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  1. Re:How much does an isp pay? on FCC Approving Pay-As-You-Go Internet Plans · · Score: 1

    Yes, we can get flat rate. IIRC, our Internet transit OC-3s (155mbps) are around $6000-8000/month each, plus we have internal network links between POPs, routers to connect, power, cooling, etc. (and us employees like to get paid). We also have redundant links so a failure of one link doesn't cause a significant service disruption (so if we have N OC-3s, we can't sell Nx155mbps of bandwidth). A big portion of the costs are transport links (dedicated point-to-point circuits between cities), but the IP transit portion is still about $20-30/mbps/month IIRC.

  2. Re:Vital stats on GM Loses Money On Every Volt Built · · Score: 1

    Gas/petrol usually costs about 15 cents per mile.

    Not for a comparable vehicle. I just paid $2.799/gallon for gas; at that price, 15 cents per mile means you are only getting 18.7 miles per gallon. The Volt is supposed to get double that on its gas engine, so call it 7.5 cents per mile.

    This (and other electric cars presumably) will cost just under 4 cents per mile (based on current electricity costs)

    The site you referenced doesn't say the actual power requirements, but if you charged on a typical household 120V outlet, you will typically be limited to about 1500 watts, so you'd use 15kWh to drive between 25 and 50 miles. I have relatively low power rates where I live at 9.012 cents per kWh, which would mean the cost per mile would be between 2.7 and 5.4 cents per mile (3.38 cents/mile at the target 40 mile range). So, you're now down to about half the cost per mile.

    Gas prices will probably go up, but so will electricity prices. If plug-in electric vehicles become widespread, the "last-mile" part of the power grid is going to have similar problems to the "last-mile" part of residential Internet. It was built with certain assumptions (that have held true for decades in the case of power) that could change rapidly. A plug-in car could come close to doubling the power usage of a typical home, and the distribution system can't handle double the load (even if the generating stations can).

  3. Re:already done, already proven a bad idea on CDE — Making Linux Portability Easy · · Score: 1

    Not sure what you mean by "File-based dependencies like in RPM may be slightly deficient here". RPM only depends on specific files if you need them; e.g. if you have package A with a config file /etc/a.conf that is also required by package B, package B will depend on the file /etc/a.conf (commonly found with scripts and dependencies on /bin/sh, /usr/bin/perl, etc.). If package B just needs package A to work, it'll depend on "A".

  4. Re:DirecWay to the rescue! on AT&T Introduces Satellite-Enabled Smart Phone · · Score: 1

    Because in your universe, c=90,000mi/s? Physics fail.

    Round trip (from your phone to a non-sat phone and back) takes 4 22,500+ mile trips: your phone to a sat, sat to ground station (to non-sat phone), (non-sat phone to) ground station to sat, sat to your phone. That's 90,000 miles, or about .48 seconds at the speed of light. Add in the regular non-sat phone delays (especially for cell phones), and you are at or above half a second.

    Math is hard. Use a calculator next time.

  5. Re:DirecWay to the rescue! on AT&T Introduces Satellite-Enabled Smart Phone · · Score: 1

    HughesNet (the former DirecWay) uses satellite(s) in a geostationary orbit, over 22,000 miles above the equator. That results in a significant delay (round trip of almost half a second), which makes regular voice conversations impractical. The satellite phone systems like Iridium use a whole constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit to avoid the big delay, but running a large number of satellites and ground stations costs a whole lot more (so the service costs a whole lot more).

  6. Re:Furthermore, VOIP is screwed on Network Neutrality Is Law In Chile · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The standard QoS bits are basically useless across any administrative boundary (such as the connection between you and your ISP, or your ISP and their upstreams/peers). Otherwise, you very quickly get people realizing they can just set all of their traffic to the "high priority" class. The only way an ISP could reasonably do QoS is by port or packet inspection.

  7. Re:Let's see if I've got this right on 'Leap Seconds' May Be Eliminated From UTC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It wasn't just Oracle. The Linux kernel would deadlock if the system was under load when the leap second happened. I only had one server hang, but a customer with a rack of busy servers had about half of them freeze. Lots of "fun" on New Year's Eve. Even more annoying was that the problem wasn't in handling the leap second, it was in printing a message that the leap second had been handled.

  8. Re:Connector lifetime isn't that important on Why SSDs Won't Replace Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    You generate ~40GB of new data every day ?

    No, but the periodic full backup has to complete in a reasonable amount of time.

    Are you accounting for your tape pickup/delivery and storage costs ? The human time in swapping tapes ?

    Our office is in a separate location, so off-site storage is carrying the tapes to the office. The time spent swapping tapes is a non-issue, as somebody needs to go to the NOC every day anyway for other stuff.

  9. Re:Not just density on Why SSDs Won't Replace Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    Instead, how about "Summing up all of the worlds digital data, is more stored on platters, or tape?"

    Meaningless question. Tape is only used for backups, and lots of data is not backed up (rightly or wrongly).

    Or maybe, "In 2010-converted dollars, how much money has been spent on platters vs tape?"

    Who cares?

    Or how about "Will Google ever use tape?"

    Most of the world is not Google, so irrelevant.

  10. Re:Connector lifetime isn't that important on Why SSDs Won't Replace Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    So to get 300Mbps would be $1200/month, just to handle off-site backups (since I don't really need that kind of bandwidth point-to-point for anything else). I could buy a new tape library and new tapes 2-3 times a year for that.

  11. Re:Not just density on Why SSDs Won't Replace Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    We're talking about backups; latency is not a big problem there. You stream data out to tape sequentially, and with modern tape formats, seeking to a desired block is quick. Restoring a file from our tape library only takes a few minutes (if the tape is currently in the library). If you need files from backups often enough that that latency is a problem, you have a bigger problem (but you could look at disk-to-disk-to-tape).

  12. Re:Connector lifetime isn't that important on Why SSDs Won't Replace Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    That doesn't give you off-site backups though, and that's a weak point in disk backups. Network backups over a WAN don't work well either; even our old DLT320 dual-drive library backs up at close to 300 megabits per second, and I'd hate to see the bill for that kind of bandwidth to a location even just a few miles away.

  13. Re:This story is false on Southwest Adds 'Mechanical Difficulties' To Act Of God List · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I pay the airline, and the airline pays the airport, the fuel service, etc. The airline owes me if they don't deliver me to my destination on time; if it is somebody else's fault, the airline can go after their suppliers, vendors, etc. to recoup their costs (presumably they have that type of thing in their contracts).

  14. Re:Not just density on Why SSDs Won't Replace Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    the desktop market drove HDD purchases far beyond LTO

    Really? Where can I buy a 1.4TB hard drive that can read/write at 140MB/s for under $100? Yes, you can hot-swap hard drives; what's the rated insert/remove life of the connector (on the drive and whatever you are connecting it to)? What about the temperature, humidity, and shock rating? How about the storage shelf life and error rate?

    Desktop hard drives have slightly passed LTO in terms of capacity, but that's the only area. That's not really all that new, either; a single current-generation tape hasn't often been bigger than the current biggest hard drive. Tape doesn't win on capacity though; it's easy to have a tape library and autoload lots of tapes.

  15. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. on Chile First To Approve Net Neutrality Law · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You aren't paying for the bandwidth, you are paying for limited use of the bandwidth. You wouldn't like your bill if you had to pay the full cost of the bandwidth (yet most also complain at the mere mention of metered access). Also, I see many people demanding that ISPs block certain ports for abuse reasons (e.g. outbound SMTP to reduce spam, except of course, everybody wants all users but themselves blocked).

    Paying taxes doesn't guarantee you 100% utilization of the highways; there are many times you will be unable to drive 100% of the posted speed limit due to other users of the road. Usage is unlimited (you can drive as many miles on as many public roads as you like), but you might not get to drive the speed you like.

  16. Re:What we need... on More Gas Station Credit-Card Skimmers · · Score: 1

    The problem with RSA tokens is that the system doesn't scale. I have two credit cards, an ATM/debit card, several bank website logins, etc. I don't want those accounts tied together for security and privacy, and I certainly don't want to carry around a half-dozen tokens. Also, doesn't RSA claim a patent on the token setup (so they'd be a sole-source and raise costs across the board)?

  17. Re:faulty RAM on Tracking Down a Single-Bit RAM Error · · Score: 2, Informative

    Did you buy all new RAM, or add to existing? If you added to existing, did you test just the new RAM, or with the existing in there as well?

    Lots of RAM has different timings these days, and even when the timing is supposed to be the same, I've seen new RAM cause problems with old RAM to surface (possibly also from temperature changes). I had a system with 2G (2x1G) Corsair RAM, and then I added another 2G (2x1G) of the same model Corsair; the system started crashing. I assumed (as most would) that the problem was the new RAM. I ran memtest86+ for about 18 hours on just the new RAM and had no problems. I stuck the original 2G back in and the system crashed; I ran memtest86+ on just the old RAM; no problem. With all 4 sticks in, memtest86+ would show errors. By moving sticks around and figuring out the address mapping on my system, I tracked it down to one of the original sticks. I then ran memtest86+ for about 48 hours on just that stick, and it did eventually show an error (Corsair replaced it and I have had no more problems).

    RAM generates a good bit of heat these days, and adding RAM generates even more heat in a small space. My faulty RAM has the heat spreaders included, but the motherboard puts the RAM slots so close together there's still little space for heat to dissipate.

  18. Re:Apple TV on Updated Mac Mini Aims For the Living Room · · Score: 3, Informative

    you can already stream an HD movie or TV show faster than you could get up off your couch and go buy or rent it physically

    Wally-world is 3 minutes from my house. I can be there and back in 15 minutes from when I decide to go. They actually have a decent selection of Blu-Ray movies these days, including a number in the cheap bins. Blu-Ray supports up to 36 megabits per second, which is faster than the Internet access at the vast majority of homes in the US. For example, to get Blu-Ray quality video on my 6 meg DSL, for a 2 hour movie I'd have to wait for up to 10 hours of "buffering" before I could "stream" the video. If you only did half the max quality level of Blu-Ray (18 meg) and your Internet connection was twice as fast (12 meg), you'd still have to wait an hour before starting to watch a 2 hour movie. And that assumes there's a server farm somewhere that can feed a whole bunch of 18-36 meg streams simultaneously.

    Also, there's nothing to stop you buying an external BD player. Newegg has 'em under $150.

    Does Apple include Blu-Ray player software (complete with all the necessary DRM support so you can actually get 1080p)? A drive is useless without the software, and the software included with the drive will be for Windows, not Mac OS X.

  19. Re:Terrible summary on ITER Fusion Reactor Enters Existential Crisis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And how do you get this enormous amount of power out of Nevada and into somewhere like Los Angeles

    I don't know, maybe the same way you get power out of the Hoover Dam in Nevada into Los Angeles. We have this thing call "the power grid" and "long distance transmission lines".

  20. Re:Is this a problem? on How CDNs and Alternative DNS Services Combine For Higher Latency · · Score: 1

    Nope, I don't think the Internet is going to "collapse". I've run servers and networks for ISPs for over 14 years, so I think I understand just a little about how things work. We have had Akamai servers on our network for about 10 years, and they save us a good chunk of bandwidth (as much as 15% some days) and give our users a better experience (faster and smoother downloads).

  21. Re:Is this a problem? on How CDNs and Alternative DNS Services Combine For Higher Latency · · Score: 4, Informative

    It isn't just ads. For example, Microsoft, Apple, Symantec, and Red Hat use CDNs for distributing software updates (that's just a few companies I know of off the top of my head). Basically, CDNs keep the Internet working, saving server load at the source and bandwidth across the Internet and at the providers.

  22. Re:Sensible on Air Force Wants Reusable Fly-Back Rockets · · Score: 1

    A fly-back booster was in the original design for the shuttle, but was abandoned because it was not cost effective. The cost of making the booster stage fly and be reusable was a good bit more than using the throw-away external tank and recoverable solid boosters. The flight profile lives on the in the never-used RTLS (Return To Launch Sight) abort mode of the shuttle.

  23. Re:This note is legal tender on Apple Reverses iPad "No Cash Purchase" Policy · · Score: 4, Informative

    A purchase (exchange of money for goods) is not a debt. You can show up at your bank with $1000 in pennies to pay your mortgage and they have to take it, because that is a debt, but any vendor can decline cash for purchases. That's why it is legal for some fast-food places and such have signs that they do not accept denominations over $20 (which are more susceptible to counterfeiting and also quickly reduce their change-making ability).

  24. Re:DNSSEC is an arduous solution on DNSSEC and the Geopolitical Future of the Internet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Put down the djb Kool-Aid. DNSCurve and DNSSEC do not address the same thing. DNSCurve is essentially SSL for DNS, which requires some way to establish trust with each server you talk to. Since end-users typically only talk to their ISP's recursive servers, that's not too much work, but it only protects the path from the ISP's servers to the end-users (which ISPs can typically protect themselves). DNSCurve does nothing to authenticate the DNS data itself. DNSSEC, on the other hand, authenticates the data at the source. If you look up foo.bar.com, that record can be signed in the bar.com zone, which has trust anchors in .com, which has trust anchors in the root. It doesn't matter who serves the record to you; you can be sure that the data is valid.

    Some ISPs would prefer people to use DNSCurve and think DNS is secure, because it does nothing to protect the data. Those ISPs would still be able to change the results (e.g. all the NXDOMAIN web pages, URL redirects, etc. are still possible). That can't happen with DNSSEC and an authenticating resolver.

    DNSSEC is not set-it-and-forget-it because true security requires maintenance. It isn't just a response to cache poisoning attacks, it addresses the security of the whole system.

  25. Re:More Like it? on Voyager 2 Speaking In Tongues · · Score: 5, Informative

    It would probably cost a good bit more than that to build a long-range probe that has to work for many years before reaching its target. Also, you have to pay for ground stations and personnel to monitor it for the years it takes to get somewhere. We have no magic "get-there-fast manner" today; in fact, the Voyagers were able to do so much because of a once-in-our-lifetime planetary alignment (the Grand Tour). The NASA New Horizons probe is going to Pluto (and beyond), and it will take 9.5 years to get there (and if the launch had been delayed by another few weeks, it would have taken several years longer because there wouldn't have been a Jupiter slingshot fly-by).