That's because you're taking technology for granted. If you weren't there, that technology couldn't be deployed to help people get their jobs done. Which means no servers, no desktops, no laptops, no networks, no printers, nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.
Not true. Many companies I've done work for hired me to come in and set it all up. The people that make this type of decision usually view a computer like a VCR -- they believe that, once setup, it should "just work" and not need any maintenance/etc. Plus, there's always "that guy" in the office who setup/built/installed "a computer for his buddy/mom/dad", and is obviously an expert. This guy will ultimately get tasked to do much of the work (I've seen this more times than I have fingers/toes).
Now all you have to do is compute how much it would cost to get common tasks done. Take handouts for a meeting as an example. Right now I'm sure that the employees type up the documents then print a few copies off the printer. Since we're talking about modern wordpressor technology, it would take them 2-3 complete, hand-written (or perhaps typewriter typed) drafts to develop the same document. Then they'd need to run the final document through the copy machine for the number of copies they need.
Again, this isn't what would happen. Every desk would have it's own printer (occasionally, there might be a network available printer a guy like me might have setup). They'll just print however many copies of whatever it is they need to distribute to people. If they also have an office copier, they'll print one copy and then make as many as they need at the copier. (You can use this paragraph as an answer to your "spreadsheet" excuse, also)
Now on to email. Remember inter-office memos? Back when entire mail departments were needed just to distribute memos between employees? Find out how many employees usually staffed these mail rooms. Add to this the cost of inboxes on desks, mail carrying equipment, space needed by the average mail room, and/or (if your company is really big) the infrastructure cost of pnuematic tubes.
You must live in a weird area if you've seen people do this. What I've seen are companies having their employees either sign up for a "company address" via hotmail/yahoo/google/whatever, or using their own personal accounts. They also install some common IM (MSN, Yahoo, AIM being the most common) to communicate with each other, if they have separate offices.
As far as "presentations" go -- Any companies that actually did this usually have a portable LCD projector, screen, and some sort of laptop (but this has been rare -- most of the companies I've worked for just don't hold these types of meetings). This type of hardware is fairly cheap, can be "locked in a closet", and doesn't require professional (or permanent) installation. To create the presentation? They'll just use one of the office computers mentioned earlier to create it. No Kinko's, no laying everything out by hand, etc.
I haven't even gotten into subjects like billing, reporting, and other data processing. Feel free to work out the cost of mainframes or (even worse) a small army of accountants and typists.
Billing/reporting? Peachtree/Quickbooks. Run, of course, from the previously mentioned office computers.
Out of curiosity, were you intentionally trying to make this out to be as difficult/primitive as possible? Would you happen to work for a company that makes infomercials? Reading over your post, I was reminded of that stupid infomercial about stacking tupperware where the lady opens her cabinets, starts flailing her hands about inside the cupboard, causing all the existing plastic-ware to fall onto her head. Sounded *exactly* like how you tried to describe how business would work without an IT person.
It didn't seem that interesting to me. If you watch the video, the Intel and Barcelona machines showed no VM's running (0% load). When the Shanghai server took over the load, *of course* it's load line will rise -- it's the only server running a VM at that point!
There are no shenanigans going on here, and I don't think this says anything about the chips as you imply, either.
The fact you are defending O'Reilly shows what kind of a brainwashed individual you are. You come up with ONE.. *ONE*.. point in his life where he wasn't a 100% asshole and that somehow "destroys my argument"? Looks like you have some growing up to do, there.
This entire interview that YOU dragged up to show how "good guy" O'Rilley is, so far, is biting you in the ass. The first three parts of the interview (I'm half way through the third part now), all Bill has done has hurl half-truth after lie after half-truth at Obama, causing Obama to have to correct him. Hell, O'Rilley just appologized for being unfair to Obama while he was trying to create a budy-budy-chum-chum relationship between Ayers and Obama!
I don't think he'll manage to accomplish *nothing*. It's hard for me to put it into words, but I'll try. I think it will take time for Congress to work out appropriate bills, and then approve them, to get anything done. I think that at least a few of the Republicans will attempt to delay and hinder everything they can so that they can say "See?! Obama didn't get ANYTHING done!!!11!1!eleven!1one!" when 2012 comes around.
When Clinton came into office, did he fix the previous administrations messes the first year? No. Did he have the budget balanced the first year? No. By the time he left, we were in far better shape than when he started, though, and I don't think it will be any different here.
The only way I think anything will get done is if McCain does what he said he'd do. If he reaches out to his fellow Congress-critters and talks them into making progress instead of acting like little children because they didn't get their way. I'm doubting it, but I'm at least keeping an open mind about it, which is more than I can say for several people who have replied to my messages in this thread...
OK, Troll. It works both ways. Show me where he's treated an Obama staffer with dignity and/or respect (not yelling at/over them, cutting off their microphones, etc), or said something positive about Obama during the campaign in one breath without twisting it into a typical "Fox-ism" and bashing him in the next. Yeah, thought so...
Wow. This is easy! Do you *ever* come out on top of a debate with this tactic?
Yeah and I'm guessing you aren't a regular viewer of his show or regular listener of his radio show. Show me something that indicates his heavy hate for Obama or shut the fuck up. I want to see facts, not your personal bias. Yeah, thought so...
I can tell you that, no matter who his VP pick was, he had already lost my vote when he started acting like a 3 year old.
"Whaaa.. Obama won't play with meeee! I wanna *sniffle* have *sniffle sniffle* a Town Hall *SNIFF* meeting, but he won't play! WHAAA!"
At that point, as I said, it didn't matter what was coming out of his mouth. He could have told me he could shit rainbows and that homosexuals would, from the day he took office onward, would have all the same rights heterosexuals did. I deal enough with children all day long (family/college kids where I work), I don't need to deal with that at a federal level, too.
I wonder if Obama would've won so handily if at all if Palin hadn't been McCain's VP pick. At the very least, it would've been a much tighter race.
Thus the excuse-making begins. Hey, even though we control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, we won't be able to get anything meaningful done because of those darned Republicans! Change we can believe in!
You still think that, because the Democrats have more seats in congress, they'll be able to push whatever they want through, eh?
Now ignorant you are. They need a specific number of seats in both the House and Senate in order to have a filibusterer proof majority, and right now they don't have that. The Republican members of both sections can still provide the checks/balances our government needs.
But, by all means, continue to be pissed off that "dem democrats are gunna rune' err count'ry!" instead of being pissed off that the level of corruption/hate/etc in your side of the house has caused you to lose the seats you did. We can take it. We have big shoulders. When you're finished crying over your spilt milk, we'll be here waiting to work together with you.
I don't doubt he'll get *something* done... Just not everything he's promised. He even said in his speech last night that all he wishes to do will take time and cooperation (something most Republican's don't seem to grasp).
He HAS to do things in his first year, being as 2010 is a right off because of the midterms, then he's running again. So really the first year is the time when the president can actually get something done...
Again, not a good excuse, whether you voted for McCain or not. If his message wasn't good enough to grab headlines, then he wasn't the right man for the job.
Every time that man got up on stage, he told us how our economy was doin' great, how we could stop buying oil (or as much oil) if we just ruined our own waters for the pittance that *might* exist, how we need to "cut taxes" as our national debt rises at unprecedented rates, and how he'll "veto pork spending and make sure their names are famous" despite all the bills he voted for that were chalk FULL of such spending.
All around McCain was the wrong man. He should have known this if, as you say, he "only slung mud to get coverage". I didn't see Barak slinging mud to get coverage. What he did have was a message people wanted to hear, and that is what caused his speeches to get covered. McCain didn't.
As I've said before, Obama isn't perfect either, but I think we'll be *far* better off with him than McCain.
HAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (this goes on for a while -- stupid "that's an awful long string of letters there" filter)
*breath*
HAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (again, this goes on for a wile -- damned filters!)
That was a good one. No, seriously. I'll bet you had to replace your monitor and keyboard on that one. It's a good thing I wasn't drinking/eating anything at the time..
Heheheeheh.. O'Reily... "more fair and accurate".. haahahah.. I'm gunna need to go see a doctor to get my sides stitched. At least with Obama my pre-tax contribution for my portion of my health coverage won't be taxed in the process..
haahhaah
Actually O'Reilly has been more fair and accurate in terms of his coverage of Obama than almost anyone on the news. Stop reading from the Liberal Talking Points and learn to think for yourself for five fucking seconds.
I don't think it will happen, but even if it did, you've got to believe Leiberman (I think that's the right guy) will either switch on his own, or be kicked out of the party once the new congress comes into session.
Are you really that stupid, or just that brainwashed by Fox? If he doesn't want to "tax the poor", then what is the tax he wanted to charge on our health care benefits?
Ohh, that's right. Poor people don't HAVE health benefits. Right, right, carry on then...
McCain would tax the Poor?? really? If you really believe that then McCain's campaign has failed even worse than I'd imagined. Not once has he said he'd raise taxes on the Poor. Good Grief!
Well, I wouldn't go as far as "anti-christ", however, he has turned out to be a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE human being.
He only started slinging the mud as thickly as he did at Obama because Obama changed his mind on the town hall meetings? How old is McCain, 3?
He's talking about how we're going to "win the war in Iraq" if he becomes president? Perhaps the old man forgot that "the war" was won within a few days (weeks?) of us heading over there and that, now, we're an occupying force and no longer in war? Hell, he was in at *least* one war -- he should know you can't "win" an occupation.
He wanted to take 300 billion of the 700 billion and buy up a whole bunch of mortgages, re-negotiate them with lower interest rates and at the *current* value of the houses, and OBAMA is the socialist?!
My friends, that's only the beginning of what a terrible man McCain is. Combine him (with his poor health) with Sarah "We're on a mission from god in Iraq" Palin, and we'd have been fucked like we never imagined with Bush in office.
Is Obama perfect? No, he's human like the rest of us, but we're *FAR* better off with him than freakin' McCain/Palin...
Perfectly appropriate choice of alias, O'Riley! I look forward to you FUCKING IT, AND DOING IT LIVE! while you berate and bash more of your guests while you proclaim on every show how the sky is falling...
Sounds like you've been watching Fox "News". Shortly after Obama made his speech last night, I tuned in to see what they were saying, and pretty much heard *exactly* what you just typed.
No, he's not going to do any of those things in the first week, month, or most likely even first year he's in office. The shit Bush & Co. has done will take far longer to unravel, but he can start the process.
Quit being so damned bitter and actually start helping your fellow countrymen instead of being an asshole because your guy didn't win.
See one of my messages in this thread where I mention that I'd love to see a mini telco/cable distribution point within each dorm room so that the students have the choice of cable company (college provided, the local cable co, or AT&T UVerse), telephone company (AT&T, the local cable co, or the college phone system), and internet access (the college, AT&T, or the local cable co).
I'm a bit smarter than that. A 384k connection is more than enough to download a linux distribution in a day, let alone your exaggerated week. In my previous house, I was stuck with a 384kbit/s fixed wireless service (it was either that, or dialup, though it was about dialup speed on its outbound channel). Hell, most of my time was spent with Gentoo -- it's not anywhere *near* as bad as you're trying to make it out to be.
As for the "film and media students" having to upload mysterious megabytes upon megabytes of data to "somewhere" -- We provide space and services, on campus, for exactly that purpose. We even have our own "youtube" like server setup. All of this can be accessed at 100mbit (or faster, in some buildings) -- even from their dorm rooms.
There are a ton of foreign students on campus. They routinely use various VoIP software to chat with friends/family "back home" -- all at 384kb/ps.
Now, to your "250 page case study in pdf format". I call BS again -- I downloaded the Pathfinder beta PDF's (available right from their website, once you sign up with them to receive them). 400+ pages, somewhere around a 50mb file (not sure the exact size -- I'll have to wait 'till I get home to check). Yes, it may take half an hour to download, but you only do it once. For that matter, our students can (and do) go into any of the open labs (including the 24/7 lab computers available in their dorm buildings) to download large files without the restrictions, then place them on CD/DVD or in their workgroup space.
Would it be nice to be able to provide them faster service? Yes. It's *insanely* expensive to do so (even with the more.net contract). Matter of fact, our 60mbit line was upgraded to 100mbit today around 14:00 CST (after the date to do so slipped multiple times). It's *already* 100% saturated, just like it was when it was at 60mbit. It's simply not feasible/practical to provide any faster a connection to the students right now.
Now, what I'd love to see are mini-cable/phone distribution systems in each dorm. That way they could be hooked up to the campus services that are provided, or use the local cable/phone companies (which would enable them to get Cable or DSL internet service, or Cable TV / AT&T IPTV). I very much doubt that's going to happen any time soon, however.
Youtube videos take up very little bandwidth (now, maybe the new "higher definition" videos they'll be allowing some people to post will change that). I'm not sure what you mean by "reloading an email program", however, if you have an email account you are working with on your computer that gets so much mail that a 384k line can't keep up with it, you have larger problems. IM's use even less bandwidth than email does.
Just by the tone of your post, I'd bet you are one of those wackos that has a quad core processor with as much RAM as you can stuff into your "box" along with some sort of Crossfire/SLI set of video cards -- all so you can play WoW.
Remember -- we're talking about college students here. Nothing they're doing in college requires they have huge bandwidth coming into their dorm rooms. Students having to download/work with large amounts of data are very likely going to be doing so in some sort of research lab on campus. Yes, there are going to be exceptions to this (there always are), but just because one out of one thousand students could *actually* use that bandwidth to the internet, it doesn't mean they all suddenly need it.
Why do you assume that "big data projects like astrophysics" necessarily come over the LAN? Never heard of students from different universities collaborating?
Any students doing so would be using their professors lab for such -- these machines are not rate-limited (but do, however, share our 60mbit pipe (which is soon to be 100mbit)), IF their professor didn't already have said data stored on their workgroup network drive in the first place.
Or suppose I want to download a 4.5GB Linux LiveDVD for a computer science project that's due tomorrow -- can't do it at 384k.
Many of our departments have their own servers on which they store whatever huge quantities of data they wish to store. We also have mirrors for several linux distributions (specifically any that would be used in our classes -- I believe Ubuntu and Fedora are amongst them). As another poster put it -- if you put off such a project until the night before your project is due, you deserve what you get.
You need to think outside your bandwidth box. There are ways to conserve bandwidth and still accomplish the work you need to do.
P.S. -- Don't ask me for the location for any of our linux mirrors. As I mentioned, we only have a 60mbit line right now and it's saturated from ~09:00 to ~01:00 every day of the week. There are definitely better places to obtain linux distros.:)
The college for which I work limits internet bandwidth in the dorms to 384kb/s per port. We still have many port disconnect notices each week due to illegal file sharing.
Access to any other "local" network resources is limited to 100mbit/s (the speed of the majority of our network). This allows them to work on "big data projects like astrophysics", and allows for plenty bandwidth to watch youtube/hulu/etc videos, check email, IM, etc.
Probably because there was no reason to deny them the permits they needed. To do so would have been a corrupt, let alone shitty, thing to do.
I don't know about the rest of the world, however, if I were a city entity involved in a lawsuit with a telco company, I'm going to do everything in my power to be seen as treating people (especially those suing me) as fairly as possible. You don't want to get a pissed off judge any ammunition to use in his/her making an example of you. That, and it's just the right thing to do, and I wish more people felt that way.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because you're taking technology for granted. If you weren't there, that technology couldn't be deployed to help people get their jobs done. Which means no servers, no desktops, no laptops, no networks, no printers, nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.
Not true. Many companies I've done work for hired me to come in and set it all up. The people that make this type of decision usually view a computer like a VCR -- they believe that, once setup, it should "just work" and not need any maintenance/etc. Plus, there's always "that guy" in the office who setup/built/installed "a computer for his buddy/mom/dad", and is obviously an expert. This guy will ultimately get tasked to do much of the work (I've seen this more times than I have fingers/toes).
Now all you have to do is compute how much it would cost to get common tasks done. Take handouts for a meeting as an example. Right now I'm sure that the employees type up the documents then print a few copies off the printer. Since we're talking about modern wordpressor technology, it would take them 2-3 complete, hand-written (or perhaps typewriter typed) drafts to develop the same document. Then they'd need to run the final document through the copy machine for the number of copies they need.
Again, this isn't what would happen. Every desk would have it's own printer (occasionally, there might be a network available printer a guy like me might have setup). They'll just print however many copies of whatever it is they need to distribute to people. If they also have an office copier, they'll print one copy and then make as many as they need at the copier. (You can use this paragraph as an answer to your "spreadsheet" excuse, also)
Now on to email. Remember inter-office memos? Back when entire mail departments were needed just to distribute memos between employees? Find out how many employees usually staffed these mail rooms. Add to this the cost of inboxes on desks, mail carrying equipment, space needed by the average mail room, and/or (if your company is really big) the infrastructure cost of pnuematic tubes.
You must live in a weird area if you've seen people do this. What I've seen are companies having their employees either sign up for a "company address" via hotmail/yahoo/google/whatever, or using their own personal accounts. They also install some common IM (MSN, Yahoo, AIM being the most common) to communicate with each other, if they have separate offices.
As far as "presentations" go -- Any companies that actually did this usually have a portable LCD projector, screen, and some sort of laptop (but this has been rare -- most of the companies I've worked for just don't hold these types of meetings). This type of hardware is fairly cheap, can be "locked in a closet", and doesn't require professional (or permanent) installation. To create the presentation? They'll just use one of the office computers mentioned earlier to create it. No Kinko's, no laying everything out by hand, etc.
I haven't even gotten into subjects like billing, reporting, and other data processing. Feel free to work out the cost of mainframes or (even worse) a small army of accountants and typists.
Billing/reporting? Peachtree/Quickbooks. Run, of course, from the previously mentioned office computers.
Out of curiosity, were you intentionally trying to make this out to be as difficult/primitive as possible? Would you happen to work for a company that makes infomercials? Reading over your post, I was reminded of that stupid infomercial about stacking tupperware where the lady opens her cabinets, starts flailing her hands about inside the cupboard, causing all the existing plastic-ware to fall onto her head. Sounded *exactly* like how you tried to describe how business would work without an IT person.
It didn't seem that interesting to me. If you watch the video, the Intel and Barcelona machines showed no VM's running (0% load). When the Shanghai server took over the load, *of course* it's load line will rise -- it's the only server running a VM at that point!
There are no shenanigans going on here, and I don't think this says anything about the chips as you imply, either.
The fact you are defending O'Reilly shows what kind of a brainwashed individual you are. You come up with ONE.. *ONE*.. point in his life where he wasn't a 100% asshole and that somehow "destroys my argument"? Looks like you have some growing up to do, there.
This entire interview that YOU dragged up to show how "good guy" O'Rilley is, so far, is biting you in the ass. The first three parts of the interview (I'm half way through the third part now), all Bill has done has hurl half-truth after lie after half-truth at Obama, causing Obama to have to correct him. Hell, O'Rilley just appologized for being unfair to Obama while he was trying to create a budy-budy-chum-chum relationship between Ayers and Obama!
So much for your argument.
Have a nice life...
I don't think he'll manage to accomplish *nothing*. It's hard for me to put it into words, but I'll try. I think it will take time for Congress to work out appropriate bills, and then approve them, to get anything done. I think that at least a few of the Republicans will attempt to delay and hinder everything they can so that they can say "See?! Obama didn't get ANYTHING done!!!11!1!eleven!1one!" when 2012 comes around.
When Clinton came into office, did he fix the previous administrations messes the first year? No. Did he have the budget balanced the first year? No. By the time he left, we were in far better shape than when he started, though, and I don't think it will be any different here.
The only way I think anything will get done is if McCain does what he said he'd do. If he reaches out to his fellow Congress-critters and talks them into making progress instead of acting like little children because they didn't get their way. I'm doubting it, but I'm at least keeping an open mind about it, which is more than I can say for several people who have replied to my messages in this thread...
OK, Troll. It works both ways. Show me where he's treated an Obama staffer with dignity and/or respect (not yelling at/over them, cutting off their microphones, etc), or said something positive about Obama during the campaign in one breath without twisting it into a typical "Fox-ism" and bashing him in the next. Yeah, thought so...
Wow. This is easy! Do you *ever* come out on top of a debate with this tactic?
Yeah and I'm guessing you aren't a regular viewer of his show or regular listener of his radio show. Show me something that indicates his heavy hate for Obama or shut the fuck up. I want to see facts, not your personal bias. Yeah, thought so...
Unfortunately, we'll never know.
I can tell you that, no matter who his VP pick was, he had already lost my vote when he started acting like a 3 year old.
"Whaaa.. Obama won't play with meeee! I wanna *sniffle* have *sniffle sniffle* a Town Hall *SNIFF* meeting, but he won't play! WHAAA!"
At that point, as I said, it didn't matter what was coming out of his mouth. He could have told me he could shit rainbows and that homosexuals would, from the day he took office onward, would have all the same rights heterosexuals did. I deal enough with children all day long (family/college kids where I work), I don't need to deal with that at a federal level, too.
I wonder if Obama would've won so handily if at all if Palin hadn't been McCain's VP pick. At the very least, it would've been a much tighter race.
Thus the excuse-making begins. Hey, even though we control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, we won't be able to get anything meaningful done because of those darned Republicans! Change we can believe in!
You still think that, because the Democrats have more seats in congress, they'll be able to push whatever they want through, eh?
Now ignorant you are. They need a specific number of seats in both the House and Senate in order to have a filibusterer proof majority, and right now they don't have that. The Republican members of both sections can still provide the checks/balances our government needs.
But, by all means, continue to be pissed off that "dem democrats are gunna rune' err count'ry!" instead of being pissed off that the level of corruption/hate/etc in your side of the house has caused you to lose the seats you did. We can take it. We have big shoulders. When you're finished crying over your spilt milk, we'll be here waiting to work together with you.
I don't doubt he'll get *something* done... Just not everything he's promised. He even said in his speech last night that all he wishes to do will take time and cooperation (something most Republican's don't seem to grasp).
He HAS to do things in his first year, being as 2010 is a right off because of the midterms, then he's running again. So really the first year is the time when the president can actually get something done...
Again, not a good excuse, whether you voted for McCain or not. If his message wasn't good enough to grab headlines, then he wasn't the right man for the job.
Every time that man got up on stage, he told us how our economy was doin' great, how we could stop buying oil (or as much oil) if we just ruined our own waters for the pittance that *might* exist, how we need to "cut taxes" as our national debt rises at unprecedented rates, and how he'll "veto pork spending and make sure their names are famous" despite all the bills he voted for that were chalk FULL of such spending.
All around McCain was the wrong man. He should have known this if, as you say, he "only slung mud to get coverage". I didn't see Barak slinging mud to get coverage. What he did have was a message people wanted to hear, and that is what caused his speeches to get covered. McCain didn't.
As I've said before, Obama isn't perfect either, but I think we'll be *far* better off with him than McCain.
HAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(this goes on for a while -- stupid "that's an awful long string of letters there" filter)
*breath*
HAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(again, this goes on for a wile -- damned filters!)
That was a good one. No, seriously. I'll bet you had to replace your monitor and keyboard on that one. It's a good thing I wasn't drinking/eating anything at the time..
Heheheeheh.. O'Reily... "more fair and accurate".. haahahah.. I'm gunna need to go see a doctor to get my sides stitched. At least with Obama my pre-tax contribution for my portion of my health coverage won't be taxed in the process..
haahhaah
Actually O'Reilly has been more fair and accurate in terms of his coverage of Obama than almost anyone on the news. Stop reading from the Liberal Talking Points and learn to think for yourself for five fucking seconds.
pass ANY liberal agenda that they want, like the recent desires to allow abortion soon AFTER birth, as if partial birth wasn't enough.
PURE flamebait here... not worth a response (and if you think it is, you really are deluded)
But, that was my FAVORITE part! Abortion AFTER birth! I don't think abortion means what this flaming moron thinks it means...
Now if only more of his fans on Slashdot show the same civility ...
We could only hope, however, for the most part I'm not seeing that today.. :(
I don't think it will happen, but even if it did, you've got to believe Leiberman (I think that's the right guy) will either switch on his own, or be kicked out of the party once the new congress comes into session.
Are you really that stupid, or just that brainwashed by Fox? If he doesn't want to "tax the poor", then what is the tax he wanted to charge on our health care benefits?
Ohh, that's right. Poor people don't HAVE health benefits. Right, right, carry on then...
McCain would tax the Poor?? really? If you really believe that then McCain's campaign has failed even worse than I'd imagined. Not once has he said he'd raise taxes on the Poor. Good Grief!
Well, I wouldn't go as far as "anti-christ", however, he has turned out to be a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE human being.
He only started slinging the mud as thickly as he did at Obama because Obama changed his mind on the town hall meetings? How old is McCain, 3?
He's talking about how we're going to "win the war in Iraq" if he becomes president? Perhaps the old man forgot that "the war" was won within a few days (weeks?) of us heading over there and that, now, we're an occupying force and no longer in war? Hell, he was in at *least* one war -- he should know you can't "win" an occupation.
He wanted to take 300 billion of the 700 billion and buy up a whole bunch of mortgages, re-negotiate them with lower interest rates and at the *current* value of the houses, and OBAMA is the socialist?!
My friends, that's only the beginning of what a terrible man McCain is. Combine him (with his poor health) with Sarah "We're on a mission from god in Iraq" Palin, and we'd have been fucked like we never imagined with Bush in office.
Is Obama perfect? No, he's human like the rest of us, but we're *FAR* better off with him than freakin' McCain/Palin...
Perfectly appropriate choice of alias, O'Riley! I look forward to you FUCKING IT, AND DOING IT LIVE! while you berate and bash more of your guests while you proclaim on every show how the sky is falling...
*sniffle* Gotta' love 'em.
Sounds like you've been watching Fox "News". Shortly after Obama made his speech last night, I tuned in to see what they were saying, and pretty much heard *exactly* what you just typed.
No, he's not going to do any of those things in the first week, month, or most likely even first year he's in office. The shit Bush & Co. has done will take far longer to unravel, but he can start the process.
Quit being so damned bitter and actually start helping your fellow countrymen instead of being an asshole because your guy didn't win.
I like a darker climate, so I furnished my house with plants that like "less light". ;)
He's not sure. He'll have a staffer get back to you.
See one of my messages in this thread where I mention that I'd love to see a mini telco/cable distribution point within each dorm room so that the students have the choice of cable company (college provided, the local cable co, or AT&T UVerse), telephone company (AT&T, the local cable co, or the college phone system), and internet access (the college, AT&T, or the local cable co).
I'm a bit smarter than that. A 384k connection is more than enough to download a linux distribution in a day, let alone your exaggerated week. In my previous house, I was stuck with a 384kbit/s fixed wireless service (it was either that, or dialup, though it was about dialup speed on its outbound channel). Hell, most of my time was spent with Gentoo -- it's not anywhere *near* as bad as you're trying to make it out to be.
As for the "film and media students" having to upload mysterious megabytes upon megabytes of data to "somewhere" -- We provide space and services, on campus, for exactly that purpose. We even have our own "youtube" like server setup. All of this can be accessed at 100mbit (or faster, in some buildings) -- even from their dorm rooms.
There are a ton of foreign students on campus. They routinely use various VoIP software to chat with friends/family "back home" -- all at 384kb/ps.
Now, to your "250 page case study in pdf format". I call BS again -- I downloaded the Pathfinder beta PDF's (available right from their website, once you sign up with them to receive them). 400+ pages, somewhere around a 50mb file (not sure the exact size -- I'll have to wait 'till I get home to check). Yes, it may take half an hour to download, but you only do it once. For that matter, our students can (and do) go into any of the open labs (including the 24/7 lab computers available in their dorm buildings) to download large files without the restrictions, then place them on CD/DVD or in their workgroup space.
Would it be nice to be able to provide them faster service? Yes. It's *insanely* expensive to do so (even with the more.net contract). Matter of fact, our 60mbit line was upgraded to 100mbit today around 14:00 CST (after the date to do so slipped multiple times). It's *already* 100% saturated, just like it was when it was at 60mbit. It's simply not feasible/practical to provide any faster a connection to the students right now.
Now, what I'd love to see are mini-cable/phone distribution systems in each dorm. That way they could be hooked up to the campus services that are provided, or use the local cable/phone companies (which would enable them to get Cable or DSL internet service, or Cable TV / AT&T IPTV). I very much doubt that's going to happen any time soon, however.
Youtube videos take up very little bandwidth (now, maybe the new "higher definition" videos they'll be allowing some people to post will change that). I'm not sure what you mean by "reloading an email program", however, if you have an email account you are working with on your computer that gets so much mail that a 384k line can't keep up with it, you have larger problems. IM's use even less bandwidth than email does.
Just by the tone of your post, I'd bet you are one of those wackos that has a quad core processor with as much RAM as you can stuff into your "box" along with some sort of Crossfire/SLI set of video cards -- all so you can play WoW.
Remember -- we're talking about college students here. Nothing they're doing in college requires they have huge bandwidth coming into their dorm rooms. Students having to download/work with large amounts of data are very likely going to be doing so in some sort of research lab on campus. Yes, there are going to be exceptions to this (there always are), but just because one out of one thousand students could *actually* use that bandwidth to the internet, it doesn't mean they all suddenly need it.
Why do you assume that "big data projects like astrophysics" necessarily come over the LAN? Never heard of students from different universities collaborating?
Any students doing so would be using their professors lab for such -- these machines are not rate-limited (but do, however, share our 60mbit pipe (which is soon to be 100mbit)), IF their professor didn't already have said data stored on their workgroup network drive in the first place.
Or suppose I want to download a 4.5GB Linux LiveDVD for a computer science project that's due tomorrow -- can't do it at 384k.
Many of our departments have their own servers on which they store whatever huge quantities of data they wish to store. We also have mirrors for several linux distributions (specifically any that would be used in our classes -- I believe Ubuntu and Fedora are amongst them). As another poster put it -- if you put off such a project until the night before your project is due, you deserve what you get.
You need to think outside your bandwidth box. There are ways to conserve bandwidth and still accomplish the work you need to do.
P.S. -- Don't ask me for the location for any of our linux mirrors. As I mentioned, we only have a 60mbit line right now and it's saturated from ~09:00 to ~01:00 every day of the week. There are definitely better places to obtain linux distros. :)
The college for which I work limits internet bandwidth in the dorms to 384kb/s per port. We still have many port disconnect notices each week due to illegal file sharing.
Access to any other "local" network resources is limited to 100mbit/s (the speed of the majority of our network). This allows them to work on "big data projects like astrophysics", and allows for plenty bandwidth to watch youtube/hulu/etc videos, check email, IM, etc.
Probably because there was no reason to deny them the permits they needed. To do so would have been a corrupt, let alone shitty, thing to do.
I don't know about the rest of the world, however, if I were a city entity involved in a lawsuit with a telco company, I'm going to do everything in my power to be seen as treating people (especially those suing me) as fairly as possible. You don't want to get a pissed off judge any ammunition to use in his/her making an example of you. That, and it's just the right thing to do, and I wish more people felt that way.