Don't the filters and modems do all the work? If the phone company needs to modify its network significantly then DSL could take a long time to grow to where it is useful to home users.
You have just described the problem with DSL (and cable modem). Infrastructure. Switches need to be installed in the central office building. If there isn't room, they aren't installed. The wiring from the switch to the house has to be of good enough quality to carry the signal. If it isn't, it has to be replaced (which may involve tearing up streets, climbing a few hundred poles, etc). There can't be any repeaters in the line. 30 years from now people will still be using dial-up.
Must be nice that you, and everyone you know, lives in areas where broadband is available. In the Real World, they aren't. Unless you are lucky, or live in a rich suburb, you don't get broadband. Many small towns have neither cable modem or DSL, as there is no incentive for the companies to upgrade their systems to provide it. I suspect, based on what I saw while living in Utah, that 30 years from now there will still be substantial portions of the country on dial-up. Heck, there are towns in Nevada that still use party-lines for their phone systems. IIRC, BellSouth didn't replace the last mechanical phone switch until about 30 years after the electronic switches were invented.
The glass is to hold it together until it is subducted. Easier than encasing it in concrete, and glass is fairly nonreactive in seawater. It's a method that's been discussed for decades. The disadvantage is that the waste becomes inaccessible should we need to get at it later.
A better place would be to drop it in a tectonic plate subduction zone. In a few centuries it gets pulled into the interior of the planet. Encase it in glass first so that it won't leak before it gets subducted.
It monitored the flow of IRC channel nicknames and automated the process of determining who was talking to whom, and who were the "bosses" who commanded the most power and respect
Wow. Traffic analysis. A standard tool used by NSA, GCHQ, et. al. Amazing how much you can learn from communications without actually reading the messages. Think about that when you use encryption. What can your opponent learn just by tracking who you are talking to?
Read this, and the comments, and then look at this article and its comments. The privacy article is, in some ways, a subset of the arguments in this one.
The Constitution only applies to actions that the government takes towards people and the states. The actions of people towards other people are not restricted by the Constitution. We have a right to privacy in regards to the actions of the government. Not to actions taken by Sun Microsystems.
For a good view of patents, innovation, and how one invention builds on another, read "The Evolution of Useful Things" and "The Pencil : A History of Design and Circumstance" by Henry Petroski. He's an engineering professor at Duke who writes an engineering column for American Scientist magazine.
After you read one, or both, of them, reflect on the "obviousness" of pencils and paperclips.
By putting a charge on recording, TiVo seriously compromises our right to free speech
The patent doesn't say you can't use a VCR. Or a TV card in your PC. I don't see any infringement here. Certainly nothing worse than HBO or, for that matter, your local cable company.
The HBO/Showtime model works, if you are not a broadcaster. I was referring to broadcast television, and should have made that explicit.
Most of the people on slashdot probably don't know people who can't afford cable. I do. Some people I know can't afford the $15/month for basic cable, much less the $10/month for HBO. Their soures of info are the local paper and broadcast tv. And, in their market, the news is paid for by the entertainment.
Making TV programs, and movies, takes money. With Tivo and other PVRs allowing a person to skip over the commercials easily, and home video editing becoming ever easier, the old model of the 'commercial break' is beginning to fail. The alternatives are preventing, through copy controls, consumers from recording or time shifting shows, or going out of business.
The question is, how obtrusive will it be? Will it be ads on billboards in the background, or on the sides of buses as they go by. Or will it be logos on the characters t-shirts?
The model of Red Hat, Caldera, et. al. isn't selling software. It's selling support. Many years ago (15-20) Jerry Pournelle, writing in Byte, said that in the future (today) money wouldn't be made from selling software, it would be made by selling support and documentation. Certainly there are many companies that already make money from all or part of this model. They also provide support for open source developement.
Nice to see that DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is still funding useful things like this. Remember that they funded the internet when it first started. They're usually up to something interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Something like Understanding the Linux Kernel perhaps?
Loose is not synonymous with lose!
You're right, 101 is Clear Channel, and HFS is Infinity. They're both "rock alternative" or whatever that format is called. They play the same songs.
Maybe it is. After all, the GPL is a copyright.
Read all the Salon articles in that series, there are links in the stories. The author is really going after Clear Channel.
You have just described the problem with DSL (and cable modem). Infrastructure. Switches need to be installed in the central office building. If there isn't room, they aren't installed. The wiring from the switch to the house has to be of good enough quality to carry the signal. If it isn't, it has to be replaced (which may involve tearing up streets, climbing a few hundred poles, etc). There can't be any repeaters in the line. 30 years from now people will still be using dial-up.
Must be nice that you, and everyone you know, lives in areas where broadband is available. In the Real World, they aren't. Unless you are lucky, or live in a rich suburb, you don't get broadband. Many small towns have neither cable modem or DSL, as there is no incentive for the companies to upgrade their systems to provide it. I suspect, based on what I saw while living in Utah, that 30 years from now there will still be substantial portions of the country on dial-up. Heck, there are towns in Nevada that still use party-lines for their phone systems. IIRC, BellSouth didn't replace the last mechanical phone switch until about 30 years after the electronic switches were invented.
The glass is to hold it together until it is subducted. Easier than encasing it in concrete, and glass is fairly nonreactive in seawater. It's a method that's been discussed for decades. The disadvantage is that the waste becomes inaccessible should we need to get at it later.
That's pretty much what Mundie said. Seems that that's the Company Line. And I think RMS, O'Reilly, et. al. addressed that pretty well.
I had to walk uphill, both ways, in waist deep snow.
for each address in list, send spam to address@domain
Or, they may have purchased the list of addresses from the ISP.
A better place would be to drop it in a tectonic plate subduction zone. In a few centuries it gets pulled into the interior of the planet. Encase it in glass first so that it won't leak before it gets subducted.
Wow. Traffic analysis. A standard tool used by NSA, GCHQ, et. al. Amazing how much you can learn from communications without actually reading the messages. Think about that when you use encryption. What can your opponent learn just by tracking who you are talking to?
Read this, and the comments, and then look at this article and its comments. The privacy article is, in some ways, a subset of the arguments in this one.
The Constitution only applies to actions that the government takes towards people and the states. The actions of people towards other people are not restricted by the Constitution. We have a right to privacy in regards to the actions of the government. Not to actions taken by Sun Microsystems.
After you read one, or both, of them, reflect on the "obviousness" of pencils and paperclips.
The patent doesn't say you can't use a VCR. Or a TV card in your PC. I don't see any infringement here. Certainly nothing worse than HBO or, for that matter, your local cable company.
Most of the people on slashdot probably don't know people who can't afford cable. I do. Some people I know can't afford the $15/month for basic cable, much less the $10/month for HBO. Their soures of info are the local paper and broadcast tv. And, in their market, the news is paid for by the entertainment.
The question is, how obtrusive will it be? Will it be ads on billboards in the background, or on the sides of buses as they go by. Or will it be logos on the characters t-shirts?
The model of Red Hat, Caldera, et. al. isn't selling software. It's selling support. Many years ago (15-20) Jerry Pournelle, writing in Byte, said that in the future (today) money wouldn't be made from selling software, it would be made by selling support and documentation. Certainly there are many companies that already make money from all or part of this model. They also provide support for open source developement.
Nice to see that DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is still funding useful things like this. Remember that they funded the internet when it first started. They're usually up to something interesting.
But you can patent them, the way Smuckers did.
Therefore rely not on end-to-end connectivity at any time, for the universe does not work that way.
SSN is already in use. An SSN is a nuclear powered submarine. I don't think those would work well for interplanetary networking.
It's fun to point out spelling errors, (forumns) in posts from a grammar nazi.