With Microsoft's experience delivering various products off of an application server, as well as their extensive experience in remote computing and web delivery there may be some potential for this to really work well. From a tech support standpoint it would be very nice if everytime someone started Outlook it fetched any necessary files, updated itself, and rebuilt after damage automatically the way it can in an application server environment.
As well, given the cost of Outlook, a fee that included annual upgrades to the new version might not be bad.
I travel internationally a fair bit with work and can honestly say that this happens almost everywhere. The US has been a little more picky lately in terms of verifying my relationship with a person, but otherwise this has been standard procedure for years. For most travellers it just means filling in the hotel that you're staying at on a customs declaration, but even when co-workers are staying with family out on site they still need to provide an address that they can be reached at. There is some benefit in exchange for the loss of privacy - if there were any issues that came up on that flight (CDC sort of stuff) then they have a starting point to track down affected people. If I recall that was one of the initial motivators - controlling the spread of disease.
On the subject of Tivo, I really can't comment...they don't currently allow Canadians to use their service, hence our being stuck with either a cable-co PVR (at ~700 US, not likely!) or BYO.
I'm just having problems understanding why people have so much difficulty with setting them up. Components exist to make all of this easy.
My fiance and I run an older ATI tuner board on a little-used PC recording (using GuidePlus, still going after 5 years) to MPEG-2. We looked at running output to the TV and it was too much of a pain, so we spent roughly $170 US on a Prismiq set-top box (running Linux, no less) that will work wired or wireless to bring our music, movies, and photos to our TV. No setup, no wires, no problems. Once a month or so, I give it a reboot to clear the RAM. That's about it.
Don't assume that every BYO PVR has to be a hardcore Linux box with hours of work pounded into it. Sometimes, there's a middle-ground between high-priced consumer models and BYO...
As an aside, I do spend hours on my Linux servers and love them, but I want my TV to be simple.
Does/. really count as a weblog anymore? For that matter, do any of the sites mentioned? It's a hard call - BoingBoing and similar sites seem to fit the bill for collaborative weblogs far better than discussion forums like/. I think the sites listed have really moved beyond weblog status. They really seem to be closer to forums and aggregators. This isn't a bad thing - it's just different and may require independant analysis. They've grown beyond (and in many cases existed before) what is commonly considered a weblog these days.
Interestingly, this month's Wired had an article on weblogs / nanopublishing and highlighted a variety of collaborative weblogs, likely as a tie-in to the conference.
You make some good points. Part of it is to discourage servers (at least at the ISP I worked for) and a lot of it is to control their costs in terms of the bandwidth they buy.
The asymetric bandwidth on cable though is a physical issue. In most of the racks in the field boxes and outbuildings, you'll find 9 dedicated downstream cards to every one upstream card. It's just the way it was built - everyone assumed that people wouldn't upload and that all they wanted was download speeds.
In business terms, overall bandwidth is also an issue due to low user tolerance for bogged connections. People will call in and complain or leave a service very quickly if they experience a slowdown and the ISP business is getting more cutthroat every day as people upgrade to the high-speed service. They're not really fight for new customers now as much as they're fighting each other for customers.
Most ISPs will ignore high bandwidth if it's over a short period. If you have extreme weekends and then low weekdays, they're pretty friendly. For the most part, even 3.5k/s of constant traffic worries them because it is constant. They want to provide you with a reasonably priced (more or less) service but if there's constant traffic they begin to think it's software running unattended and that really causes problems for them. Most count on downtime on their networks and they get testy if machines are pushing data around constantly. It's a hard line to find, but as can be seen from the many posts, some ISPs are better than others.
Many just want users to configure software to manage bandwidth and to avoid constant use. Users can find many counter arguments to that though.
It's a good plan now that Shaw has automated their bandwidth tracking. Telus is pretty far behind in their capabilities and their network is better able to handle heavy traffic. Neither one can bill you for the bandwidth though so no harm.
Good luck and I hope you never get that call...it's a pain in the neck. (I got one before I worked for them and it was...frustrating, LOL).
It's worth digging through their ToS though. There're all sorts of interesting things in the agreements for both Telus and Shaw. I was surprised by a few. Good entertainment.
Just as an aside, and not to argue with your conclusion that people will go to the service that offers them the greatest benefit, Telus does actually call you if you maintain high downloads. Shaw is stricter in their enforcement but the penalties are usually lower. If you call Telus or dig through their website, they do actually list 2gb up, 6gb down as limits.
All ISPs list some form of limit just for legal backup, even if they choose not to enforce it. That way if someone burns the pipe up with 500gb downloaded in a month, they retain the legal right to call you up and make you stop.
Again, not to dispute your conclusion...I just figured I'd pass on the information.
Signed, A former 'bandwidth management' specialist in Alberta
Broadband ISPs have been including this clause in their ToS agreements for quite a few years. I worked in the department responsible for bandwidth consumption two years ago trying to deal with the onslaught of file-sharing and they were pushing hard on the arbitrary 'more than most users' limit. It was miserable to enforce. In our case, it was later changed to 'more than our lowest-end business broadband package.'
In the end though, most ISPs aren't out to cause problems for the average user or even the average file-sharing individual. Most will publish limits of around 2gb up, 6gb down, but within the industry you're not usually contacted until you break 10gb up, 40gb down in a month. That's a lot of traffic to be honest.
In the end, the biggest problem we ever saw was careless use of file-sharing software. Whole drives left on unlimited share 24/7 creating 300gb a month upload tallies. I know it doesn't sound like a lot but if enough people do it, traffic like that will grind a broadband network down.
It's also important to note that the primary concern on cable and certain ADSL networks is the upstream traffic. Cable in particular normally allocates 1/10th of their bandwidth to upstream and 90% to downstream. Too much going out and everyone loses.
One of the biggest issues with running a search-engine, open-source or otherwise, is that you can't eliminate bias in the results. No matter what scheme you put in place to handle rankings, someone will find a way to take advantage of it. It's a fact of any major system - there's always a way to twist it. Part of the challenge that Google and similar sites face is that they have to work constantly to protect themselves from systems designed to take advantage of their algorithm. While a completely unbiased search service would be nice, I think it would require the impossible. It would require that no one out here took advantage of it to further their own interests, be they political, commercial, or otherwise. That's fairly unlikely.
With most of the major engines today including Google, they make an effort to prevent horribly unbalanced results (recent controversy over blogs outweighing professional sites in the rankings due to linking and other factors). Some even admit (again, Google does) to manually messing with the rankings a little. If you search for suicide methods, they will bend the engine to make sure you get reasons why you shouldn't commit suicide before you get the how-to. That's in their own public docs. It's also discussed in Wired.
I honestly don't know if open-source could do a better job. The algorithm might be better (likely, given the manpower), but would it really be that much fairer?
On the other hand, it might be a little creepy if all the random tech bits could communicate. It's a divide and conquer thing. Combined, I think all the devices on my person have more processing power than me...
My PDA+DCamera+laptop+cellphone+datawatch+tablet+HD will assimilate me...
I can see the advantages of offices and individual users maintaining bluetooth enabled peripherals. It would be nice to walk into a room and be able to print or gain net access, etc. Storage is another matter entirely. Security issues aside, range is a problem. Especially with a battery powered unit. Think of the consequences of someone misplacing the HD or moving it out of range of its users? There is some application for this but it's fairly limited in this format. If you're going to put that sort of storage solution in place, IMHO your best bet is still 802.11b and FTP for remote. I know it's not as portable but the range is better and at this point we know where most of the major security holes are. With this type of device, the potential for...warwalking I guess, becomes that much higher. Also, even with good encryption, there's no real reason to use this device if it's just for a single user. It would lend itself to multi-user applications but all of the functional limitations make this a very challenging goal to achieve. Still, it does offer a taste of the type of devices we may eventually see that can take full advantage of wireless. I just don't think Bluetooth is there yet and I'd be uncomfortable trusting my data to it even if I could find a good application.
While it does sound illogical and I've yet to see any firm material supporting it, it is nevertheless a concern raised by our corporate lawyers as a consequence of storing copyrighted material on the cache. As I understand it, they're more concerned with the cache as a means of facilitating copyright violations than the actual material in it. The question that was raised at our last meeting basically came down to whether or not a cache could be legally interpreted as 'serving' copyrighted material. Interesting thoughts and they are significant enough to warrant a lot of investigation by ISPs.
As for whitelisting, or only caching certain files, that is being investigated to get as much benefit as possible from caching while protecting themselves.
Right now, there are a lot of new laws out there and they're still being interpreted. Until they are, companies are always going to err on the cautious side.
While caching does offer a lot of advantages, there are also pitfalls, particularly for those providing it.
Working for an ISP myself and specifically with the bandwidth tracking section, we deal with prety much every type of high bandwidth application out there and in many cases we could save an immense amount by caching. Unfortunately, if we cache and then illegal material is downloaded, we can be held responsible for that material. It's unfortunate that efficiency must be sacrificed but right now it's generally too dangerous for anyone to run a serious caching system.
The rule of thumb for ISPs, at least in North America, is generally that if it's on a client system (subscriber - your PC), then it's not our problem (legally). If a file resides on our cache, then we can be held responsible for it by law enforcement agencies.
As to the general suggestion that a great deal of bandwidth is consumed by overhead, I think there is some merit to it but that it's a fairly small amount compared to what is used by deliberate downloads and transfers. Systems are moving towards greater efficiency in order to improve speed and to work with lower bandwidth platforms (phones, PDAs, etc) but bandwidth is unlikely to be a major motivator. Most broadband subscribers either download too little to cause serious issues (6gb a month or so - limited overhead) or extreme volumes (100gb a month - overhead is dwarfed by content).
A good method of garnering public support
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· Score: 3, Insightful
All in all, not a bad idea. By involving members of the public in the mission and keeping them informed and interested, the mission planners can work towards guarantying broad public support. In an era of increasing fiscal restraint, that critical for the success of any lare-scale, high-cost initiative.
This type of plan has worked for Zoos and other groups (post pictures of possible landscapes, get people's opinions, etc) so why not for the space program? Furthermore, the site does have intrinsic educational value and is a great resource for students, particularly at the post-secondary level.
As a social scientist (somewhat removed from humanities, but close enough), I've come to really value the role that computing can play in non-traditional fields. While some institutions have come to respect it as a component of any research, it's nice to see articles actively promoting computation, and in particular, elite and elegant computation, in soft research. Despite the stereotype that the only tool required for humanities students are books, the volume of information available now has reached a point where computer-based data mining and high-level analysis algorithms are necessary in order to provide anything resembling a thorough presentation. Up to this point, that sort of work, no matter how exceptionally coded, has been seen as just another research tool. I'm very supportive of any effort to arrange for scholarly recognition of code written in support of research. Just as in the sciences, a tool, once written, can be used again and again to further study. Furthermore, a well-crafted program or script can be of more value to the field than the initial data it returns, if only because it makes one more avenue of investigation available to future researchers.
In summary, I'm glad to see that some of the fields that have traditionally relegated computation to the sidelines are beginning to recognize that there is academic and scholarly value in more than just the data that comes from computers. The development of research tools in the soft sciences may in time come to be almost as important as it is to the hard sciences.
~Cloudmark
High levels of focus and concentration...
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· Score: 4, Insightful
While I find the research quite interesting, as most of the posts on this thread have pointed out, this isn't particularly uncommon. Certain individuals have the ability to narrow-focus in the extreme when presented with the correct stimulus.
All of the individuals described (athletes, strongly religious people, and of course coders/gamers) are inclined towards extreme focus, high levels of motivation, and activities that lend themselves to those traits.
It would be interesting to see reseatch done to determine if there was any neurochemical basis for this type of hyper-focus. Do certain brains, when presented with a particular stimulus, produce certain chemicals/neurotransmitters that lead to this heightened awareness and performance? Also, are there any side-effects? People have described elation, ecstacy, etc. Is this purely mental or is there a biological basis for it?
I think it would be fair to say that while in many cases, such flaws only become apparent through the actions of individuals pursuing illegal activities, the responsibility to find and resolve security issues is the domain of the security professionals employed for that purpose.
Just as very few of us would like to have individuals make runs on our private networks looking to demonstrate our security flaws, it's no surprise that Mr. Puffer encountered a negative reaction when he did it to someone else. If we wouldn't tolerate it, why should we expect others to, let alone a government or business who has the responsibility to safeguard their data on behalf of those who entrust it to them.
Furthermore, Mr. Puffer's actions only make the problem worse. After a media demonstration of the vulnerabilities in a system, a far greater number of individuals will begin to look for exploits with which to assault that network.
Just as many people criticize media who intentionally highlight the weaknesses in various "terrorist targets" around North America and the rest of the world, I have a problem with individuals who act to make glaringly public opportunities to violate someone else's network. Acts like this also undermine the drive to increase overall public confidence in data security. Will it ever be wholly secure? No. Should Puffer have told the security specialists responsible for the network? Yes. Should he have gone public, undermining public confidence in our field and encouraging malicious activity? No.
onepoint in this case does have a good point. However, in general it hasn't held up in court. Most ISP terms of service do specify that the customer is responsible for keeping up to date on changes to the TOS. Usage of the service is seen as tacit acceptance of those terms. It's not what most people would consider to be fair, but it is the way the agreements are setup. Unfortunately, alternatives are hard to find. If an ISP did want to notify customers of each change (to reflect changing environments, laws, etc) it could cause issues. Do you read all the spam your ISP sends out? Furthermore, given the scale of broadband providers, the mail volume would be prohibitive. Finally, when it comes to what you can and cannot do with your connect, it unfortunately is regulated, as has been posted in other parts of this thread. The TOS (or in some cases AUP - Acceptable Use Policy) spells out what can and cannot be run. Some ISPs prohibit servers on residential accounts, others limit IRC connections, etc. It's a matter of trying to find a provider that can offer the combination you require. Sometimes the smaller but more expensive ISPs are the way to go for freedom and flexibility. If you're really looking for pure access, as has been mentioned, you really do have to get a dedicated pipe (T1, etc). I'm sorry for the negative view, but I work as a Bandwidth Specialist at a large (1 million client+) ISP and have had to look at this situation from all sides. ISPs don't want to lose clients...they're in business to do business, but they do have to put restrictions in place. Sometimes it's hard numbers (limits, caps), other times it's a clause that lets them tell you to back off when you start congesting your router. In any case, there's always a tradeoff.
It's also worth noting that while companies are still maintaining their IT systems, they are attempting to do far more with less. Many companies here in Canada are moving technical staff off permanent fixed shifts/workdays to rotating schedules that allow them to better focus their resources on specific issues and control staffing concentrations. This affects the employees not only in that they have to work more at scheduling but that they also often lose their full-time benefits and salaries.
In addition to this, most companies are terminating previously established training programs and are relying on individual techs to upgrade their certifications at their own expense and on their own time.
All in all, even those who have jobs are finding that the working conditions are declining in the face of a changing industry. Still, we should count ourselves lucky to still be working.
While a centralized database looks good in theory, it becomes difficult in the face of our general inability to maintain even more basic networks.
If so much depended on the central database, proper use of this technology would require continuous and guaranteed connections that just aren't available.
On the other hand, no matter how much space is available on a personal chip, it still remains to be seen how we would update it. A centralized database would offer a way around this. Reading the chip is one thing...encoding it is another. Do we re-encode the chip every time a medical condition changes, or does the chip itself simply link to a database that can be updated? If the chip is locally updatable, then it will be incredibly simple to spoof. Slip a professional some extra money and an unscrupulous individual could encode whatever you wanted for you. Even assuming an unhackable central database with 100% connections, this is still an issue. Who gets access? Who can update? If your doctor has medical information to add, what if he updates the wrong entry?
The shear logistics of this would be staggering and very near impossible. I won't say it will never happen, but in a realistic view, it won't be for a long time. I've got reasonable familiarity with the animal version and even that rarely manages to provide anything close to the performance needed here.
Working for a major broadband ISP as a TSR, I'm reasonably familiar with the enforcement of the bandwidth contracts and such. I also have service from the ISP I work for so understand the customer perspective as well.
When it comes to the contracts themselves, most of them simply state that the company is obligated to provide a broadband connection of unspecified speed. There is no minimum performance standard at all in any contract I've ever seen. Therefore, caps are entirely within the bounds of the agreement.
Also, to add something to the discussion, most broadband ISPs include a clause that allows them to terminate or suspend service if your usage violates what they consider 'acceptable' use. In most cases, this is defined as any usage that makes such demands on the system as to interfere with any other users. With this blanket statement, they can actually justify any measures necessary without changing the contract. If you request it, most ISPs will email you a copy of their AUP agreement. I know ours is around 40 pages and is quite specific in more or less allowing the company to do whatever it wants. Even if you do request or argue for a contract, you're unlikely to be able to exclude this from it and therefore you will probably fall victim to these measures no matter what.
As has been suggested, Business accounts with very specific contracts can help, particularly when they allow you to be charged for the bandwidth you use. In this case, the ISP will rarely cap as they benefit from the volume of data that you move. Unfortunately, the sheer cost of this is staggering. With the file sharing utilities out there now, data transfer statistics which would normally be allowed under a residential account before the company enforces its abuse contract can easily total more than $200 a month under a business contract. You get a better connection but you will pay for it.
These are just a few more thoughts to throw into the discussion on contracts, as the likelihood of getting around the AUP agreement is very low no matter what type of residential service contract you sign.
While there have been some posts highlighting the fact that the IMDB rating is only representative of those individuals with web-access, I think this doesn't fully address the limits of the IMDB ratings and how in particular they may not accurately reflect this film.
Specifically, the IMDB ratings are the product of those individuals who care enough about a film to take the time to enter a rating. It is likely to contain significantly more strong positive or negative reactions and far fewer moderate reactions than other means of statistical analysis. This can produce skewed results.
Furthermore, to make use of the old 'geeks and dungeons & dragons/tolkienesque fantasy' stereotype, while it is highly doubtful that Hollywood would produce a film with such a small target audience, the IMDB is particularly biased towards this group. In my experience, there is some validity to the claim that computer 'geeks' have generally had a higher level of exposure to fantasy novels and have had more opportunities to form opinions based on this exposure. Tolkien, at least within the circles I frequent, has always been a favourite of computer professionals. While these are not the only people who will see the film, they are the group most likely to head home and make use of an online rating service to make their opinions known and to have the tools available to do so.
To summarize my own rather rambling post, I think there is some justification for the belief that those people who are both willing and able to use the IMDB rating system may be bias through their own background and interests to grant this movie an abnormally high rating.
Before I conclude, however, I would like to say that I did enjoy the film a great deal and would not hesitate to say that it is one of the better films released in recent years, though not the best ever.
I have to admit I'm of two minds on the matter of the maintenance of the USENET archives. While there is merit to the statement that the Library of Congress (or another national equivalent) has little or no need for the USENET archives, and certainly cannot be particularly interested in bearing the cost of their maintenance, they are a valuable resource.
The archives can be seen as a sort of "racial memory" focussed on the period of transition to an information oriented culture. As another poster stated, we gain a great deal from the letters of the Victorians that they likely thought we would at the time of their archiving.
However, the suggestion that a government library be responsible for them is not particularly different from leaving them under the control of Google (which paid for them, adding another significant factor to this equation). I think that, if Google is willing to release the content of the archives, it should be maintained by an international organization, in the same spirit as the W3C. Advances in distributed storage and processing make this easier to accomplish than it would have been even a few years ago.
After reading the Wired article, there seems to be some indication that this might actually take place, and I must say I would applaud it. Something as valuable as the collected discussions of a developing community should no more be left to a single nation than it should be left to a single company.
I would like to state, though, that I minored in History, and am biased towards the maintenance of records, as I encounter far too many situations where our understanding of the past could aid us in the present, but we lack any means of gaining that understanding. I also know the value of letters and seemingly pointless writings (at least those that I have had to make use of:-)
I know exactly what you mean. I just found out about this this morning (been out of RPGs for a while; work and all). I grew up on FASA and must have played and read every Battletech game and book before 1994 or so. It's strange to hear them die.
BTW: the cub was Simba and you're right on Mufasa (in the clouds)
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With Microsoft's experience delivering various products off of an application server, as well as their extensive experience in remote computing and web delivery there may be some potential for this to really work well. From a tech support standpoint it would be very nice if everytime someone started Outlook it fetched any necessary files, updated itself, and rebuilt after damage automatically the way it can in an application server environment.
As well, given the cost of Outlook, a fee that included annual upgrades to the new version might not be bad.
I travel internationally a fair bit with work and can honestly say that this happens almost everywhere. The US has been a little more picky lately in terms of verifying my relationship with a person, but otherwise this has been standard procedure for years. For most travellers it just means filling in the hotel that you're staying at on a customs declaration, but even when co-workers are staying with family out on site they still need to provide an address that they can be reached at. There is some benefit in exchange for the loss of privacy - if there were any issues that came up on that flight (CDC sort of stuff) then they have a starting point to track down affected people. If I recall that was one of the initial motivators - controlling the spread of disease.
Thoughts?
On the subject of Tivo, I really can't comment...they don't currently allow Canadians to use their service, hence our being stuck with either a cable-co PVR (at ~700 US, not likely!) or BYO.
I'm just having problems understanding why people have so much difficulty with setting them up. Components exist to make all of this easy.
My fiance and I run an older ATI tuner board on a little-used PC recording (using GuidePlus, still going after 5 years) to MPEG-2. We looked at running output to the TV and it was too much of a pain, so we spent roughly $170 US on a Prismiq set-top box (running Linux, no less) that will work wired or wireless to bring our music, movies, and photos to our TV. No setup, no wires, no problems. Once a month or so, I give it a reboot to clear the RAM. That's about it.
Don't assume that every BYO PVR has to be a hardcore Linux box with hours of work pounded into it. Sometimes, there's a middle-ground between high-priced consumer models and BYO...
As an aside, I do spend hours on my Linux servers and love them, but I want my TV to be simple.
Does /. really count as a weblog anymore? For that matter, do any of the sites mentioned? It's a hard call - BoingBoing and similar sites seem to fit the bill for collaborative weblogs far better than discussion forums like /. I think the sites listed have really moved beyond weblog status. They really seem to be closer to forums and aggregators. This isn't a bad thing - it's just different and may require independant analysis. They've grown beyond (and in many cases existed before) what is commonly considered a weblog these days.
Interestingly, this month's Wired had an article on weblogs / nanopublishing and highlighted a variety of collaborative weblogs, likely as a tie-in to the conference.
You make some good points. Part of it is to discourage servers (at least at the ISP I worked for) and a lot of it is to control their costs in terms of the bandwidth they buy.
The asymetric bandwidth on cable though is a physical issue. In most of the racks in the field boxes and outbuildings, you'll find 9 dedicated downstream cards to every one upstream card. It's just the way it was built - everyone assumed that people wouldn't upload and that all they wanted was download speeds.
In business terms, overall bandwidth is also an issue due to low user tolerance for bogged connections. People will call in and complain or leave a service very quickly if they experience a slowdown and the ISP business is getting more cutthroat every day as people upgrade to the high-speed service. They're not really fight for new customers now as much as they're fighting each other for customers.
Most ISPs will ignore high bandwidth if it's over a short period. If you have extreme weekends and then low weekdays, they're pretty friendly. For the most part, even 3.5k/s of constant traffic worries them because it is constant. They want to provide you with a reasonably priced (more or less) service but if there's constant traffic they begin to think it's software running unattended and that really causes problems for them. Most count on downtime on their networks and they get testy if machines are pushing data around constantly. It's a hard line to find, but as can be seen from the many posts, some ISPs are better than others.
Many just want users to configure software to manage bandwidth and to avoid constant use. Users can find many counter arguments to that though.
It's a good plan now that Shaw has automated their bandwidth tracking. Telus is pretty far behind in their capabilities and their network is better able to handle heavy traffic. Neither one can bill you for the bandwidth though so no harm.
Good luck and I hope you never get that call...it's a pain in the neck. (I got one before I worked for them and it was...frustrating, LOL).
It's worth digging through their ToS though. There're all sorts of interesting things in the agreements for both Telus and Shaw. I was surprised by a few. Good entertainment.
Just as an aside, and not to argue with your conclusion that people will go to the service that offers them the greatest benefit, Telus does actually call you if you maintain high downloads. Shaw is stricter in their enforcement but the penalties are usually lower. If you call Telus or dig through their website, they do actually list 2gb up, 6gb down as limits.
All ISPs list some form of limit just for legal backup, even if they choose not to enforce it. That way if someone burns the pipe up with 500gb downloaded in a month, they retain the legal right to call you up and make you stop.
Again, not to dispute your conclusion...I just figured I'd pass on the information.
Signed,
A former 'bandwidth management' specialist in Alberta
Broadband ISPs have been including this clause in their ToS agreements for quite a few years. I worked in the department responsible for bandwidth consumption two years ago trying to deal with the onslaught of file-sharing and they were pushing hard on the arbitrary 'more than most users' limit. It was miserable to enforce. In our case, it was later changed to 'more than our lowest-end business broadband package.'
In the end though, most ISPs aren't out to cause problems for the average user or even the average file-sharing individual. Most will publish limits of around 2gb up, 6gb down, but within the industry you're not usually contacted until you break 10gb up, 40gb down in a month. That's a lot of traffic to be honest.
In the end, the biggest problem we ever saw was careless use of file-sharing software. Whole drives left on unlimited share 24/7 creating 300gb a month upload tallies. I know it doesn't sound like a lot but if enough people do it, traffic like that will grind a broadband network down.
It's also important to note that the primary concern on cable and certain ADSL networks is the upstream traffic. Cable in particular normally allocates 1/10th of their bandwidth to upstream and 90% to downstream. Too much going out and everyone loses.
One of the biggest issues with running a search-engine, open-source or otherwise, is that you can't eliminate bias in the results. No matter what scheme you put in place to handle rankings, someone will find a way to take advantage of it. It's a fact of any major system - there's always a way to twist it. Part of the challenge that Google and similar sites face is that they have to work constantly to protect themselves from systems designed to take advantage of their algorithm. While a completely unbiased search service would be nice, I think it would require the impossible. It would require that no one out here took advantage of it to further their own interests, be they political, commercial, or otherwise. That's fairly unlikely.
With most of the major engines today including Google, they make an effort to prevent horribly unbalanced results (recent controversy over blogs outweighing professional sites in the rankings due to linking and other factors). Some even admit (again, Google does) to manually messing with the rankings a little. If you search for suicide methods, they will bend the engine to make sure you get reasons why you shouldn't commit suicide before you get the how-to. That's in their own public docs. It's also discussed in Wired.
I honestly don't know if open-source could do a better job. The algorithm might be better (likely, given the manpower), but would it really be that much fairer?
On the other hand, it might be a little creepy if all the random tech bits could communicate. It's a divide and conquer thing. Combined, I think all the devices on my person have more processing power than me...
My PDA+DCamera+laptop+cellphone+datawatch+tablet+HD will assimilate me...
I can see the advantages of offices and individual users maintaining bluetooth enabled peripherals. It would be nice to walk into a room and be able to print or gain net access, etc. Storage is another matter entirely. Security issues aside, range is a problem. Especially with a battery powered unit. Think of the consequences of someone misplacing the HD or moving it out of range of its users? There is some application for this but it's fairly limited in this format. If you're going to put that sort of storage solution in place, IMHO your best bet is still 802.11b and FTP for remote. I know it's not as portable but the range is better and at this point we know where most of the major security holes are. With this type of device, the potential for...warwalking I guess, becomes that much higher. Also, even with good encryption, there's no real reason to use this device if it's just for a single user. It would lend itself to multi-user applications but all of the functional limitations make this a very challenging goal to achieve.
Still, it does offer a taste of the type of devices we may eventually see that can take full advantage of wireless. I just don't think Bluetooth is there yet and I'd be uncomfortable trusting my data to it even if I could find a good application.
Just my thoughts.
~Cloudmark
While it does sound illogical and I've yet to see any firm material supporting it, it is nevertheless a concern raised by our corporate lawyers as a consequence of storing copyrighted material on the cache. As I understand it, they're more concerned with the cache as a means of facilitating copyright violations than the actual material in it. The question that was raised at our last meeting basically came down to whether or not a cache could be legally interpreted as 'serving' copyrighted material. Interesting thoughts and they are significant enough to warrant a lot of investigation by ISPs.
As for whitelisting, or only caching certain files, that is being investigated to get as much benefit as possible from caching while protecting themselves.
Right now, there are a lot of new laws out there and they're still being interpreted. Until they are, companies are always going to err on the cautious side.
~Cloudmark
While caching does offer a lot of advantages, there are also pitfalls, particularly for those providing it.
Working for an ISP myself and specifically with the bandwidth tracking section, we deal with prety much every type of high bandwidth application out there and in many cases we could save an immense amount by caching. Unfortunately, if we cache and then illegal material is downloaded, we can be held responsible for that material. It's unfortunate that efficiency must be sacrificed but right now it's generally too dangerous for anyone to run a serious caching system.
The rule of thumb for ISPs, at least in North America, is generally that if it's on a client system (subscriber - your PC), then it's not our problem (legally). If a file resides on our cache, then we can be held responsible for it by law enforcement agencies.
As to the general suggestion that a great deal of bandwidth is consumed by overhead, I think there is some merit to it but that it's a fairly small amount compared to what is used by deliberate downloads and transfers. Systems are moving towards greater efficiency in order to improve speed and to work with lower bandwidth platforms (phones, PDAs, etc) but bandwidth is unlikely to be a major motivator. Most broadband subscribers either download too little to cause serious issues (6gb a month or so - limited overhead) or extreme volumes (100gb a month - overhead is dwarfed by content).
All in all, not a bad idea. By involving members of the public in the mission and keeping them informed and interested, the mission planners can work towards guarantying broad public support. In an era of increasing fiscal restraint, that critical for the success of any lare-scale, high-cost initiative.
This type of plan has worked for Zoos and other groups (post pictures of possible landscapes, get people's opinions, etc) so why not for the space program? Furthermore, the site does have intrinsic educational value and is a great resource for students, particularly at the post-secondary level.
~Cloudmark
As a social scientist (somewhat removed from humanities, but close enough), I've come to really value the role that computing can play in non-traditional fields. While some institutions have come to respect it as a component of any research, it's nice to see articles actively promoting computation, and in particular, elite and elegant computation, in soft research. Despite the stereotype that the only tool required for humanities students are books, the volume of information available now has reached a point where computer-based data mining and high-level analysis algorithms are necessary in order to provide anything resembling a thorough presentation.
Up to this point, that sort of work, no matter how exceptionally coded, has been seen as just another research tool. I'm very supportive of any effort to arrange for scholarly recognition of code written in support of research. Just as in the sciences, a tool, once written, can be used again and again to further study. Furthermore, a well-crafted program or script can be of more value to the field than the initial data it returns, if only because it makes one more avenue of investigation available to future researchers.
In summary, I'm glad to see that some of the fields that have traditionally relegated computation to the sidelines are beginning to recognize that there is academic and scholarly value in more than just the data that comes from computers. The development of research tools in the soft sciences may in time come to be almost as important as it is to the hard sciences.
~Cloudmark
While I find the research quite interesting, as most of the posts on this thread have pointed out, this isn't particularly uncommon. Certain individuals have the ability to narrow-focus in the extreme when presented with the correct stimulus.
All of the individuals described (athletes, strongly religious people, and of course coders/gamers) are inclined towards extreme focus, high levels of motivation, and activities that lend themselves to those traits.
It would be interesting to see reseatch done to determine if there was any neurochemical basis for this type of hyper-focus. Do certain brains, when presented with a particular stimulus, produce certain chemicals/neurotransmitters that lead to this heightened awareness and performance?
Also, are there any side-effects? People have described elation, ecstacy, etc. Is this purely mental or is there a biological basis for it?
I think it would be fair to say that while in many cases, such flaws only become apparent through the actions of individuals pursuing illegal activities, the responsibility to find and resolve security issues is the domain of the security professionals employed for that purpose.
Just as very few of us would like to have individuals make runs on our private networks looking to demonstrate our security flaws, it's no surprise that Mr. Puffer encountered a negative reaction when he did it to someone else. If we wouldn't tolerate it, why should we expect others to, let alone a government or business who has the responsibility to safeguard their data on behalf of those who entrust it to them.
Furthermore, Mr. Puffer's actions only make the problem worse. After a media demonstration of the vulnerabilities in a system, a far greater number of individuals will begin to look for exploits with which to assault that network.
Just as many people criticize media who intentionally highlight the weaknesses in various "terrorist targets" around North America and the rest of the world, I have a problem with individuals who act to make glaringly public opportunities to violate someone else's network. Acts like this also undermine the drive to increase overall public confidence in data security. Will it ever be wholly secure? No. Should Puffer have told the security specialists responsible for the network? Yes. Should he have gone public, undermining public confidence in our field and encouraging malicious activity? No.
Just my thoughts...
onepoint in this case does have a good point. However, in general it hasn't held up in court. Most ISP terms of service do specify that the customer is responsible for keeping up to date on changes to the TOS. Usage of the service is seen as tacit acceptance of those terms. It's not what most people would consider to be fair, but it is the way the agreements are setup. Unfortunately, alternatives are hard to find. If an ISP did want to notify customers of each change (to reflect changing environments, laws, etc) it could cause issues. Do you read all the spam your ISP sends out? Furthermore, given the scale of broadband providers, the mail volume would be prohibitive.
Finally, when it comes to what you can and cannot do with your connect, it unfortunately is regulated, as has been posted in other parts of this thread. The TOS (or in some cases AUP - Acceptable Use Policy) spells out what can and cannot be run. Some ISPs prohibit servers on residential accounts, others limit IRC connections, etc. It's a matter of trying to find a provider that can offer the combination you require. Sometimes the smaller but more expensive ISPs are the way to go for freedom and flexibility.
If you're really looking for pure access, as has been mentioned, you really do have to get a dedicated pipe (T1, etc).
I'm sorry for the negative view, but I work as a Bandwidth Specialist at a large (1 million client+) ISP and have had to look at this situation from all sides. ISPs don't want to lose clients...they're in business to do business, but they do have to put restrictions in place. Sometimes it's hard numbers (limits, caps), other times it's a clause that lets them tell you to back off when you start congesting your router. In any case, there's always a tradeoff.
It's also worth noting that while companies are still maintaining their IT systems, they are attempting to do far more with less. Many companies here in Canada are moving technical staff off permanent fixed shifts/workdays to rotating schedules that allow them to better focus their resources on specific issues and control staffing concentrations. This affects the employees not only in that they have to work more at scheduling but that they also often lose their full-time benefits and salaries.
In addition to this, most companies are terminating previously established training programs and are relying on individual techs to upgrade their certifications at their own expense and on their own time.
All in all, even those who have jobs are finding that the working conditions are declining in the face of a changing industry. Still, we should count ourselves lucky to still be working.
While a centralized database looks good in theory, it becomes difficult in the face of our general inability to maintain even more basic networks.
If so much depended on the central database, proper use of this technology would require continuous and guaranteed connections that just aren't available.
On the other hand, no matter how much space is available on a personal chip, it still remains to be seen how we would update it. A centralized database would offer a way around this. Reading the chip is one thing...encoding it is another. Do we re-encode the chip every time a medical condition changes, or does the chip itself simply link to a database that can be updated? If the chip is locally updatable, then it will be incredibly simple to spoof. Slip a professional some extra money and an unscrupulous individual could encode whatever you wanted for you. Even assuming an unhackable central database with 100% connections, this is still an issue. Who gets access? Who can update? If your doctor has medical information to add, what if he updates the wrong entry?
The shear logistics of this would be staggering and very near impossible. I won't say it will never happen, but in a realistic view, it won't be for a long time. I've got reasonable familiarity with the animal version and even that rarely manages to provide anything close to the performance needed here.
Working for a major broadband ISP as a TSR, I'm reasonably familiar with the enforcement of the bandwidth contracts and such. I also have service from the ISP I work for so understand the customer perspective as well.
When it comes to the contracts themselves, most of them simply state that the company is obligated to provide a broadband connection of unspecified speed. There is no minimum performance standard at all in any contract I've ever seen. Therefore, caps are entirely within the bounds of the agreement.
Also, to add something to the discussion, most broadband ISPs include a clause that allows them to terminate or suspend service if your usage violates what they consider 'acceptable' use. In most cases, this is defined as any usage that makes such demands on the system as to interfere with any other users. With this blanket statement, they can actually justify any measures necessary without changing the contract. If you request it, most ISPs will email you a copy of their AUP agreement. I know ours is around 40 pages and is quite specific in more or less allowing the company to do whatever it wants. Even if you do request or argue for a contract, you're unlikely to be able to exclude this from it and therefore you will probably fall victim to these measures no matter what.
As has been suggested, Business accounts with very specific contracts can help, particularly when they allow you to be charged for the bandwidth you use. In this case, the ISP will rarely cap as they benefit from the volume of data that you move. Unfortunately, the sheer cost of this is staggering. With the file sharing utilities out there now, data transfer statistics which would normally be allowed under a residential account before the company enforces its abuse contract can easily total more than $200 a month under a business contract. You get a better connection but you will pay for it.
These are just a few more thoughts to throw into the discussion on contracts, as the likelihood of getting around the AUP agreement is very low no matter what type of residential service contract you sign.
While there have been some posts highlighting the fact that the IMDB rating is only representative of those individuals with web-access, I think this doesn't fully address the limits of the IMDB ratings and how in particular they may not accurately reflect this film.
Specifically, the IMDB ratings are the product of those individuals who care enough about a film to take the time to enter a rating. It is likely to contain significantly more strong positive or negative reactions and far fewer moderate reactions than other means of statistical analysis. This can produce skewed results.
Furthermore, to make use of the old 'geeks and dungeons & dragons/tolkienesque fantasy' stereotype, while it is highly doubtful that Hollywood would produce a film with such a small target audience, the IMDB is particularly biased towards this group. In my experience, there is some validity to the claim that computer 'geeks' have generally had a higher level of exposure to fantasy novels and have had more opportunities to form opinions based on this exposure. Tolkien, at least within the circles I frequent, has always been a favourite of computer professionals. While these are not the only people who will see the film, they are the group most likely to head home and make use of an online rating service to make their opinions known and to have the tools available to do so.
To summarize my own rather rambling post, I think there is some justification for the belief that those people who are both willing and able to use the IMDB rating system may be bias through their own background and interests to grant this movie an abnormally high rating.
Before I conclude, however, I would like to say that I did enjoy the film a great deal and would not hesitate to say that it is one of the better films released in recent years, though not the best ever.
I have to admit I'm of two minds on the matter of the maintenance of the USENET archives. While there is merit to the statement that the Library of Congress (or another national equivalent) has little or no need for the USENET archives, and certainly cannot be particularly interested in bearing the cost of their maintenance, they are a valuable resource. The archives can be seen as a sort of "racial memory" focussed on the period of transition to an information oriented culture. As another poster stated, we gain a great deal from the letters of the Victorians that they likely thought we would at the time of their archiving. However, the suggestion that a government library be responsible for them is not particularly different from leaving them under the control of Google (which paid for them, adding another significant factor to this equation). I think that, if Google is willing to release the content of the archives, it should be maintained by an international organization, in the same spirit as the W3C. Advances in distributed storage and processing make this easier to accomplish than it would have been even a few years ago. After reading the Wired article, there seems to be some indication that this might actually take place, and I must say I would applaud it. Something as valuable as the collected discussions of a developing community should no more be left to a single nation than it should be left to a single company. I would like to state, though, that I minored in History, and am biased towards the maintenance of records, as I encounter far too many situations where our understanding of the past could aid us in the present, but we lack any means of gaining that understanding. I also know the value of letters and seemingly pointless writings (at least those that I have had to make use of :-)
I know exactly what you mean. I just found out about this this morning (been out of RPGs for a while; work and all). I grew up on FASA and must have played and read every Battletech game and book before 1994 or so. It's strange to hear them die. BTW: the cub was Simba and you're right on Mufasa (in the clouds)