Have you ever been to a supermarket in Canada and tried to buy caffeinated Mountain Dew or caffeinated rootbeer? It doesn't exist, because children can't be trusted with caffeine and their parents might be too stupid to realize that non-cola sodas may contain caffeine.
Um. Pardon?
In British Columbia you can buy caffinated colas, rootbeers, Mountain Dews (no one drinks that, tho) and other teeth-rotting products. Caffenated Barq's Rootbeer is even sold in my school.
> In this country, BT are currently beginning the ADSL rollout and, since they haven't been able to successfully resolve the security implications, access will now be totally non-firewalled for home users by "default". They are expected to use the "correct" firewalling software. Tell me, who honestly thinks that John Doe (or rather, John Smith over here...) is going to have a clue about security.
If Joe Smith is going to drive without a seatbelt, that's his problem. The driving public has been educated about seatbelts, and so should the internet using public. Sure, some people don't use seatbelts, and they get killed, but they deserved it.
> Additionally, many home users will not appreciate that the bandwidth they are about to experience is disproportionate to that offered anywhere else - some parts of the world have no access, some are stuck on 9600bps and some now have up to 10Mbit in to the home with 53Mbit a very real possibility in the next few years.
So some people will be arrogant. Rationing bandwidth won't change that.
> Are people really prepared for the time bomb that is now ticking?
Sometimes, we have to learn the lesson before we can benefit from the wisdom. Like with nuclear bombs, now that we know the effects, only a madman would ever do that again.
Well, this is interesting, but I have to ask: how useful will it really be?
We've 75GB IDE drives from IBM. You used to have to get a SCSI card for that.
I use 3 GBs on my 10 GB harddrive. It's already slow. Can you imagine dealing with a FAT on a drive at one exabyte? It'll be slow.
The other question: Is it needed?
Well, no.
Apart from givin Microsoft a new way to give meaning to the phrase 'code bloat', all you'll get out of these drives is wasted space. Like having a compact warehouse in the middle of a wasteland.
I can forsee a new problem, too. We already have some information loss/byte rot on current harddrives-- if you squish the bytes too closely together, they're bound to lose their charge, right?
Imagine this on an atomic level. They better be using some strong compound, because it would just suck if all my priceless data would be lost in a small bump.
And how are you supposed to back up all that data?
They're working toward having complete encryption from the time it hits your computer through to the output device. Expect speakers with an encryption key in the near future.
Well, you could always unscrew the cover on the speaker and record the outputs to the cone...
Slashdot Mirror
Um. Pardon?
In British Columbia you can buy caffinated colas, rootbeers, Mountain Dews (no one drinks that, tho) and other teeth-rotting products. Caffenated Barq's Rootbeer is even sold in my school.
Wormwood
You make some interesting points.
> In this country, BT are currently beginning the ADSL rollout and, since they haven't been able to successfully resolve the security implications, access will now be totally non-firewalled for home users by "default". They are expected to use the "correct" firewalling software. Tell me, who honestly thinks that John Doe (or rather, John Smith over here...) is going to have a clue about security.
If Joe Smith is going to drive without a seatbelt, that's his problem. The driving public has been educated about seatbelts, and so should the internet using public. Sure, some people don't use seatbelts, and they get killed, but they deserved it.
> Additionally, many home users will not appreciate that the bandwidth they are about to experience is disproportionate to that offered anywhere else - some parts of the world have no access, some are stuck on 9600bps and some now have up to 10Mbit in to the home with 53Mbit a very real possibility in the next few years.
So some people will be arrogant. Rationing bandwidth won't change that.
> Are people really prepared for the time bomb that is now ticking?
Sometimes, we have to learn the lesson before we can benefit from the wisdom. Like with nuclear bombs, now that we know the effects, only a madman would ever do that again.
Sorry. I have really horrible cold right now, and at the time I posted that, it sounded coherent. I won't do it again.
--Wormwood
Well, this is interesting, but I have to ask: how useful will it really be?
We've 75GB IDE drives from IBM. You used to have to get a SCSI card for that.
I use 3 GBs on my 10 GB harddrive. It's already slow. Can you imagine dealing with a FAT on a drive at one exabyte? It'll be slow. The other question: Is it needed? Well, no. Apart from givin Microsoft a new way to give meaning to the phrase 'code bloat', all you'll get out of these drives is wasted space. Like having a compact warehouse in the middle of a wasteland.
I can forsee a new problem, too. We already have some information loss/byte rot on current harddrives-- if you squish the bytes too closely together, they're bound to lose their charge, right?
Imagine this on an atomic level. They better be using some strong compound, because it would just suck if all my priceless data would be lost in a small bump.
And how are you supposed to back up all that data?
Just thinking.
--Wormwood
They're working toward having complete encryption from the time it hits your computer through to the output device. Expect speakers with an encryption key in the near future.
Well, you could always unscrew the cover on the speaker and record the outputs to the cone...