What were you expecting?
on
Online! The Book
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It's Dvorak we're talking about here. The guy's too busy writing his Trolltech columns to actually learn anything new. I mean, thanks for explaining how a modem (really) works, guys. The 90's called -- they want their chapter back.
Am I the only one who heard the Merovingian say, "Bring me the eyes of the Oracle, and I will give you back your saviour." I'm thinking somehow he gave his eyes to her, or to him, or something...just having them scratched out in a scrap with Smith would be pretty un-poetic.
1) Latency is insane. Don't even *consider* it for any type of gaming.
2) It will work if you plug it directly into your switch, apparently (The modem has an Ethernet port in the back, as well). HOWEVER...the software (Internet Page Accelerator) that keeps file from being chewed in Win95/98/2K is really needed. Graphics on sites get eaten in transit, and it's just ugly. We used their suggested proxy package (WinProxy) to allow our mostly-mac network to connect using the IPA on the proxy machine, and it worked, (downloads 30-40k on average) with a fair number of errors (page won't load, hit reload, it's fine, that type of thing).
3) Starband technical support is totally, totally useless -- even if you're using the systems they recommend and support. They keep buying JD Powers & Associates ratings every year, but it's horrible.
4) Upload over the proxy was stupid. We had 40-60% of our larger ftp and mail chewed in transit, and rendered useless. And, it was a total bitch to get it working right -- it just "started" working one time, after using the same settings for over a week.
I wouldn't recommend it unless you have no other option, and need fast download speeds.
On a side note, I don't think the submitter did much looking into the task at hand before the article was posted. There is a *wealth* of information out there on this topic. Try Starband Users, for starts. And, Macworld has a very comprehensive article that outlines some of the problems I mentioned above, which I would assume also apply (partially, anyways) to a Linux setup.
This whole problem is a result of bad word choice by the folks that coined the term for digital audio extraction. If they would have called it "extraction" or "transformation", Disney wouldn't be able to criticize Apple this way.
So now the advertising line would be "Transform. Mix. Burn." Would that make me Soundwave?
While my heartfelt thanks go to/. for keeping this site up; others who are dissing the major news organizations must keep in mind that while
Slashdot was serving 50 pages per second, CNN was peaking at about an estimated 50,000 hits per second.
In light of this it was amazing that CNN was up at all, slow as it was.
I agree with you 100% Alomex...however, I'm continually frustrated by the interchangable use of 'hits' and 'pages' that goes on in digital publication data. I'm sure that most/.'ers know the diff, but let's keep something in mind here -- hits count *every* request from the server, not just pages.
For instance, the page located here on CNN has somewhere between 15-25 graphicky doodads (depending on whether you count the Netscape toolbar crap that comes up at the top). Those each count as a hit. A page counts as *one* hit. Factor in whatever scripting or DB requests are nested in there, as well. Take the "50,000" hits a second, and basically divide it by...maybe 30? (I'm not factoring in the BS factor of CNN exaggerating the number of hits per second, but I'm also not including that they converted their page delivery to simple HTML by noon). Now, you're looking at delivering more like 1700 pages a second. Still not a bad number.
But comparing CNN to Slashdot is really an apples/oranges comparison. CNN is short newsbytes, and lots of hopping page-to-page./. viewers spend waaaay more time on each page than the average CNN reader. More time per page == fewer pages served.
Whichever. YMMV. Kudos to the/. crew for keeping things humming all day. I certainly appreciated it, and all the contributions that kept us current on the info.
I've spent almost my whole day digging through stuff online, reading about what happened in New York today (fortunately, I work for a newspaper, so I'm a little justified). I live in Canada. I'm not American. I didn't have any friends in the Towers, or the Pentagon, or (afaik) on the planes that were involved.
But I've been just about on the verge of tears for most of the day. Why? The number of lives lost. The parents who won't come home tonight. The kids who won't come home tonight. The numbers that are being bandied about are so overwhelming.
I used to work as a volunteer ambulance attendant in our rural community. I've see the shock and the grief that a single motor vehicle accident can cause. I can't fathom having to assist those who will have to live, in one personal way or another, with what happened today.
I've never been a JonKatz fan. I probably still won't be. I was even prepared to slag Jon for this post, before I even read it. But I don't have to.
Thanks Jon, for giving us a little insight into the perspective from someone who is living part of the nightmare of not knowing where a lived one is.
Incidentally, as one other poster already mentioned, all you Americans can lean on your northern neighbours. I just talked to my folks in Vancouver, and they have all these people whose planes were re-routed there now, and they're stranded, at least until tomorrow. Total passengers? About 6,000. They've been putting out calls to see if locals can put these passengers up in their houses -- and they've had over 1000 responses already. We also have calls for blood donations going out, and we're going to try and get one going locally here asap.
There's lots of folks outside your borders who are praying for you and thinking about you, America. Anything you need, just yell.
Reposted from Macslash
on
Make Your Own DSL
·
· Score: 1, Informative
I just spent some time talking to a friend about this article who is a telecom engineer, and he told me some interesting things about the dry-pair concept:
Folks have used dry pairs for a long time to get cheap premise-to-premise extension service, always-on for dummy terminal, and low-ball PBX to offices in the same CO serving area. Compared to a full T1, this can save you a lot of money, especially compared to what it can cost for a conditioned T1.
However, an important caveat to keep in mind is that nothing at all has been done to condition the pair for higher data rates, since all that dry-pair is rated for is low-quality voice or very slow data (300 bps). In theory, new telephone twisted pair is designed for about 2 MHz bandwidth. If we assume a new dry pair in excellent condition, and you apply the bandwidth formula which includes distance, you can exceed 50 Mbps under 2,000 feet. At 20,000 feet, you can reach 1.6 Mbps. Note these are maximums and do not assume significant disturbers, such as existence of ISDN pairs, other T1 pairs, or nearby RF interference. Typically, only one traditional data pair is allowed per binder group due to the crosstalk artifacts, as the data transmission is symmetrical.
Anyway, the killer is that the line is unconditioned, and it can be awesome, or it can really suck. We have two runs through the local school board of unconditioned twisted pair, and one gets 1.1Mbps, and the other gets 56K, so it's pretty much a crap shoot every time as to whether you're going to get a good line, or a crappy one.
Slashdot Mirror
It's Dvorak we're talking about here. The guy's too busy writing his Trolltech columns to actually learn anything new. I mean, thanks for explaining how a modem (really) works, guys. The 90's called -- they want their chapter back.
Nooners.
Oh wait, this is Slashdot. No nooners for you!
...to both Slashdot and Amazon. Threw me for a second when I started reading Amazon reviews. Isn't that illegal on Slashdot?
Or, "lens" if you're not paying attention to your message...
How can you call something "old" that's barely hit puberty???
Ohhhh, I bet that's the problem -- curly hairs on the lense.
/me will watch for 5GB iPods to proliferate on ebay in the next month. Yay me!
Apparently, not only was the chopper stolen, so were the pictures of it!
"I, for one, look forward to playing Stephen Hawking in Unreal Tournament 2004."
Damn! I didn't realize that skin was out yet.
This story was also covered on CNN International and covered on Space.com.
Yeah, but we all know you actually saw it here.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Seriously.
I spend *far* less time p*ssing around looking for sources for obscure information now than I ever did, thanks to Google et al.
Am I the only one who heard the Merovingian say, "Bring me the eyes of the Oracle, and I will give you back your saviour." I'm thinking somehow he gave his eyes to her, or to him, or something...just having them scratched out in a scrap with Smith would be pretty un-poetic.
It then gives you a map with each search result pinned on it. V"
I don't get V, you insensitive clod!
1) Latency is insane. Don't even *consider* it for any type of gaming.
2) It will work if you plug it directly into your switch, apparently (The modem has an Ethernet port in the back, as well). HOWEVER...the software (Internet Page Accelerator) that keeps file from being chewed in Win95/98/2K is really needed. Graphics on sites get eaten in transit, and it's just ugly. We used their suggested proxy package (WinProxy) to allow our mostly-mac network to connect using the IPA on the proxy machine, and it worked, (downloads 30-40k on average) with a fair number of errors (page won't load, hit reload, it's fine, that type of thing).
3) Starband technical support is totally, totally useless -- even if you're using the systems they recommend and support. They keep buying JD Powers & Associates ratings every year, but it's horrible.
4) Upload over the proxy was stupid. We had 40-60% of our larger ftp and mail chewed in transit, and rendered useless. And, it was a total bitch to get it working right -- it just "started" working one time, after using the same settings for over a week.
I wouldn't recommend it unless you have no other option, and need fast download speeds.
On a side note, I don't think the submitter did much looking into the task at hand before the article was posted. There is a *wealth* of information out there on this topic. Try Starband Users, for starts. And, Macworld has a very comprehensive article that outlines some of the problems I mentioned above, which I would assume also apply (partially, anyways) to a Linux setup.
....is burn em up!:-)
Look on the bright side -- at least this 4/1 article didn't take a bite out of your country's dollar.
So now the advertising line would be "Transform. Mix. Burn." Would that make me Soundwave?
What bitrate does he encode at, anyways?
vigorously recommended Apache on Linux
Hmmm....judging from the rest of your post, I'm assuming this involved yelling "Linux f**king rocks!" for several hours a day?
When the CDs are probably "Uncle Lunkefaald's Polka Hits," I guess. Not too many of those gonna be ripped. :-P
There's a fix, if you use formmail. Go to Matt's Script Archive to get it.
...if poorly implemented:
http://www.giftsiwant.com/
"What's it like to ask stupid, irrelevant questions, and, as a result, convince dumbasses like me to respond vitriolically to them?"
Get an iMac with a CDRW. Then the box will at least look good (if old), and do more than this piece of trash.
While my heartfelt thanks go to /. for keeping this site up; others who are dissing the major news organizations must keep in mind that while
/.'ers know the diff, but let's keep something in mind here -- hits count *every* request from the server, not just pages.
/. viewers spend waaaay more time on each page than the average CNN reader. More time per page == fewer pages served.
/. crew for keeping things humming all day. I certainly appreciated it, and all the contributions that kept us current on the info.
Slashdot was serving 50 pages per second, CNN was peaking at about an estimated 50,000 hits per second.
In light of this it was amazing that CNN was up at all, slow as it was.
I agree with you 100% Alomex...however, I'm continually frustrated by the interchangable use of 'hits' and 'pages' that goes on in digital publication data. I'm sure that most
For instance, the page located here on CNN has somewhere between 15-25 graphicky doodads (depending on whether you count the Netscape toolbar crap that comes up at the top). Those each count as a hit. A page counts as *one* hit. Factor in whatever scripting or DB requests are nested in there, as well. Take the "50,000" hits a second, and basically divide it by...maybe 30? (I'm not factoring in the BS factor of CNN exaggerating the number of hits per second, but I'm also not including that they converted their page delivery to simple HTML by noon). Now, you're looking at delivering more like 1700 pages a second. Still not a bad number.
But comparing CNN to Slashdot is really an apples/oranges comparison. CNN is short newsbytes, and lots of hopping page-to-page.
Whichever. YMMV. Kudos to the
I've spent almost my whole day digging through stuff online, reading about what happened in New York today (fortunately, I work for a newspaper, so I'm a little justified). I live in Canada. I'm not American. I didn't have any friends in the Towers, or the Pentagon, or (afaik) on the planes that were involved.
But I've been just about on the verge of tears for most of the day. Why? The number of lives lost. The parents who won't come home tonight. The kids who won't come home tonight. The numbers that are being bandied about are so overwhelming.
I used to work as a volunteer ambulance attendant in our rural community. I've see the shock and the grief that a single motor vehicle accident can cause. I can't fathom having to assist those who will have to live, in one personal way or another, with what happened today.
I've never been a JonKatz fan. I probably still won't be. I was even prepared to slag Jon for this post, before I even read it. But I don't have to.
Thanks Jon, for giving us a little insight into the perspective from someone who is living part of the nightmare of not knowing where a lived one is.
Incidentally, as one other poster already mentioned, all you Americans can lean on your northern neighbours. I just talked to my folks in Vancouver, and they have all these people whose planes were re-routed there now, and they're stranded, at least until tomorrow. Total passengers? About 6,000. They've been putting out calls to see if locals can put these passengers up in their houses -- and they've had over 1000 responses already. We also have calls for blood donations going out, and we're going to try and get one going locally here asap.
There's lots of folks outside your borders who are praying for you and thinking about you, America. Anything you need, just yell.
I just spent some time talking to a friend about this article who is a telecom engineer, and he told me some interesting things about the dry-pair concept:
Folks have used dry pairs for a long time to get cheap premise-to-premise extension service, always-on for dummy terminal, and low-ball PBX to offices in the same CO serving area. Compared to a full T1, this can save you a lot of money, especially compared to what it can cost for a conditioned T1.
However, an important caveat to keep in mind is that nothing at all has been done to condition the pair for higher data rates, since all that dry-pair is rated for is low-quality voice or very slow data (300 bps). In theory, new telephone twisted pair is designed for about 2 MHz bandwidth. If we assume a new dry pair in excellent condition, and you apply the bandwidth formula which includes distance, you can exceed 50 Mbps under 2,000 feet. At 20,000 feet, you can reach 1.6 Mbps. Note these are maximums and do not assume significant disturbers, such as existence of ISDN pairs, other T1 pairs, or nearby RF interference. Typically, only one traditional data pair is allowed per binder group due to the crosstalk artifacts, as the data transmission is symmetrical.
Anyway, the killer is that the line is unconditioned, and it can be awesome, or it can really suck. We have two runs through the local school board of unconditioned twisted pair, and one gets 1.1Mbps, and the other gets 56K, so it's pretty much a crap shoot every time as to whether you're going to get a good line, or a crappy one.