In the 'real world' mostly, a community refers to various kinds of people that live and/or interact in a common location. But there are communities of like minds or situation where people share common interests or lifestyles (elderly). Usually though, you don't get to choose your neighbors so you forced into particular situations. Those differences imposed by common location are what can define a community.
However, in the 'virtual world' communities pretty much strictly refer to people of like minds that congregate and interact in common online locations (be them websites, irc, listservs, etc.) You, in effect choose your neighbors.
Both real world communities, and vitual world communities are still refered to as communities. The conotation has changed (to some degree) based on the context however.
I think it is quite interesting how the meaning of a lot of things have evolved/changed as a result of advances in technology et al. Real world metaphors of virtual world realities are redefining a lot of society i think.
FYI SBC "throttles" everything. They control how much juice to put behind the signal which determines it's speed (depending on how far you are from the router). That is why upload speeds are generally 128kbs because that is all your modem will push. To get 384kbs upload, which is getting more common, they effectively "pull" the signal to get more than 128kbs. That is how their Plant Control Office explained it...i'm no expert.
SBC is forced to open their infrastructure to 3rd parties and are required to offer/sell bandwidth. Most providers can't afford to put in their own router equipment at the "co-location" so they use SBC's router too. Personally I'm switching over to Covad the day my 1 year term ends. Covad has their own equipment and doesn't even run on the same copper pair that SBC uses. So to get Covad you have to have an available copper pair (Read: unused second phone line).
I've been with SBC in Dallas for 11 months now. Service has been great until I needed to call them. They have so many departments and everyone that works there on the phone is brand new. I was explaining how things worked at SBC to THEM since I had called them so many times, getting bumped around to different depts.
It took me 6 weeks to get an upgrade to the service and all that took was some switch flipping on their end. They seem to find an excuse for everything.. scape goat puter system, scape goat "it's not our dept", scape goat "we are busy" blah blah. They've screwed some friends of mine with massive delays and disinformation. I think we will see that this lawsuit will bring many more forward to join in against SBC.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever you do, don't go to Fry's for anything other than the software or DVD's you might want to use/watch on the thing.
Fry's for cpu/mobo/memory/hdd/etc. is a crap-shoot... no, craps odds are much better actually.
IMNSHO
In the 'real world' mostly, a community refers to various kinds of people that live and/or interact in a common location. But there are communities of like minds or situation where people share common interests or lifestyles (elderly). Usually though, you don't get to choose your neighbors so you forced into particular situations. Those differences imposed by common location are what can define a community.
However, in the 'virtual world' communities pretty much strictly refer to people of like minds that congregate and interact in common online locations (be them websites, irc, listservs, etc.) You, in effect choose your neighbors.
Both real world communities, and vitual world communities are still refered to as communities. The conotation has changed (to some degree) based on the context however.
I think it is quite interesting how the meaning of a lot of things have evolved/changed as a result of advances in technology et al. Real world metaphors of virtual world realities are redefining a lot of society i think.
Get yer Peril-sensitive sunglasses out and play it now!!!
disk images of the original are all over the place too.
FYI SBC "throttles" everything. They control how much juice to put behind the signal which determines it's speed (depending on how far you are from the router). That is why upload speeds are generally 128kbs because that is all your modem will push. To get 384kbs upload, which is getting more common, they effectively "pull" the signal to get more than 128kbs. That is how their Plant Control Office explained it...i'm no expert.
SBC is forced to open their infrastructure to 3rd parties and are required to offer/sell bandwidth. Most providers can't afford to put in their own router equipment at the "co-location" so they use SBC's router too. Personally I'm switching over to Covad the day my 1 year term ends. Covad has their own equipment and doesn't even run on the same copper pair that SBC uses. So to get Covad you have to have an available copper pair (Read: unused second phone line).
I've been with SBC in Dallas for 11 months now. Service has been great until I needed to call them. They have so many departments and everyone that works there on the phone is brand new. I was explaining how things worked at SBC to THEM since I had called them so many times, getting bumped around to different depts.
It took me 6 weeks to get an upgrade to the service and all that took was some switch flipping on their end. They seem to find an excuse for everything.. scape goat puter system, scape goat "it's not our dept", scape goat "we are busy" blah blah. They've screwed some friends of mine with massive delays and disinformation. I think we will see that this lawsuit will bring many more forward to join in against SBC.
HOW ABOUT A BROADBAND ACCESS BILL OF RIGHTS?!?!?!