Two-party system seems to be what we have, and the Supreme Court seemed to think that we had it by design, as proposed by the Constitution.
I remember several years ago when they ruled against "fusion candidates," that is, a candidate endorsed by more that one party (multiple third parties) could not appear on the ballot.
The decision pretty much ensured a Democratic/Republican monopoly forever, essentially codifying the two party system we are stuck with today.
'Cause people in Berkeley are known for their "tough guy" image.
Seriously, I looked at the pictures of the campus tunnels, and believe me when I tell you that the tunnels at Quantico are similair only in that they too are referred to as "tunnels."
The Berkeley tunnels are spacious, and the steam pipes don't appear to be that large.
The Quantico tunnels, one the other hand, are very narrow, and the huge steam pipes (ranging between 18" to 24" in diameter) take up more than half the available space. To get through many of them, you have to crawl, and frequently you have to squeeze between the pipes and the wall while holding your breath just to fit past.
The Berkeley tunnels also seem to enjoy some form of lighting... Quantico knows not this lighting of which Berkeley speaks.
I also notice the absence of muck-filled puddles, but maybe they just eluded the photographer.
Well, I have my CCNA from the v2.0 days. The test I took (in 15 minutes, 945) was mostly theoretical network knowledge, and very little in the way of IOS commands. I needed it (the CCNA) because I had to get the Wireless Field Engineer specialization, and without some kind of Cisco cert number, they had nothing to attach it to.
I understand that CCNA v3.0 is going to change that, which can only be a good thing. I'd like to think that a CCNA was an actual "router guy," but to date, it hasn't meant that.
Don't be surprised when those losers can get a job interview, and you can't.
Certifications are not going to impress your IT contemporaries, or your manager, or your buddies here on Slashdot.
They're going to impress those pinheads in Human Resources that act as the gatekeepers for the people that conduct the actual IT interviews, and make the hiring decisions.
Once you get the interview, knowledge and experience are king.
Prior to that, you need to get past a drone with some acronyms scrawled on a notepad. Your acronyms better match up with their notes, or your experience and knowledge will carry you all the way to the unemplyment line.
(I used to teach chemistry and physics before teaching IT, so I'm not defending because I'm afraid of losing my job - there are benefits and weaknesses to any certification, and a good HR person should be able to recognize the abilities a job candidate has as opposed to what's listed in their resume.)
I'm not trying to bust your nuts or anything, but you're out of touch... (I don't know if you've always been a teacher, or if it's just been a long time since you worked in the private sector.)
First and foremost, there are very few "good" HR people recruiting for technology positions.
In 99% of cases* Human Resources people recruiting for Technology positions know absolutely nothing about the kind of work that needs to be done, and have absolutely no frame of reference with which to evaluate potential candidates.
The only criteria they can use is the resume itself, and the buzzwords that are on it, to include certifications.
Work experience, for the most part, is simply not enough right now.
I believe that for the most part, this is a temporary phenomena, the result of the economic conditions of the last few years. Because of the layoffs at IT companies, there is simply a lot of technical talent out there right now that is either unemployed, or underemployed. The result is a very competitive IT job market.
There are a lot of guys applying for jobs that have a great deal of experience. If you're up against another candidate with a similar amount of experience, you'd better hope he doesn't have as many certifications as you, because if he does, he'll get the call every time.
In many cases, people with certs are getting interviews, when uncertified candidates with vastly more experience aren't.
No disrespect intended, but it's a jungle out here.
A basic BGP setup is not terribly difficult to implement, but there are a lot of subtle knobs, bells, and whistles that can be configured to influence the way routes are selected.
As for certifications, my own personal experience:
I had no technical certifications until 2 years ago, and at that point, I'd been doing high-end Cisco consulting for over 7 years.
My experience carried me a long way, and I always made signifigantly higher salaries than the industry norms.
Then, the company I had been working for went Chapter 7... The economy had already turned South, and I was having a hard time even getting job interviews because knuckleheads in the Human Resource departments of the companies I had been applying to were tossing my resume into the trash. It lacked the certification buzzwords.
I ended up having to get my CCIE just so I could once again get through the door to the interviews. (Think certification as a means of self defense.)
Don't go into the certification realm thinking it'll make you rich and famous, but don't overlook the low lying fruit either. When you want to start competing for the really high paying jobs, it will benefit you if you've punched your tickets along the way.
I would hazard a guess that the reviewer wasn't completely clueless about networking before picking up these two books...
He is on Slashdot, after all.
Still, your point about the value of the CCNA certification is valid... I know a lot of people that have gotten their CCNA having never logged into a Cisco router or switch.
It is, at it's crux, an entry level certification. The material that is presented at this level is theoretical, not practicle.
I'm teaching an informal CCNA class internally here at work this week. We're covering the core topics:
The OSI Model
Media Types
Layer-2 Framing
IP Subnetting
Classless v. Classfull Routing
Distance-Vector v. Link-state Routing Protocols
Serial Encapsulation standards
Frame-Relay
Hubs v. Switches
The difference between a Broadcast Domain and a Collision Domain
Other sundry theoretical topics on the CCNA blueprint
This is all foundational knowledge... The CCNA isn't about learning to configure Cisco routers, switches, or firewalls.
It's more about building a vocabulary, and a basic understanding of networking topics.
Once you've got that, then you can start learning the real stuff.
The parent wondered "what's in it for us" to upgrade, or if "the US is falling behind" was a good enough reason to do so...
I answered his question.
No doubt the transition, if undertaken today, would be a long difficult process.
Just the same, putting it off until later will only make it that much longer and more difficult.
IPv6 is inevitable because it's being adopted by some already... IPv4 has shortcomings, biggest of which are a nearly exhausted address space.
These emerging IPv6 savvy nations are going to be able to do things with their network infrastructures that we will be unable to do. As these applications and uses emerge and develop, American consumers will want to be able to make use of them as well, but we'll be hamstrung by our IPv4 infrastructure, and dependance upon NAT.
Ultimately, consumer demand will probably be the driving force behind the upgrade.
Do you seriously doubt that at some point in the future, we'll all be running IPv6? Get your head out of the sand.
Back when I was running the network at MCB Quantico (Circa 1992-94), we had to inspect the campus fiber cable plant because the as-built wiring diagrams had been misplaced.
This entailed crawling through tight tunnels all over the campus, through puddles from leaky or venting pipes, in pitch blackness.
Did I mention that these leaky or venting pipes were full of steam? (Back when Marine bases were being built, centralized steam heating was all the rage. USMC: Doing more with less since the very beginning.)
Did I mention that the temperature in the steam tunnels frequently exceeded 130 degrees?
Did I mention that because they were installed during Quantico's primary expension, in the 1930s I think, that they were wrapped in tattered asbestos insulation?
Sorry about the crapstains on your jumpsuit, but I dread the day the a doctor looks at my chest x-rays, and says to me, "Hey, what the fuck have you been breathing?"
Re:IP6s problem is the numeric addresses r so comp
on
The State of IPv6
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· Score: 1
Token ring has a MAC address too...
Another point that I failed to mention in my other reply is that in a point-to-point connection, a hardware layer address is completely unessesary.
It's only required for a multi-access medium. It's required there because all stations on the medium will see every frame that's transmitted (and every packet contained in those frames). The destination hardware address in the frame header let's the recipient station know "Hey, this one is for Me!"
In a point-to-point connection, every frame coming across the link is destined for the recipient station, lest it would not have been routed that way. If the receiver happens to be a router, he still needs to accept the frame, and then determine what to do with the packet based on it's destination IP address (Be it IPv4, or IPv6).
In a frame-relay network, the same thing occurs, and the frames are directed toward a specific end-point by PVCs, which are desribed to the sending station as DLCIs.
Your point is moot... Carry on.
Re:IPv6 is MUCH more than a replacement for IPv4
on
The State of IPv6
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· Score: 1
This baffling policy of no "servers" is simply going to have to change.
Even today, I'd like to be able to put my digital pictures on my web server, and send a URL to my family and friends, rather than emailing to them with gigantic image attachements. Sure, I'd be running a "server," but it's not like I'm hosting Slashdot, or a Pay-for-Porn site.
Most likely, it will simply be a minor language change... Instead of "server", you'll see "server for commercial purposes", as in:
"Users are not permitted to run any server for commercial purposes."
Re:IP6s problem is the numeric addresses r so comp
on
The State of IPv6
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· Score: 1
It's doesn't really matter...
Remember that a MAC address need only be unique on a given subnet.
In a point-to-point connection, the PPP interface could use the same MAC address as the host's Ethernet card, and the two resulting IPv6 addresses would be differentiated by the different network addresses.
In a device that had no ethernet adapter, like a mobile phone, a hardware address could be generated from any uniqueness of the device, such as a serial number, or it could simply have a hardware address built into it's firmware (much like Wi-Fi cards do today).
Even forgoing that, if the two devices connected via a point-to-point connection choose random hardware addresses, the odds of them choosing the same one are simply astronomical.
In the unlikely event that they did, there could simply be a mechanism where they each backed off, and recomputed a new one.
The more likely scenario, like in the case of a dial-up ISP connection, would be that the head-end would be configured as the auto-conf device, and the calling side would simply have to choose an address that was different from the head-end, or that the head-end would simply assign the remote side an address, a la DHCP, much like today.
In a WAN scenario, the network engineers would probably be assigning the addresses at both ends of a serial link by hand anyway.
While your point is not without merit (I'm a fan of choosing a technology based on its applicability, rather than its relative coolness), this is a little deeper than some "golly-gee-whiz fancy IP addressing."
It's vital to Americans that the United States maintain it's lead as a technological innovator, because from a global economic perspective, what do we have left?
We don't really build anything here anymore. We have gotten out of the business or agriculture (We could, even now, provide enough food to end world hunger, but we don't.). Metaphorically, we are becoming a nation of gurus and burger flippers. We have people that can afford expensive cars, and people that wash them.
Our niche lies in development. If we are no longer the leader in that space, then the United States will be doomed to global mediocrity.
Domestically, we already have a kind of class warfare between the "Haves" and the "Have nots" (I don't particularly subscribe to that... It's closer to "Haves" and "Have laters." Even poor Americans have televisions and refridgerators.). Having enjoyed a prosperous history, America as a nation could not stomache becoming a nation of "Have nots."
IPv6 is coming... In some places, it's already arrived. In others, it'll be there Real Soon Now. It needs to find it's way here, and the sooner the better, for three reasons:
It's inevitable...
The US would be wise to stay on the cutting edge of technology from a global economic perspective...
The longer we delay, the greater the difficulty in making the transition.
Making the switch today would be traumatic, because there are a lot of devices that need to be upgraded, modified, or otherwise reconfigured.
Further delay will only mean that there are even more devices that will need to be changed in the future. The Internet continues to grow explosively.
A conversion to IPv6 now would result in far less duplication of effort later.
(This is a reply to you, but mostly to all of the other ignorance I'm seeing, so don't take it personally.)
A "hub" doesn't care about ethernet.
It cares only about electricity. A hub is a Layer 1 device.
It doesn't know anything about Frames (Layer 2), nor Packets (Layer 3), nor Transports (UDP or TCP, Layer 4), nor Sessions (Layer 5), nor Presentation (Layer 6), and is not the least bit concerned with the Application (Layer 7).
It's only concerned with electrical signalling. It's a shared bus... The RX pair from each hub port is wired to the TX pairs of all the other ports (Over simplified perhaps, but essentially true).
That's all there is to it.
It should come as no surprise that a hub supports IPv6... It would also support IPX, DECnet, Banyan Vines, XNS, Appletalk, or IPv16. Not only that, but it will support them all simultaneously.
Just don't try to move a lot of data across it, 'cause 10 Mbps half-duplex with collisions is a bitch. It's no way to live your life in the 21st century.
And if you only have 2 machines, forget the hub or switch... Spend $15 dollars to buy a crimp tool and some cable, and make a crossover cable. 1000 Mbps Full Duplex all the live long day.
You Sir, are incorrect. A lot of people like to say that America's War for Independence was about self-governance, but for the most part, that's a simple myth.
The reality of the matter is that the war was about spelling. Americans, busily trying to develop their own resources and create a thriving local economy had a great deal of real work to do, and couldn't be bothered with adding all manner of additional letters to easily recognized words, like labor (labour), flavor (flavour), or color (colour), like their British counterparts.
The people of Britain had been around for quite a while, you see, having had hundreds of years to build their cities. Since most of the heavy lifting had already been done, when they say down to write a letter or novel, they had plenty of time to put extra vowels in their words.
The Colonists, on the other hand, they had other important things to do. Subsequently, they dropped the redundant vowels.
This angered the crown to no end, and the King, having had a formal education, and having pretty much all the free time in the world to waste on extra vowels, sent his fleet.
The rest, as they say, is history (Or, histoury, to my British friends).
Because the Colonists prevailed, the question of proper spelling was finally answered, and American English is correct. Because we aren't as petty as King George, there's no need for additional bloodshed or violence, and we allow our English bretheren to continue their ridiculous spelling practices as a historical courtesy.
There are a number of "incomplete" libertarians here, in that they are quick to grab onto the pro-freedom aspects of libertarianism, but a little slow to understand the necessary and rational consequences of that kind of freedom. They are a small, but vocal group.
They are outnumbered by at least 500:1 by the pinkos you mention, particularly when you factor in the European Slashdot contingent. To a libertarian, the common notion of Freedom held by most of Europe looks an awful lot like Totalitarianism.
I fail to understand how a "free people" can be forced to shoulder the burden of providing for the well being of those unable, or worse, unwilling, to provide for themselves, and still think themselves free.
...or rather, your complete misunderstanding of free markets.
As the anonymous poster said, it is regulation that permits a monopoly to be created, not the absense of regulation.
Let's look at the ever popular hypothetical "widget" market:
There are a number of widget manufacturers out there, each minding it's own business, building and selling widgets to the masses, because widgets are a vital useful product.
WidgetCo, refines their process, and strikes deals with the providers of the raw materials in widget making, and begins to offer widgets at prices far below those of their competitors. WidgetCo.
WidgetCo's competitors lose sales, and some of them go out of business.
WidgetCo buys out another couple of former competitors as a means of rapidly expanding their capacity, further consolidating the widget market.
Eventually, WidgetCo becomes the exclusive manufacturer of widgets.
Is WidgetCo now a monopoly? I say no.
If, in the absence of competition, WidgetCo begins raising it's prices, or begins building inferior quality widgets, in an unregulated market, someone can start a new company, UltraWidge.
If UltraWidge can offer the same quality widgets at a lower price, they will be successful, perhaps so much so that WidgeCo will have to alter their pricing.
If UltraWidge can offer a higher quality widget at the same price as those offerred by WidgeCo, then again, they will be successful, perhaps so much so that WidgeCo will have to improve the quality of their own widgets.
Let's add some regulation:
WidgeCo lobbies it's congressmen and senators, and gets legislation passed that forces all manufacturers of widgets to adhere to certain costly to implement safety standards, and that they must also carry a very costly to maintain liability insurance.
WidgeCo also gets legislation passed that it is to be the exclusive manufacturer of widgets for use within the United States.
Now, when WidgeCo starts raising the prices on it's widgets, or letting the quality of it's widgets slip, what happens?
Nothing. You and I, the consumers, get the shaft.
No new start-up widgetmaker will emerge, because the cost of building a certified widget manufacturing plant is too expensive (Not expensive for WidgeCo, which is a well established company, with enormous capital reserves), and the cost of the mandatory insurance exceeds the means of most humble entrapeneurs.
No new start-up widgetmaker will emerge because the United States is a closed market. Only WidgeCo is authorized to manufacture and sell widgets to the good people of the United States.
There is no such thing as a naturally occuring monopoly (Not a true monopoly). In a free market, the sole supplier of a good or service must always be concerned that a new competitor will emerge and put them out of business.
When they take advantage of their market position, by raising prices, or cutting corners on quality, consumers seek alternatives, and some other capitalist will see this weakness, and exploit it by entering into that market.
Competition drives prices down, and drive quality up. In a free market, there will always be competition, or at a minimum, the threat of competition.
Now, invariably, on Slashdot, whenever someone talks about free markets and/or monopoly, Bill Gates and Microsoft rears their ugly heads.
Contrary to what many belive, Microsoft is not a monopoly. There are alternatives to Microsoft's operating systems. There are alternatives to Microsoft's suite of business applications. There are alternatives to every product in Microsoft's catalog.
What Microsoft has become is not a monopoly... It has become a "de facto standard," and that's a completely different animal.
I liked the movie, but only after convincing myself that it was in fact an original work, rather than an adaptation of the similarly titled Heinlein masterpeice.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember several years ago when they ruled against "fusion candidates," that is, a candidate endorsed by more that one party (multiple third parties) could not appear on the ballot.
The decision pretty much ensured a Democratic/Republican monopoly forever, essentially codifying the two party system we are stuck with today.
Seriously, I looked at the pictures of the campus tunnels, and believe me when I tell you that the tunnels at Quantico are similair only in that they too are referred to as "tunnels."
The Berkeley tunnels are spacious, and the steam pipes don't appear to be that large.
The Quantico tunnels, one the other hand, are very narrow, and the huge steam pipes (ranging between 18" to 24" in diameter) take up more than half the available space. To get through many of them, you have to crawl, and frequently you have to squeeze between the pipes and the wall while holding your breath just to fit past.
The Berkeley tunnels also seem to enjoy some form of lighting... Quantico knows not this lighting of which Berkeley speaks.
I also notice the absence of muck-filled puddles, but maybe they just eluded the photographer.
I understand that CCNA v3.0 is going to change that, which can only be a good thing. I'd like to think that a CCNA was an actual "router guy," but to date, it hasn't meant that.
(I'm also a CCIE, if it means anything to you.)
Certifications are not going to impress your IT contemporaries, or your manager, or your buddies here on Slashdot.
They're going to impress those pinheads in Human Resources that act as the gatekeepers for the people that conduct the actual IT interviews, and make the hiring decisions.
Once you get the interview, knowledge and experience are king.
Prior to that, you need to get past a drone with some acronyms scrawled on a notepad. Your acronyms better match up with their notes, or your experience and knowledge will carry you all the way to the unemplyment line.
I'm not trying to bust your nuts or anything, but you're out of touch... (I don't know if you've always been a teacher, or if it's just been a long time since you worked in the private sector.)
First and foremost, there are very few "good" HR people recruiting for technology positions.
In 99% of cases* Human Resources people recruiting for Technology positions know absolutely nothing about the kind of work that needs to be done, and have absolutely no frame of reference with which to evaluate potential candidates.
The only criteria they can use is the resume itself, and the buzzwords that are on it, to include certifications.
Work experience, for the most part, is simply not enough right now.
I believe that for the most part, this is a temporary phenomena, the result of the economic conditions of the last few years. Because of the layoffs at IT companies, there is simply a lot of technical talent out there right now that is either unemployed, or underemployed. The result is a very competitive IT job market.
There are a lot of guys applying for jobs that have a great deal of experience. If you're up against another candidate with a similar amount of experience, you'd better hope he doesn't have as many certifications as you, because if he does, he'll get the call every time.
In many cases, people with certs are getting interviews, when uncertified candidates with vastly more experience aren't.
No disrespect intended, but it's a jungle out here.
* 99% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Wish I'd thought of it...
As for certifications, my own personal experience:
I had no technical certifications until 2 years ago, and at that point, I'd been doing high-end Cisco consulting for over 7 years.
My experience carried me a long way, and I always made signifigantly higher salaries than the industry norms.
Then, the company I had been working for went Chapter 7... The economy had already turned South, and I was having a hard time even getting job interviews because knuckleheads in the Human Resource departments of the companies I had been applying to were tossing my resume into the trash. It lacked the certification buzzwords.
I ended up having to get my CCIE just so I could once again get through the door to the interviews. (Think certification as a means of self defense.)
Don't go into the certification realm thinking it'll make you rich and famous, but don't overlook the low lying fruit either. When you want to start competing for the really high paying jobs, it will benefit you if you've punched your tickets along the way.
Not likely... I got out in May '94. I did know Top McGill though. My office was downstairs from where you went to school, on the ground floor.
Being able to configure BGP (Border Gateway Protocol version 4) is NOT part of the CCNA cirriculum.
And because BGP stands for "Border Gateway Protocol," you wouldn't "configure *a* BGP". You would configure BGP.
Pay more attention during your class. I suspect you've confused "a BGP" with "an IGP," where IGP means "Interior Gateway Protocol."
Would you like me to list them?
He is on Slashdot, after all.
Still, your point about the value of the CCNA certification is valid... I know a lot of people that have gotten their CCNA having never logged into a Cisco router or switch.
It is, at it's crux, an entry level certification. The material that is presented at this level is theoretical, not practicle.
I'm teaching an informal CCNA class internally here at work this week. We're covering the core topics:
This is all foundational knowledge... The CCNA isn't about learning to configure Cisco routers, switches, or firewalls.
It's more about building a vocabulary, and a basic understanding of networking topics.
Once you've got that, then you can start learning the real stuff.
I answered his question.
No doubt the transition, if undertaken today, would be a long difficult process.
Just the same, putting it off until later will only make it that much longer and more difficult.
IPv6 is inevitable because it's being adopted by some already... IPv4 has shortcomings, biggest of which are a nearly exhausted address space.
These emerging IPv6 savvy nations are going to be able to do things with their network infrastructures that we will be unable to do. As these applications and uses emerge and develop, American consumers will want to be able to make use of them as well, but we'll be hamstrung by our IPv4 infrastructure, and dependance upon NAT.
Ultimately, consumer demand will probably be the driving force behind the upgrade.
Do you seriously doubt that at some point in the future, we'll all be running IPv6? Get your head out of the sand.
Back when I was running the network at MCB Quantico (Circa 1992-94), we had to inspect the campus fiber cable plant because the as-built wiring diagrams had been misplaced.
This entailed crawling through tight tunnels all over the campus, through puddles from leaky or venting pipes, in pitch blackness.
Did I mention that these leaky or venting pipes were full of steam? (Back when Marine bases were being built, centralized steam heating was all the rage. USMC: Doing more with less since the very beginning.)
Did I mention that the temperature in the steam tunnels frequently exceeded 130 degrees?
Did I mention that because they were installed during Quantico's primary expension, in the 1930s I think, that they were wrapped in tattered asbestos insulation?
Sorry about the crapstains on your jumpsuit, but I dread the day the a doctor looks at my chest x-rays, and says to me, "Hey, what the fuck have you been breathing?"
Another point that I failed to mention in my other reply is that in a point-to-point connection, a hardware layer address is completely unessesary.
It's only required for a multi-access medium. It's required there because all stations on the medium will see every frame that's transmitted (and every packet contained in those frames). The destination hardware address in the frame header let's the recipient station know "Hey, this one is for Me!"
In a point-to-point connection, every frame coming across the link is destined for the recipient station, lest it would not have been routed that way. If the receiver happens to be a router, he still needs to accept the frame, and then determine what to do with the packet based on it's destination IP address (Be it IPv4, or IPv6).
In a frame-relay network, the same thing occurs, and the frames are directed toward a specific end-point by PVCs, which are desribed to the sending station as DLCIs.
Your point is moot... Carry on.
Even today, I'd like to be able to put my digital pictures on my web server, and send a URL to my family and friends, rather than emailing to them with gigantic image attachements. Sure, I'd be running a "server," but it's not like I'm hosting Slashdot, or a Pay-for-Porn site.
Most likely, it will simply be a minor language change... Instead of "server", you'll see "server for commercial purposes", as in:
Remember that a MAC address need only be unique on a given subnet.
In a point-to-point connection, the PPP interface could use the same MAC address as the host's Ethernet card, and the two resulting IPv6 addresses would be differentiated by the different network addresses.
In a device that had no ethernet adapter, like a mobile phone, a hardware address could be generated from any uniqueness of the device, such as a serial number, or it could simply have a hardware address built into it's firmware (much like Wi-Fi cards do today).
Even forgoing that, if the two devices connected via a point-to-point connection choose random hardware addresses, the odds of them choosing the same one are simply astronomical.
In the unlikely event that they did, there could simply be a mechanism where they each backed off, and recomputed a new one.
The more likely scenario, like in the case of a dial-up ISP connection, would be that the head-end would be configured as the auto-conf device, and the calling side would simply have to choose an address that was different from the head-end, or that the head-end would simply assign the remote side an address, a la DHCP, much like today.
In a WAN scenario, the network engineers would probably be assigning the addresses at both ends of a serial link by hand anyway.
It's vital to Americans that the United States maintain it's lead as a technological innovator, because from a global economic perspective, what do we have left?
We don't really build anything here anymore. We have gotten out of the business or agriculture (We could, even now, provide enough food to end world hunger, but we don't.). Metaphorically, we are becoming a nation of gurus and burger flippers. We have people that can afford expensive cars, and people that wash them.
Our niche lies in development. If we are no longer the leader in that space, then the United States will be doomed to global mediocrity.
Domestically, we already have a kind of class warfare between the "Haves" and the "Have nots" (I don't particularly subscribe to that... It's closer to "Haves" and "Have laters." Even poor Americans have televisions and refridgerators.). Having enjoyed a prosperous history, America as a nation could not stomache becoming a nation of "Have nots."
IPv6 is coming... In some places, it's already arrived. In others, it'll be there Real Soon Now. It needs to find it's way here, and the sooner the better, for three reasons:
Making the switch today would be traumatic, because there are a lot of devices that need to be upgraded, modified, or otherwise reconfigured.
Further delay will only mean that there are even more devices that will need to be changed in the future. The Internet continues to grow explosively.
A conversion to IPv6 now would result in far less duplication of effort later.
A "hub" doesn't care about ethernet.
It cares only about electricity. A hub is a Layer 1 device.
It doesn't know anything about Frames (Layer 2), nor Packets (Layer 3), nor Transports (UDP or TCP, Layer 4), nor Sessions (Layer 5), nor Presentation (Layer 6), and is not the least bit concerned with the Application (Layer 7).
It's only concerned with electrical signalling. It's a shared bus... The RX pair from each hub port is wired to the TX pairs of all the other ports (Over simplified perhaps, but essentially true).
That's all there is to it.
It should come as no surprise that a hub supports IPv6... It would also support IPX, DECnet, Banyan Vines, XNS, Appletalk, or IPv16. Not only that, but it will support them all simultaneously.
Just don't try to move a lot of data across it, 'cause 10 Mbps half-duplex with collisions is a bitch. It's no way to live your life in the 21st century.
And if you only have 2 machines, forget the hub or switch... Spend $15 dollars to buy a crimp tool and some cable, and make a crossover cable. 1000 Mbps Full Duplex all the live long day.
Of course it was a joke... I'm glad someone noticed. That one was rather well concealed. ;)
The reality of the matter is that the war was about spelling. Americans, busily trying to develop their own resources and create a thriving local economy had a great deal of real work to do, and couldn't be bothered with adding all manner of additional letters to easily recognized words, like labor (labour), flavor (flavour), or color (colour), like their British counterparts.
The people of Britain had been around for quite a while, you see, having had hundreds of years to build their cities. Since most of the heavy lifting had already been done, when they say down to write a letter or novel, they had plenty of time to put extra vowels in their words.
The Colonists, on the other hand, they had other important things to do. Subsequently, they dropped the redundant vowels.
This angered the crown to no end, and the King, having had a formal education, and having pretty much all the free time in the world to waste on extra vowels, sent his fleet.
The rest, as they say, is history (Or, histoury, to my British friends).
Because the Colonists prevailed, the question of proper spelling was finally answered, and American English is correct. Because we aren't as petty as King George, there's no need for additional bloodshed or violence, and we allow our English bretheren to continue their ridiculous spelling practices as a historical courtesy.
Now all of you know the *real* story.
...The Heaven's Gate cultists?
How about you foot the bill? I mean, surely you don't want her driving around on unsafe tires, right?
Put up, or shut up.
(I suspect I won't be seeing a check.)
There are a number of "incomplete" libertarians here, in that they are quick to grab onto the pro-freedom aspects of libertarianism, but a little slow to understand the necessary and rational consequences of that kind of freedom. They are a small, but vocal group.
They are outnumbered by at least 500:1 by the pinkos you mention, particularly when you factor in the European Slashdot contingent. To a libertarian, the common notion of Freedom held by most of Europe looks an awful lot like Totalitarianism.
I fail to understand how a "free people" can be forced to shoulder the burden of providing for the well being of those unable, or worse, unwilling, to provide for themselves, and still think themselves free.
I suppose everything is relative.
As the anonymous poster said, it is regulation that permits a monopoly to be created, not the absense of regulation.
Let's look at the ever popular hypothetical "widget" market:
Is WidgetCo now a monopoly? I say no.
If, in the absence of competition, WidgetCo begins raising it's prices, or begins building inferior quality widgets, in an unregulated market, someone can start a new company, UltraWidge.
If UltraWidge can offer the same quality widgets at a lower price, they will be successful, perhaps so much so that WidgeCo will have to alter their pricing.
If UltraWidge can offer a higher quality widget at the same price as those offerred by WidgeCo, then again, they will be successful, perhaps so much so that WidgeCo will have to improve the quality of their own widgets.
Let's add some regulation:
Now, when WidgeCo starts raising the prices on it's widgets, or letting the quality of it's widgets slip, what happens?
Nothing. You and I, the consumers, get the shaft.
No new start-up widgetmaker will emerge, because the cost of building a certified widget manufacturing plant is too expensive (Not expensive for WidgeCo, which is a well established company, with enormous capital reserves), and the cost of the mandatory insurance exceeds the means of most humble entrapeneurs.
No new start-up widgetmaker will emerge because the United States is a closed market. Only WidgeCo is authorized to manufacture and sell widgets to the good people of the United States.
There is no such thing as a naturally occuring monopoly (Not a true monopoly). In a free market, the sole supplier of a good or service must always be concerned that a new competitor will emerge and put them out of business.
When they take advantage of their market position, by raising prices, or cutting corners on quality, consumers seek alternatives, and some other capitalist will see this weakness, and exploit it by entering into that market.
Competition drives prices down, and drive quality up. In a free market, there will always be competition, or at a minimum, the threat of competition.
Now, invariably, on Slashdot, whenever someone talks about free markets and/or monopoly, Bill Gates and Microsoft rears their ugly heads.
Contrary to what many belive, Microsoft is not a monopoly. There are alternatives to Microsoft's operating systems. There are alternatives to Microsoft's suite of business applications. There are alternatives to every product in Microsoft's catalog.
What Microsoft has become is not a monopoly... It has become a "de facto standard," and that's a completely different animal.
I liked the movie, but only after convincing myself that it was in fact an original work, rather than an adaptation of the similarly titled Heinlein masterpeice.
What seems to be the problem?