Could we do a better job if we could cache intelligently and do p2p
That would help, but ultimately the question that's being asked is, "who will pay for this bandwidth?"
The answer of course is the ISP users are already paying for it. The ISPs just don't have the bandwidth they've claimed to have sold their clients. And I would call this bordering on fraud.
Say an ISP has 1,000 clients, and sells them all 1.5Mbps DSL connections. But if 500 people go and try to stream video at the same time, and the infrastructure can't handle it, the ISP has sold you a product it actually didn't have. If a store tried to oversell the latest Harry Potter book, and asked customers to "share" the books because they didn't actually have enough to go around, there'd be lawsuits flying.
Now I know in reality having 1,000 x 1.5Mbps infrastructure probably would never happen, and there would be some bandwidth sharing, that's the point of packet switched networks. But scaling up to meet the needs of customers for what the ISP claimed the customer was buy, is ultimately the ISPs responsibility. Net neutrality should not be used as an excuse to not provide the minimum infrastructure needed for the service ISPs are collecting money for.
I strongly dispute the statement "there are few real-world deployments." From what I hear, Sun's Blackbox is flying off the shelf (figuratively speaking of course, I'd love to see the "shelf" that can hold a few of those...)
When Blackbox was first introduced I tried to convince a friend of mine in a position of managerial influence at Sun to lend one to my employer, we're having data centre space issues and were willing to be a poster child for this new product.
His reply was a simple, no-can-do, they're already selling so quickly they could barely keep up with demand.
They are popular, if they weren't, why would companies like Intel and Microsoft still be looking at joining the game months after Sun first deployed Blackbox?
Oh hang on... theres "consulting costs" involved... Thats where SAP/PS "certified" consultants come in to "customise" the software... In that case its probably 100 family cars worth.
Oh don't get me started.... I have experience with both PeopleSoft and SAP, and I am not impressed by either.
My employer has implemented PeopleSoft and it's been nothing but a nightmare. Inaccurate accounts, never quote being sure how much money you have in an account, and the web interface.... It's like something out of 1997! This is 2007, and if Google and other companies can make sleek AJAX interfaces, you'd think on a multi-million dollar system like PeopleSoft they could at least build one that looks as though it's from this decade!
As for SAP, I administer a SAP system for a friend's company, we're talking a company of about $1-2 million in sales a year. And as I learn more about this system, I shake my head more in disbelief. I've spent weekends having to rebuild new laptops they've bought with XP because the software simply doesn't work under Vista, and the estimated compatibility date we keep getting is 1 year+. You might say that's Vista's fault, and to a degree it is, however when I learn about how their authentication works, and how it depends on Vista's authentication for their client-server model, plus their own internal authentication I wonder how these people ever got their CS degrees. The clients access MS SQL DIRECTLY, not through a nice integrity maintaining server process. That is such a huge no-no if you want good audit trails and data integrity, you do not let the clients directly access the database!
I often wonder, if I knew more about accounting, I bet I could put together a startup and make a piece of software which cleans their clocks. It is complex, but doable, without interfaces out of last century and authentication protocols which depend upon the eccentricities of different versions of an operating system. If someone took on this challenge they could be very, very, very rich just by building a usable system that doesn't require millions in consulting fees.
And yes, those SAP consultants, I can see my friend's blood pressure go up whenever I tell him he have to call them for assistance on some arcane matter which is far overly complex for what is trying to be accomplished. I guess the easier way to become very rich is to be a SAP/PeopleSoft consultant, if you can swallow your morals.
While having something like this built in to the OS would be a scary prospect, and the potential inability to disable it.
But I see an upside to this technology. If we're lucky, M$ will never get around to implementing these technologies, and thanks to their patents, no one else will be able to implement such invasive advertising tactics.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm completely against software and business model patents, they're the worst of the worst when it comes to patent trolls. But if the upside of a broken patent system is bad business practices don't get implemented, at least there's some benefit.
Actually I think as a community we should become a little more proactive on such things. Let's think up some other invasive technology ideas, things we'd never want to see implemented in the wild, and patent them. And never licence these patents. Keep the evilness out of software by making it defaultly illegal.
Exactly my thought. That's a non-sensical statement in the article - cargo ships can cross the Atlantic on a single tank of fuel. Fuel efficiency is the more relivant statistic if you want to impress.
However looking at the vessil, it looks fairly small, so perhaps it is a note-worthy accomplishment, we'll never know until the numbers are released.
t's problem enough that we pigeon hole kids in college. I'm an engineer. It's my 'only' marketable skill. C/C++, Matlab, VB, Simulink, Free body diagrams are great for bringing home money now. But they're not going to help me redo my kitchen or paint my house or fix my car. If I had to do college over again. I'd tell my counselor to shove it and take 5-6 years for a BS degree. I'd take one of those classes most engineers looked down on, like how to wire a house, how to run plumbing, etc.
You're right, from a practical point of view, having people with broader knowledge is very important. In my high school career, I took 5 years of electronics, everything from the basics of resistors and capacitors to programming microcontrollers. It was one of the most valuable set of courses I took because now in my chosen career of software engineering, I have a better understanding of what's actually happening inside this equipment I write code for.
But school should not simply be job training centres, despite what some in business would like. We also need well rounded people. Techies needs to be familiar with art and literature. And artsies needs to know how to change the oil on their car. We need more renaissance men and women, not simple robots trained to do one job. Only then can we better understand each other and think outside the box to solve problems.
But to paraphrase a Central American dictator, we don't need educated people, we need oxen.
Sadly yes. Last time I went to buy hand soap for home, of the two dozen different brands and sub-brand products on the shelf, only TWO were not antibacterial.
Even if I want to be a good buy and not use antibacterial soap, I can't.
Of course being exposed to some bacteria over your life is a good thing anyhow - it builds the immune system. That's why parents should let their kids go out side and play/eat the dirt, they'll be better for it in the long run.
But you are right, screw the facts, hurray for marketing!
my fiance is a med student and has been saying this to me for years (the negative effects of antibacterial everything in the household). It makes perfect sense if you stop and think about it. As for the dry skin thing, she can attest to that too.
And she is completely right. I work in computational biology, working for a microbiology professor who specializes in bacteria. Never get her started on antibacterial products, she's said more then once she wishes she could rip them all off the shelves of stores because of the risk they pose for mutations.
Y'know against support problems, non working applications? No?
That is the biggest issue in my world, non-working applications. One of my clients bought a brand new laptop, loaded with Vista, we're now installing XP (had had to pay an additional $175 to buy a copy) on it because we've been told their core application, SAP Business One, doesn't run under Vista.
My boss got a new computer about a month ago, she insisted I change the order to get XP rather then Vista.
We simply don't trust it, and when we have, we've gotten bitten in the ass.
Man, Raid 10 + Raid 5 + Offsite backups can't save you now!
Offsite, pfft, forget that! Try off continent!
We had a guy who moved back to Europe, leaving a backup drive of all his... data, "just in case." We're on the west coast of North America, so he's even protected in case a giant meteor smashes in to either ocean and causes a huge, city destroying tidal wave!
Note that I agree with you in principle; voting for a single platform is troublesome. But I haven't heard of a good way to ensure that the policies are integrated.
One key way to start this process is to rid ourselves of systems which encourage and enforce a two party system. A proportional system which will allow more voices to come to the table is a first step.
Actually the more fundamental question is, can any candidate accurately represent any individual's core beliefs? And is the idea of voting for an entire platform really democratic?
Slashdot readers will be familiar with the debates on issues such as a la carte cable channel selection, and how hard we fight to be given options instead of a one size fits all package deal. So why do we accept it with democracy? Why do we have to pick which of our beliefs are most important and vote for the person who best represents those, while sacrificing other beliefs?
The system must be changed to allow people to vote on issues, or at the very least sub-sections of government policy. Finance, social, military, environment. Yes these issues are all related, but individual opinions may not line up with the traditional slates when grouping these issues together.
So, what candidate will fight for this finer granularity in democracy?
Sadly I think the answer is none. Except for me of course (those in my geographic area, vote for me next time!)
The law makes an exception for building devices in the US which would infringe a patent if sold in the US but are instead exported -- the patent holder can sue in the US where the device is made. Microsoft argued that the general principle (local law) applies here, not the exception, because the would-be infringing device was actually manufacturered abroad.
While I agree with your post, it doesn't answer the deeper question of where Windows is "manufactured." I'd argue it's manufactured in Redmond.
I wonder how the law would apply to a physical product (ie. some widget) that is designed in the US with specifications that infringe on a patent but manufactured and sold by the company's overseas branch. Is that infringing? I'm betting a court would say yes.
So why is Microsoft pressing CDs overseas any different? The infringing occurred in the US when the code was written and compiled.
Of course the next question is... how can the OSS community take advantage of this lovely loophole Microsoft has openned?:)
So why not offer GRADUATED pricing levels? 2 GB/month for $x. 5 GB/month for $2x. 10 GB/month for $10x. You could even break it down to traffic that stays on your own network and traffic that reaches the Internet.
That's one area which things have improved here in Canada, I'm not sure if through truth in advertising laws or just pissed off consumers. But the major providers (like Shaw who is mentioned in this article) do have such tiered pricing. The days of promising unlimited bandwidth are over, they all have very clear caps now. If these are actually enforced consistantly is another matter, but the point is on paper they all have these different levels for transfer limits and speeds.
The problem continues to be they're overselling their infrastructure. If everyone were to actually use the full transfer limit they pay for, the provider's network would grind to a halt. I consider this just as bad false advertising as the "unlimited" packages you folks still get lied to about down south.
As for the throttling itself, I have actually noticed lately my ssh transfers of files from my colo'ed server have been slower, actually stalling occationally. I wonder if my provider (Telus) is doing this too. Anyone know an easy way to test this?
I didn't know we were allowed to talk about the peptide publicly yet. I guess the cat is out.
I've been working on the bioinformatics side of this project for over four years now, and it was very exciting when Bob and the guys in the lab made this discovery.
This really is a great new solution, prevent infection before it takes hold. Make the innate immune system stronger. Since no new classes of drugs have been developed for what, a decade? Just rehashing the same old types of drugs again and again, this is at least something new and promising.
It is yet again another perfect example of how patents actually hinder innovation rather than spur it. A sad day.
I haven't been following this but I'm not curious to dig deeper to see what exactly these patents are. As in, is it as simple as a patent on network->land line calls? And if so, that's not only an overly broad patent, but could mean the doom for the entire coip industry. Or even open source projects such as Asterisk. I certainly hope this patent turns out to be some very specific technology, otherwise a booming and very useful technology will suddenly have the door slammed in it's face.
I guess that will be the question, is it a patent on a technology or... *shudder* an idea for a technology. An actual method for doing something should be patentable, but an idea like, "what if we hook a network to a phone line" should most certainly not be. And I would think there is prior art if the latter turns out to be the case.
Yup, that is definitely an option and the one I use. In a slightly modified way.
I can voip in to my home machine from anywhere then bounce the call out my home phone line which I have a very good long distance package on (cable company provided voip actually...). This effectively lets me access the local telephone network plus make long distance calls from anywhere I have an internet connection.
And this is exactly the solution. Instead of only paying certain teachers more, how about paying them all what they deserve and raising the standard of eduction in all subjects?
Both the building and the astronaut's rubber buddy have one big flaw which I'm hoping I'm just missing in all this... micro-meteorites. Are they going to be testing these inflatable structures with pellet guns? Or perhaps more accurately high power riffles?
It's the same thought I had about the inflatable space hotel story a few months ago... there you have to deal with increasing space junk. Or Chinese anti-satilite weapons.
Or am I just missing something? I would hope NASA scientists are far smarter than myself....
Slashdot Mirror
Could we do a better job if we could cache intelligently and do p2p
That would help, but ultimately the question that's being asked is, "who will pay for this bandwidth?"
The answer of course is the ISP users are already paying for it. The ISPs just don't have the bandwidth they've claimed to have sold their clients. And I would call this bordering on fraud.
Say an ISP has 1,000 clients, and sells them all 1.5Mbps DSL connections. But if 500 people go and try to stream video at the same time, and the infrastructure can't handle it, the ISP has sold you a product it actually didn't have. If a store tried to oversell the latest Harry Potter book, and asked customers to "share" the books because they didn't actually have enough to go around, there'd be lawsuits flying.
Now I know in reality having 1,000 x 1.5Mbps infrastructure probably would never happen, and there would be some bandwidth sharing, that's the point of packet switched networks. But scaling up to meet the needs of customers for what the ISP claimed the customer was buy, is ultimately the ISPs responsibility. Net neutrality should not be used as an excuse to not provide the minimum infrastructure needed for the service ISPs are collecting money for.
Sadly, my father still uses his original C64 to do his business books for tax time once a year....
:)
One of these years I have to set him up with an emulator rather than watch him suffer, swapping disks back and forth.
The computer that will never die....
I strongly dispute the statement "there are few real-world deployments." From what I hear, Sun's Blackbox is flying off the shelf (figuratively speaking of course, I'd love to see the "shelf" that can hold a few of those...)
When Blackbox was first introduced I tried to convince a friend of mine in a position of managerial influence at Sun to lend one to my employer, we're having data centre space issues and were willing to be a poster child for this new product.
His reply was a simple, no-can-do, they're already selling so quickly they could barely keep up with demand.
They are popular, if they weren't, why would companies like Intel and Microsoft still be looking at joining the game months after Sun first deployed Blackbox?
Oh hang on... theres "consulting costs" involved... Thats where SAP/PS "certified" consultants come in to "customise" the software... In that case its probably 100 family cars worth.
Oh don't get me started.... I have experience with both PeopleSoft and SAP, and I am not impressed by either.
My employer has implemented PeopleSoft and it's been nothing but a nightmare. Inaccurate accounts, never quote being sure how much money you have in an account, and the web interface.... It's like something out of 1997! This is 2007, and if Google and other companies can make sleek AJAX interfaces, you'd think on a multi-million dollar system like PeopleSoft they could at least build one that looks as though it's from this decade!
As for SAP, I administer a SAP system for a friend's company, we're talking a company of about $1-2 million in sales a year. And as I learn more about this system, I shake my head more in disbelief. I've spent weekends having to rebuild new laptops they've bought with XP because the software simply doesn't work under Vista, and the estimated compatibility date we keep getting is 1 year+. You might say that's Vista's fault, and to a degree it is, however when I learn about how their authentication works, and how it depends on Vista's authentication for their client-server model, plus their own internal authentication I wonder how these people ever got their CS degrees. The clients access MS SQL DIRECTLY, not through a nice integrity maintaining server process. That is such a huge no-no if you want good audit trails and data integrity, you do not let the clients directly access the database!
I often wonder, if I knew more about accounting, I bet I could put together a startup and make a piece of software which cleans their clocks. It is complex, but doable, without interfaces out of last century and authentication protocols which depend upon the eccentricities of different versions of an operating system. If someone took on this challenge they could be very, very, very rich just by building a usable system that doesn't require millions in consulting fees.
And yes, those SAP consultants, I can see my friend's blood pressure go up whenever I tell him he have to call them for assistance on some arcane matter which is far overly complex for what is trying to be accomplished. I guess the easier way to become very rich is to be a SAP/PeopleSoft consultant, if you can swallow your morals.
While having something like this built in to the OS would be a scary prospect, and the potential inability to disable it.
But I see an upside to this technology. If we're lucky, M$ will never get around to implementing these technologies, and thanks to their patents, no one else will be able to implement such invasive advertising tactics.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm completely against software and business model patents, they're the worst of the worst when it comes to patent trolls. But if the upside of a broken patent system is bad business practices don't get implemented, at least there's some benefit.
Actually I think as a community we should become a little more proactive on such things. Let's think up some other invasive technology ideas, things we'd never want to see implemented in the wild, and patent them. And never licence these patents. Keep the evilness out of software by making it defaultly illegal.
How big is the tank?
Exactly my thought. That's a non-sensical statement in the article - cargo ships can cross the Atlantic on a single tank of fuel. Fuel efficiency is the more relivant statistic if you want to impress.
However looking at the vessil, it looks fairly small, so perhaps it is a note-worthy accomplishment, we'll never know until the numbers are released.
Great! Maybe now we can finally figure out where the Stargate, err Chapai I mean, is buried!
t's problem enough that we pigeon hole kids in college. I'm an engineer. It's my 'only' marketable skill. C/C++, Matlab, VB, Simulink, Free body diagrams are great for bringing home money now. But they're not going to help me redo my kitchen or paint my house or fix my car. If I had to do college over again. I'd tell my counselor to shove it and take 5-6 years for a BS degree. I'd take one of those classes most engineers looked down on, like how to wire a house, how to run plumbing, etc.
You're right, from a practical point of view, having people with broader knowledge is very important. In my high school career, I took 5 years of electronics, everything from the basics of resistors and capacitors to programming microcontrollers. It was one of the most valuable set of courses I took because now in my chosen career of software engineering, I have a better understanding of what's actually happening inside this equipment I write code for.
But school should not simply be job training centres, despite what some in business would like. We also need well rounded people. Techies needs to be familiar with art and literature. And artsies needs to know how to change the oil on their car. We need more renaissance men and women, not simple robots trained to do one job. Only then can we better understand each other and think outside the box to solve problems.
But to paraphrase a Central American dictator, we don't need educated people, we need oxen.
Anti-Bacterial Soap Sells Better than Plain Soap
Hurray for marketing!!!
Sadly yes. Last time I went to buy hand soap for home, of the two dozen different brands and sub-brand products on the shelf, only TWO were not antibacterial.
Even if I want to be a good buy and not use antibacterial soap, I can't.
Of course being exposed to some bacteria over your life is a good thing anyhow - it builds the immune system. That's why parents should let their kids go out side and play/eat the dirt, they'll be better for it in the long run.
But you are right, screw the facts, hurray for marketing!
my fiance is a med student and has been saying this to me for years (the negative effects of antibacterial everything in the household). It makes perfect sense if you stop and think about it. As for the dry skin thing, she can attest to that too.
And she is completely right. I work in computational biology, working for a microbiology professor who specializes in bacteria. Never get her started on antibacterial products, she's said more then once she wishes she could rip them all off the shelves of stores because of the risk they pose for mutations.
Antibacterial is bad, m'kay?
Just 38 per cent of workers were relaxed enough to wait a day or longer before replying.
With the people around my office, that figure sounds awfully high.
I was actually thinking that 38% must be pointy haired bosses....
Actually it sounds more like OS/2 Warp (blue box). This is a 10 year old idea, back in the mid-90s I could run Windows apps on my desktop natively.
Of course same as with WINE, not everything worked....
Y'know against support problems, non working applications? No?
That is the biggest issue in my world, non-working applications. One of my clients bought a brand new laptop, loaded with Vista, we're now installing XP (had had to pay an additional $175 to buy a copy) on it because we've been told their core application, SAP Business One, doesn't run under Vista.
My boss got a new computer about a month ago, she insisted I change the order to get XP rather then Vista.
We simply don't trust it, and when we have, we've gotten bitten in the ass.
Man, Raid 10 + Raid 5 + Offsite backups can't save you now!
Offsite, pfft, forget that! Try off continent!
We had a guy who moved back to Europe, leaving a backup drive of all his... data, "just in case." We're on the west coast of North America, so he's even protected in case a giant meteor smashes in to either ocean and causes a huge, city destroying tidal wave!
Now that's redundancy, baby!
Note that I agree with you in principle; voting for a single platform is troublesome. But I haven't heard of a good way to ensure that the policies are integrated.
One key way to start this process is to rid ourselves of systems which encourage and enforce a two party system. A proportional system which will allow more voices to come to the table is a first step.
Actually the more fundamental question is, can any candidate accurately represent any individual's core beliefs? And is the idea of voting for an entire platform really democratic?
Slashdot readers will be familiar with the debates on issues such as a la carte cable channel selection, and how hard we fight to be given options instead of a one size fits all package deal. So why do we accept it with democracy? Why do we have to pick which of our beliefs are most important and vote for the person who best represents those, while sacrificing other beliefs?
The system must be changed to allow people to vote on issues, or at the very least sub-sections of government policy. Finance, social, military, environment. Yes these issues are all related, but individual opinions may not line up with the traditional slates when grouping these issues together.
So, what candidate will fight for this finer granularity in democracy?
Sadly I think the answer is none. Except for me of course (those in my geographic area, vote for me next time!)
The law makes an exception for building devices in the US which would infringe a patent if sold in the US but are instead exported -- the patent holder can sue in the US where the device is made. Microsoft argued that the general principle (local law) applies here, not the exception, because the would-be infringing device was actually manufacturered abroad.
:)
While I agree with your post, it doesn't answer the deeper question of where Windows is "manufactured." I'd argue it's manufactured in Redmond.
I wonder how the law would apply to a physical product (ie. some widget) that is designed in the US with specifications that infringe on a patent but manufactured and sold by the company's overseas branch. Is that infringing? I'm betting a court would say yes.
So why is Microsoft pressing CDs overseas any different? The infringing occurred in the US when the code was written and compiled.
Of course the next question is... how can the OSS community take advantage of this lovely loophole Microsoft has openned?
So why not offer GRADUATED pricing levels? 2 GB/month for $x. 5 GB/month for $2x. 10 GB/month for $10x. You could even break it down to traffic that stays on your own network and traffic that reaches the Internet.
That's one area which things have improved here in Canada, I'm not sure if through truth in advertising laws or just pissed off consumers. But the major providers (like Shaw who is mentioned in this article) do have such tiered pricing. The days of promising unlimited bandwidth are over, they all have very clear caps now. If these are actually enforced consistantly is another matter, but the point is on paper they all have these different levels for transfer limits and speeds.
The problem continues to be they're overselling their infrastructure. If everyone were to actually use the full transfer limit they pay for, the provider's network would grind to a halt. I consider this just as bad false advertising as the "unlimited" packages you folks still get lied to about down south.
As for the throttling itself, I have actually noticed lately my ssh transfers of files from my colo'ed server have been slower, actually stalling occationally. I wonder if my provider (Telus) is doing this too. Anyone know an easy way to test this?
Let's inject it into all our livestock.
Close, that's another project....
I didn't know we were allowed to talk about the peptide publicly yet. I guess the cat is out.
I've been working on the bioinformatics side of this project for over four years now, and it was very exciting when Bob and the guys in the lab made this discovery.
This really is a great new solution, prevent infection before it takes hold. Make the innate immune system stronger. Since no new classes of drugs have been developed for what, a decade? Just rehashing the same old types of drugs again and again, this is at least something new and promising.
It is yet again another perfect example of how patents actually hinder innovation rather than spur it. A sad day.
I haven't been following this but I'm not curious to dig deeper to see what exactly these patents are. As in, is it as simple as a patent on network->land line calls? And if so, that's not only an overly broad patent, but could mean the doom for the entire coip industry. Or even open source projects such as Asterisk. I certainly hope this patent turns out to be some very specific technology, otherwise a booming and very useful technology will suddenly have the door slammed in it's face.
I guess that will be the question, is it a patent on a technology or... *shudder* an idea for a technology. An actual method for doing something should be patentable, but an idea like, "what if we hook a network to a phone line" should most certainly not be. And I would think there is prior art if the latter turns out to be the case.
Yup, that is definitely an option and the one I use. In a slightly modified way.
I can voip in to my home machine from anywhere then bounce the call out my home phone line which I have a very good long distance package on (cable company provided voip actually...). This effectively lets me access the local telephone network plus make long distance calls from anywhere I have an internet connection.
Technology is wonderful.
And this is exactly the solution. Instead of only paying certain teachers more, how about paying them all what they deserve and raising the standard of eduction in all subjects?
Both the building and the astronaut's rubber buddy have one big flaw which I'm hoping I'm just missing in all this... micro-meteorites. Are they going to be testing these inflatable structures with pellet guns? Or perhaps more accurately high power riffles?
It's the same thought I had about the inflatable space hotel story a few months ago... there you have to deal with increasing space junk. Or Chinese anti-satilite weapons.
Or am I just missing something? I would hope NASA scientists are far smarter than myself....
Indeed. I fail to see how outlawing fair use and dual-use pieces of technology is "modernization."
I just fail to understand why we should care (from a Canadian point of view). Why should we let the Americans control our internal policy?
I'm offended and frankly would be extremely angry if Canada bowed to this pressure.