I love these "someone needs to run fiber to everyone's house" comments. If you think it is do-able.. and can make a profit.. write the business plan, get the VC and start laying fiber.
While I am generally in favor of free enterprise, I also do not mind a certain level of regulation. Regulation in the telephone industry is what allows you to pick up any phone, dial 10 digits and reach any other phone in the US. How would it be if you wanted to IM or VOIP your doctor and you are a Yahoo user and the doc is a AIM user??
NSA supports such a broad variety of applications for encryption that there isn't even anything remarkable about this annoucement. They have to have encryption that can deal with data streams from 2.4kb to multi-hundreds of megabits. They have to have solutions that will only be used by US government, solutions that will be shared with a variety of allies, solutions that they know will be compromised as soon as they are fielded.
I am an engineer and supervisor at a rural independent phone company. It really pisses me off when people bitch about 'the phone company'. It may be that the RBOC's have poor customer relations etc, but our company is well respected in the communities we serve. We provide excellent service for what we charge. I regularly have to call my employees out at 3 in the morning to go fix things.. drive many miles, work in all kinds of weather. The reliability of the dial tone we serve is better than five 9's..
There are those who want to learn and do throughout their lives. They want to be something other than their 40 hour a week job. For those people the internet is useful. Just now, I needed to find out how to set up a bridge on a mandolin. My local library _might_ have a book on it, but the libary is closed today. But I found what I needed.
Those who just want to watch TV don't need the internet.
I am an engineer at a local independent telephone company. While I do believe that VOIP as a transport mechanism will be the defacto standard, I think we have to consider giving up analog dialtone that has better than 99.9999 availability.
e-mail vs. formal message traffic
on
IT at the CIA
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I worked for a large 3 Letter Agency during the late 80's through the mid-90s and one large issue we had was the transition from formal message traffic to e-mail. The military/intel community for years had a network for sending formal message traffic. These were written messages with formal accountability. They could be used to order actions, dispatch personnel, transfer money. When e-mail came along it was a big challenge to figure out if that same accountability could be built into e-mail or not.
My father in law lives in Maryland. He sent my wife an e-mail asking if it really was still legal to drink while driving here. Yes it is... as long as you are not DUI (blood alchohol-wise) and you are not in a city limits that has an open container law it is perfectly legal to be sipping your favorite beverage while driving. God Bless Montana!!
It was recently revealed that the NTSB has been working with some automanufacturers to deploy black boxes in passenger vehicles. Of special interest was drivers last words immediately before impact. In 49 of the 50 states, it was typically "Oh, shit", but in here in Montana, most drivers last words were "Hold my beer and watch this!!"
Correct.. if you use all dielectic fiber, you can 1. Throw a run of insulated #6 copper in the same trench 2. Place radiolocation markers in the trench or 3. Just do what all telcos do with no problem, use copper sheathed fiber, properly grounded in the pedestals..
One thing to remember is that burying fiber with no metalic member or shield makes it impossible to locate. When other construction takes place, if the contractor cant locate your fiber, they _will_ cut it...
A program that has helped (even in the network age) to speed warnings is SKYWARN. SKYWARN is an adjunct program of the National Weather Service that trains spotters to deliver real time, on the ground, info to the NWS.
Problems like the current state of e-mail always inspire me to consider the need to do things right the first time. There are many good systems that grow organically and work well but at some point it is realized that there are major holes. At that point the installed base is too big...
I just heard that they are laying off a bunch of TSA screeners in our state. Americans are very reactionary. My father talks about how "9/11 changed everything". Time rolls on, eventually we will get complacent/get back to normal (depending on your point of view).
The part of this report that I find interesting is how few wiretaps there actually are. CALEA (Communications Assistance Law Enforcement Agencies) has caused many millions of dollars of upgrades to telephone switches. Unless wiretaps prevent a truly national crime (i.e. Twin Towers) it does not seem like we are getting our moneys worth.
OTOH.. it is also encouraging that out of 260 million or so citizens, so little wiretap activity is required.
I am not that great a fan of 802.11b either. Channel 1 interferes with the licensed primary user of that frequency, weak signal amateur radio applications. With its limited power 802.11 causes problems, I can't imagine how it will be when they start pumping kilowatts through the air..
I am sorry to say, sir, that you are incorrect. ADSL stands for Asymetric DSL, meaning that it reserves more of the bandwidth for the downstream than the upstream.
Almost always the DSL _line_ is running at a fixed speed. True throughput depends on the amount of congestion and oversubscription that the ISP allows. In our DSL service (>500 customers) we engineer for zero congestion on our DS-3's outbound to the NAPs in Seattle, Denver, and Calgary.
I work for a small rural telephone company. I can't wait until fuel cells are economically feasible.
We often have to spend $10-20k to get the power company to run power to our cabinets that use less than a kW of power. It would be great to have a fuel cell generator and a 500 gallon propane tank to power sites like this.
I don't believe most of the 'digital divide' propaganda, but to the extent such a thing exists being able to have power where we need it (inexpensively) could make a difference.
I realize you are looking for book about management instead of system admin, but this book by Limoncelli and Hogan (ISBN 0-201-70271-1) has a number of good chapters about organizing work flow, hiring and supervising IT types, etc..
I remember using the net at the time and just thinking how cool gopher was. I had the ability to find information! It was also interesting to see the early attempts at graphical interaction that the BBS's packages tried to offer.
Slashdot Mirror
I love these "someone needs to run fiber to everyone's house" comments. If you think it is do-able.. and can make a profit.. write the business plan, get the VC and start laying fiber.
While I am generally in favor of free enterprise, I also do not mind a certain level of regulation. Regulation in the telephone industry is what allows you to pick up any phone, dial 10 digits and reach any other phone in the US. How would it be if you wanted to IM or VOIP your doctor and you are a Yahoo user and the doc is a AIM user??
NSA supports such a broad variety of applications for encryption that there isn't even anything remarkable about this annoucement. They have to have encryption that can deal with data streams from 2.4kb to multi-hundreds of megabits. They have to have solutions that will only be used by US government, solutions that will be shared with a variety of allies, solutions that they know will
be compromised as soon as they are fielded.
It's really no big deal.
Well.. thanks for those kind words.
My other observation is the general selfishness of some people in our society. I don't have much use for people that complain about bad food etc..
Tim
I am an engineer and supervisor at a rural independent phone company. It really pisses me off when people bitch about 'the phone company'. It may be that the RBOC's have poor customer relations etc, but our company is well respected in the communities we serve. We provide excellent service for what we charge. I regularly have to call my employees out at 3 in the morning to go fix things .. drive many miles, work in all kinds of weather. The reliability of the dial tone we serve is better than five 9's..
Okay.. I'm done ranting..
There are those who want to learn and do throughout their lives. They want to be something other than their 40 hour a week job. For those people the internet is useful. Just now, I needed to find out how to set up a bridge on a mandolin. My local library _might_ have a book on it, but the libary is closed today. But I found what I needed.
Those who just want to watch TV don't need the internet.
I am an engineer at a local independent telephone company. While I do believe that VOIP as a transport mechanism will be the defacto standard, I think we have to consider giving up analog dialtone that has better than 99.9999 availability.
I worked for a large 3 Letter Agency during the late 80's through the mid-90s and one large issue we had was the transition from formal message traffic to e-mail. The military/intel community for years had a network for sending formal message traffic. These were written messages with formal accountability. They could be used to order actions, dispatch personnel, transfer money. When e-mail came along it was a big challenge to figure out if that same accountability could be built into e-mail or not.
My father in law lives in Maryland. He sent my wife an e-mail asking if it really was still legal to drink while driving here. Yes it is... as long as you are not DUI (blood alchohol-wise) and you are not in a city limits that has an open container law it is perfectly legal to be sipping your favorite beverage while driving. God Bless Montana!!
It was recently revealed that the NTSB has been working with some automanufacturers to deploy black boxes in passenger vehicles. Of special interest was drivers last words immediately before impact. In 49 of the 50 states, it was typically "Oh, shit", but in here in Montana, most drivers last words were "Hold my beer and watch this!!"
Correct.. if you use all dielectic fiber, you can
1. Throw a run of insulated #6 copper in the
same trench
2. Place radiolocation markers in the trench
or
3. Just do what all telcos do with no
problem, use copper sheathed fiber, properly
grounded in the pedestals..
One thing to remember is that burying fiber with
no metalic member or shield makes it impossible to
locate. When other construction takes place, if the contractor cant locate your fiber, they _will_ cut
it...
A program that has helped (even in the network age) to speed warnings is SKYWARN. SKYWARN is an adjunct program of the National Weather Service that trains spotters to deliver real time, on the ground, info to the NWS.
Problems like the current state of e-mail always
inspire me to consider the need to do things
right the first time. There are many good systems
that grow organically and work well but at some
point it is realized that there are major holes.
At that point the installed base is too big...
I just heard that they are laying off a bunch of TSA screeners in our state. Americans are very reactionary. My father talks about how "9/11 changed everything". Time rolls on, eventually we will get complacent/get back to normal (depending on your point of view).
The part of this report that I find interesting is how few wiretaps there actually are. CALEA (Communications Assistance Law Enforcement Agencies) has caused many millions of dollars of upgrades to telephone switches. Unless wiretaps prevent a truly national crime (i.e. Twin Towers) it does not seem like we are getting our moneys worth.
OTOH.. it is also encouraging that out of 260 million or so citizens, so little wiretap activity is required.
I am not that great a fan of 802.11b either. Channel
1 interferes with the licensed primary user of that
frequency, weak signal amateur radio applications.
With its limited power 802.11 causes problems, I
can't imagine how it will be when they start pumping
kilowatts through the air..
As a user of RF spectrum, all I can say is that is all we need.. one more source of RF pollution.
I am sorry to say, sir, that you are incorrect.
ADSL stands for Asymetric DSL, meaning that it
reserves more of the bandwidth for the downstream
than the upstream.
Almost always the DSL _line_ is running at a
fixed speed. True throughput depends on the amount
of congestion and oversubscription that the
ISP allows. In our DSL service (>500 customers)
we engineer for zero congestion on our
DS-3's outbound to the NAPs in Seattle, Denver,
and Calgary.
Amazing! No one mentioned this money making hoax..
I work for a small rural telephone company. I can't wait until fuel cells are economically feasible.
We often have to spend $10-20k to get the power company to run power to our cabinets that use less than a kW of power. It would be great to have a fuel cell generator and a 500 gallon propane tank to power sites like this.
I don't believe most of the 'digital divide' propaganda, but to the extent such a thing exists being able to have power where we need it (inexpensively) could make a difference.
For those that think that Amateur radio uses
acient technology, look into the great space
stuff hams are doing..
Two way satellite contacts, contacts with the
space station, hand-held data transmission
via satellite.. pretty neat stuff..
check out AMSAT and the ISS radio page.
I realize you are looking for book about management instead of system admin, but this
book by Limoncelli and Hogan (ISBN 0-201-70271-1)
has a number of good chapters about organizing
work flow, hiring and supervising IT types, etc..
I remember using the net at the time and
just thinking how cool gopher was. I had the
ability to find information!
It was also interesting to see the early
attempts at graphical interaction that the
BBS's packages tried to offer.
I am finding that I mostly only install the base
OS from the distro, and then download the major
packages from their respective sites.