He said he didn't want P2P "slowing my internet service down". How would it do this? In fact couldn't the opposite be true depending on how its implemented. My point is that from the posts I've scanned no one has questioned whether it in fact is the case. I don't know. I tend to doubt it really. I mean on the net in general rather than the local network it would have a small effect on the users experience.
People actually depend on the internet to make a living these days. The only thing that will control abuse by these common carriers is competition. Period. Government cannot regulate their service levels but consumers can vote with their business and take it elsewhere. That is if there was a place to take it. Your argument would be reasonable if Comcast was not a government enforced monopoly. No actually and more accurately it would hold water if they, Comcast, were not the beneficiaries of government policies that enforce their defacto monopoly. These policies are by and large promulgated by Comcast, Bellsouth now ATT, Verizon ect. Take Nashville, TN for example. Comcast is the only provider of highspeed internet service in large sections of the city because Bellsouth , a similarly protected monopoly, was to incopetent and complacenct to offer DSL in huge sections of the city. Their state reason is that the equipment needs upgrading. They still can't get it together under ATT. Bottom line is both Bellsout and Comcast exist under franchise agreements with the city which in effect keep competition from easily accessing consumers. So Comcast enjoys an artificial and bogus advantage . Until that is rectified they should not be allowed to kick anyone off their network.
Nothing about this company is good. NOT ONE THING.
I've detailed how they cannot supply DSL to their customers and can't actually answer why.
Look at this. http://www.johnbransford.net/wp/index.php/archives /category/broadband-providers/bellsouth/
And this
http://pontiff.wordpress.com/2006/01/20/bellsouth- has-a-plan-to-ruin-the-internet/
There really should be regulation for companies like this but not the kind they want. We need to have the US Justice Department seize their assets in the name of all that is decent and for the good of the people who must suffer under their reign. The assets -- such that they are -- can be auctioned off to real technology based companies not engaged in telco blackmail and lobbying for protetion schemes.
This piece should have been titled "Google Free Video is Ready for Prime Time, payed isn't"
Its a misleading title and therefore inaccurate. It doesn't do anyone any good and especially Slashdot readers to post stories that have titles that are misleading. Many people don't read past the teaser and often not that.
To be clear. Google free video IS READY FOR PRIME TIME.. especially if you consider the alternatives -- i.e. NOTHING other than specialty sites like Ourmedia.org [note this isn't a knock on ourmedia.org which is nice but a bit limited in scope compared to Google video].
Even if it is judged on its own merritts Google video is B+ or A- in user interface and clarity of purpose.
The problems alluded to in the piece can be summed up as WINDOWS DRM. When DRM comes into the picture things get messy and nearly useless.
I mean excuse me for a second here. I've seen no mention of Drupal. If you are talking about social software and framworks no less why is this better than Drupal? Who is the comunity that is going to develop this along the same lines as Drupal and Civicpace etc?... What am i missing?
This is the natural progression of the MS strategy since they decided to lock XP Media Center edition into specific hardware configurations. Their stated reason for not allowing their XP customers to upgrade to Media Center was the "special hardware" configuration ect. Do you call a TV card and DVD RW drive "special"??????
The media center functions don't even need to be bundled with the XP Distro (or even the OS for that matter) much less locked into hardware offered by MS "partners".
This whole thing smells like PR BS. What they want us to believe is that they are working on something so advanced and extrodinary (read NOT Linux or Mac) that it NEEDS that kind of configuration to operate. Maybe all the resources will be needed to render their 3D desktop and shimmering ICONS or MS smilley faces.
So what is it??? Any ideas?
The only thing resonsable I can think of is a "meta os" that will eoncompass any operating system running concurrently with any other or others. Longhorn would be more of an OS container than another distribution of Windows.
I know because I have a letter sitting here in which they say - direct quote follows:
--quote> Excessive bandwidth usage may be the result of many different activities. Activities that could contribute to exceeding bandwidth limitations may include, but are not limited to:
* Commercial or business applications, * Peer to peer networking, * Newsgroup downloading * file sharing, * Streaming music, video * Voice and/or video services quote--
Now.. After reading the above I can help Comcast save a more valuable and truly limited resource -- trees. They can cut down of the amount of paper needed to send their obnoxious letters by summing up the above as "broadband" for it pretty much defines what most people consider to be the reasons to actually shell out extra for internet service. So they can reword the whole thing and simply say that using broadband internet contributes to "excessive" usage and to be certain you are not being excessive you should use dialup.
I live in Nashville where we are fortunate to have competition (I'm having Bellsouth install DSL as a result of this letter and implore anyone else who gets one to do likewise[Speakeasy is also available as are others]).
The really galling thing is that I already pay double the usual rate not to have to worry about such things. That's correct I was duped into getting a "special" extra high-speed from Comcast a few months ago and they thanked me by sending this letter threatening to cut me off.
Their letter goes on to say that my level of use exceeded the national median amount by 100%. The national median must by defintiton include dialup or its some made up useless corp speak -- i.e. Comcast has a definition of national median and the rest of the world has another.
So my crime was to use broadband. Why didn't they just say so??
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand how the fact check process -- if there is one -- at TC allowed that 1 million number slide by.
He said he didn't want P2P "slowing my internet service down". How would it do this? In fact couldn't the opposite be true depending on how its implemented. My point is that from the posts I've scanned no one has questioned whether it in fact is the case. I don't know. I tend to doubt it really. I mean on the net in general rather than the local network it would have a small effect on the users experience.
People actually depend on the internet to make a living these days. The only thing that will control abuse by these common carriers is competition. Period. Government cannot regulate their service levels but consumers can vote with their business and take it elsewhere. That is if there was a place to take it. Your argument would be reasonable if Comcast was not a government enforced monopoly. No actually and more accurately it would hold water if they, Comcast, were not the beneficiaries of government policies that enforce their defacto monopoly. These policies are by and large promulgated by Comcast, Bellsouth now ATT, Verizon ect. Take Nashville, TN for example. Comcast is the only provider of highspeed internet service in large sections of the city because Bellsouth , a similarly protected monopoly, was to incopetent and complacenct to offer DSL in huge sections of the city. Their state reason is that the equipment needs upgrading. They still can't get it together under ATT. Bottom line is both Bellsout and Comcast exist under franchise agreements with the city which in effect keep competition from easily accessing consumers. So Comcast enjoys an artificial and bogus advantage . Until that is rectified they should not be allowed to kick anyone off their network.
Nothing about this company is good. NOT ONE THING. I've detailed how they cannot supply DSL to their customers and can't actually answer why. Look at this. http://www.johnbransford.net/wp/index.php/archives /category/broadband-providers/bellsouth/
And this
http://pontiff.wordpress.com/2006/01/20/bellsouth- has-a-plan-to-ruin-the-internet/
There really should be regulation for companies like this but not the kind they want. We need to have the US Justice Department seize their assets in the name of all that is decent and for the good of the people who must suffer under their reign. The assets -- such that they are -- can be auctioned off to real technology based companies not engaged in telco blackmail and lobbying for protetion schemes.
Agreed. I call them Bell-headed-South. Look at this. http://pontiff.wordpress.com/2006/01/20/bellsouth- has-a-plan-to-ruin-the-internet/
This piece should have been titled "Google Free Video is Ready for Prime Time, payed isn't"
Its a misleading title and therefore inaccurate. It doesn't do anyone any good and especially Slashdot readers to post stories that have titles that are misleading. Many people don't read past the teaser and often not that.
To be clear. Google free video IS READY FOR PRIME TIME.. especially if you consider the alternatives -- i.e. NOTHING other than specialty sites like Ourmedia.org [note this isn't a knock on ourmedia.org which is nice but a bit limited in scope compared to Google video].
Even if it is judged on its own merritts Google video is B+ or A- in user interface and clarity of purpose.
The problems alluded to in the piece can be summed up as WINDOWS DRM. When DRM comes into the picture things get messy and nearly useless.
I mean excuse me for a second here. I've seen no mention of Drupal. If you are talking about social software and framworks no less why is this better than Drupal? Who is the comunity that is going to develop this along the same lines as Drupal and Civicpace etc?... What am i missing?
This is the natural progression of the MS strategy since they decided to lock XP Media Center edition into specific hardware configurations. Their stated reason for not allowing their XP customers to upgrade to Media Center was the "special hardware" configuration ect. Do you call a TV card and DVD RW drive "special"??????
The media center functions don't even need to be bundled with the XP Distro (or even the OS for that matter) much less locked into hardware offered by MS "partners".
This whole thing smells like PR BS. What they want us to believe is that they are working on something so advanced and extrodinary (read NOT Linux or Mac) that it NEEDS that kind of configuration to operate. Maybe all the resources will be needed to render their 3D desktop and shimmering ICONS or MS smilley faces.
So what is it??? Any ideas?
The only thing resonsable I can think of is a "meta os" that will eoncompass any operating system running concurrently with any other or others. Longhorn would be more of an OS container than another distribution of Windows.
I know because I have a letter sitting here in which they say - direct quote follows:
--quote>
Excessive bandwidth usage may be the result of many different activities. Activities that could contribute to exceeding bandwidth limitations may include, but are not limited to:
* Commercial or business applications,
* Peer to peer networking,
* Newsgroup downloading
* file sharing,
* Streaming music, video
* Voice and/or video services
quote--
Now.. After reading the above I can help Comcast save a more valuable and truly limited resource -- trees. They can cut down of the amount of paper needed to send their obnoxious letters by summing up the above as "broadband" for it pretty much defines what most people consider to be the reasons to actually shell out extra for internet service. So they can reword the whole thing and simply say that using broadband internet contributes to "excessive" usage and to be certain you are not being excessive you should use dialup.
I live in Nashville where we are fortunate to have competition (I'm having Bellsouth install DSL as a result of this letter and implore anyone else who gets one to do likewise[Speakeasy is also available as are others]).
The really galling thing is that I already pay double the usual rate not to have to worry about such things. That's correct I was duped into getting a "special" extra high-speed from Comcast a few months ago and they thanked me by sending this letter threatening to cut me off.
Their letter goes on to say that my level of use exceeded the national median amount by 100%. The national median must by defintiton include dialup or its some made up useless corp speak -- i.e. Comcast has a definition of national median and the rest of the world has another.
So my crime was to use broadband. Why didn't they just say so??