I wouldn't bet my head on this, but I do recall having heard that it has to do with the sound-spectrum being able to transport over the phone.
If I'm not entirely wrong it goes something like this: human-perceptible sounds allow for 33.6k connections, then someone figured out that out-of-band sounds can be used, hence 56k.
It definitely looks like a physical limit - there are only so-and-so many different sounds transmittable over POTS.
For anybody interested in the subject (and for those who might have missed the article) I can only reccomend this article in a recent Wired edition. Looks like James Marsh read it too, and acted in consequence of it.
Sorry for replying to my own comment, but that's the best way to clear it up. I rather intended to say: Why does it get referred to on/. in pounds ? The usual euro/dollar pair would make much more sense.
Get your exchange rates right: currently the Euro is very strong wrt the dollar, therefore the right dollar amount is not 17m, but 28.9m. See the Currency Converter for details.
Or the "logic bombs" transmitted via TV in Transmetropolitan: a burst transmission on TV which gets into your subconsciousness and slowly unreels while you're sleeping - voila, you're dreaming commercials.
If our drug policy is based on what is best for the children
Unfortunately this is not the case, and never has been. Moreover, it doesn't apply to drug policy alone, but about to every policy there is out there.
Policies are usually made for the benefit of issuer.
Now before you flame me: yes, I am referring to our regular democracy here. Democracy though is neither perfect, nor for that matter just or nice. It simply gives people choices. (You don't like that policy ? Vote for someone else next time, and see if you like their policy!).
Democracy is not a state, it's a process. Same thing for all of democracy's output.
[...] with the cost added to users' internet service bill [...]
There's a lesson to be learned here: large ISPs offering their "own" services can handle micropayments easily. And it's a lot safer than using credit cards.
Please please please leave Sun alone - after all, _they_ are running the business, therefore it's their responsability, no matter if success or failure happens.
The concerted "efforts" to "rescue" Sun, to bring it to the path of righteousness look very dubious to say the least: on one hand everybody and his sister seem to enjoy firing on this particular ambulance, on the other hand nobody seems to want to miss the feeding frenzy over some presumable defunct company. The last example was given by ESR: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/02/12402 43.
As usual it's extremely difficult to decide on what is "The Right Thing (tm)": On one hand you're supposed to get the word out (and I don't think/. is the worst location, given the technology in question isn't really mainstream), whilst you shouldn't be accessing the ressources mentioned if you don't have to.
The sensitive thing to do is probably to add a comment in the story that pointing out the criticality; better even if it is accompagnied by link-scrambling (something like http://slashdot.org/www.ares.org).
the deficit as a percentage of GDP (~4%) is not unreasonable
Without wanting to initiate a professional discussion on economics (I don't have to much of a clue here, and sometimes I have the impression that nobody does), I would just like to point out that the upper deficit limit as imposed by the EU council is 2 percent. This might be right, it might be wrong, some countries (such as France and Germany, and probably Italy too) are having a larger deficit - but at least Europe is aiming to not exceed those 2%.
our unemployment, overtime, privacy laws, and foreign policies however are big deals.
I couldn't agree more. Except that I'ld add environmental issues too (do you remember that Kyoto protocol ?).
In a country where we roughly pay an average of 1/3 of our salaries to variuos governmental entities.
It is my impression that you are actually quite lucky. In the country I currently live in (Italy) a whopping 43% gets deducted from my salary even before I get it. Of the other 57% percent, I probably spend half for a living, where 20% VAT is applied - therefore I pay almost 50% of taxes.
<rant>And what makes me really sick is to see how the money does not get used, but is merely vanishing in all kinds of nonsense...</rant>
Personal experience with RedHat vs. SCO
on
SCO Volleys to Red Hat
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
It is of course a pure coincidence, but my company has decided a mere month ago to get rid of SCO Unix in the embedded systems environment and replace it with RedHat. The reason for this move has nothing to do with the ongoing juridicial battle, but has been made simply "because Linux in general is considered state-of-the-art". Cute.
Slashdot Mirror
running RedHat 7.2
Do you have a Progeny support contract too ?
The Polish Prime Minister was the protagonist.
I wouldn't bet my head on this, but I do recall having heard that it has to do with the sound-spectrum being able to transport over the phone.
If I'm not entirely wrong it goes something like this: human-perceptible sounds allow for 33.6k connections, then someone figured out that out-of-band sounds can be used, hence 56k.
It definitely looks like a physical limit - there are only so-and-so many different sounds transmittable over POTS.
For anybody interested in the subject (and for those who might have missed the article) I can only reccomend this article in a recent Wired edition. Looks like James Marsh read it too, and acted in consequence of it.
Sorry for replying to my own comment, but that's the best way to clear it up. I rather intended to say: Why does it get referred to on /. in pounds ? The usual euro/dollar pair would make much more sense.
And why should it be in pounds anyway, when it's an EU project AND based in Brussels ?
Get your exchange rates right: currently the Euro is very strong wrt the dollar, therefore the right dollar amount is not 17m, but 28.9m. See the Currency Converter for details.
A [...] shareware app that lets you manage your rental queue without logging on to Netflix
Is it just me or does this really sound like "check your email without logging on to your mailserver" ?
Me slightly confused.
Or the "logic bombs" transmitted via TV in Transmetropolitan: a burst transmission on TV which gets into your subconsciousness and slowly unreels while you're sleeping - voila, you're dreaming commercials.
If our drug policy is based on what is best for the children
Unfortunately this is not the case, and never has been. Moreover, it doesn't apply to drug policy alone, but about to every policy there is out there.
Policies are usually made for the benefit of issuer.
Now before you flame me: yes, I am referring to our regular democracy here. Democracy though is neither perfect, nor for that matter just or nice. It simply gives people choices. (You don't like that policy ? Vote for someone else next time, and see if you like their policy!).
Democracy is not a state, it's a process. Same thing for all of democracy's output.
should limit way that e-mail messages can be forwarded.
But it won't stop Outlook to be vulnerable to any kind of attack, such as a worm which "forwards" itself to everybody in your address book ?
from the problems-that-won't-be-solved-until-2006 dept.
Sounds rather like 3006 to me ...
For additional info see this. It's an excellent writeup on the issues you're raising.
[...] with the cost added to users' internet service bill [...]
There's a lesson to be learned here: large ISPs offering their "own" services can handle micropayments easily. And it's a lot safer than using credit cards.
Please please please leave Sun alone - after all, _they_ are running the business, therefore it's their responsability, no matter if success or failure happens.
The concerted "efforts" to "rescue" Sun, to bring it to the path of righteousness look very dubious to say the least: on one hand everybody and his sister seem to enjoy firing on this particular ambulance, on the other hand nobody seems to want to miss the feeding frenzy over some presumable defunct company. The last example was given by ESR: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/02/12402 43.
Give the poor people a break!
What could be worse than a method which increases the returns on spam?
The choice is yours...
Except when it comes to Scientology :-(
"I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts." --Virgil
Just to be a smartass - the original goes like this:
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
Yup, but no smart bombs.
As usual it's extremely difficult to decide on what is "The Right Thing (tm)": On one hand you're supposed to get the word out (and I don't think /. is the worst location, given the technology in question isn't really mainstream), whilst you shouldn't be accessing the ressources mentioned if you don't have to.
The sensitive thing to do is probably to add a comment in the story that pointing out the criticality; better even if it is accompagnied by link-scrambling (something like http://slashdot.org/www.ares.org).
the deficit as a percentage of GDP (~4%) is not unreasonable
Without wanting to initiate a professional discussion on economics (I don't have to much of a clue here, and sometimes I have the impression that nobody does), I would just like to point out that the upper deficit limit as imposed by the EU council is 2 percent. This might be right, it might be wrong, some countries (such as France and Germany, and probably Italy too) are having a larger deficit - but at least Europe is aiming to not exceed those 2%.
our unemployment, overtime, privacy laws, and foreign policies however are big deals.
I couldn't agree more. Except that I'ld add environmental issues too (do you remember that Kyoto protocol ?).
In a country where we roughly pay an average of 1/3 of our salaries to variuos governmental entities.
It is my impression that you are actually quite lucky. In the country I currently live in (Italy) a whopping 43% gets deducted from my salary even before I get it. Of the other 57% percent, I probably spend half for a living, where 20% VAT is applied - therefore I pay almost 50% of taxes.
<rant>And what makes me really sick is to see how the money does not get used, but is merely vanishing in all kinds of nonsense...</rant>
... why are you giving SCO a hand ?
If they win that suit [against IBM], there are no consequences for anybody but IBM.
And how do you explain the need to license your kernel ?
It is of course a pure coincidence, but my company has decided a mere month ago to get rid of SCO Unix in the embedded systems environment and replace it with RedHat. The reason for this move has nothing to do with the ongoing juridicial battle, but has been made simply "because Linux in general is considered state-of-the-art". Cute.