How would that arms race a bad thing? I think that's called competition and is how the free market is supposed to work.
Because even small bandwidth caps (like 5GB a month) are impossible to sustain if more than a small percentage of users decide to push their connection to the limit every single month without fail. Higher and higher limits are just going to make it harder and harder to provide the same level of service to everyone since the leeches are going to feel that now that the limits are explicitly worded that they MUST use up every bit of the limit without hesitation and have every legal right to (indeed, they would). I think it's much better that things are advertised without an explicit limit because it makes it much easier to get rid of leeches for abusing the service. Just imagine a national ISP with a 90GB/month cap and as little as 1000 leeches using up every drop of it, every single month. I don't know how much 90TB of traffic costs an ISP, but it's probably more than the $40K they'd collect from the leeches. It just wouldn't be sustainable, and the ISPs would have no recourse because, hey, they said 90GB! Whereas if they say "unlimited, but reasonable", it's much easier to get rid of them.
Now of course you'll probably say "don't advertise 90GB/month if you can't sustain it for every single customer", to which I'd reply: prepare to be dissapointed by the bandwidth caps.
It's all about context, you moron. When you go to an "all you can eat" buffet, do you think the owner would ever anticipate someone barging in there and eating all the food on the buffet and all the food in the kitchen? No. The food service is "unlimited" but there are inherent limitations that are dictated by how much food a reasonable human being can eat. Likewise, ISP plans are "unlimited" based on the usage patterns of a regular user (you know, 95% of their customers). If you are downloading Linux ISOs 24/7, you are not a regular user. The service is not intended for you. It should be obvious to such intelligent people that it's impossible to provide all customers even meager bandwidth caps if EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is hitting the cap every single month. For the customers that Verizon is serving (business users who want to check their email, update documents, etc. while on the road), 5GB is definitely unlimited. If, on the other hand, you think Verizon Wireless's service is intended for downloading Linux ISOs 24/7 while you're on a month-long camping trip, the service is far from unlimited. But then again, that's not how the service was intended to be used.
You do realize that that card is capable of achieving the same download speeds as an EVDO-capable phone tethered to your laptop, right? The card is just more convenient.
Yes, I was incorrect to assume that the article was talking about people without the more expensive plan tethering their phones to their laptops (those are advertised as "unlimited" also). Boo hoo. The point remains, the guys in question are using a ridiculous amount of bandwidth on a service that's NOT intended to replace your normal home ISP. It's for business users who have a need (and therefore, desire, to pay $80 a month for an Internet connection that's slower than a home ISP) to stay connected on the road. Is downloading Linux ISOs really a priority for you when you're driving across the country?
The business users this service is intended for are doing things like checking their email, sending out updated spreadsheets, accessing the corporate intranet, etc. In that context, yes, 5GB is unlimited. If, on the other hand, you think the service is intended to be used for downloading Linux ISOs 24/7, yes, you'll hit the limit pretty quickly.
I guess the main question is, why are ISPs marketing their services (specifically EVDO in this case) as "unlimited" when they're not truly unlimited? That's simply false advertising.
I disagree. The term "unlimited", as we've seen, can be open to interpretation. I think it's pretty obvious that when an ISP says "unlimited" they mean "unlimited to a person with reasonable usage patterns (i.e., 95% of their customers)". I'm sure ISPs are hesitant to advertise "X GB/month with $Y/GB overage charges" because we're talking about a concept (computer data transfer) that is very abstract to the vast majority of their customers. Most of them have experienced at least once the horror of going way, way over their usage for some service and getting slapped with an outrageous bill and would probably be very scared of doing the same thing with the Internet usage.
People go over cell phone limits all the time, and those limits use a metric (time) that is very easy for everyone to grasp. With an Internet connection, we're talking about data transfer limits, which aren't plainly obvious and which most people wouldn't know how to monitor and would have no clue as to how they can effectively limit their usage. I'm sure you can hit a given website and have some rough idea as to how much data you transferred, but a regular user would have no clue and would be blissfully unaware that they're exceeding their bandwidth cap. When the massive bill arrives, what are they going to do? They're going to complain that their ISP didn't educate them properly on bandwidth usage. If you get enough customers in that situation, the ISP starts losing serious money because "average users" are their bread and butter. Leeches, on the other hand, are a minority and know damn well that they're abusing the hell out of their "unlimited" plan and the ISPs could care less how many of them they piss off, and for good reason. If unchecked, they'd easily run the ISP out of business. They're the kind of customer an ISP would rather NOT have.
At least by advertising their service as "unlimited", they're not exactly lying to regular customers and they're reassuring them that their regular usage will not, realistically, run into any limits.
Now the ISPs could plainly advertise GB/month limits, but what's going to happen then? An "arms race" of sorts where ISPs compete by ratcheting up the limit and leeches are just going to use the advertised caps as carte blanche to use the maximum every single month. In reality, we all know that even a modest bandwidth cap of say, 5GB/month couldn't possibly be sustained if every single user reached that limit, so when the limit is, say, 60GB/month and leeches are getting kicked off the service because they're reaching the limit month in and month out, they'd actually have a case against the ISP for false advertising. However, if the service is defined as "unlimited" with stipulations for "reasonable use", they really don't have a leg to stand on.
And that's why plans are advertised as "unlimited".
Fair enough. And when everyone uses their "unlimited" plan to its fullest extent, you shouldn't start whining when you're unable to achieve more than 2K/s consistently.
OK, fine. But I'm guessing that such a plan is intended for business users and/or those who have an actual need to use their Internet connection "anywhere". You know, to check their email and look at web pages. So some geek figured it would be a neat way to download Linux ISOs and got mad that there are reasonable usage limits -- so what?
Again, why would you be doing that in the first place? Your EVDO connection is going to be a bit slower than your normal Internet connection and certainly more expensive per month, so why even bother with it in the first place if heavy downloading is your thing?
If you want to be completely pedantic, it's impossible to have an "unlimited" data plan not because of "hidden" limits the ISP imposes on you, but because it's impossible to have an "unlimited" transfer rate in the first place.
I don't see why fine print is given a pass on this.
Maybe because you're told to read the terms of service and agree to them before using the service...?
First of all, he specifically mentioned downloading them with Bittorrent. He's talking about pirating the shows (although I bet like a lot of Slashdotters he legitimately thinks that if a show airs and he was unable to view it on TV that he has a right to download an HDTV rip of it minus commercials, but I digress...).
Second, the shows on iTunes are (generally) of a lower resolution than the TV rips you find floating around on Bittorrent and/or are heavily compressed. In other words, they're generally not bit-perfect DVD rips, so they're a good bit smaller.
Third, why would you be downloading all sorts of TV shows using your Verizon wireless EVDO connection? It's not going to be as fast as your home Internet connection and it's meant primarily for business users (or those who have enough of a need to be able to get Internet access "anywhere"), so naturally the bandwidth limits are going to be lower.
Fourth, in my experience, pretty much any ISP will go easy on you with bandwidth limitations as long as you aren't flooding the pipes 24/7. All it takes is a little self-control and good judgement and I guarantee you won't run into any problems with your ISP.
First of all, Vonage hardly uses any bandwidth. It's something like 128kbps, so roughly 16KBps. NO ONE is going to talk 24/7, and even if they did, it's not going to rack up as much bandwidth as say, having several Bittorrents going at once.
Again, with IPTV, there's a realistic limit on how much you're going to watch in a given month. In other words, there is a clear definition of what "unlimited" means in that context. And there's also no way in hell that someone can possibly watch TV 24/7 for an entire month, so that alone is evidence enough to justify that someone is abusing their connection. And let's not forget that the cable company can easily throttle back your general Internet bandwidth in the case that you're using excessive IPTV bandwidth.
Now as far as the people in the article, they are CLEARLY using their cellphones as a general Internet connection for their computers. This is FORBIDDEN by the cellphone TOS unless you sign up for a different plan. I just flat out don't believe that someone used 5GB of bandwidth in a month by checking email and surfing web pages using ONLY their cellphone.
It IS, for all intents and purposes, unlimited provided you aren't tethering the cellphone to your computer. The amount of data you can reasonably expect to download using JUST your cellphone and the amount you would download using your cellphone as your computer's Internet connection varies by an order of magnitude (or two, depending on how much a pirate, err, "Linux ISO enthusiast" you are). Every major carrier specifically says that you have to pay extra to use your cellphone as a regular computer Internet connection.
However, if you're not a completely greedy bandwidth sucking bastard you can use the regular plan and "occassionally" tether your phone to your computer. I do this every so often, like when I'm stuck at the airport and guess what? No one has hassled me because I'm not downloading ISOs or TV rips using my phone!
And you would be downloading Linux ISOs via your cellphone's Internet connection because...?
The simple answer is because the people in question are tethering their cellphones to their computers and using the cellphone as their computer's Internet connection. I believe all the major carriers forbid doing this UNLESS you sign up for their more expensive "computer" plan. I think it's pretty obvious that anyone downloading 5GB a month via their cellphone is tethering it to their computer and not actually viewing a bunch of webpages on their phone. So whine all you want about the misleading "unlimited" claims, but if you bothered to read the TOS you'd see that your phone's EVDO connection is NOT to be used as your computer's Internet connection UNLESS you sign up for their computer service. This is clearly spelled out, I guarantee it. As far as "unlimited" goes, for all intents and purposes, a few GB a month is pretty much "unlimited" if you're using your cellphone (and NOT your computer) to access said content in that it would realistically take longer than a month to use up that much bandwidth under normal circumstances.
In other words, pirate a whole bunch of shit. That's pretty much what everyone assumes when you're downloading 4+GBs a day. It's not surprising that those who steal (excuse me, "infringe copyright") the most are the ones who complain the loudest about how their $39.95 a month should entitle them to a private T3 line with no bandwidth caps.
At best your contention can only be that modern audiences find old-TV shows lacking in presentation
You're just singling out the Doctor Who thing. I'm not talking about bad production values, I'm talking about the overall goofiness of sci-fi.
Believe it or not, a lot of intelligent people roll their eyes when "serious drama" intersects with "the Klingons are attacking the Romulans". The overall goofiness and silliness of what's on screen tends to make a lot of people discount any inherent seriousness in the show/movie. You can take the most serious subject matter you can think of and play it out with the cast of Sesame Street and no one is going to take it seriously because there's a giant yellow bird talking about the right to life. It's likewise hard to take a Klingon with a vagina forehead delivering the same lines seriously.
As an example, the Sopranos is a very popular show that tackles tough issues and is a very compelling drama. Now imagine it taking place in 2049 on the U.S.S. New Jersey with Tony Soprano as the head of the Ferengi mob. Seems kind of silly, doesn't it?
And I think you've missed the point of where so-called goofy aliens, whatever magicaly criteron you have for that is, and the settings and so-forth are merely backdrop. The emphasis on the morality aspects in Star Trek is so fucking obvious it's like you haven't even watched it.
And you've completely missed the topic of this Slashdot discussion. The submitter is whining "why isn't sci-fi taken seriously?" and I replied that hey, it's full of goofy-looking aliens, lasers, and teleporters. A lot of people don't take that stuff seriously because they're laughing too hard at it.
Of course all that stuff is a metaphor, but I repeat, it's just a bit too nerdy for most people. Hence the "stigma" associated with sci-fi.
With Klingons? And a teleporter? And aliens that speak in monotone and have tubes and such coming out of them (the Borg)? And a pasty, gay android?
Babylon 5 = first novelised TV show
With spaceships and goofy-looking aliens?
Doctor Who = wildy varied
With goofy-looking salt shaker robots?
I think you've missed the point that sci-fi should scrap the goofy aliens and spaceships and focus on the "human condition" if it wants to be taken seriously.
... You blame Star Wars for ruining the public's perception of sci-fi but still worship Star Wars (at least, the original trilogy), Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, etc.? Shows/movies like that are what created the public perception of sci-fi. They're all about spaceships, goofy-looking aliens, "phasers set to stun", etc. It's all just a tad bit too nerdy for regular people.
Sci-fi fans made that stuff popular, so I'd say you have no one to blame but yourselves...
Let me pull this up because there are so many," he says. When his computer produces a list a moment later, Kallayil makes his way down the screen and continues: "The free gourmet food, because that's a daily necessity. Breakfast, lunch and dinner I eat at Google. The next one is the fitness center, the 24-hour gym with weights. And there are yoga classes."
There is a pause before he adds that he also enjoys the speaker series, the in-house doctor, the nutritionist, the dry cleaners and the massage service. He has not used the personal trainer, the swimming pool and the spa -- at least not yet, anyway. Nor has he commuted to and from the office on the high-tech, wi-fi equipped, bio-diesel shuttle bus that Google provides for employees, but that is only because he lives nearby and can drive without worrying about a long commute.
I'd be worried about the fact that Google has the spending habits and business plan of a late 90s dot-com. Isn't advertising something like 95% of their revenue?
Are you claiming that the music industry makes no attempt to influence the popular taste (by, say, only presenting acts that are generally similar to established successful acts)?
That's called "reacting to changes in the general public's musical taste". If rap is selling, push more and more rap. If boy bands are selling, push more and more boy bands. I honestly don't think the music industry has an agenda or even really gives a shit what kind of music they're promoting so long as it sells. You make it sound as if the record companies all come together once and year and decide what kind of music they're all going to force on the public. Get real. The truth of the matter is record companies are very opportunistic and, yes, risk-averse, so if, say, a boy band were to get real big, real fast there'd be a mad dash by every other label to strike while the iron is hot.
This has happened all throughout the history of record companies -- this is not a new thing. Remember the British Invasion of the 60s? The Beatles came over and blew up, so the record companies responded by pushing anything and everything British for a short period of time. I bet if you were around at the time you'd be thinking "gee, all the record companies are pushing is British groups because they want to influence popular taste!"
In the late 80s to early 90s there was a boy band craze and it came back and died a few years ago (or so... I can't remember). I'm willing to bet money in less than a decade there will be another resurgence in boy bands. It's the ebb and flow of the public's musical taste.
Right now, the public wants raunchy rap, dance music, and whiny teen angst rock. Grunge rock will come back in a few years and the rock pendulum swings from "pussy" to "badass" once again. You could set your watch this stuff. Stop making it into a conspiracy.
Well, as has been pointed out numerous times, folks have been ripping off music since the days of reel-to-reel tape. I got plenty of tapes from friends in High School (I'm showing my age here).
That's nowhere near as convenient as today's bootlegging is.
In fact, I'd argue that, in some ways, it's *harder* now to rip off music, given DRM.
You must be joking, right? We're living in an age where you just need to Google "[album name] torrent", download the torrent, and in ten to fifteen minutes (on something other than dialup, and assuming the album is popular -- but then again, it's the highest profile, most popular albums that are torrented), you've got a copy of the album that is almost always 192Kbps CBR or VBR MP3. Pretty much indistinguishable from the original CD for the non-audiophiles among us.
The DRM thing really is a non-issue for CDs. There's always a couple releases here and there that have it, but someone always gets around it, and that's all it takes.
I don't think it's necessarily correct to say that the product "isn't worth paying for" in the sense that it's complete garbage. Obviously there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on that music but don't want to pay for it. The one thing that everyone on Slashdot seems to misunderstand about the music industry is that they don't tell us what we want to hear, they react to changes in the general public's musical taste. Same thing goes for Hollywood. I guarantee you that if a three minute recording of some guy taking a dump with a drum beat behind it inadvertantly became a smash hit the industry would try to clone its success ad nauseum. And why not? That's good business that reacts to the public's taste in music. The music may be absolute garbage to YOU, but a large percentage of the music-buying public doesn't think so.
It's not as if in the 70s the music industry mandated a shift to disco. It just kind of happened because the music became popular in dance clubs. Whatever the trend in music is today, I guarantee it's as a result of public demand. It's a business. Focus on selling what people want to listen to.
A lot of artists that are considered "great" today were not always looked upon so highly during their time. Keep that in mind when you bitch about today's music.
In my mind, the music we're hearing today is really pretty much the same as what we were hearing ten years ago but there were a lot more sales in 1997. Why? Honestly I'd have to say ease of piracy has contributed heavily. When it wasn't so easy for the common man to rip off music, if he wanted a new album, he bought it. Now he has the choice to not buy it, and guess what he's going to do?
Prove it. The whole point of Vista offloading graphics processing to the video card was to keep the CPU from being loaded down with drawing the GUI.
I suppose you hate MacOS X as well because it forces the GPU to do extra work and, let's face it, it's not exactly as minimal an interface as KDE or Windows XP.
I can see it now... $4 to rent a reduced-quality movie for 24 hours, with DRM. Geeks everywhere will demand the studio masters to be downloadable without DRM for a nickel a pop (and even that may be too costly for some).
I'm expecting any OS that is compromised by malware 25% of the time would enable application level security and restrict behaviors not only by explorer, but also by every other application running including said malware. It shouldn't have permission to simulate mouse and keyboard input by default.
I think you're missing the point here. It isn't about "simulating mouse and keyboard input is the only possible attack vector", it's that you don't want excessive UAC prompts, so anything that doesn't require admin access should be allowed to start without prompting you, right? That's what happens in MacOS and Linux. But the point I'm making is that these programs that you "allow" to run, including malware (you're allowing it to run but not realizing it) can still wreak havoc on your system. Hence Microsoft's decision to trap a lot attack vectors (deleting files, accessing the control panel, etc.) with UAC prompts. What's the problem here?
You make good points about MACs, but there's plenty of drawbacks to them. If you have a bad security policy, you're still open to attack. On that note, configuration is incredibly complex. Who's going to provide a new security policy for every single new program that gets added to the machine? The average user? Surely you jest. The application provider? That couldn't possibly go wrong. And if you think blindly clicking "Allow" on security boxes is bad, just wait until users blindly accept security policies! There's also CPU overhead involved (I'm talking about SELinux here, but it'll probably be true for any implementation).
Hmm, maybe there's a good reason a user-friendly, commercial MAC implementation hasn't been implemented yet...?
Most people wouldn't understand what that meant and would click "allow" reflexively because thy had been conditioned to do so by hundreds of unneeded prompts. Most people would probably click "allow" before they even read the prompt. This is not their fault. It is the result of a security scheme that ignores the human interaction component and assumes people will behave in unrealistic ways as though they were computers themselves. People aren't computers. After a few hundred times, we stop paying attention and that needs to be accounted for in the design of a security system.
This sounds like a complete cop-out. I provided a scenario where Vista's UAC prompts would actually be useful, and you brush it off by saying "oh, the user would just instinctively click 'Allow', but that's not his fault...". I suppose you've never heard of people disabling SELinux because it's so intrusive either, huh?
Face it, security is intrusive. People will eventually enter their password or click OK no matter how many times you present them with security dialogs. The fundamental issue is that we tend to trust the software we download. Microsoft can't fix that, sorry.
Sorry, what? Each and every program has its own user and rights? That may be true for some daemons, but I guarantee you, even on Linux, there isn't a user for "ls", "gimp", "konqueror", and so on. They run as the currently logged in user. And what do you expect Linux to do when one of those programs wants to do "rm -rf ~"? They're well within their rights to do so. Windows will at least prompt you that some program is trying to do that. The side effect is that it will require YOU to allow or deny yourself from doing that very same thing. That's the price you pay for that kind of security.
You guys keep looking at this from the perspective that damage can only be done to a system as root, when there's plenty of things that programs running as non-root can do to annoy you or destroy your precious data (which after all, is probably sitting in your home directory, or somewhere else where you have permissions).
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How would that arms race a bad thing? I think that's called competition and is how the free market is supposed to work.
Because even small bandwidth caps (like 5GB a month) are impossible to sustain if more than a small percentage of users decide to push their connection to the limit every single month without fail. Higher and higher limits are just going to make it harder and harder to provide the same level of service to everyone since the leeches are going to feel that now that the limits are explicitly worded that they MUST use up every bit of the limit without hesitation and have every legal right to (indeed, they would). I think it's much better that things are advertised without an explicit limit because it makes it much easier to get rid of leeches for abusing the service. Just imagine a national ISP with a 90GB/month cap and as little as 1000 leeches using up every drop of it, every single month. I don't know how much 90TB of traffic costs an ISP, but it's probably more than the $40K they'd collect from the leeches. It just wouldn't be sustainable, and the ISPs would have no recourse because, hey, they said 90GB! Whereas if they say "unlimited, but reasonable", it's much easier to get rid of them.
Now of course you'll probably say "don't advertise 90GB/month if you can't sustain it for every single customer", to which I'd reply: prepare to be dissapointed by the bandwidth caps.
It's all about context, you moron. When you go to an "all you can eat" buffet, do you think the owner would ever anticipate someone barging in there and eating all the food on the buffet and all the food in the kitchen? No. The food service is "unlimited" but there are inherent limitations that are dictated by how much food a reasonable human being can eat. Likewise, ISP plans are "unlimited" based on the usage patterns of a regular user (you know, 95% of their customers). If you are downloading Linux ISOs 24/7, you are not a regular user. The service is not intended for you. It should be obvious to such intelligent people that it's impossible to provide all customers even meager bandwidth caps if EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is hitting the cap every single month. For the customers that Verizon is serving (business users who want to check their email, update documents, etc. while on the road), 5GB is definitely unlimited. If, on the other hand, you think Verizon Wireless's service is intended for downloading Linux ISOs 24/7 while you're on a month-long camping trip, the service is far from unlimited. But then again, that's not how the service was intended to be used.
You do realize that that card is capable of achieving the same download speeds as an EVDO-capable phone tethered to your laptop, right? The card is just more convenient.
Yes, I was incorrect to assume that the article was talking about people without the more expensive plan tethering their phones to their laptops (those are advertised as "unlimited" also). Boo hoo. The point remains, the guys in question are using a ridiculous amount of bandwidth on a service that's NOT intended to replace your normal home ISP. It's for business users who have a need (and therefore, desire, to pay $80 a month for an Internet connection that's slower than a home ISP) to stay connected on the road. Is downloading Linux ISOs really a priority for you when you're driving across the country?
The business users this service is intended for are doing things like checking their email, sending out updated spreadsheets, accessing the corporate intranet, etc. In that context, yes, 5GB is unlimited. If, on the other hand, you think the service is intended to be used for downloading Linux ISOs 24/7, yes, you'll hit the limit pretty quickly.
I guess the main question is, why are ISPs marketing their services (specifically EVDO in this case) as "unlimited" when they're not truly unlimited? That's simply false advertising.
I disagree. The term "unlimited", as we've seen, can be open to interpretation. I think it's pretty obvious that when an ISP says "unlimited" they mean "unlimited to a person with reasonable usage patterns (i.e., 95% of their customers)". I'm sure ISPs are hesitant to advertise "X GB/month with $Y/GB overage charges" because we're talking about a concept (computer data transfer) that is very abstract to the vast majority of their customers. Most of them have experienced at least once the horror of going way, way over their usage for some service and getting slapped with an outrageous bill and would probably be very scared of doing the same thing with the Internet usage.
People go over cell phone limits all the time, and those limits use a metric (time) that is very easy for everyone to grasp. With an Internet connection, we're talking about data transfer limits, which aren't plainly obvious and which most people wouldn't know how to monitor and would have no clue as to how they can effectively limit their usage. I'm sure you can hit a given website and have some rough idea as to how much data you transferred, but a regular user would have no clue and would be blissfully unaware that they're exceeding their bandwidth cap. When the massive bill arrives, what are they going to do? They're going to complain that their ISP didn't educate them properly on bandwidth usage. If you get enough customers in that situation, the ISP starts losing serious money because "average users" are their bread and butter. Leeches, on the other hand, are a minority and know damn well that they're abusing the hell out of their "unlimited" plan and the ISPs could care less how many of them they piss off, and for good reason. If unchecked, they'd easily run the ISP out of business. They're the kind of customer an ISP would rather NOT have.
At least by advertising their service as "unlimited", they're not exactly lying to regular customers and they're reassuring them that their regular usage will not, realistically, run into any limits.
Now the ISPs could plainly advertise GB/month limits, but what's going to happen then? An "arms race" of sorts where ISPs compete by ratcheting up the limit and leeches are just going to use the advertised caps as carte blanche to use the maximum every single month. In reality, we all know that even a modest bandwidth cap of say, 5GB/month couldn't possibly be sustained if every single user reached that limit, so when the limit is, say, 60GB/month and leeches are getting kicked off the service because they're reaching the limit month in and month out, they'd actually have a case against the ISP for false advertising. However, if the service is defined as "unlimited" with stipulations for "reasonable use", they really don't have a leg to stand on.
And that's why plans are advertised as "unlimited".
Fair enough. And when everyone uses their "unlimited" plan to its fullest extent, you shouldn't start whining when you're unable to achieve more than 2K/s consistently.
OK, fine. But I'm guessing that such a plan is intended for business users and/or those who have an actual need to use their Internet connection "anywhere". You know, to check their email and look at web pages. So some geek figured it would be a neat way to download Linux ISOs and got mad that there are reasonable usage limits -- so what?
Again, why would you be doing that in the first place? Your EVDO connection is going to be a bit slower than your normal Internet connection and certainly more expensive per month, so why even bother with it in the first place if heavy downloading is your thing?
If you want to be completely pedantic, it's impossible to have an "unlimited" data plan not because of "hidden" limits the ISP imposes on you, but because it's impossible to have an "unlimited" transfer rate in the first place.
I don't see why fine print is given a pass on this.
Maybe because you're told to read the terms of service and agree to them before using the service...?
First of all, he specifically mentioned downloading them with Bittorrent. He's talking about pirating the shows (although I bet like a lot of Slashdotters he legitimately thinks that if a show airs and he was unable to view it on TV that he has a right to download an HDTV rip of it minus commercials, but I digress...).
Second, the shows on iTunes are (generally) of a lower resolution than the TV rips you find floating around on Bittorrent and/or are heavily compressed. In other words, they're generally not bit-perfect DVD rips, so they're a good bit smaller.
Third, why would you be downloading all sorts of TV shows using your Verizon wireless EVDO connection? It's not going to be as fast as your home Internet connection and it's meant primarily for business users (or those who have enough of a need to be able to get Internet access "anywhere"), so naturally the bandwidth limits are going to be lower.
Fourth, in my experience, pretty much any ISP will go easy on you with bandwidth limitations as long as you aren't flooding the pipes 24/7. All it takes is a little self-control and good judgement and I guarantee you won't run into any problems with your ISP.
First of all, Vonage hardly uses any bandwidth. It's something like 128kbps, so roughly 16KBps. NO ONE is going to talk 24/7, and even if they did, it's not going to rack up as much bandwidth as say, having several Bittorrents going at once.
Again, with IPTV, there's a realistic limit on how much you're going to watch in a given month. In other words, there is a clear definition of what "unlimited" means in that context. And there's also no way in hell that someone can possibly watch TV 24/7 for an entire month, so that alone is evidence enough to justify that someone is abusing their connection. And let's not forget that the cable company can easily throttle back your general Internet bandwidth in the case that you're using excessive IPTV bandwidth.
Now as far as the people in the article, they are CLEARLY using their cellphones as a general Internet connection for their computers. This is FORBIDDEN by the cellphone TOS unless you sign up for a different plan. I just flat out don't believe that someone used 5GB of bandwidth in a month by checking email and surfing web pages using ONLY their cellphone.
It IS, for all intents and purposes, unlimited provided you aren't tethering the cellphone to your computer. The amount of data you can reasonably expect to download using JUST your cellphone and the amount you would download using your cellphone as your computer's Internet connection varies by an order of magnitude (or two, depending on how much a pirate, err, "Linux ISO enthusiast" you are). Every major carrier specifically says that you have to pay extra to use your cellphone as a regular computer Internet connection.
However, if you're not a completely greedy bandwidth sucking bastard you can use the regular plan and "occassionally" tether your phone to your computer. I do this every so often, like when I'm stuck at the airport and guess what? No one has hassled me because I'm not downloading ISOs or TV rips using my phone!
And you would be downloading Linux ISOs via your cellphone's Internet connection because...?
The simple answer is because the people in question are tethering their cellphones to their computers and using the cellphone as their computer's Internet connection. I believe all the major carriers forbid doing this UNLESS you sign up for their more expensive "computer" plan. I think it's pretty obvious that anyone downloading 5GB a month via their cellphone is tethering it to their computer and not actually viewing a bunch of webpages on their phone. So whine all you want about the misleading "unlimited" claims, but if you bothered to read the TOS you'd see that your phone's EVDO connection is NOT to be used as your computer's Internet connection UNLESS you sign up for their computer service. This is clearly spelled out, I guarantee it. As far as "unlimited" goes, for all intents and purposes, a few GB a month is pretty much "unlimited" if you're using your cellphone (and NOT your computer) to access said content in that it would realistically take longer than a month to use up that much bandwidth under normal circumstances.
In other words, pirate a whole bunch of shit. That's pretty much what everyone assumes when you're downloading 4+GBs a day. It's not surprising that those who steal (excuse me, "infringe copyright") the most are the ones who complain the loudest about how their $39.95 a month should entitle them to a private T3 line with no bandwidth caps.
At best your contention can only be that modern audiences find old-TV shows lacking in presentation
You're just singling out the Doctor Who thing. I'm not talking about bad production values, I'm talking about the overall goofiness of sci-fi.
Believe it or not, a lot of intelligent people roll their eyes when "serious drama" intersects with "the Klingons are attacking the Romulans". The overall goofiness and silliness of what's on screen tends to make a lot of people discount any inherent seriousness in the show/movie. You can take the most serious subject matter you can think of and play it out with the cast of Sesame Street and no one is going to take it seriously because there's a giant yellow bird talking about the right to life. It's likewise hard to take a Klingon with a vagina forehead delivering the same lines seriously.
As an example, the Sopranos is a very popular show that tackles tough issues and is a very compelling drama. Now imagine it taking place in 2049 on the U.S.S. New Jersey with Tony Soprano as the head of the Ferengi mob. Seems kind of silly, doesn't it?
And I think you've missed the point of where so-called goofy aliens, whatever magicaly criteron you have for that is, and the settings and so-forth are merely backdrop. The emphasis on the morality aspects in Star Trek is so fucking obvious it's like you haven't even watched it.
And you've completely missed the topic of this Slashdot discussion. The submitter is whining "why isn't sci-fi taken seriously?" and I replied that hey, it's full of goofy-looking aliens, lasers, and teleporters. A lot of people don't take that stuff seriously because they're laughing too hard at it.
Of course all that stuff is a metaphor, but I repeat, it's just a bit too nerdy for most people. Hence the "stigma" associated with sci-fi.
Star Trek = morality play in space
With Klingons? And a teleporter? And aliens that speak in monotone and have tubes and such coming out of them (the Borg)? And a pasty, gay android?
Babylon 5 = first novelised TV show
With spaceships and goofy-looking aliens?
Doctor Who = wildy varied
With goofy-looking salt shaker robots?
I think you've missed the point that sci-fi should scrap the goofy aliens and spaceships and focus on the "human condition" if it wants to be taken seriously.
... You blame Star Wars for ruining the public's perception of sci-fi but still worship Star Wars (at least, the original trilogy), Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, etc.? Shows/movies like that are what created the public perception of sci-fi. They're all about spaceships, goofy-looking aliens, "phasers set to stun", etc. It's all just a tad bit too nerdy for regular people.
Sci-fi fans made that stuff popular, so I'd say you have no one to blame but yourselves...
Let me pull this up because there are so many," he says. When his computer produces a list a moment later, Kallayil makes his way down the screen and continues: "The free gourmet food, because that's a daily necessity. Breakfast, lunch and dinner I eat at Google. The next one is the fitness center, the 24-hour gym with weights. And there are yoga classes."
There is a pause before he adds that he also enjoys the speaker series, the in-house doctor, the nutritionist, the dry cleaners and the massage service. He has not used the personal trainer, the swimming pool and the spa -- at least not yet, anyway. Nor has he commuted to and from the office on the high-tech, wi-fi equipped, bio-diesel shuttle bus that Google provides for employees, but that is only because he lives nearby and can drive without worrying about a long commute.
I'd be worried about the fact that Google has the spending habits and business plan of a late 90s dot-com. Isn't advertising something like 95% of their revenue?
Are you claiming that the music industry makes no attempt to influence the popular taste (by, say, only presenting acts that are generally similar to established successful acts)?
That's called "reacting to changes in the general public's musical taste". If rap is selling, push more and more rap. If boy bands are selling, push more and more boy bands. I honestly don't think the music industry has an agenda or even really gives a shit what kind of music they're promoting so long as it sells. You make it sound as if the record companies all come together once and year and decide what kind of music they're all going to force on the public. Get real. The truth of the matter is record companies are very opportunistic and, yes, risk-averse, so if, say, a boy band were to get real big, real fast there'd be a mad dash by every other label to strike while the iron is hot.
This has happened all throughout the history of record companies -- this is not a new thing. Remember the British Invasion of the 60s? The Beatles came over and blew up, so the record companies responded by pushing anything and everything British for a short period of time. I bet if you were around at the time you'd be thinking "gee, all the record companies are pushing is British groups because they want to influence popular taste!"
In the late 80s to early 90s there was a boy band craze and it came back and died a few years ago (or so... I can't remember). I'm willing to bet money in less than a decade there will be another resurgence in boy bands. It's the ebb and flow of the public's musical taste.
Right now, the public wants raunchy rap, dance music, and whiny teen angst rock. Grunge rock will come back in a few years and the rock pendulum swings from "pussy" to "badass" once again. You could set your watch this stuff. Stop making it into a conspiracy.
Well, as has been pointed out numerous times, folks have been ripping off music since the days of reel-to-reel tape. I got plenty of tapes from friends in High School (I'm showing my age here).
That's nowhere near as convenient as today's bootlegging is.
In fact, I'd argue that, in some ways, it's *harder* now to rip off music, given DRM.
You must be joking, right? We're living in an age where you just need to Google "[album name] torrent", download the torrent, and in ten to fifteen minutes (on something other than dialup, and assuming the album is popular -- but then again, it's the highest profile, most popular albums that are torrented), you've got a copy of the album that is almost always 192Kbps CBR or VBR MP3. Pretty much indistinguishable from the original CD for the non-audiophiles among us.
The DRM thing really is a non-issue for CDs. There's always a couple releases here and there that have it, but someone always gets around it, and that's all it takes.
Are you sure about it being harder to do today?
I don't think it's necessarily correct to say that the product "isn't worth paying for" in the sense that it's complete garbage. Obviously there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on that music but don't want to pay for it. The one thing that everyone on Slashdot seems to misunderstand about the music industry is that they don't tell us what we want to hear, they react to changes in the general public's musical taste. Same thing goes for Hollywood. I guarantee you that if a three minute recording of some guy taking a dump with a drum beat behind it inadvertantly became a smash hit the industry would try to clone its success ad nauseum. And why not? That's good business that reacts to the public's taste in music. The music may be absolute garbage to YOU, but a large percentage of the music-buying public doesn't think so.
It's not as if in the 70s the music industry mandated a shift to disco. It just kind of happened because the music became popular in dance clubs. Whatever the trend in music is today, I guarantee it's as a result of public demand. It's a business. Focus on selling what people want to listen to.
A lot of artists that are considered "great" today were not always looked upon so highly during their time. Keep that in mind when you bitch about today's music.
In my mind, the music we're hearing today is really pretty much the same as what we were hearing ten years ago but there were a lot more sales in 1997. Why? Honestly I'd have to say ease of piracy has contributed heavily. When it wasn't so easy for the common man to rip off music, if he wanted a new album, he bought it. Now he has the choice to not buy it, and guess what he's going to do?
Prove it. The whole point of Vista offloading graphics processing to the video card was to keep the CPU from being loaded down with drawing the GUI.
I suppose you hate MacOS X as well because it forces the GPU to do extra work and, let's face it, it's not exactly as minimal an interface as KDE or Windows XP.
I can see it now... $4 to rent a reduced-quality movie for 24 hours, with DRM. Geeks everywhere will demand the studio masters to be downloadable without DRM for a nickel a pop (and even that may be too costly for some).
I was expecting a tutorial on how to program an army of flying penises to interrupt a virtual press conference...
I'm expecting any OS that is compromised by malware 25% of the time would enable application level security and restrict behaviors not only by explorer, but also by every other application running including said malware. It shouldn't have permission to simulate mouse and keyboard input by default.
I think you're missing the point here. It isn't about "simulating mouse and keyboard input is the only possible attack vector", it's that you don't want excessive UAC prompts, so anything that doesn't require admin access should be allowed to start without prompting you, right? That's what happens in MacOS and Linux. But the point I'm making is that these programs that you "allow" to run, including malware (you're allowing it to run but not realizing it) can still wreak havoc on your system. Hence Microsoft's decision to trap a lot attack vectors (deleting files, accessing the control panel, etc.) with UAC prompts. What's the problem here?
You make good points about MACs, but there's plenty of drawbacks to them. If you have a bad security policy, you're still open to attack. On that note, configuration is incredibly complex. Who's going to provide a new security policy for every single new program that gets added to the machine? The average user? Surely you jest. The application provider? That couldn't possibly go wrong. And if you think blindly clicking "Allow" on security boxes is bad, just wait until users blindly accept security policies! There's also CPU overhead involved (I'm talking about SELinux here, but it'll probably be true for any implementation).
Hmm, maybe there's a good reason a user-friendly, commercial MAC implementation hasn't been implemented yet...?
Most people wouldn't understand what that meant and would click "allow" reflexively because thy had been conditioned to do so by hundreds of unneeded prompts. Most people would probably click "allow" before they even read the prompt. This is not their fault. It is the result of a security scheme that ignores the human interaction component and assumes people will behave in unrealistic ways as though they were computers themselves. People aren't computers. After a few hundred times, we stop paying attention and that needs to be accounted for in the design of a security system.
This sounds like a complete cop-out. I provided a scenario where Vista's UAC prompts would actually be useful, and you brush it off by saying "oh, the user would just instinctively click 'Allow', but that's not his fault...". I suppose you've never heard of people disabling SELinux because it's so intrusive either, huh?
Face it, security is intrusive. People will eventually enter their password or click OK no matter how many times you present them with security dialogs. The fundamental issue is that we tend to trust the software we download. Microsoft can't fix that, sorry.
Sorry, what? Each and every program has its own user and rights? That may be true for some daemons, but I guarantee you, even on Linux, there isn't a user for "ls", "gimp", "konqueror", and so on. They run as the currently logged in user. And what do you expect Linux to do when one of those programs wants to do "rm -rf ~"? They're well within their rights to do so. Windows will at least prompt you that some program is trying to do that. The side effect is that it will require YOU to allow or deny yourself from doing that very same thing. That's the price you pay for that kind of security.
You guys keep looking at this from the perspective that damage can only be done to a system as root, when there's plenty of things that programs running as non-root can do to annoy you or destroy your precious data (which after all, is probably sitting in your home directory, or somewhere else where you have permissions).