off as well as it did; another is that starting with Wolfenstein 3D the computing power and programming skill existed to produce such things. Previous to that, arcade games used multiple layers of scrolling backgrounds and motion-object sprites, all done in hardware (with the graphic data burned into EPROMS, inaccessible to CPU busses); 3D rendering was a technological impossibility, at least for any reasonable amount of money (arcade game operators wouldn't or couldn't spend $50,000 for a single game). Another was the advent of online multi-player capabilities (something that contributed to the downfall of the coin-op industry). In general though the basic themes haven't changed though. Do you have any idea how many times Breakout has been redone in one form or another? Can you count how many side-scrolling shooters have been made, and how alike they are? How many times can something be redone before you decide that you've seen it enough and move on? I'd had my fill of arcade games back in 1989, and I'd had my fill of online gaming (and computer gaming in general) about 10 years ago, because it's more or less all the same. Never got into console gaming because it seems like a gigantic waste of money for a specialized computing device that will be obsolete at least as soon if not sooner than a general computing device would be; I'd had enough of that routine with streaming tape backups, too.
The world hates America and Americans: Check
World War III may start at any moment: Check
In regards to the above, America may start it: Check
Our country is filled with idiots: Check
Our leadership doesn't give a RATS ASS about it's constituency beyond getting their votes: Check
Our public school system is hopelessly broken and nobody gives a damn (see above): Check
If I was growing up in the world of today, I'd probably rather hide in Worlds of Warcraft than face how hopelessly fucked up things are. Hell, if I hadn't already gone through the whole online gaming phase back in the 90's, I'd probably be doing that right now!
Want to know why there is a "video game addiction" problem? Re-read the above!
Now that I've established my street cred for you young whippersnappers, let me tell you how it is:
I'm sure you've noticed how there's nothing new coming out of Hollywood? Just the same old stories, over and over again. They've even resorted to crappy old TV shows, trying to find a new angle. There are only so many ideas out there to build on, and in about 100 years, they've gone through them all at least once.
Same thing with video games: I used to repair arcade games, so I saw every game imaginable for 15 years. They too started repeating after a while, didn't they?
The same goes for Operating Systems. There's only so many ways you can engineer a user interface, because Humans are as finite as everything else in this godforsaken Universe we live in -- and what's worse, we're just slightly smarter animals than the rest of the meat on this planet. That's one of the main reasons that Windows has been so succesful (aside from marketing skills): It caters to some of the lowest common denominators of humanity, and it does it well.
I will assign MacOS as being the second place OS, and all flavors of *NIX as third place. But there is a common thread between all of them, now isn't there? It's just like Hollywood, or video games, or novels for that matter: There are only so many ways you can do a specific thing, and after a while the themes just repeat. At their most basic, all GUIs are basically the same, aren't they? There are specific details that are different, and I'm not taking technical issues like stability into account (because the average end-user doesn't give a damn about that until something goes wrong). In the final analysis, you have icons, you have a desktop, and you have a pointing device and you click on things with it. The rest is all window-dressing (excuse the poor, unintentional pun).
So: Don't be bringin' your "revolutionary OS" talk around here, laddy-buck. Now be a good boy, and get off my lawn, K?
While you're looking things up on Wikipedia, look up this.
I see something like this in a different light. I see it as a government encouraging some of the worst traits that human beings have to offer, and no good will come of it. Even if I try to spin it in a positive direction, the fact of the matter is that they're going to be considering untrained average people as trusted authority figures, automatically giving creedence to whatever they're reporting. Nice on paper -- just like communism is "nice on paper", and how capitalism is "nice on paper". The sad reality of human beings is that it'll end up being used as a tool by these chosen informants against neighbors they don't like, or to further other personal agendas. It's bad enough that actual police, screened and trained, still can suffer from these same shortcomings, with average people in the mix, there'll be witch-hunts going on all over the place. It's bad enough that the UK government has wasted so much money planting CCTV cameras all over the place with little to no effect, now they're going to make up for the budgetary loss this way, simultaneously making the situation worse.
Patenting Control-Alt-Delete to reboot your computer.
Oh, sure. Because the media always reports the unadulterated, unbiased truth, right? Of course they do. No chance whatsoever that they could be.. *** BIASED ***.. in any way, right? That would be bad journalism. Unless you were there yourself you can't say what really was happening there. Even if you personally know someone who was there, who you trust 100%, you'll still only get a partially factual account.
17th of Never. I'll pay online because it's less hassle than having to write out checks every month and rely on our leaky, squeaky, un-reliable USPS, but nobody gets to automatically debit my account -- except my gym, which doesn't give me a choice in the matter, but that's only $20/month. If you're one of those people who have so much money that you don't even bother to keep debit/ATM receipts, balance your checkbook monthly, or even keep a checkbook register anywhere, and you don't have to worry about when someone debits your account, then I'm somewhat jealous of you (although I think you're idiots). For the rest of us, I need to be able to make the conscious decision between paying a bill on time and putting gas in the tank or food on the table. I'm sure creditors love auto-payment, but I personally think anyone who allows their income to be controlled by creditors is an abject idiot and you'll deserve it when you're broke because one of them fucked it up.
BTW I found that it's necessary to power-cycle the cable modem when doing this otherwise you do get the problem you describe of it "not allowing you to talk".
I know some ISPs work differently, but on Comcast cable modems the serial number of the cable modem is what's used for authentication on their network, and the MAC of the computer (or router in this case) is what's used for obtaining a DHCP lease, which is why this works for me. Your mileage may vary. You can try it and see if it works for you or not, if it doesn't, then put it back the way it was and no harm done.
Imagine this: You ask someone working at a public information booth somewhere for a common bit of information. You come back a couple days later and the same person is working there, you try to chat them up, but they don't remember who you are. Why? They talk to hundreds of people per day, and you saw them once, so unless their memory is remarkable, they aren't going to remember you. Similarly a large ISP like Comcast doesn't log every single packet that comes through their network; at best if you attract their attention then they might log all the traffic that you are generating.
I ignored it because I don't consider it relevant. You could also have a meteorite fall on your house while you're sleeping and kill you, but what's the point of worrying about it? It's not something you can easily predict, now is it? Same with getting someone else's IP address; how can you tell? Besides which what's the ratio of non-P2P users to that of heavy P2P users? Probably very small, a fraction of a percent I'd wager. If you hold true that a heavy P2P user's IP address is going to be pounded by other P2P users waiting for them to come back online, then every time I've done the above I'd see all sorts of random traffic in the form of blinking activity lights on my cable modem -- which I do not.
1) Finish your P2P download
2) Release your DHCP lease
3) Power down the cable modem
4) Increment the MAC address on the WAN side of your router, or use a random MAC address
5) Power up the cable modem
When it all comes back up and you get your DHCP lease, you should have a different IP address on the WAN side. I mainly use this because every time I use BitTorrent (even for something like Fedora distro downloads) I get slammed by DoS attacks of some sort or other, so it's in my best interests to change my IP address afterwards.
*shrug* easy mistake to make I guess; at my last job we evaluated many tiny GPS receiver modules, and at least one of them was made by Qinetiq.
"The Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona was an appropriate setting for Zephyr's world beating flight as many landmark aviation developments have taken place there in recent years," Simon Bennett, managing director of QinetiQ's Applied Technologies business, said in an announcement. "In addition to setting a new unofficial record, the trial is a step towards the delivery of Zephyr's capability for joint, real-time, battlefield persistent surveillance and communications to forces in the field at the earliest opportunity." [emphasis mine]
*nodding* sure thing. If I were the Systems Engineer for the project, I'd have it only spit a stream of data at my satellite when I asked it to. In the meantime though it's not a very effective surveillance device if you can see it on radar easily and arrange a small "accident" for it..
Thanks for informing me of yet another thing that might kill me to add to the list of a gazillion things that will also kill me. Unfortunately since neither I nor anyone else I know is willing to go live in a nice dry cave somewhere, wear animal skins, and forrage to survive on whatever the land naturally provides, all this information effectively does is add to my overall stress load, which is already at an all-time high. I can't fault you for trying though -- although one might be of the opinion that in this case you're being counterproductive, since we (according to some) shouldn't use incandescent bulbs for light (because they're energy inefficient), shouldn't use compact fluorescents (because they contain mercury), and now you're going to say that we shouldn't use LEDs (because they contain gallium arsenide, which is toxic). We can't go back to candles and torches, because of fire hazard and carbon footprint. You're not leaving us much choice, other than going back to being in the dark all the time -- so perhaps you should back off a bit on trying to spook us? Thanks, in advance.
Sincerely,
A Native Californian
P.S.: This note was written on a device just loaded with toxic materials, so I guess I'm the luckiest man alive, since my body doesn't appear to be riddled with cancer yet. Go me!
If my hunch is correct, then QinetiQ isn't very upset by not being listed as a world-record-breaker with this flight. Qinetic is a military contractor. Unless I'm completely mistaken, this plane being constructed with so much carbon fiber, wouldn't it have a very small (perhaps non-existent) radar signature? I'm sure it could carry a small payload, like reconnaisance cameras, for instance? All that plus no need to refuel, and I'd say that the military would be very interested in contracting QinetiQ to build a fleet of these for them. I'd also imagine that you could include a satellite uplink to the payload, and never have to even have the thing land in order to download it's recorded recon data.
You likely won't get away with the bandwidth you'll use doing this -- especially if it's Comcast. Inside the first month, they'll be all up in your business, threatening to shut you down, etc. because you dare to use the bandwidth you're paying for. I don't imagine it's going to be any better with any other ISP either, unless you buy business-class service, in which case they have less of a right to "manage" the bandwidth you're paying (way too much) for. A better idea would be to have a video link-on-demand instead of 24/7; sorry, pal. :-/