With defense appropriated funds accounting for a large chunk of the USA's annual budget, you'd think they could use something newer than 1970's era technology for long range com...wouldn't the time/money/resources spent on busting the "pirates" be better spent on a new (secure) system?
I read the article in Car & Driver the O.P. is referring to a while ago (if it's not already obvious the automotive company he is referring to is BMW). At least in automotive applications, it begs the question, is it worth the effort? The extra parts, weight, and cost you'd have to add to a vehicle would probably cause you to break even in terms of MPG or dollars per gallon. The situation is similar with diesel engine options, the extra initial cost of the diesel optioned vehicle is often times just not worth it, despite the MPG advantage.
At least in the US, there doesn't seem to be enough competition for prices to remain competitive and affordable. In my area, the only broadband game in town is the cable company or Verizon, not much in the way of competition there, especially if they got together and decided they'll both raise prices.
I tend to agree with Spiegel about the dev's state of mind being important. At a previous job I had the opportunity to work from home and also to work in an outdoor patio space at the office. While it was a very nice perk to see sunlight and get fresh air amidst coding away on my laptop, I don't think the environment helped me be *significantly* more or less productive on its own. If I was anxious to complete the task at hand (or the task was particularly interesting to me), then no matter what my physical location, I got my job done faster and better. If I was distracted by some family issue or something going on outside of work, then regardless of whether I was in the office, at home, or outside, I couldn't focus and couldn't get things done. And more importantly, I couldn't get things done right. This is not to say environment is completely unimportant. Faced with the decision of working in a noisy office with coworkers that are constantly talking to clients or amongst themselves, or working in a quiet home office or outdoor space, I would choose the latter two...
I agree - they should be regulated like other utilities, and you also make a good point about bandwidth not being a physical resource like electricity/water. I think a better analogy would be to a highway, where there is an initial cost to build the road (lay the cable) and relatively constant operating costs (having the switches/routers powered on) in having the road available for use. While having more traffic on a road may wear it out faster, more data traffic on a network could also wear out the electronic components faster. However, the road, like the data network, is more likely to become obsolete in terms of available bandwidth before it needs to be completely resurfaced/replaced due to normal wear and tear (a good example of this is Verizon's fiber optic campaign, which is replacing the old "last mile" copper connections). So the question is - is it fair to charge the people who use the road (data network) more frequently a higher fee than those who use it less frequently? I would argue yes if and only if the high frequency users are affecting the QoS of the less frequent users or if their high frequency use requires building more roads (data networks). In either case, either free market competition or government regulation should cap the costs of a data connection.
No, really, it is bandwidth. If you cap download speeds, you are in effect capping bandwidth. i.e. someone capped to 50kb/s who is constantly downloading for a month will have used considerably less bandwidth than someone who is constantly downloading at, say, 300 kb/s for a month.
Vista on my i7 is still faster than XP on my old 4 year old Athlon machine.
Really? Your quad-core processor runs (insert any operating system here) faster than a 4 year old single-core processor with a likely slower clock speed? This is truly shocking and amazing....now can you try running XP on the i7 and tell us which is faster? And going forward can we avoid comparing seagulls to 747's?
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With defense appropriated funds accounting for a large chunk of the USA's annual budget, you'd think they could use something newer than 1970's era technology for long range com...wouldn't the time/money/resources spent on busting the "pirates" be better spent on a new (secure) system?
I read the article in Car & Driver the O.P. is referring to a while ago (if it's not already obvious the automotive company he is referring to is BMW). At least in automotive applications, it begs the question, is it worth the effort? The extra parts, weight, and cost you'd have to add to a vehicle would probably cause you to break even in terms of MPG or dollars per gallon. The situation is similar with diesel engine options, the extra initial cost of the diesel optioned vehicle is often times just not worth it, despite the MPG advantage.
At least in the US, there doesn't seem to be enough competition for prices to remain competitive and affordable. In my area, the only broadband game in town is the cable company or Verizon, not much in the way of competition there, especially if they got together and decided they'll both raise prices.
I tend to agree with Spiegel about the dev's state of mind being important. At a previous job I had the opportunity to work from home and also to work in an outdoor patio space at the office. While it was a very nice perk to see sunlight and get fresh air amidst coding away on my laptop, I don't think the environment helped me be *significantly* more or less productive on its own. If I was anxious to complete the task at hand (or the task was particularly interesting to me), then no matter what my physical location, I got my job done faster and better. If I was distracted by some family issue or something going on outside of work, then regardless of whether I was in the office, at home, or outside, I couldn't focus and couldn't get things done. And more importantly, I couldn't get things done right. This is not to say environment is completely unimportant. Faced with the decision of working in a noisy office with coworkers that are constantly talking to clients or amongst themselves, or working in a quiet home office or outdoor space, I would choose the latter two...
I agree - they should be regulated like other utilities, and you also make a good point about bandwidth not being a physical resource like electricity/water. I think a better analogy would be to a highway, where there is an initial cost to build the road (lay the cable) and relatively constant operating costs (having the switches/routers powered on) in having the road available for use. While having more traffic on a road may wear it out faster, more data traffic on a network could also wear out the electronic components faster. However, the road, like the data network, is more likely to become obsolete in terms of available bandwidth before it needs to be completely resurfaced/replaced due to normal wear and tear (a good example of this is Verizon's fiber optic campaign, which is replacing the old "last mile" copper connections). So the question is - is it fair to charge the people who use the road (data network) more frequently a higher fee than those who use it less frequently? I would argue yes if and only if the high frequency users are affecting the QoS of the less frequent users or if their high frequency use requires building more roads (data networks). In either case, either free market competition or government regulation should cap the costs of a data connection.
No, really, it is bandwidth. If you cap download speeds, you are in effect capping bandwidth. i.e. someone capped to 50kb/s who is constantly downloading for a month will have used considerably less bandwidth than someone who is constantly downloading at, say, 300 kb/s for a month.
So start getting used to the idea of being charged for how much you use...
You're right, no faking with gummy bears - duplicating the ear-generated sounds will require slightly more sophisticated tape recorder technology...
This info should do wonders for...their stock price
Vista on my i7 is still faster than XP on my old 4 year old Athlon machine.
Really? Your quad-core processor runs (insert any operating system here) faster than a 4 year old single-core processor with a likely slower clock speed? This is truly shocking and amazing. ...now can you try running XP on the i7 and tell us which is faster? And going forward can we avoid comparing seagulls to 747's?