Governments already do that. The problem is that Comcast (or Cox or Verizon or whoever holds the monopoly) bribes the local politicians, so when it's time for renewal, it's obvious who will win the bid.
What we REALLY need is for government to back off, and let ANY company to enter any neighborhood they desire. Just imagine if you had 5 or 6 companies available to each home.
I think he meant to say "definitely not number one, not even close"
Compared to other continent-sized federations like the EU, China, Canada, Russia, Australia, we actually are "close" to number 1. The US Federation is number 2. (See my post further below for more detail.)
First off you should not have been modded troll. If I had points I'd mod you +1 Interesting.
Second, my state government has a Public Utility Commission to regulate monopolies like electricity, natural gas, cable, and Verizon phone/internet. Doesn't yours? Government is already involved and regulating these industries.
Hold on. Before you go too far in your European praise:
According to speedtest.net, the European Union is still 0.9 Mbit/s slower (average) than the American Union (US). And about 3 Mbit/s slower than the Russian Federation.
I don't see why Internet should be any different from the Phone or Electricity?
Phone: - I can pay $5 a month and 10 cents per call. If I make a ____load of calls, then I get a major bill. - Or I can pay $20 a month and get unlimited usage.
Electricity: - Same deal. The more I use, the more I pay. - Or I can signup for unlimited usage and pay a flat ~$5000 per month fee.
Internet: - Same deal. You can use up to 250 GB per month (comcast) and pay an additional 50 cents per gigabyte above that. - Or you can get a dedicated line with unlimited bytes for ~$300.
They never said your connection had an unlimited number of bytes. They only advertised the speed you can expect to get, upto the advertised byte limit. (For Comcast it's 250 GB; don't know Verizon's limit.)
No doubt Verizon is also getting a lot of flack from their cable channels, about how users are downloading the shows instead of watching the channels.
Even if you limit yourself to continent-sized federations, the Russian Federation is still 2 Mbit/s ahead (9.8 mbit/s) of the States of the Union (7.8 Mbit/s).
So that puts us at #2, just ahead of the EU (6.9 Mbps), Canada, Australia, China, and Brazil (2.5 Mbit/s).
The rate is reasonable ($15), and I've never been throttled, or received notice that I used too many gigabytes. (In theory I could download 233 gigabytes each month, if I bittorrented 24/7, which I usually do.)
The reason I didn't mention Opera's image compression is because it really doesn't work that well: If an image is large (say half-the-screen or larger), Opera will download it directly without compression. Rather annoying. It slows down browsing.
And for smaller images Opera's image compression is mild, achieving about half the original size. In contrast my ISP will squash it to the point where it's only 1/10th its original size. Opera's compression is practically no compression compared to that.
Here's what I was going by: "Recommended minimum requirements" "Ubuntu should run reasonably well on a computer with the following minimum hardware specification. However, features such as visual effects may not run smoothly." (snip)
I'm using a 600 megahertz AMD something (equivalent to a Pentium2), and it loads slashdot fine. Of course I have it set to Classic index and Simple User interface.
"Concentrate more on promoting (adding points) rather than on demoting (subtracting points). The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this.
"Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles."
I agree it runs like crap on 128, about like using XP on 128MB, but WIN7 works fine on 256. Half the memory is used for the OS, and the other half is available for apps.
I concur with your opinion that websites need to be made smaller for those with slow connections (dialup, cellphone) or slow computers. HOWEVER I got into an interesting debate with a libertarian who said all websites should include flash or otherwise be video-oriented.
I commented that's not fair to, for example, my friend's father who is stuck with dialup with no other options, and flash/videos should not autoload until the user gives permission (i.e. click "play"). The libertarian commented, "Let him buy satellite then. Yeah it's expensive, but why should *I* have to have a boring web experience due to his cheapness?" - Next I said flash-heavy websites like virginmobileusa.com could simply offer low-bandwidth, non-flash versions for those with dailup. He commented, "If people can't get to Virgin's website, too bad. Dialup users probably can't afford a cellphone anyway."
Needless to say I was flabbergasted. Slashdot offers a low bandwidth version. What's so damn troublesome about offering the same on other sites? Mr. Libertarian would not be denied his video jollies, while my friend's father could choose the non-video versions for his slow 50k connection. His whole attitude seemed cold and uncaring.
Anyway not everyone agrees with our opinion that websites should be optimized. Some think the web needs to be bigger with high-def gigabyte videos or flash.
I don't see how anyone with a dial-up connection could do even casual browsing anymore
When I'm on dialup I either use Opera's Turbo compression, or my ISP's compression, or both. The former strips away the flash videos (replaced with giant |> play buttons), while the latter uses heavy text/html/image compression.
The end result mimics the speed of a 500-750k DSL connection.
Sometimes I'll surf without the compression, and it is slow as snails. I usually load a website, then watch some TV, and then come back when it's done 1-2 minutes later. If there's a flash video like on virginmobileusa.com or imdb.com, you can expect to wait 5-10 minutes for the shit to load.
let's just look for more processing power instead!
To be fair:
- Microsoft did take time to optimize Windows Vista 6.1 (win7) so it can run on as little as 256 megabytes, where it previously needed 1024. It sounds like MS is making similar optimizations for Internet Explorer so it runs better and faster.
- MS is not the only one with bloat. OS X used to run on only 128 (per system requirements) and now it requires 1 gigabyte. Ubuntu Linux used to run on my 96 MB laptop, and now the latest 2009.10 version won't boot at all. Even on my 512MB desktop it runs but sluggishly. - Point: All OSes tend towards requiring more-and-more RAM or megahertz. It's not just microsoft OSes.
Aside -
On the other hand there are OSes like KolibriOS which fit on a floppy and a mere 16 MB. Or Amiga OS at only 128MB and 400 megahertz. Of course neither of these are well supported.
According to English grammar, the initial militia phrase is merely an introductory cause. It does not alter the meaning of the main sentence. It's been a long time since I diagrammed a sentence, but it would look something like this (sorry it's difficult to diagram in ASCII):
Main sentence: "The right shall not be infringed."
What right? "to bear arms" Whose right? "of the People"
Slashdot Mirror
Great idea! Where can I get cheap 1 penny CDs? I'll hand-out the Ubuntu Linux discs like gumdrops. "Here kid. Try this."
Governments already do that. The problem is that Comcast (or Cox or Verizon or whoever holds the monopoly) bribes the local politicians, so when it's time for renewal, it's obvious who will win the bid.
What we REALLY need is for government to back off, and let ANY company to enter any neighborhood they desire. Just imagine if you had 5 or 6 companies available to each home.
I think he meant to say "definitely not number one, not even close"
Compared to other continent-sized federations like the EU, China, Canada, Russia, Australia, we actually are "close" to number 1. The US Federation is number 2. (See my post further below for more detail.)
First off you should not have been modded troll. If I had points I'd mod you +1 Interesting.
Second, my state government has a Public Utility Commission to regulate monopolies like electricity, natural gas, cable, and Verizon phone/internet. Doesn't yours? Government is already involved and regulating these industries.
Hold on. Before you go too far in your European praise:
According to speedtest.net, the European Union is still 0.9 Mbit/s slower (average) than the American Union (US). And about 3 Mbit/s slower than the Russian Federation.
I don't see why Internet should be any different from the Phone or Electricity?
Phone:
- I can pay $5 a month and 10 cents per call. If I make a ____load of calls, then I get a major bill.
- Or I can pay $20 a month and get unlimited usage.
Electricity:
- Same deal. The more I use, the more I pay.
- Or I can signup for unlimited usage and pay a flat ~$5000 per month fee.
Internet:
- Same deal. You can use up to 250 GB per month (comcast) and pay an additional 50 cents per gigabyte above that.
- Or you can get a dedicated line with unlimited bytes for ~$300.
They never said your connection had an unlimited number of bytes. They only advertised the speed you can expect to get, upto the advertised byte limit. (For Comcast it's 250 GB; don't know Verizon's limit.)
No doubt Verizon is also getting a lot of flack from their cable channels, about how users are downloading the shows instead of watching the channels.
Even if you limit yourself to continent-sized federations, the Russian Federation is still 2 Mbit/s ahead (9.8 mbit/s) of the States of the Union (7.8 Mbit/s).
So that puts us at #2, just ahead of the EU (6.9 Mbps), Canada, Australia, China, and Brazil (2.5 Mbit/s).
I use Verizon DSL.
The rate is reasonable ($15), and I've never been throttled, or received notice that I used too many gigabytes. (In theory I could download 233 gigabytes each month, if I bittorrented 24/7, which I usually do.)
Try Opera Mini on your iPhone.
(you could always turn flash off in Opera)
Ahhh. Didn't know that.
The reason I didn't mention Opera's image compression is because it really doesn't work that well: If an image is large (say half-the-screen or larger), Opera will download it directly without compression. Rather annoying. It slows down browsing.
And for smaller images Opera's image compression is mild, achieving about half the original size. In contrast my ISP will squash it to the point where it's only 1/10th its original size. Opera's compression is practically no compression compared to that.
How about this compromise?
We BOTH misspoke.
Here's what I was going by:
"Recommended minimum requirements"
"Ubuntu should run reasonably well on a computer with the following minimum hardware specification. However, features such as visual effects may not run smoothly." (snip)
"384 MB of system memory (RAM)"
QUOTE: "on 256MB. You'll be lucky if you can get it run a single application"
In fact you can run several applications. Like Word. Excel. Opera. All at once.
Nothing. My story was about Persons who think the web should look like TV, with tons of Flash or HTML5 videos.
>>>[X]ubuntu is and always has been usable with 256MB of ram.
Fixed. The official Ubuntu release with Gnome desktop needs 384 as a "bare minimum" according to ubuntu.com.
I'm using a 600 megahertz AMD something (equivalent to a Pentium2), and it loads slashdot fine. Of course I have it set to Classic index and Simple User interface.
SLASHDOT FAQ:
"Concentrate more on promoting (adding points) rather than on demoting (subtracting points). The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this.
"Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles."
Modded Troll?
Why??? What'd I do wrong? :-|
all versions of vista, including windows 7, will never be usable on 256MB.
Oh really?
- Win7 on 256 MB - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=windows+7+on+256+MB
- Win7 on 128 MB - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=windows+7+on+128MB
I agree it runs like crap on 128, about like using XP on 128MB, but WIN7 works fine on 256. Half the memory is used for the OS, and the other half is available for apps.
Which one of these ads were you drawing from?
MS:"Where do you want to go today?"
OR: "Have you played Atari today?"
Just curious. :-)
"Play. Sta. Tion."
"SEGA!"
"Now you're playing with power. Super Nintendo power."
I concur with your opinion that websites need to be made smaller for those with slow connections (dialup, cellphone) or slow computers. HOWEVER I got into an interesting debate with a libertarian who said all websites should include flash or otherwise be video-oriented.
I commented that's not fair to, for example, my friend's father who is stuck with dialup with no other options, and flash/videos should not autoload until the user gives permission (i.e. click "play"). The libertarian commented, "Let him buy satellite then. Yeah it's expensive, but why should *I* have to have a boring web experience due to his cheapness?" - Next I said flash-heavy websites like virginmobileusa.com could simply offer low-bandwidth, non-flash versions for those with dailup. He commented, "If people can't get to Virgin's website, too bad. Dialup users probably can't afford a cellphone anyway."
Needless to say I was flabbergasted. Slashdot offers a low bandwidth version. What's so damn troublesome about offering the same on other sites? Mr. Libertarian would not be denied his video jollies, while my friend's father could choose the non-video versions for his slow 50k connection. His whole attitude seemed cold and uncaring.
Anyway not everyone agrees with our opinion that websites should be optimized.
Some think the web needs to be bigger with high-def gigabyte videos or flash.
I don't see how anyone with a dial-up connection could do even casual browsing anymore
When I'm on dialup I either use Opera's Turbo compression, or my ISP's compression, or both. The former strips away the flash videos (replaced with giant |> play buttons), while the latter uses heavy text/html/image compression.
The end result mimics the speed of a 500-750k DSL connection.
Sometimes I'll surf without the compression, and it is slow as snails. I usually load a website, then watch some TV, and then come back when it's done 1-2 minutes later. If there's a flash video like on virginmobileusa.com or imdb.com, you can expect to wait 5-10 minutes for the shit to load.
let's just look for more processing power instead!
To be fair:
- Microsoft did take time to optimize Windows Vista 6.1 (win7) so it can run on as little as 256 megabytes, where it previously needed 1024. It sounds like MS is making similar optimizations for Internet Explorer so it runs better and faster.
- MS is not the only one with bloat. OS X used to run on only 128 (per system requirements) and now it requires 1 gigabyte. Ubuntu Linux used to run on my 96 MB laptop, and now the latest 2009.10 version won't boot at all. Even on my 512MB desktop it runs but sluggishly. - Point: All OSes tend towards requiring more-and-more RAM or megahertz. It's not just microsoft OSes.
Aside -
On the other hand there are OSes like KolibriOS which fit on a floppy and a mere 16 MB. Or Amiga OS at only 128MB and 400 megahertz. Of course neither of these are well supported.
According to English grammar, the initial militia phrase is merely an introductory cause. It does not alter the meaning of the main sentence. It's been a long time since I diagrammed a sentence, but it would look something like this (sorry it's difficult to diagram in ASCII):
Main sentence: "The right shall not be infringed."
What right? "to bear arms"
Whose right? "of the People"
"What is the militia? Why naturally, it is all of the people." - Patrick Henry.