I don't know about Comcast, but with my Time Warner service, I get a solid 10 Mbps all the time (standard package; there is a turbo something-or-other, as well as a 'lite'), with a 15-20 Mbps burst. My only complaint is latency sucks for certain connections - if I want to connect to a west coast server (I'm in eastern-ish upstate NY - contrary to popular belief, that means roughly halfway up the state, not the northern part), my tracert goes through Rochester, Chicago, NYC, NJ somewhere, and Philly before it even THINKS about going west.
Anyway, my point is: while broadband in the US is not what I'd call good, it's not quite to the disaster level of Comcast's service.
And that'd be fine if Level3 were just sending them traffic, but it's traffic that is being (will be) requested by Comcast's own customers.
Again, I have largely been ignoring the issue of Level3 sending Netflix traffic through Comcast's network to other ISPs, but I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere yet. If that's Level3's plan, then yes, Comcast should get something for it, but only then. Level3 should not be paying for connections that are serving Comcast's own customers.
And two Bell customers both have to pay Bell for the same phone call.
Two Bell customers are NOT paying for the same phone call. They both pay for continuous access to the network. Only the person making the call is paying for the call itself. Of course, this isn't even really relevant because the internet does not work the same way as the phone network.
What's your point? Comcast is trying to get two parties who wish to exchange data to pay for this exchange. Comcast provides a pipe between the two entities, and wants both ends of the pipe to pay for it.
People keep talking about how they want ISPs to behave as "dumb pipes", but then object when they actually do.
This has nothing to do with whether or not Comcast is acting like a dumb pipe. You're not even talking about the same thing I am. Are you even reading what I'm typing?
Comcast gets paid by its subscribers to provide access to any and all internet content that they want. Level3 is hosting content that those customers want, so Comcast is supposed to make the necessary connections to get it. Level3, in this case, is merely providing access to the content that the subscribers have already paid for.
Comcast wants, in addition to its subscribers money, money from Level3 to be able to SERVE the content. They're double-dipping. It might be different if Level3 were using Comcast's network to transmit the content to other ISPs, but nothing I've read has talked about that.
Ironically, what started this whole thing was a proactive action by Level3 to reduce the overhead and improve the efficiency of these connections, which would probably save Comcast money/man-hours/equipment load/whatever.
That's the point. I'm paying the phone company for my line, you're paying the phone company for your line, and the phone companies have separate agreements with each other to make our connection possible.
Comcast is trying to get both its subscribers AND Level3 to pay for the same traffic. There's no middle man in this case, so the whole issue of peering agreements is just a load of crap.
Find out what you need to know about installing and running Microsoft Security Essentials. Minimum system requirements for Microsoft Security Essentials
Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3); Windows Vista (Gold, Service Pack 1, or Service Pack 2); Windows 7
For Windows XP, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 500 MHz or higher, and 256 MB RAM or higher.
For Windows Vista and Windows 7, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 1.0 GHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.
VGA display of 800 × 600 or higher.
140 MB of available hard disk space.
An Internet connection is required for installation and to download the latest virus and spyware definitions for Microsoft Security Essentials.
Internet Browser:
Windows Internet Explorer 6.0 or later.
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or later.
Microsoft Security Essentials also supports Windows XP Mode in Windows 7. For more information, see the system requirements for Windows XP Mode in Windows 7
That covers pretty much any home installation, with surprisingly low resource requirements to boot. Get out, troll.
Except that this is content that was requested by Comcast's customers, who are already paying Comcast for the traffic. My understanding is that peering agreements are for sending information through a network to someone else's network.
ie. If I drive from New York to New Hampshire, and pass through Vermont. There would be an agreement between New York and Vermont (and/or Vermont and New Hampshire) for allowing me to pass through, while New Hampshire's costs would be covered by their citizens and businesses.
There may be more to this that I haven't seen, but I've read several articles about this in the last couple of days and nobody's shown any evidence that this has anything to do with content or actual peering. Comcast just wants to be paid twice for the same traffic. Time Warner is backing them because they want in on the double payments if this works.
A thousand times no. I coach kids' soccer and know a number of teachers who teach from age 5 all the way up. I work with my kids all the time and hear many more stories from the teachers. Nearly all of the stories about bad children start with a parent who was not paying attention or did not care enough to be involved in their child's life. Anecdotal, yes, but it's more than you've typed.
And anyway, how exactly are you making the connection between games and children? That's a hefty claim with no evidence. These kids all drink water and breathe oxygen on a regular basis. Who's to say those aren't the cause of whatever behaviors you're talking about? (Not saying evidence doesn't exist, but how about you provide some. The burden of proof is on you because you're the one that wants to waste legislator time and taxpayer money for a new law.)
Regardless, the bottom line is that we don't need a law to protect kids from games. It's the job of the parents to determine what is appropriate for their kids. If they're not capable or willing, then something else is seriously wrong with society. Games are a convenient scapegoat, just like TV, movies, and music before them. It's CONTEXT that makes a thing bad. Parents are supposed to provide that.
Definition of parenting from Wikipedia: Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the activity of raising a child rather than the biological relationship.
Irresponsible parents should not be trying to use my tax money to have somebody else put words on paper to have yet another guy protect their kid. Protect your own damn kid if you think it's necessary. I'm not the one that had the kid and it's not my problem.
Since I know you'll try this next, let me clarify: I'm not saying 6 year olds should be playing GTA or similar, but parents are the ones who need to police this, not the government. Retailers already voluntarily follow the rating system in place for games. They WILL NOT sell a mature title to a minor. Let me say that again. RETAILERS ALREADY REFUSE TO SELL TO MINORS. Making it a law doesn't change anything. Educate the damn parents. Sterilize them, I don't care. Stop wasting my money flailing around, legislating things that already work as intended.
Yes, I rambled a bit and I'm sorry if my post is not very eloquent, but this crap has gone on long enough. Get off your fat asses, parents, and do some actual parenting.
Major retailers already have policies against selling these types of games to minors. The real problem is that parents buy them for their kids without even looking at the box. All of these types of games have a giant 'M' (or similar rating) on the front, telling the parent/child/whoever that the game is for MATURE people only. Major retailers like Gamespot, Walmart, etc., will not sell to a minor. If the parent still buys it for their kid, it's their problem.
I think my tax money can go somewhere more useful now, like funding schools, or science, or ANYTHING OTHER THAN THIS POLITICAL BULLSHIT.
I used to play Day of Defeat (PC FPS game, no less) occasionally with a guy who had only one arm. I played waaay too many games back then, so I didn't get stomped by him, but he more than held his own against the other players in the server. People can overcome some pretty amazing things when they need to.
The writer is just having a fit about something silly. If someone truly wanted to play the game, they could manage. Should they have to struggle so much? Maybe not, but it's not a big deal.
Exactly this. I've used Debian and Fedora a good bit, and I've dabbled in others, but I keep coming back to Ubuntu. Things are just less of a hassle. I'm past the point where I want to spend my free time configuring everything. I want it to already work. I can still fiddle with things if I want to, but I'm not REQUIRED to.
That said, I've actually started doing minimal installs of Ubuntu, taking just the core bits and adding what I want. It's every bit as fast as any other Linux I've used, plus I get access to the things Ubuntu has that aren't as easily available elsewhere.
I can't think of a significant downside for me and I certainly can't see myself giving any other distro to a non-computer person. I've put various versions of Ubuntu on several different computers that aren't mine.
No. It was a request. Whether it's by the government, Jesus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Easter Bunny, it's a REQUEST. He was not forced to do anything. He is still talking about it freely and, as far as I know, still has not decided whether or not he will go through with the burning.
If you have evidence that he was coerced in some manner other than 'please don't do this', post it.
No. The man was ASKED not to do something that was clearly inflammatory and very well could have serious (violent?) repercussions. Nobody forcibly stopped him from doing anything. People spoke out against it and tried to reason with the man, which is completely legal and appropriate.
As far as the Brit kid... many of the comments here have pointed to the BBC article, which says he used threatening language. Threats are not protected by free speech. I think the whole thing is silly, but if he did make some kind of threat, the response is not unreasonable.
1. The vast majority of people do not change the batteries in their phones. They simply replace the phone when the battery degrades. Especially with the 'new every two' thing Verizon does (and competitor equivalents), I don't see that being a big issue.
2. It doesn't have to be ALL phones. Some phones can still have swappable batteries and others can be completely sealed. Vote with your wallet.
I do see a potential problem if phones lock up and cannot easily be reset, but if that's an issue, I suspect a waterproof reset button would work just fine.
I can't speak to your set up issues, but I've had no trouble getting the server running on my Myth/server box and I've set up a dozen frontends on all kinds of hardware and several in virtualbox. Not a single issue with any of those, just type in the information and it goes. It doesn't require anything fancy.
And any Windows Media Center remote works out of the box with MythTV. Unless you're talking about a version that's 2+ years old, you clearly missed something.
And others are used to the gal/100mi system. They're different, but that doesn't mean one is better than the other. I have yet to see a convincing argument for either other than personal preference (or any argument for that matter).
I work for a medical device manufacturer. Surprisingly, it's not THAT difficult to get a new device approved. It's generally not a picnic dealing with the FDA, but it doesn't necessarily take years either, especially for something simple like a tube with a connector. The problem is that doctors/hospitals/whoever won't want to buy something with an incompatible connector. Unless they're using an entire suite of products for your company, they can't and won't do it. And even then, it takes a lot of loyalty to get them to switch to something like that. Really, if such a change were to happen, it would have to be a new standard that required certain types of connections for different types of devices, which is very unlikely to happen.
There's a lot of inertia in the medical fields. Not to mention, it might make sense cost-wise to have interchangeable connectors and tubes for certain things. I thought the doctors and nurses are supposed to be trained on this stuff. Maybe that's where we should be focusing our efforts in this case.
So true about the voices. Sometimes it's cool to see known celebrities do voices in games (I thought Leonard Nimoy in Civ4 was a nice touch), but the best voice acting I've heard in games has always been some random nobody who was chosen to fit their character. More often than not, I think big celebrities are shoehorned into a part for their name, without regard for how they fit into the game.
I'm not sure where I stand on gun control issues, and I can't say for sure if things would be better or worse if guns were outlawed, but I have to comment:
Your numbers may look nice, but they are meaningless in this instance. Nearly all guns used in crimes (at least in the US) are obtained illegally. Not to mention, crime rates are influenced by a huge number of economic and social issues and can't be quickly summed up with numbers.
What's stopping this technology from becoming a consumer product later? If those specialist displays work out, they may come down in cost as technology changes....
Personally, I think it's silly to believe in a sky wizard of any kind and would rather he didn't drive around with his logo, but he is entitled to his opinions and it's unfortunate that companies are so heavy-handed these days.
Anyway, I agree with you that they should do something, but it seems to me they'd be better off with a polite request for him to change his logo, rather than a C&D letter. It accomplishes the same thing without the nastiness.
Slashdot Mirror
Time Warner and bad DSL from the phone company.
It's one of those or satellite/dialup. Same situation where I used to live, which is about an hour drive from here.
No, no, no... it's going to get caught in the great Sky Wizard's beard. Sheesh.
I don't know about Comcast, but with my Time Warner service, I get a solid 10 Mbps all the time (standard package; there is a turbo something-or-other, as well as a 'lite'), with a 15-20 Mbps burst. My only complaint is latency sucks for certain connections - if I want to connect to a west coast server (I'm in eastern-ish upstate NY - contrary to popular belief, that means roughly halfway up the state, not the northern part), my tracert goes through Rochester, Chicago, NYC, NJ somewhere, and Philly before it even THINKS about going west.
Anyway, my point is: while broadband in the US is not what I'd call good, it's not quite to the disaster level of Comcast's service.
And that'd be fine if Level3 were just sending them traffic, but it's traffic that is being (will be) requested by Comcast's own customers.
Again, I have largely been ignoring the issue of Level3 sending Netflix traffic through Comcast's network to other ISPs, but I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere yet. If that's Level3's plan, then yes, Comcast should get something for it, but only then. Level3 should not be paying for connections that are serving Comcast's own customers.
Unless I'm missing something, Bell does not provide cell service in the US.
And cell networks are still very different from the internet, so it's not anymore relevant than the original phone argument anyway.
And two Bell customers both have to pay Bell for the same phone call.
Two Bell customers are NOT paying for the same phone call. They both pay for continuous access to the network. Only the person making the call is paying for the call itself. Of course, this isn't even really relevant because the internet does not work the same way as the phone network.
What's your point? Comcast is trying to get two parties who wish to exchange data to pay for this exchange. Comcast provides a pipe between the two entities, and wants both ends of the pipe to pay for it.
People keep talking about how they want ISPs to behave as "dumb pipes", but then object when they actually do.
This has nothing to do with whether or not Comcast is acting like a dumb pipe. You're not even talking about the same thing I am. Are you even reading what I'm typing?
Comcast gets paid by its subscribers to provide access to any and all internet content that they want. Level3 is hosting content that those customers want, so Comcast is supposed to make the necessary connections to get it. Level3, in this case, is merely providing access to the content that the subscribers have already paid for.
Comcast wants, in addition to its subscribers money, money from Level3 to be able to SERVE the content. They're double-dipping. It might be different if Level3 were using Comcast's network to transmit the content to other ISPs, but nothing I've read has talked about that.
Ironically, what started this whole thing was a proactive action by Level3 to reduce the overhead and improve the efficiency of these connections, which would probably save Comcast money/man-hours/equipment load/whatever.
That's the point. I'm paying the phone company for my line, you're paying the phone company for your line, and the phone companies have separate agreements with each other to make our connection possible.
Comcast is trying to get both its subscribers AND Level3 to pay for the same traffic. There's no middle man in this case, so the whole issue of peering agreements is just a load of crap.
Well that's a load of crap. I've used it on several XP installations with no problems whatsoever.
Read the official requirements here:
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/resources.aspx?mkt=en-us&s=1#mainNav
Find out what you need to know about installing and running Microsoft Security Essentials.
Minimum system requirements for Microsoft Security Essentials
Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3); Windows Vista (Gold, Service Pack 1, or Service Pack 2); Windows 7
For Windows XP, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 500 MHz or higher, and 256 MB RAM or higher.
For Windows Vista and Windows 7, a PC with a CPU clock speed of 1.0 GHz or higher, and 1 GB RAM or higher.
VGA display of 800 × 600 or higher.
140 MB of available hard disk space.
An Internet connection is required for installation and to download the latest virus and spyware definitions for Microsoft Security Essentials.
Internet Browser:
Windows Internet Explorer 6.0 or later.
Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or later.
Microsoft Security Essentials also supports Windows XP Mode in Windows 7. For more information, see the system requirements for Windows XP Mode in Windows 7
That covers pretty much any home installation, with surprisingly low resource requirements to boot. Get out, troll.
Except that this is content that was requested by Comcast's customers, who are already paying Comcast for the traffic. My understanding is that peering agreements are for sending information through a network to someone else's network.
ie. If I drive from New York to New Hampshire, and pass through Vermont. There would be an agreement between New York and Vermont (and/or Vermont and New Hampshire) for allowing me to pass through, while New Hampshire's costs would be covered by their citizens and businesses.
There may be more to this that I haven't seen, but I've read several articles about this in the last couple of days and nobody's shown any evidence that this has anything to do with content or actual peering. Comcast just wants to be paid twice for the same traffic. Time Warner is backing them because they want in on the double payments if this works.
A thousand times no. I coach kids' soccer and know a number of teachers who teach from age 5 all the way up. I work with my kids all the time and hear many more stories from the teachers. Nearly all of the stories about bad children start with a parent who was not paying attention or did not care enough to be involved in their child's life. Anecdotal, yes, but it's more than you've typed.
And anyway, how exactly are you making the connection between games and children? That's a hefty claim with no evidence. These kids all drink water and breathe oxygen on a regular basis. Who's to say those aren't the cause of whatever behaviors you're talking about? (Not saying evidence doesn't exist, but how about you provide some. The burden of proof is on you because you're the one that wants to waste legislator time and taxpayer money for a new law.)
Regardless, the bottom line is that we don't need a law to protect kids from games. It's the job of the parents to determine what is appropriate for their kids. If they're not capable or willing, then something else is seriously wrong with society. Games are a convenient scapegoat, just like TV, movies, and music before them. It's CONTEXT that makes a thing bad. Parents are supposed to provide that.
Definition of parenting from Wikipedia:
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the activity of raising a child rather than the biological relationship.
Irresponsible parents should not be trying to use my tax money to have somebody else put words on paper to have yet another guy protect their kid. Protect your own damn kid if you think it's necessary. I'm not the one that had the kid and it's not my problem.
Since I know you'll try this next, let me clarify:
I'm not saying 6 year olds should be playing GTA or similar, but parents are the ones who need to police this, not the government. Retailers already voluntarily follow the rating system in place for games. They WILL NOT sell a mature title to a minor. Let me say that again. RETAILERS ALREADY REFUSE TO SELL TO MINORS. Making it a law doesn't change anything. Educate the damn parents. Sterilize them, I don't care. Stop wasting my money flailing around, legislating things that already work as intended.
Yes, I rambled a bit and I'm sorry if my post is not very eloquent, but this crap has gone on long enough. Get off your fat asses, parents, and do some actual parenting.
Major retailers already have policies against selling these types of games to minors. The real problem is that parents buy them for their kids without even looking at the box. All of these types of games have a giant 'M' (or similar rating) on the front, telling the parent/child/whoever that the game is for MATURE people only. Major retailers like Gamespot, Walmart, etc., will not sell to a minor. If the parent still buys it for their kid, it's their problem.
I think my tax money can go somewhere more useful now, like funding schools, or science, or ANYTHING OTHER THAN THIS POLITICAL BULLSHIT.
I used to play Day of Defeat (PC FPS game, no less) occasionally with a guy who had only one arm. I played waaay too many games back then, so I didn't get stomped by him, but he more than held his own against the other players in the server. People can overcome some pretty amazing things when they need to.
The writer is just having a fit about something silly. If someone truly wanted to play the game, they could manage. Should they have to struggle so much? Maybe not, but it's not a big deal.
Exactly this. I've used Debian and Fedora a good bit, and I've dabbled in others, but I keep coming back to Ubuntu. Things are just less of a hassle. I'm past the point where I want to spend my free time configuring everything. I want it to already work. I can still fiddle with things if I want to, but I'm not REQUIRED to.
That said, I've actually started doing minimal installs of Ubuntu, taking just the core bits and adding what I want. It's every bit as fast as any other Linux I've used, plus I get access to the things Ubuntu has that aren't as easily available elsewhere.
I can't think of a significant downside for me and I certainly can't see myself giving any other distro to a non-computer person. I've put various versions of Ubuntu on several different computers that aren't mine.
No. It was a request. Whether it's by the government, Jesus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Easter Bunny, it's a REQUEST. He was not forced to do anything. He is still talking about it freely and, as far as I know, still has not decided whether or not he will go through with the burning.
If you have evidence that he was coerced in some manner other than 'please don't do this', post it.
No. The man was ASKED not to do something that was clearly inflammatory and very well could have serious (violent?) repercussions. Nobody forcibly stopped him from doing anything. People spoke out against it and tried to reason with the man, which is completely legal and appropriate.
As far as the Brit kid... many of the comments here have pointed to the BBC article, which says he used threatening language. Threats are not protected by free speech. I think the whole thing is silly, but if he did make some kind of threat, the response is not unreasonable.
Two things about that:
1. The vast majority of people do not change the batteries in their phones. They simply replace the phone when the battery degrades. Especially with the 'new every two' thing Verizon does (and competitor equivalents), I don't see that being a big issue.
2. It doesn't have to be ALL phones. Some phones can still have swappable batteries and others can be completely sealed. Vote with your wallet.
I do see a potential problem if phones lock up and cannot easily be reset, but if that's an issue, I suspect a waterproof reset button would work just fine.
I can't speak to your set up issues, but I've had no trouble getting the server running on my Myth/server box and I've set up a dozen frontends on all kinds of hardware and several in virtualbox. Not a single issue with any of those, just type in the information and it goes. It doesn't require anything fancy.
And any Windows Media Center remote works out of the box with MythTV. Unless you're talking about a version that's 2+ years old, you clearly missed something.
So they have Sandal on the team now. Good for them.
And others are used to the gal/100mi system. They're different, but that doesn't mean one is better than the other. I have yet to see a convincing argument for either other than personal preference (or any argument for that matter).
I work for a medical device manufacturer. Surprisingly, it's not THAT difficult to get a new device approved. It's generally not a picnic dealing with the FDA, but it doesn't necessarily take years either, especially for something simple like a tube with a connector. The problem is that doctors/hospitals/whoever won't want to buy something with an incompatible connector. Unless they're using an entire suite of products for your company, they can't and won't do it. And even then, it takes a lot of loyalty to get them to switch to something like that. Really, if such a change were to happen, it would have to be a new standard that required certain types of connections for different types of devices, which is very unlikely to happen.
There's a lot of inertia in the medical fields. Not to mention, it might make sense cost-wise to have interchangeable connectors and tubes for certain things. I thought the doctors and nurses are supposed to be trained on this stuff. Maybe that's where we should be focusing our efforts in this case.
So true about the voices. Sometimes it's cool to see known celebrities do voices in games (I thought Leonard Nimoy in Civ4 was a nice touch), but the best voice acting I've heard in games has always been some random nobody who was chosen to fit their character. More often than not, I think big celebrities are shoehorned into a part for their name, without regard for how they fit into the game.
I'm not sure where I stand on gun control issues, and I can't say for sure if things would be better or worse if guns were outlawed, but I have to comment:
Your numbers may look nice, but they are meaningless in this instance. Nearly all guns used in crimes (at least in the US) are obtained illegally. Not to mention, crime rates are influenced by a huge number of economic and social issues and can't be quickly summed up with numbers.
What's stopping this technology from becoming a consumer product later? If those specialist displays work out, they may come down in cost as technology changes....
Not a unicorn, a narwhal:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/08/ubuntu-1104-dubbed-natty-narwhal-will-impale-users-in-2011.ars
Personally, I think it's silly to believe in a sky wizard of any kind and would rather he didn't drive around with his logo, but he is entitled to his opinions and it's unfortunate that companies are so heavy-handed these days.
Anyway, I agree with you that they should do something, but it seems to me they'd be better off with a polite request for him to change his logo, rather than a C&D letter. It accomplishes the same thing without the nastiness.