What say you to publically owned, but privately serviced network infrastructure? For example, a city, town, or borough pays to have its own network system (cable, dsl, ftth, whatever) installed, and then has an outside company (Adelphia, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) provide the bandwidth and support. The city retains control of the lines, so in the event the denizens of the city are unhappy with the provider company, they could vote to terminate (or simply not renew) the contract with the company and seek other bids for service.
Normally, I'd be all for a public non-profit taking over the system, but with something so new and potentially a "waste of taxpayer money," it'd be better to contract the system to a private vendor for 2-3 years and let them get it started. When the contract is up, offer the people who took care of it government (well, city) jobs as its caretakers (if they did a good job, obviously).
Sorry, scientologists, you have a very interesting religion and, unfortunately, your most well-known members are, in fact, celebrities who love to throw their legal weight around. I know they aren't representative of your entire religion, but if your religion is so well-connected, please have your leaders calm that crazy couch-jumper and his ilk. KTHXBYE.
1. Dream up a far-fetched 'theory' that Joe public can understand and involves strong emotions 2. Seek publicity 3..... 4. Sue anyone who makes fun of you 5. Profit! 6. Increase thetan levels!
Amen to that. If we're paying money to download a content, the content provider should have enough money to provide an ample direct download service. BitTorrent was designed to keep free large downloads from clogging up a small pipe by spreading that download across multiple small pipes at a controllable rate.
Now, if the (RI|MP)AA offered direct download at one price and a torrent at a substantially discounted price, I'd be a little more convinced that it was worth it.
My problem with Maximum PC is twofold: First, they still distribute their software on CD. Most other mags have moved to DVD and thus are able to jampack more demos and apps into it, making the premium for the disc much more worth it. Second, Maximum PC has A LOT of ads. I know ads bring in revenue (I work in print media), but there's a point when mags have an article followed by three pages of ads--MaxPC has reached this point. It's time for them to have more content or charge more for their ads. They've got a decent subscriber base, they just need to make their advertisers aware of it.
La lingvo oficiala de terglobo estas non oficiale esperanton, do fiku vin!
Are you happy? / Cxu vi estas felicxa?
Silly Slashdot and its lack of UTF-8 support;-)
My $0.02 (or $0.00 if you are against the penny)
on
Own the Last Mile
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I've pulled out some choice thoughts from the article:
To Bob the issues surrounding Net Neutrality come down to billability and infrastructure. While saying they are doing us favors, ISPs are really offering us services they can bill for. Nothing is aimed at helping us, while everything is aimed at creating a billable event.
This is true, don't act like you don't know it. Every corporation wants every chance to make money--it wouldn't be a profitable business if it didn't.
Take WiFi hotspots, for example. Why should the telephone or cable company care about who connects to my WiFi access point? They are my bits, not the ISP's. I paid for them. If I can download gigabytes of pornography why can't I share my hotspot with someone walking down the street wanting to check his e-mail? Frankston's analogy for this is accusing someone of stealing your porch light by using it to read a street sign.
That may be about the best analogy I've ever heard for relating using someone else's wireless access point. From the buisness point of view, I can see where ISPs want each individual using their bandwidth to pay them, but if a person has already paid for a connection and is willing to share it, he should be allowed to do so.
Well we did [build public infrastructure], didn't we, with the National Information Infrastructure program of the 1990s, which was intended to bring fiber straight to most American homes? About $200 billion in tax credits and incentives went primarily to telephone companies participating in the NII program. What happened with that? They took the money, that's what, and gave us little or nothing in return.
They used it, and now they charge us for it. Money that should have been given to towns and cities went to corporations. I love America.
Using the higher $1,500 figure, the cost to finance the system over 10 years at today's prime rate would be $17.42 per month.
I'm paying $40 per month right now for an incredibly snaillike 512 kbps cable line and my parents, who live five miles away, are paying $43 per month for a 4 Mbps cable line that they barely use! Since I moved out, I'll bet their bandwidth usage is under 200 MB, and I've been out for a month. I'd gladly welcome this stuff in New Wilmington--lower cost, more bandwidth. And bragging rights.
One billion dollars each in seed capital from Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, and Google would be enough to set neighborhood network dominos falling in communities throughout America with no tax money ever required. And they'd get their money back, both directly and indirectly, many times over.
I saw this earlier when I was downloading the IE 6 Administrator's Kit. I searched around for almost an hour trying to find a good, old-fashioned changelog listing the changes since Beta 2. Anyone found that yet?
-=[ README ]=- If you're reading this profile while considering me for a job, internship, or other opportunity-to-succeed, please note that you are, or the person whose account you are using is, probably in violation of Facebook's terms of use and my personal privacy. This is a private profile and you have been granted permission to view it only if you are following Facebook's terms of use and thus respecting my privacy. Thank you. Please read the terms of use at http://www.facebook.com/terms.php if you haven't already, and read the Member Conduct section closely.
For those curious, it is against Facebook's Terms of Use (Member Conduct section, last bullet) to allow anyone to use your account but yourself. On top of that, employees of an institution who pose as students on Facebook violate it, as well (same section, second bullet).
How well would an argument of "You accessed my profile illegally to bring charges against me!" work?
Not worth it yet for the rural people
on
$5 Social Wi-Fi Router
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
While the effort is worthwhile, and while it may be against just about everyone's ToS, it's still not worth it for the rural people. The closest metro area is 20 miles away, with the nearest village 4 miles away. This view shows my travel area (go to the 9th zoom in level..that's nine steps up from the bottom). Sure, there's lots around Cleveland (to which I haven't traveled in ~6 years), but barely any around Pittsburgh and north of it.
FON just seems like it's going to be better for suburbanites or urbanites who regularly walk around their city, not for those who drive twenty minutes to get milk.
I can't think of anything more scientific than wanting to understand something onesself rather than having it shoved down one's throat by "people closer to ." Religion explains what science cannot. Science theorizes what religion explains too vaguely for human interests.
There will always be a route. Always. It may not be as fast a route as it once was, but there will always be one. It may be wireless; it may be over university lines; it may be over city-owned lines.
And, there will always be geeks wanting to set up their own lines--they will want to keep the Internet open like it was meant to be.
So, the bandwidth providers have finally found an actual reason for wanting to charge content owners for content delivery to the consumer. They still have not figured out that the people who should be paying for more bandwidth are the consumers.
Either way--and I say this all the time when someone raises the issue of network neutrality--the Internet was designed to route around troubled, undesirable routes; should bandwidth providers choose to raise the cost of their lines, the Internet will simply route around them. It's as simple as that.
I'm sorry, but if they expect you to pay USD ~$15, they'd better have the servers and bandwidth for direct downloads. BitTorrent is supposed to save money so that people can publish things ultra-cheaply, not make me have to leech off my peers to get what I want.
Clearly, Mr. Thompson does not understand the technical nature of the problems he addresses with his hellfire and brimstone approach. In both the Hot Coffee and this new Oblivion case, the consumer must have the desire to modify the game in order to access content which the developers did not intend for the consumer to see. Sure, in the Hot Coffee case, the "questionable" content was there but inaccessable in any way through normal operation of them game. In the Oblivion case, the "questionable" content isn't even in the data of the game!
Mr. Thompson should turn his efforts elsewhere. My suggestion would be the consumer instead of the manufacturers, because they are far more likely to listen.
Silent Hill was probably one of the best videogame movies I've seen.
Yes. I have not played the video game, but the movie makes me want to. I found the storyline to be intriguing and, most of all, complete. Don't give me crap about the differences between the movie and the game - rarely can any cross-medium productions be exactly how they were in their original medium.
Silent Hill stands on its own two feet and is a testament to the greatness that all future video game movies should look up to and even try to beat.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd have to say Neverwinter Nights, F.E.A.R., FarCry, GTA: Vice City, and any of the Descent series are my choices.
Sager or any other fine Clevo-designed laptop. It's offered that which you seek for years.
Dear lazyweb,
What say you to publically owned, but privately serviced network infrastructure? For example, a city, town, or borough pays to have its own network system (cable, dsl, ftth, whatever) installed, and then has an outside company (Adelphia, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) provide the bandwidth and support. The city retains control of the lines, so in the event the denizens of the city are unhappy with the provider company, they could vote to terminate (or simply not renew) the contract with the company and seek other bids for service.
Normally, I'd be all for a public non-profit taking over the system, but with something so new and potentially a "waste of taxpayer money," it'd be better to contract the system to a private vendor for 2-3 years and let them get it started. When the contract is up, offer the people who took care of it government (well, city) jobs as its caretakers (if they did a good job, obviously).
Sorry, scientologists, you have a very interesting religion and, unfortunately, your most well-known members are, in fact, celebrities who love to throw their legal weight around. I know they aren't representative of your entire religion, but if your religion is so well-connected, please have your leaders calm that crazy couch-jumper and his ilk. KTHXBYE.
1. Dream up a far-fetched 'theory' that Joe public can understand and involves strong emotions ....
2. Seek publicity
3.
4. Sue anyone who makes fun of you
5. Profit!
6. Increase thetan levels!
If the DRAM market is corrupt, I'll just switch to something else: Rambus! Oh wait...
Amen to that. If we're paying money to download a content, the content provider should have enough money to provide an ample direct download service. BitTorrent was designed to keep free large downloads from clogging up a small pipe by spreading that download across multiple small pipes at a controllable rate. Now, if the (RI|MP)AA offered direct download at one price and a torrent at a substantially discounted price, I'd be a little more convinced that it was worth it.
My problem with Maximum PC is twofold: First, they still distribute their software on CD. Most other mags have moved to DVD and thus are able to jampack more demos and apps into it, making the premium for the disc much more worth it. Second, Maximum PC has A LOT of ads. I know ads bring in revenue (I work in print media), but there's a point when mags have an article followed by three pages of ads--MaxPC has reached this point. It's time for them to have more content or charge more for their ads. They've got a decent subscriber base, they just need to make their advertisers aware of it.
La lingvo oficiala de terglobo estas non oficiale esperanton, do fiku vin!
;-)
Are you happy? / Cxu vi estas felicxa?
Silly Slashdot and its lack of UTF-8 support
Ooh, I hadn't thought about that. Hmm. Perhaps once I start looking for jobs, I will restrict views a lot more than now.
I saw this earlier when I was downloading the IE 6 Administrator's Kit. I searched around for almost an hour trying to find a good, old-fashioned changelog listing the changes since Beta 2. Anyone found that yet?
I put this in my profile a couple of days ago:
-=[ README ]=-
If you're reading this profile while considering me for a job, internship, or other opportunity-to-succeed, please note that you are, or the person whose account you are using is, probably in violation of Facebook's terms of use and my personal privacy. This is a private profile and you have been granted permission to view it only if you are following Facebook's terms of use and thus respecting my privacy. Thank you. Please read the terms of use at http://www.facebook.com/terms.php if you haven't already, and read the Member Conduct section closely.
For those curious, it is against Facebook's Terms of Use (Member Conduct section, last bullet) to allow anyone to use your account but yourself. On top of that, employees of an institution who pose as students on Facebook violate it, as well (same section, second bullet).
How well would an argument of "You accessed my profile illegally to bring charges against me!" work?
While the effort is worthwhile, and while it may be against just about everyone's ToS, it's still not worth it for the rural people. The closest metro area is 20 miles away, with the nearest village 4 miles away. This view shows my travel area (go to the 9th zoom in level..that's nine steps up from the bottom). Sure, there's lots around Cleveland (to which I haven't traveled in ~6 years), but barely any around Pittsburgh and north of it.
FON just seems like it's going to be better for suburbanites or urbanites who regularly walk around their city, not for those who drive twenty minutes to get milk.
We over at the DD-WRT forum have been following this for a while.
As with any other fine F/OSS project, please donate if you find the project useful.
You could always do a code bounty.
I can't think of anything more scientific than wanting to understand something onesself rather than having it shoved down one's throat by "people closer to ." Religion explains what science cannot. Science theorizes what religion explains too vaguely for human interests.
There will always be a route. Always. It may not be as fast a route as it once was, but there will always be one. It may be wireless; it may be over university lines; it may be over city-owned lines.
And, there will always be geeks wanting to set up their own lines--they will want to keep the Internet open like it was meant to be.
So, the bandwidth providers have finally found an actual reason for wanting to charge content owners for content delivery to the consumer. They still have not figured out that the people who should be paying for more bandwidth are the consumers.
Either way--and I say this all the time when someone raises the issue of network neutrality--the Internet was designed to route around troubled, undesirable routes; should bandwidth providers choose to raise the cost of their lines, the Internet will simply route around them. It's as simple as that.
I'm sorry, but if they expect you to pay USD ~$15, they'd better have the servers and bandwidth for direct downloads. BitTorrent is supposed to save money so that people can publish things ultra-cheaply, not make me have to leech off my peers to get what I want.
Clearly, Mr. Thompson does not understand the technical nature of the problems he addresses with his hellfire and brimstone approach. In both the Hot Coffee and this new Oblivion case, the consumer must have the desire to modify the game in order to access content which the developers did not intend for the consumer to see. Sure, in the Hot Coffee case, the "questionable" content was there but inaccessable in any way through normal operation of them game. In the Oblivion case, the "questionable" content isn't even in the data of the game!
Mr. Thompson should turn his efforts elsewhere. My suggestion would be the consumer instead of the manufacturers, because they are far more likely to listen.
Silent Hill was probably one of the best videogame movies I've seen. Yes. I have not played the video game, but the movie makes me want to. I found the storyline to be intriguing and, most of all, complete. Don't give me crap about the differences between the movie and the game - rarely can any cross-medium productions be exactly how they were in their original medium. Silent Hill stands on its own two feet and is a testament to the greatness that all future video game movies should look up to and even try to beat.
(quoted for emphasis)