On your last point. There are some differences in the Canadian governmental system than American, and buying off our representatives is a bit harder. Not impossible, mind you.
Our Senate is appointed, not elected, so campaign funding on that front isn't really viable. Although out-and-out bribery could still be a possibility.
The Prime Minister is the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons, not a separately elected individual, and therefore controls how the party votes.
The ethics minister (theoretically) is a watchdog to prevent abuses of power or introducing bills based on the needs of special interest.
Add into this that each MP has limited power, based on the fact that their ridings are relatively small compared to US electoral areas (population-wise, I'm sure many of the geographical areas are quite large), and it would take a very concentrated effort to garner enough support through bribery and financing to make a dent.
Of course, this is all from the deep recesses of my high school social science memories, so I could be a bit off.
I was under the impression that PRESSED CDs had a longer lifetime than BURNED CDs. Plus, I have the feeling that as media prices have dropped over the years, that the quality has also degraded accordingly. Of course, I have absolutely no evidence or proof of either of these claims, and am far too lazy to go looking right now.
Because it's not decent coffee? Every Starbucks I've been to, every time, has been an awful experience. From an inch of sludge in the bottom of a hot chocolate, to coffee that tastes like it's been poured over charcoal - I have yet to understand how even someone who doesn't know what good coffee tastes like can think Starbucks offers a decent product.
Every once in awhile I try again, because everyone at my work seems to drink the crap. I think "maybe I've just had bad experiences" , and every time I end up tossing whatever I just overpaid for into the trash. Hell, I've had store-bought vacuum-sealed freezer coffee that tastes better than what they pass off. The fact that the world at large seems to be sheep to marketing and popularity is the only explanation I can come up with as to its popularity. That, or not too many people have actually had fresh-roasted coffee from quality beans.
Then again, I've been told it tastes better in Seattle than it does in Toronto.
Re:Another review: Planet of the Apes
on
Decipher
·
· Score: 1
Aw damn! I hope the movie isn't based too closely on the book. Because if it is, you just spoiled the whole thing for me! Great, next thing you know, you'll be telling me Darth Vader is somehow related to Luke.
Ok, so I realize it carried a spoiler warning. And I realize that it would be a rare occurence indeed for mankind to be wiped out at the end of a book, but was it necessary to sum up the ending entirely? Maybe a "of course it all works out in the end." would have worked. Not that I'll ever get around to reading the book anyway.
This has been said before in the comments, but apparently needs repeating. It's not a matter of privacy since it's at work. Every employee of any brokerage firm signs off sayinfg they know their phone calls, e-mail, and internet usage is being recorded. This isn't done to check up on employees, but to make sure that clients can't reneg on orders they've placed if they go bad. I hear the phrase "play back the tape" at least once a week because someone claims they said 10,000 instead of 20,000. Once confronted with their own voice, there's not much they can do.
The lesson learned? Don't attack the porn sites as "small guys". They'll fight back! That and they actually make enough money to warrant a joint resistance opposed to a lot of the small e-commerce sites that support mom & pop shops.
From what I read in the article, it sounds like 5x would be a little overstated. They use Web Accelerator and web page compression to increase throughput. The actual amount of Kb/s doesn't seem to be any different, just that it's compressed. One would think this would require more overhead on both their side (to compress) and the user side (to uncompress), meaning page requests could seem much slower.
On top of that, it could increase loss of quality since I'd imagine they'd be using lossy compression on graphics and sounds. No idea where that "5x 56k" number comes from... maybe if you browse nothing but text-only transcripts of Dr. Seuss stories.
Is it really worth $7/mo more for them to compress content for me?
Ok, I know it's been mentioned a couple times already that DVD/VCD/etc are hardly "timeless" formats. This goes doubly for your run-of-the-mill blanks that are burned. They've got what? A 10 year life-span if you never touch them before they start to degrade?
Regular film and microfilm have been around for decades and still going strong for archiving. You can still find VHS tapes from 20+ years ago that are watchable. Heck, books have been around for millenia.
Beyond degradation of the media, the technology to read it quickly becomes obsolete. How many reel-to-reel machines do you have in your house? 8-track? In 50 years, let's see if anyone has a DVD player anymore.
What's the answer for preserving all those movies? I think it's obvious. Flipbooks.
Has anyone who's bashing Bubble Boy actually seen it? I too thought it would be an incredibly stupid, unfunny movie. I was only half right. It was incredibly stupid, but 'twas damn funny. Then again, I liked Dude, Where's My Car, and never saw what all the hoopla over There's Something About Mary was. Could just be I like stupid comedy.
BUT, having seen Bubble Boy, The Good Girl and Donnie Darko (and 5 minutes of an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger Jake was in before I realized what it was I watching), I have to say that JG has shown a pretty broad acting range for someone who has been come pretty close to being cast as the "creppy, brooding guy". I have no doubt he'd make an excellent Spidey, complete with witty repartee and wisecracks. And I can't think of too many other actors out there who could replace/better Tobey in the role if the need to is there.
347 Queen Street West - From U of T, head south on Beverly (St. George turns into Beverly) until it ends. That's Queen West, Active is on the south side of the street.
Ah, a Steve Mann lecture, that could be entertaining unto itself.
Am I the only one who notices that appliances and other electronic/mechanical devices from 15+ years ago seem to be MUCH better built than today's models? Sure, today's stuff is lighter, but that plastic seams to break much too easily. Give me a 30 year old blender that can crush ice in seconds over a new one that has a hard time with bananas anyday.
Somewhat analagous to the space program, eh? Pioneer, Voyager, etc.. much more longevity than anything that gets sent up these days.
Wow.. an internet patent that might actually make sense. It's not "A method to search through an index of web pages for relevant links to a user request for specific information." But the improvement on it. And it's generally accepted that Google DID improve web searching tremendously and have a unique method of doing it. Of course, this means it will be struck down immediately by some small company that gets a broader patent (see above) and sues them.
What about Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day? Let's see... generally ignored and looked down upon, until everything gets fubar, THEN they turn to him, and he basically says: Yah, well, I knew that all along, but nobody was paying attention to me or bothered to ask. All you management are all alike. Oh, and then he makes that kick-ass virus that can be uploaded seamlessly into an alien computer system and displays a skull and crossbones as it does the dirty work.
Or perhaps Joe Morton's Miles Dyson from Terminator 2? Working with a team to reverse engineer a foreign piece of technology. Working long hours, forsaking his family for the project, always spending time on his computer. Also, completely ignoring the possible ramifications of his actions because the possible breakthroughs and creativeness are too tempting. Not to mention that he's observed the security measures at his place of employment and thought of ways to circumvent them.
Or how about Demon Seed? Ok, maybe that wasn't quite so accurate for 1977...
Here in Ontario, Canada I've always been charged tax for my online purchases. Both the 7% GST (Goods and Services Tax) and 8% PST (Provincial Sales Tax). Online stores tend to have a better selection and supply. They're also more convenient. I'd prefer to type in the name of the DVD I want and click "purchase" as opposed to searching through the mess that most DVD sections at my local Best Buy end up being. Plus, I often find online prices are cheaper than in-store ones. As long as there's a free shipping offer, I'm sold:).
I think it's similar in Canada, where if I'm sued, and I win, then my legal fees are paid by the person who sued me, at the very least I'd file a counter-suit for the legal fees. Now if I'm sued and I lose, then I would assume that their legal fees would be included in the damages I'd have to pay.
Of course, the major difference between Canada and the States when it comes to this sort of thing is that Canadian lawyers can only earn an hourly rate, NOT a percentage of the winnings. This definitely helps keep lawsuits down from ridiculous values as there are no lawyers pushing for double the amount you want so they can get 50%.
I seem to recall ID approving of the piracy of Doom after it had been out a while. Their belief was that it was such a huge phenomenon BECAUSE so many pirated copies were out there, and that it drove sales higher because everyone felt they needed a copy, but not everyone pirated it.
Pepsi Blue? Vanilla Coke? Red Fusion? ENERGY drinks? What kind of pansy are you? At 2am? Hell, I'm up at 2am on a work night and haven't even clicked on my UT icon yet.:)
Besides the fact each of those tastes like piss.
Sobe I'll give you.. never had Mr. Green though, but the triple blend Zen tea, or the berry energy drink is fine... although Snapple pumps in more of the good stuff in their Dragonfire. And what about Jolt? Whoopass? Bawls? XTC? A cup of Chai? Coffee, black, tons of sugar? Tea? And alas, us poor Canucks don't have caffeine in our Mountain Dew, so it's really just a fluroescent green fruit drink:).
Yup, but some of that is Mann's sense of humour. He often comes up with an incredibly complicated name that he'll put on papers and displays, but when he talks about it never uses those terms. It's actually pretty funny to watch him come up with something on the fly sometimes to describe an otherwise simple process.
Also, I think some of the work from his process is impressive itself. The images he has on the page (mostly the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall I believe) were some of the originals. I've been out on a few late night "paintings" with him and we've gotten some pretty impressive shots. It's all a matter of how much time and effort you put into building the image.
One more thing - this isn't done in real-time. It can be run on a single machine and take a fair bit of time as it works through image pairs. Therefore, the more images you use, the longer it takes.
ie.- 5 images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
compares 1 & 2, 2 & 3, 3 & 4, and 4 & 5. The co-ordinate transformations for each pair are relative to the base image (so you don't have to re-transform after stitching).
There has been work to farm out the comparisons across a Beowulf cluster (the one built when I was there, was of some impressive VA Linux boxes, I believe it's been expanded since). But this still takes some time. So unless someone's going to get a parallel computing cluster inside a single package and make it affordable, this won't be rolled-out nationwide overnight.
My undergraduate design project was with Steve Mann on this technology (objective was the "parallelization" of the software on a Beowulf cluster - shout out to Mike and Anna:) ).
The main use of this system so far has been to stitch multiple images into one panoramic shot. Like any auto-stitching program, this requires a certain amount of overlap between frames - the more overlap, the better the stitching. The code works remarkably well, automatically rotating, zooming, skewing and otherwise transforming the images to fit together and then mapping them into a "flat" image as opposed to a parallelogram-shaped one.
Yes, the higher resolution from multiple shots of the same scene works, and is a very cool effect of the system. Of course, this requires a more or less static scene.
Finally, it's not necessarily "video" that it uses, although pulling individual frames from a video would work. It's based of the head-mounted cameras of the wearcam systems, which essentially use a stripped-down webcam for image-gathering, so you already know the fps and resolution limitations involved with those.
Of course, in the 2 years since I've been there, the technology has probably improved, although I doubt the webpage has.:)
Mann has a bunch of cool projects involved with the wearcam/wearcomps. This is a great one, another is the Photoquantigraphic Lightspace Rendering (painting with light), which can also be found on the wearcam site.
If the underlying network is controlled by a handful of large corporations, and they can't keep up with the bandwidth demands without losing money, what's the alternative? They can charge more as the requirements increase, but that will effect the consumer side of it in the end. Corporations and companies that use large amounts of bandwidth will have to pay more, and those costs will have to be passed on down the line, until Joe User is paying through the nose. Not to mention the effects on home users who could see their subscription prices skyrocket as the costs are passed on to them to connect.
There's only so much the consumer will bear before either switching methods (back to dial-up, less usage) or switching off. Problem is the power users out there (and I think most of/. falls under that category) will complain and demand their cheap, uncapped access.
So, if large corporations are vulnerable to bankruptcy and the network suffers because of this, there are only two options that I can see to provide a more stable situation. The first is government control of the networks. I know there's a collective cringe when that's suggested, but as the Internet grows, so does the need for support. Roads, public transit, electricity, hydro, sewage, etc, are all subsidised or controlled by government agencies and paid for through taxes. So does an Internet tax get added to all connections? There's a gas tax and a car tax that goes towards road maintenance after all. I know this is practically taboo to talk about, but in the end, the upkeep of the Internet's infrastructure is an enormous cost that has to be covered to maintain a quality of service.
The other option is of course the polar opposite to government control - community networks. Be it shared broadband, wireless networks, or some other situation, this too would be viable except for a small problem or two. I know how to set up a wireless access point, you know how to, and if we don't, we know where to find the HOW-TO and how to read it. We're the minority though. My 83 year-old neighbour who loves his computer and is always breaking it for the "upgrades" he tries to install would have no idea how get a wireless NIC installed let alone set up access to the neighbourhood. Are there enough geeks out there to make this viable in large urban centres? Outside of small pockets, I doubt it. On top of this there's no control over the points beyond the individual who has been gracious enough to permit access. If I decide to move and take my antenna with me, anyone who relies on that access is now without, and I don't care because I'm not about to leave a few hundred dollars worth of equipment lying around and then reinvest to set up again somewhere else. Add to this the fact that not everyone is gracious with access and there are a large number of leeches and script-kiddies out there who would abuse this sort of system, throwing the user-provider balance way out of whack. It's a nice thought, but still years, if not decades, away from being feasible.
It comes down to money in the end. Why should a corporation set up a redundant network in case another company goes kaput? Why should a company increase its capacity beyond what is absolutely necessary? This all costs far more than they're willing to spend, and they sure as hell aren't going to do it for the good of the public. In the end, SOMEBODY has to control and maintain the backbones and connections that we all take for granted.
I'm debating on putting off buying EITHER of the upcoming releases. I can't help but believe that once all three movies have come out that there will be the "Complete Lord Of The Rings Boxed Set" with all the stuff you'll already have plus 2-4 dics of never-before-seen footage and extras and such, along with a collector's box, 100-page booklet, etc, etc... making any earlier purchases a waste of my money.
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On your last point. There are some differences in the Canadian governmental system than American, and buying off our representatives is a bit harder. Not impossible, mind you.
Our Senate is appointed, not elected, so campaign funding on that front isn't really viable. Although out-and-out bribery could still be a possibility.
The Prime Minister is the leader of the party with the most seats in the House of Commons, not a separately elected individual, and therefore controls how the party votes.
The ethics minister (theoretically) is a watchdog to prevent abuses of power or introducing bills based on the needs of special interest.
Add into this that each MP has limited power, based on the fact that their ridings are relatively small compared to US electoral areas (population-wise, I'm sure many of the geographical areas are quite large), and it would take a very concentrated effort to garner enough support through bribery and financing to make a dent.
Of course, this is all from the deep recesses of my high school social science memories, so I could be a bit off.
Over a year ago!
I was under the impression that PRESSED CDs had a longer lifetime than BURNED CDs. Plus, I have the feeling that as media prices have dropped over the years, that the quality has also degraded accordingly. Of course, I have absolutely no evidence or proof of either of these claims, and am far too lazy to go looking right now.
Because it's not decent coffee? Every Starbucks I've been to, every time, has been an awful experience. From an inch of sludge in the bottom of a hot chocolate, to coffee that tastes like it's been poured over charcoal - I have yet to understand how even someone who doesn't know what good coffee tastes like can think Starbucks offers a decent product.
Every once in awhile I try again, because everyone at my work seems to drink the crap. I think "maybe I've just had bad experiences" , and every time I end up tossing whatever I just overpaid for into the trash. Hell, I've had store-bought vacuum-sealed freezer coffee that tastes better than what they pass off. The fact that the world at large seems to be sheep to marketing and popularity is the only explanation I can come up with as to its popularity. That, or not too many people have actually had fresh-roasted coffee from quality beans.
Then again, I've been told it tastes better in Seattle than it does in Toronto.
Aw damn! I hope the movie isn't based too closely on the book. Because if it is, you just spoiled the whole thing for me! Great, next thing you know, you'll be telling me Darth Vader is somehow related to Luke.
Ok, so I realize it carried a spoiler warning. And I realize that it would be a rare occurence indeed for mankind to be wiped out at the end of a book, but was it necessary to sum up the ending entirely? Maybe a "of course it all works out in the end." would have worked. Not that I'll ever get around to reading the book anyway.
This has been said before in the comments, but apparently needs repeating. It's not a matter of privacy since it's at work. Every employee of any brokerage firm signs off sayinfg they know their phone calls, e-mail, and internet usage is being recorded. This isn't done to check up on employees, but to make sure that clients can't reneg on orders they've placed if they go bad. I hear the phrase "play back the tape" at least once a week because someone claims they said 10,000 instead of 20,000. Once confronted with their own voice, there's not much they can do.
The lesson learned? Don't attack the porn sites as "small guys". They'll fight back! That and they actually make enough money to warrant a joint resistance opposed to a lot of the small e-commerce sites that support mom & pop shops.
From what I read in the article, it sounds like 5x would be a little overstated. They use Web Accelerator and web page compression to increase throughput. The actual amount of Kb/s doesn't seem to be any different, just that it's compressed. One would think this would require more overhead on both their side (to compress) and the user side (to uncompress), meaning page requests could seem much slower.
On top of that, it could increase loss of quality since I'd imagine they'd be using lossy compression on graphics and sounds. No idea where that "5x 56k" number comes from... maybe if you browse nothing but text-only transcripts of Dr. Seuss stories.
Is it really worth $7/mo more for them to compress content for me?
Ok, I know it's been mentioned a couple times already that DVD/VCD/etc are hardly "timeless" formats. This goes doubly for your run-of-the-mill blanks that are burned. They've got what? A 10 year life-span if you never touch them before they start to degrade?
Regular film and microfilm have been around for decades and still going strong for archiving. You can still find VHS tapes from 20+ years ago that are watchable. Heck, books have been around for millenia.
Beyond degradation of the media, the technology to read it quickly becomes obsolete. How many reel-to-reel machines do you have in your house? 8-track? In 50 years, let's see if anyone has a DVD player anymore.
What's the answer for preserving all those movies? I think it's obvious. Flipbooks.
Has anyone who's bashing Bubble Boy actually seen it? I too thought it would be an incredibly stupid, unfunny movie. I was only half right. It was incredibly stupid, but 'twas damn funny. Then again, I liked Dude, Where's My Car, and never saw what all the hoopla over There's Something About Mary was. Could just be I like stupid comedy.
BUT, having seen Bubble Boy, The Good Girl and Donnie Darko (and 5 minutes of an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger Jake was in before I realized what it was I watching), I have to say that JG has shown a pretty broad acting range for someone who has been come pretty close to being cast as the "creppy, brooding guy". I have no doubt he'd make an excellent Spidey, complete with witty repartee and wisecracks. And I can't think of too many other actors out there who could replace/better Tobey in the role if the need to is there.
347 Queen Street West - From U of T, head south on Beverly (St. George turns into Beverly) until it ends. That's Queen West, Active is on the south side of the street.
Ah, a Steve Mann lecture, that could be entertaining unto itself.
Am I the only one who notices that appliances and other electronic/mechanical devices from 15+ years ago seem to be MUCH better built than today's models? Sure, today's stuff is lighter, but that plastic seams to break much too easily. Give me a 30 year old blender that can crush ice in seconds over a new one that has a hard time with bananas anyday.
Somewhat analagous to the space program, eh? Pioneer, Voyager, etc.. much more longevity than anything that gets sent up these days.
Wow.. an internet patent that might actually make sense. It's not "A method to search through an index of web pages for relevant links to a user request for specific information." But the improvement on it. And it's generally accepted that Google DID improve web searching tremendously and have a unique method of doing it. Of course, this means it will be struck down immediately by some small company that gets a broader patent (see above) and sues them.
What about Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day? Let's see... generally ignored and looked down upon, until everything gets fubar, THEN they turn to him, and he basically says: Yah, well, I knew that all along, but nobody was paying attention to me or bothered to ask. All you management are all alike. Oh, and then he makes that kick-ass virus that can be uploaded seamlessly into an alien computer system and displays a skull and crossbones as it does the dirty work.
Or perhaps Joe Morton's Miles Dyson from Terminator 2? Working with a team to reverse engineer a foreign piece of technology. Working long hours, forsaking his family for the project, always spending time on his computer. Also, completely ignoring the possible ramifications of his actions because the possible breakthroughs and creativeness are too tempting. Not to mention that he's observed the security measures at his place of employment and thought of ways to circumvent them.
Or how about Demon Seed? Ok, maybe that wasn't quite so accurate for 1977...
Here in Ontario, Canada I've always been charged tax for my online purchases. Both the 7% GST (Goods and Services Tax) and 8% PST (Provincial Sales Tax). Online stores tend to have a better selection and supply. They're also more convenient. I'd prefer to type in the name of the DVD I want and click "purchase" as opposed to searching through the mess that most DVD sections at my local Best Buy end up being. Plus, I often find online prices are cheaper than in-store ones. As long as there's a free shipping offer, I'm sold :).
After all, they threatened to delist Pluto as a planet.
I think it's similar in Canada, where if I'm sued, and I win, then my legal fees are paid by the person who sued me, at the very least I'd file a counter-suit for the legal fees. Now if I'm sued and I lose, then I would assume that their legal fees would be included in the damages I'd have to pay.
Of course, the major difference between Canada and the States when it comes to this sort of thing is that Canadian lawyers can only earn an hourly rate, NOT a percentage of the winnings. This definitely helps keep lawsuits down from ridiculous values as there are no lawyers pushing for double the amount you want so they can get 50%.
I seem to recall ID approving of the piracy of Doom after it had been out a while. Their belief was that it was such a huge phenomenon BECAUSE so many pirated copies were out there, and that it drove sales higher because everyone felt they needed a copy, but not everyone pirated it.
Pepsi Blue? Vanilla Coke? Red Fusion? ENERGY drinks? What kind of pansy are you? At 2am? Hell, I'm up at 2am on a work night and haven't even clicked on my UT icon yet. :)
:).
Besides the fact each of those tastes like piss.
Sobe I'll give you.. never had Mr. Green though, but the triple blend Zen tea, or the berry energy drink is fine... although Snapple pumps in more of the good stuff in their Dragonfire. And what about Jolt? Whoopass? Bawls? XTC? A cup of Chai? Coffee, black, tons of sugar? Tea?
And alas, us poor Canucks don't have caffeine in our Mountain Dew, so it's really just a fluroescent green fruit drink
Yup, but some of that is Mann's sense of humour. He often comes up with an incredibly complicated name that he'll put on papers and displays, but when he talks about it never uses those terms. It's actually pretty funny to watch him come up with something on the fly sometimes to describe an otherwise simple process.
Also, I think some of the work from his process is impressive itself. The images he has on the page (mostly the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall I believe) were some of the originals. I've been out on a few late night "paintings" with him and we've gotten some pretty impressive shots. It's all a matter of how much time and effort you put into building the image.
One more thing - this isn't done in real-time. It can be run on a single machine and take a fair bit of time as it works through image pairs. Therefore, the more images you use, the longer it takes.
ie.- 5 images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
compares 1 & 2, 2 & 3, 3 & 4, and 4 & 5. The co-ordinate transformations for each pair are relative to the base image (so you don't have to re-transform after stitching).
There has been work to farm out the comparisons across a Beowulf cluster (the one built when I was there, was of some impressive VA Linux boxes, I believe it's been expanded since). But this still takes some time. So unless someone's going to get a parallel computing cluster inside a single package and make it affordable, this won't be rolled-out nationwide overnight.
My undergraduate design project was with Steve Mann on this technology (objective was the "parallelization" of the software on a Beowulf cluster - shout out to Mike and Anna :) ).
:)
The main use of this system so far has been to stitch multiple images into one panoramic shot. Like any auto-stitching program, this requires a certain amount of overlap between frames - the more overlap, the better the stitching. The code works remarkably well, automatically rotating, zooming, skewing and otherwise transforming the images to fit together and then mapping them into a "flat" image as opposed to a parallelogram-shaped one.
Yes, the higher resolution from multiple shots of the same scene works, and is a very cool effect of the system. Of course, this requires a more or less static scene.
Finally, it's not necessarily "video" that it uses, although pulling individual frames from a video would work. It's based of the head-mounted cameras of the wearcam systems, which essentially use a stripped-down webcam for image-gathering, so you already know the fps and resolution limitations involved with those.
Of course, in the 2 years since I've been there, the technology has probably improved, although I doubt the webpage has.
Mann has a bunch of cool projects involved with the wearcam/wearcomps. This is a great one, another is the Photoquantigraphic Lightspace Rendering (painting with light), which can also be found on the wearcam site.
If the underlying network is controlled by a handful of large corporations, and they can't keep up with the bandwidth demands without losing money, what's the alternative? They can charge more as the requirements increase, but that will effect the consumer side of it in the end. Corporations and companies that use large amounts of bandwidth will have to pay more, and those costs will have to be passed on down the line, until Joe User is paying through the nose. Not to mention the effects on home users who could see their subscription prices skyrocket as the costs are passed on to them to connect.
/. falls under that category) will complain and demand their cheap, uncapped access.
There's only so much the consumer will bear before either switching methods (back to dial-up, less usage) or switching off. Problem is the power users out there (and I think most of
So, if large corporations are vulnerable to bankruptcy and the network suffers because of this, there are only two options that I can see to provide a more stable situation. The first is government control of the networks. I know there's a collective cringe when that's suggested, but as the Internet grows, so does the need for support. Roads, public transit, electricity, hydro, sewage, etc, are all subsidised or controlled by government agencies and paid for through taxes. So does an Internet tax get added to all connections? There's a gas tax and a car tax that goes towards road maintenance after all. I know this is practically taboo to talk about, but in the end, the upkeep of the Internet's infrastructure is an enormous cost that has to be covered to maintain a quality of service.
The other option is of course the polar opposite to government control - community networks. Be it shared broadband, wireless networks, or some other situation, this too would be viable except for a small problem or two. I know how to set up a wireless access point, you know how to, and if we don't, we know where to find the HOW-TO and how to read it. We're the minority though. My 83 year-old neighbour who loves his computer and is always breaking it for the "upgrades" he tries to install would have no idea how get a wireless NIC installed let alone set up access to the neighbourhood. Are there enough geeks out there to make this viable in large urban centres? Outside of small pockets, I doubt it. On top of this there's no control over the points beyond the individual who has been gracious enough to permit access. If I decide to move and take my antenna with me, anyone who relies on that access is now without, and I don't care because I'm not about to leave a few hundred dollars worth of equipment lying around and then reinvest to set up again somewhere else. Add to this the fact that not everyone is gracious with access and there are a large number of leeches and script-kiddies out there who would abuse this sort of system, throwing the user-provider balance way out of whack. It's a nice thought, but still years, if not decades, away from being feasible.
It comes down to money in the end. Why should a corporation set up a redundant network in case another company goes kaput? Why should a company increase its capacity beyond what is absolutely necessary? This all costs far more than they're willing to spend, and they sure as hell aren't going to do it for the good of the public. In the end, SOMEBODY has to control and maintain the backbones and connections that we all take for granted.
I'm debating on putting off buying EITHER of the upcoming releases. I can't help but believe that once all three movies have come out that there will be the "Complete Lord Of The Rings Boxed Set" with all the stuff you'll already have plus 2-4 dics of never-before-seen footage and extras and such, along with a collector's box, 100-page booklet, etc, etc... making any earlier purchases a waste of my money.