1. I don't think it is unreasonable to attempt to limit the use of a scare public resource to activities which are beneficial to the community.
To take this to another level, should I be allowed to stroll into a public library and play network games all day? Perhaps, so long as there is sufficient slack capacity in the system. Suppose 20 of my friends come with me and we all do the same. Should the taxpayer fork out to provide this service?
I'm not arguing about the porn/free speech thing, I'm arguing about scare resources and what is an acceptable use for them.
I (personally, as an individual with an opinion and a vote - not a veto) don't consider free access to porn an acceptable use for public money.
2. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to do whatever you like in your own home. I just don't want to pay for it.
3. I'm not proposing myself as the censor. You'd probably be better at it:-)
4. I understand the technical limitations of filtering software. I was talking on an philosophical level.
I happen to agree with you about pornography - if you want to look at it, that's your personal business.
However, there is a line to be drawn. What about pornography involving animals, children, snuff movies?? Should these be available to anyone that wants them in a public library?
Suppose there are 4 PCs in your library. 3 of them have kids on them looking at porn. The 4th has crashed (Guess wnat OS they're using). An old lady walks in and wants to email her grand-daughter on the other side of the world....
Or... there are 4 PCs in your library. One has crashed. 3 are ready for any old ladies that come in...
The PC itself is a scarce resource, not just the fixed price bandwidth. I am prepared to pay for the old lady (or 14 year old kid) who wants to email someone. I'm not prepared to pay for the wankers. I also don't feel that I have to justify this position.
There's several arguments here. It's not just a case of the ALL-CENSORSHIP-IS-BAD people against the WE-NEED-TO-PROTECT-OUR-CHILDREN people.
A Public Library is paid for by the taxpayer (ie ME). I don't want my money spent on providing free porn for adolescents. If they want porn, they should not be able to get it at a public library at my expense.
I don't believe that the internet should be censored, but I don't for one second believe that everything on the internet is benign. If people want to access the whole of the internet, they should be prepared to pay for it.
I don't think that it is likely that any censoring software out there can filter out potentially dangerous political ideas, whereas filtering out porn is slightly easier. There is no place for the former in a democratic society, while there is a place for the latter.
There should definitely be internet access in public libraries. I'd much rather see a censored internet than no internet at all.
Just suppose I don't have the skills or the time or the inclination to go digging in the sources of my software. Does that mean that I'm not taking advantage of my access to the source code?
Absolutely not! I know it's open source, so I know that other people with more time/skills/inclination than me can fix problems, add features. AND if I need something badly enough I can get it done. Perhaps myself, perhaps by paying one of my IT guys to do it.
I am not a geek. Geek is too much like Dork, Nerd, Jerk, Eejit, Wanker. Maybe some people are happy to be called geek; maybe it's a word you'd like to reclaim, like dyke. But to me, it has not got there yet.
As far as I'm concerned, geek may imply computer literacy, competence with machines, and various other positive things, but fundamentally it implies social ineptitude, physical unattractiveness, someone with no life.
>The interesting thing about the telephone business is that their costs have nothing to do with how many minutes you stay on the phone.
Not true. If you have 100 customers who spend 5% of the time on the phone you need a lot less infrastructure than if the same 100 customers spent 100% of the time on the phone.
Roll on Voice over IP!
Re:9600 *is* the maximum transfer rate for modems
on
3Com Class Action Suit
·
· Score: 1
>Hmm..when every call costs $.04 to make and then any call (supposedly local) outside our exchange costs as much as long distance. Hmmmm...
Consider yourself lucky. BT charges minimum 4p+VAT per call (about $.08). Plus, US phone users don't know how lucky they are not to get charged per minute. BT makes about $1M profit every 7.3 nanoseconds at our expense.
Re:9600 *is* the maximum transfer rate for modems
on
3Com Class Action Suit
·
· Score: 1
There's an awful lot of confusion and misunderstanding here, even among/.ers. Here's a quick precis of modern modem mayhem.
- 9600 *was* the max transfer rate a few years ago, until modem technology (and telco infrastructure) improved. It's no longer a limit. - The 56k number is 56k, not 57.6k. It's not part of the same 9.6, 14.4, 28.8 33.6 series. It just doesn't work the same way. Its related to the 64k clear channel digital circuit that is the basic unit of currency within the phone system, rather than the old datacom standards which we're used to. So 57.6 is just plain wrong. So.. back to the topic in hand, it *is* impossible to get double the speed of 28.8 if you do the sums. - It *is* possible to get a 56K connection, but it is extremely unusual and almost impossible in the real world. I work for a big network equipment manufacturer and one of our field engineers was so pleased when he got a real 56k connection, he emailed the whole company. I don't think it was in the US. - The entire phone system is digital apart from the last bit which connects you to your CO. 56K technology uses this assumption to enable data transfer IN ONE DIRECTION ONLY, along a path which is digital all through the phone network apart from the 'last mile' (your copper connection to the local CO). - Have you ever thought about what is at the other end of the phone line in your ISP? Your ISP typically doesn't have a whole bunch of analog phone lines connected to modems - they use multiple T1/E1s (24 or 30 digital 64k channels) depending on location connected to a big expensive box which has racks of boards with 16, 24 or more modem chips on them. Depending on how recently your ISP bought its equipment these modems may not be capable of 56K. Even if they are capable, the performance of competing manufacturers chipsets varies considerably.
I'm losing track now, so I'll stop. I hope this clears up a little confusion.
True. No company is going to buy a 486 or Pentium in 1999. BUT they probably have several of them kicking about the office (if they haven't already been dumped) that could be cash savers. Instead of buying new servers, these old useless machines can be put to work doing low overhead, low bandwidth, but essential nonetheless services such as DNS, NIS, perhaps even WINS:-)
Slashdot Mirror
1. I don't think it is unreasonable to attempt to limit the use of a scare public resource to activities which are beneficial to the community.
:-)
To take this to another level, should I be allowed to stroll into a public library and play network games all day? Perhaps, so long as there is sufficient slack capacity in the system. Suppose 20 of my friends come with me and we all do the same. Should the taxpayer fork out to provide this service?
I'm not arguing about the porn/free speech thing, I'm arguing about scare resources and what is an acceptable use for them.
I (personally, as an individual with an opinion and a vote - not a veto) don't consider free access to porn an acceptable use for public money.
2. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to do whatever you like in your own home. I just don't want to pay for it.
3. I'm not proposing myself as the censor. You'd probably be better at it
4. I understand the technical limitations of filtering software. I was talking on an philosophical level.
>>So who in the hell do you think you are dictating to me what taxes should be used for, simply because you don't like it?
I'm not dictating. I'm expressing an opinion, which is what people do in a democracy.
Chill out!
I happen to agree with you about pornography - if you want to look at it, that's your personal business.
However, there is a line to be drawn. What about pornography involving animals, children, snuff movies?? Should these be available to anyone that wants them in a public library?
Suppose there are 4 PCs in your library. 3 of them have kids on them looking at porn. The 4th has crashed (Guess wnat OS they're using). An old lady walks in and wants to email her grand-daughter on the other side of the world....
Or... there are 4 PCs in your library. One has crashed. 3 are ready for any old ladies that come in...
The PC itself is a scarce resource, not just the fixed price bandwidth. I am prepared to pay for the old lady (or 14 year old kid) who wants to email someone. I'm not prepared to pay for the wankers. I also don't feel that I have to justify this position.
There's several arguments here. It's not just a case of the ALL-CENSORSHIP-IS-BAD people against the WE-NEED-TO-PROTECT-OUR-CHILDREN people.
A Public Library is paid for by the taxpayer (ie ME). I don't want my money spent on providing free porn for adolescents. If they want porn, they should not be able to get it at a public library at my expense.
I don't believe that the internet should be censored, but I don't for one second believe that everything on the internet is benign. If people want to access the whole of the internet, they should be prepared to pay for it.
I don't think that it is likely that any censoring software out there can filter out potentially dangerous political ideas, whereas filtering out porn is slightly easier. There is no place for the former in a democratic society, while there is a place for the latter.
There should definitely be internet access in public libraries. I'd much rather see a censored internet than no internet at all.
Just suppose I don't have the skills or the time or the inclination to go digging in the sources of my software. Does that mean that I'm not taking advantage of my access to the source code?
Absolutely not! I know it's open source, so I know that other people with more time/skills/inclination than me can fix problems, add features. AND if I need something badly enough I can get it done. Perhaps myself, perhaps by paying one of my IT guys to do it.
I am a hacker.
I am not a geek. Geek is too much like Dork, Nerd, Jerk, Eejit, Wanker. Maybe some people are happy to be called geek; maybe it's a word you'd like to reclaim, like dyke. But to me, it has not got there yet.
As far as I'm concerned, geek may imply computer literacy, competence with machines, and various other positive things, but fundamentally it implies social ineptitude, physical unattractiveness, someone with no life.
You can be a top hacker without being a geek.
>The interesting thing about the telephone business is that their costs have nothing to do with how many minutes you stay on the phone.
Not true. If you have 100 customers who spend 5% of the time on the phone you need a lot less infrastructure than if the same 100 customers spent 100% of the time on the phone.
Roll on Voice over IP!
>Hmm..when every call costs $.04 to make and then any call (supposedly local)
outside our exchange costs as much as long distance. Hmmmm...
Consider yourself lucky. BT charges minimum 4p+VAT per call (about $.08). Plus, US phone users don't know how lucky they are not to get charged per minute. BT makes about $1M profit every 7.3 nanoseconds at our expense.
There's an awful lot of confusion and misunderstanding here, even among /.ers. Here's a quick precis of modern modem mayhem.
- 9600 *was* the max transfer rate a few years ago, until modem technology (and telco infrastructure) improved. It's no longer a limit.
- The 56k number is 56k, not 57.6k. It's not part of the same 9.6, 14.4, 28.8 33.6 series. It just doesn't work the same way. Its related to the 64k clear channel digital circuit that is the basic unit of currency within the phone system, rather than the old datacom standards which we're used to. So 57.6 is just plain wrong. So.. back to the topic in hand, it *is* impossible to get double the speed of 28.8 if you do the sums.
- It *is* possible to get a 56K connection, but it is extremely unusual and almost impossible in the real world. I work for a big network equipment manufacturer and one of our field engineers was so pleased when he got a real 56k connection, he emailed the whole company. I don't think it was in the US.
- The entire phone system is digital apart from the last bit which connects you to your CO. 56K technology uses this assumption to enable data transfer IN ONE DIRECTION ONLY, along a path which is digital all through the phone network apart from the 'last mile' (your copper connection to the local CO).
- Have you ever thought about what is at the other end of the phone line in your ISP? Your ISP typically doesn't have a whole bunch of analog phone lines connected to modems - they use multiple T1/E1s (24 or 30 digital 64k channels) depending on location connected to a big expensive box which has racks of boards with 16, 24 or more modem chips on them. Depending on how recently your ISP bought its equipment these modems may not be capable of 56K. Even if they are capable, the performance of competing manufacturers chipsets varies considerably.
I'm losing track now, so I'll stop. I hope this clears up a little confusion.
But, installers are boring: Don't think in terms of a linux installer. Write a good
Winbloze uninstaller.
Someone already has.. it's called fdisk
True. No company is going to buy a 486 or Pentium in 1999. BUT they probably have several of them kicking about the office (if they haven't already been dumped) that could be cash savers. Instead of buying new servers, these old useless machines can be put to work doing low overhead, low bandwidth, but essential nonetheless services such as DNS, NIS, perhaps even WINS :-)
I always get a slightly puerile giggle out of discussions on 'should so and so be certified'
.. in my opinion the best programmers often are certifiable if not certified already
OK, yes, there are other countries where you can get a T1 line, but UK isn't one of them. Are you sure it's not an E1 that you've got?
Just been there. It looks BRILLIANT!
... but how did you get a T1? Are you hosted in the US or something?
Not important. Just curious.