Whoah.. I think my transfer speed has gone up! I upload images to my webserver from time to time, usually at 15 KB a second. Today it was 30! I was surprised! Well it was a small file, so I tried a bigger one. I got 30 again!
Question: Does anybody have a fairly reliable way for me to test my upload just to make sure I didnt just get lucky?
"57 percent of downloaders either seldom pay or never pay for the copyrighted software they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download. "
Okay, I'd like to pay for all the episodes of That 70's Show I downloaded. Oh wait, I can't! Gee, talk about a biased survey.
"Having a job at McDonald's doesn't require you to have a car there are other methods of transportation such as walking or riding your horse."
In other words, McDonald's makes a reasonable assumption that you have a way of getting to work. They don't care how you do it, that's part of what your salary is for.
"If so many other ISPs are having trouble staying afloat, how can the first increase in prices be considered "greed"?"
That's a fair question. I don't mind if AT&T says "It'll cost you another $5 to maintain your service". It bugs me when they say "Despite our promises of unlimited bandwidth, we're charging you by the gig now." (Note: They haven't told me that, but there are rumors to that effect...)
It used to be that I'd save $10/mo. if I owned my own cable modem. According to what I've read recently (Note: Haven't personally verified this...) it'll cost $7 a month more to use a non-leased modem.
I damn near bought a cable modem because it'd pay for itself in a year. Now I'd be pissed to find that my 'investment' would end up costing me money. I haven't heard a good explanation as to why they'd charge more.
If this isn't a profitable business model for AT&T or anybody else, TELL ME THAT so I can make fair decisions about what I want to do! What's the point of jumping ship to DSL if they have the same problem?
Ya know what? You're the first one to give me a decent alternative. Just wanted to thank you for that. The other replies ranged from me being an idiot to over-simplified solutions to the wrong problem.
That's an interesting idea, might even pursue a variant of it.:) Maybe I'm close enough to where I work to use 802.11 to use their bandwidth...
"The alternatives to cable modems include ISDN, SDSL, ADSL, phone line and wireless access, many provided by disparate ISPs.
...
I don't think you have as few options as you make out. I think your quote above quite readily shows this fact."
Do you really think I hadn't considered those? I thought about mentioning DSL in my post, but it wasn't central to my point. I guess it is now: The 1 (one) DSL provider that I have available to me is billions of dollars in debt, and isn't known for being good with customer service. It might be a little better than a dialup line, but then I run into the problem of having to have a dial-up line to begin with. (at least Qwest's site implies that...) I assume that ISDN would be similar. That means that internet will cost me an extra $20-30 that I'm not paying right now. (sorry, need my cell phone either way)
I didn't pick cable because there were better alternatives to it. I picked it because it's the best for where I am and what I do. They made promises to me in order to make me a customer, so naturally I'm not happy when they change their minds about their policies.
Would that be your attitude if your phone company did that? I doubt it since life in America virtually requires you to have a phone. (Which is why phone rates are so heavily controlled...)
The problem is that the internet is becoming a requirement in a lot of households. A lot of us have jobs that require us to have an active connection to the net. If the ISP's get too greedy, what do we do?
My situation, in particular, is a little more unique. I don't have a phone line, just a cell phone. If I got a phone line, it'd be almost strictly for getting on the net with. It'd cost between $20 and $30 a month for me to get the phone line, and another $10-$20 for internet service. I pay $55 for cable modem right now. If my cable modem gets too expensive, it won't suddenly get much cheaper for me to get 1/25th of service.
I could find myself in a spot of trouble if AT&T gets too greedy. Capitalism may work, but not without seriously screwing me in the process.
"No, really this new format is crap. First of all, for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine. Even if you're an "audiophile" who likes to pretend that your hearing goes past 20kHz, most CDs aren't recorded to their full potential in the studio anyway. No value-add here."
I find this argument a little short sighted. Quality can always be improved. I'm not an expert on audio, but I recently read a thread on how vinyl, in some cases, had better sound response than CD's because of their digital nature. It stands to reason (assuming I understand correctly, please be polite if I'm wrong...) then 96khz would provide a better reproduction of sound. At the very least, the bass response should be better. (Don't theaters use 96 khz sound?)
Let's say I'm wrong about that and you're right, there are still other factors to consider. What about surround sound? CD's hold 2 channels of sound, left and right. What about 5.1 surround? That extra data goes somewhere!
What about giving CD's a menu like DVD's have? Necessary? Not really. It seems feasible, though, that they could put music videos along with the songs on this disc, and create a more interesting environment for the hardcore audiophile.
Gimmicky? Maybe. But when people like stuff, they really like it.
Hell, the worst case scenario is the Beatles could release one disc with a huge collection of their songs for a premium. It'd be expensive, but you'd have one disc with 8 hours of their music on it. (if they've made that much music.. I'm not a Beatles fan so I have no idea...)
"...for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine...
I disagree with this comment, but the SACD doesn't even try to solve this problem. I'd like to bring it up anyway because I think it's central to this whole MP3 Vs. the RIAA debate: Consumers have needs that the RIAA isn't filling. We want smaller music players. The physical size of a CD prevents players from becoming pocket sized. We want to make our own CD's with our own compliations on them, but the RIAA says that's piracy and that we're thieves for doing that.
It's a pity because technology allows me to fulfill both requests. I have a few 2.5 inch CDRW's sitting on my desk. They hold between 150-200 megs, which in Mp3 terms is a couple of hours worth. ThinkGeek.com sells an MP3 player that'll play these discs, it's 3.6 inches wide. They understand my needs, but the RIAA doesn't.
"Please - have at it, I haven't heard any proposals yet that hold water..."
If there were a magic 'instant return on investment' business plan, the Record Industry wouldn't have waited until MP3s got popular to switch to it.
They could make just about any business model profitably if they'd try it. There are two reasons they aren't, though:
1.) They assume that the consumer will not pay for anything. We are all thieves, therefore they cannot provide anything 'free'.
2.) They'll have to price themselves fairly, vs. screwing the consumer at every turn.
The RIAA is in a unique position because it's settled nicely into a virtual monopoly without getting much attention from the government. Mp3s are causing them to have to behave competitively, but they dun wanna cos they dun wanna lose their margins.
Pity. I expect that what'll happen is a new, internet friendly organization will come along and dethrone the RIAA. They may not make such ridiculous profits, but I imagine they'll easily make a comfortable living as long as they come up with a business model that considers our needs.
Heh you might find this funny; There was a thread a couple of days ago where I misspelled 'Elbow' (I spelled it elbo), and somebody called me on it. I could have *sworn* that it was spelled 'elbo', but didn't bother to look it up.
Okay, I tested this out, you're right. You win. I'm a twit.
There's still no need for you to be hostile. I was wrong, but I don't feel that the original post I made deserved such a harsh reaction. (Though I *do* deserve the latest one, hehe)
"Another of your excellent "explanations." It is on by default. following your apparently standard pattern, you just guessed it was off by default, and then stated that as fact. So it's reasonable that you would be aware of it, since either you currently had it on or you deliberately turned it off."
You sure about that? Yes, I didn't check into it. If IM wrong, your right. The end. Im pretty sure I turned it on.
*Shrug*
Even if I am a *Twit* I don't think it's going to affect my mood much.:P
Um right. He restated what I did, but in such a way to make it sound like he was arguing with me.
"It seems like if one language takes up this amount of resources, then it'll be a while before we have a multi-lingual PDA..." In other words, PDA's will be able to do it in the future.
"I once read (I forget where) that computers keep getting faster..." In other words, PDA's will be able to do it in the future.
That was a nice attempt at trying to make me look bad, but you failed. Here's what I said:
"I remember reading that they needed serious processing power and RAM to make this work. (At least 512 megs...) It seems like if one language takes up this amount of resources, then it'll be a while before we have a multi-lingual PDA..."
Notice that I didn't say 'never happen' or 'impossible'.
Heh, I haven't heard Benny Hill humor in a while...
Speaking of semantics, I remember one time a coworker of mine was sick. A friend of hers asked if I could take the sick girl home. I told her I had no idea where I'd keep her.
"The real problem is that semantics (meaning) is more difficult to translate between languages"
Agreed. What will probably happen is that people will initially have to be trained to use these machines. "Instead of using the term 'kicks ass' (which will translate as abusing a donkey...), use the term 'defeat'."
It's cool that they're working on this and all, but their promises of building these into PDA's set off a flag in my mind. There's another company that, as of a couple of years ago, had developed a realtime program that allows one to speak english into a mic and have spoken japanese come out.
I remember reading that they needed serious processing power and RAM to make this work. (At least 512 megs...) It seems like if one language takes up this amount of resources, then it'll be a while before we have a multi-lingual PDA...
Maybe their technique is different? I dunno. I know it's not the same company.
I guess I'm just concerned about this being vaporware.
"What they mean is, we want to shift the cost of distributing this thing to other people."
It's saving bandwidth the limited bandwidth that their site has. The cost isn't shifted, it's dispersed. It doesn't cost me anything to constantly upload a song on that plan that I'm on.
No, a twit yells at somebody else over something trivial.
Let me explain something to you: I am aware of the domain name bit you mentioned only because I turned it on at some point. And yes, that was a startling clue that what I said was in error. However, you had no way of knowing that when you got shitty with me.
I made a factual error, I acknowledge that, but YOU didn't take a moment's thought to ask yourself if I had turned that particular feature on. So by your own definition, you are a bigger twit than I am for making assumptions about what I had to work with.
"Isn't it obvious to all that Amadala will die in the third movie; that her death will be what finally completes Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. "
Not really, no. It's a bit of a complicated situation because somehow Amidala is going to give birth to Princess Leia without Anakin ever knowing. It stands to reason that if Amaidala is alive after being with Anakin, but he's not aware of it, that somebody (the Jedi?) helped hide Amidala from him. The only reason I can see for them doing that is if it is pretty damn obvious he's evil. In other words, his trip to the dark side is complete before Amidala is hidden from him.
If Lucas is smart, Anakin's journey to the dark side will be something more interesting than Count Dookie coming up with some silly plot to piss him off.
There was a couple of hints in Episode II, though, that suggests that Anakin may be on his way to becoming Vader without external help. He mentioned a point of view on government that loosely reminded me of what the Empire is in the later trilogy. Personally, I think what'll happen is that the Clone War will help him realize that chaos is destroying the universe, so he'll take steps to restore order. Then the Emperor comes by and says "join the dark side, and you have the power to rule the universe fairly..."
I can even see it happening that the Jedi attempt to stop Anakin, only to severely injure him and require the use of his suit. That alone could be the cause of Vader's personal feelings against the Rebellion...
Well that's all speculation. Lucas has the opportunity to really make a kick ass story with Episode 3, but I fear what he'll do is write a basic plot and balance it with CG filler. I wish that the guy who wrote Empire Strikes Back would write Episode 3. Could turn out pretty good...
I think it's pretty commonly known that Lucas hadn't got all the stories straight before he started making the movie, but that particular line doesn't mess with the continuity.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoah.. I think my transfer speed has gone up! I upload images to my webserver from time to time, usually at 15 KB a second. Today it was 30! I was surprised! Well it was a small file, so I tried a bigger one. I got 30 again!
Question: Does anybody have a fairly reliable way for me to test my upload just to make sure I didnt just get lucky?
"57 percent of downloaders either seldom pay or never pay for the copyrighted software they download. And 36 percent of all Internet users say it is not likely they will ever pay for software they download. "
Okay, I'd like to pay for all the episodes of That 70's Show I downloaded. Oh wait, I can't! Gee, talk about a biased survey.
"Having a job at McDonald's doesn't require you to have a car there are other methods of transportation such as walking or riding your horse."
In other words, McDonald's makes a reasonable assumption that you have a way of getting to work. They don't care how you do it, that's part of what your salary is for.
I don't have line of sight to where I work, but I can look out my window and see a big reflective building that my office can see also.
Is there any possiblity of bouncing the radio signal off the building?
"If so many other ISPs are having trouble staying afloat, how can the first increase in prices be considered "greed"?"
That's a fair question. I don't mind if AT&T says "It'll cost you another $5 to maintain your service". It bugs me when they say "Despite our promises of unlimited bandwidth, we're charging you by the gig now." (Note: They haven't told me that, but there are rumors to that effect...)
It used to be that I'd save $10/mo. if I owned my own cable modem. According to what I've read recently (Note: Haven't personally verified this...) it'll cost $7 a month more to use a non-leased modem.
I damn near bought a cable modem because it'd pay for itself in a year. Now I'd be pissed to find that my 'investment' would end up costing me money. I haven't heard a good explanation as to why they'd charge more.
If this isn't a profitable business model for AT&T or anybody else, TELL ME THAT so I can make fair decisions about what I want to do! What's the point of jumping ship to DSL if they have the same problem?
"If your job requires you to have internet access, make them pay for it. Duh"
Curious, does your job at McDonald's pay for your gas to drive there?
Ya know what? You're the first one to give me a decent alternative. Just wanted to thank you for that. The other replies ranged from me being an idiot to over-simplified solutions to the wrong problem.
:) Maybe I'm close enough to where I work to use 802.11 to use their bandwidth...
That's an interesting idea, might even pursue a variant of it.
"The alternatives to cable modems include ISDN, SDSL, ADSL, phone line and wireless access, many provided by disparate ISPs.
...
I don't think you have as few options as you make out. I think your quote above quite readily shows this fact."
Do you really think I hadn't considered those? I thought about mentioning DSL in my post, but it wasn't central to my point. I guess it is now: The 1 (one) DSL provider that I have available to me is billions of dollars in debt, and isn't known for being good with customer service. It might be a little better than a dialup line, but then I run into the problem of having to have a dial-up line to begin with. (at least Qwest's site implies that...) I assume that ISDN would be similar. That means that internet will cost me an extra $20-30 that I'm not paying right now. (sorry, need my cell phone either way)
I didn't pick cable because there were better alternatives to it. I picked it because it's the best for where I am and what I do. They made promises to me in order to make me a customer, so naturally I'm not happy when they change their minds about their policies.
"Yes internet access is essential now in every day life, but is broadband? The answer is no. "
Um, yes it is. 2.5 k/s is too slow when you're transmitting/recieving large files.
"Don't like it? Too expensive? Don't buy it. "
Would that be your attitude if your phone company did that? I doubt it since life in America virtually requires you to have a phone. (Which is why phone rates are so heavily controlled...)
The problem is that the internet is becoming a requirement in a lot of households. A lot of us have jobs that require us to have an active connection to the net. If the ISP's get too greedy, what do we do?
My situation, in particular, is a little more unique. I don't have a phone line, just a cell phone. If I got a phone line, it'd be almost strictly for getting on the net with. It'd cost between $20 and $30 a month for me to get the phone line, and another $10-$20 for internet service. I pay $55 for cable modem right now. If my cable modem gets too expensive, it won't suddenly get much cheaper for me to get 1/25th of service.
I could find myself in a spot of trouble if AT&T gets too greedy. Capitalism may work, but not without seriously screwing me in the process.
"No, really this new format is crap. First of all, for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine. Even if you're an "audiophile" who likes to pretend that your hearing goes past 20kHz, most CDs aren't recorded to their full potential in the studio anyway. No value-add here."
I find this argument a little short sighted. Quality can always be improved. I'm not an expert on audio, but I recently read a thread on how vinyl, in some cases, had better sound response than CD's because of their digital nature. It stands to reason (assuming I understand correctly, please be polite if I'm wrong...) then 96khz would provide a better reproduction of sound. At the very least, the bass response should be better. (Don't theaters use 96 khz sound?)
Let's say I'm wrong about that and you're right, there are still other factors to consider. What about surround sound? CD's hold 2 channels of sound, left and right. What about 5.1 surround? That extra data goes somewhere!
What about giving CD's a menu like DVD's have? Necessary? Not really. It seems feasible, though, that they could put music videos along with the songs on this disc, and create a more interesting environment for the hardcore audiophile.
Gimmicky? Maybe. But when people like stuff, they really like it.
Hell, the worst case scenario is the Beatles could release one disc with a huge collection of their songs for a premium. It'd be expensive, but you'd have one disc with 8 hours of their music on it. (if they've made that much music.. I'm not a Beatles fan so I have no idea...)
"...for home users, CD quality, length, and form factor are all just fine...
I disagree with this comment, but the SACD doesn't even try to solve this problem. I'd like to bring it up anyway because I think it's central to this whole MP3 Vs. the RIAA debate: Consumers have needs that the RIAA isn't filling. We want smaller music players. The physical size of a CD prevents players from becoming pocket sized. We want to make our own CD's with our own compliations on them, but the RIAA says that's piracy and that we're thieves for doing that.
It's a pity because technology allows me to fulfill both requests. I have a few 2.5 inch CDRW's sitting on my desk. They hold between 150-200 megs, which in Mp3 terms is a couple of hours worth. ThinkGeek.com sells an MP3 player that'll play these discs, it's 3.6 inches wide. They understand my needs, but the RIAA doesn't.
"Please - have at it, I haven't heard any proposals yet that hold water..."
If there were a magic 'instant return on investment' business plan, the Record Industry wouldn't have waited until MP3s got popular to switch to it.
They could make just about any business model profitably if they'd try it. There are two reasons they aren't, though:
1.) They assume that the consumer will not pay for anything. We are all thieves, therefore they cannot provide anything 'free'.
2.) They'll have to price themselves fairly, vs. screwing the consumer at every turn.
The RIAA is in a unique position because it's settled nicely into a virtual monopoly without getting much attention from the government. Mp3s are causing them to have to behave competitively, but they dun wanna cos they dun wanna lose their margins.
Pity. I expect that what'll happen is a new, internet friendly organization will come along and dethrone the RIAA. They may not make such ridiculous profits, but I imagine they'll easily make a comfortable living as long as they come up with a business model that considers our needs.
"$2 per MP3, or $7 for the whole album"
Heh you might find this funny; There was a thread a couple of days ago where I misspelled 'Elbow' (I spelled it elbo), and somebody called me on it. I could have *sworn* that it was spelled 'elbo', but didn't bother to look it up.
:)
I achieved twit status on that one too.
Okay, I tested this out, you're right. You win. I'm a twit.
There's still no need for you to be hostile. I was wrong, but I don't feel that the original post I made deserved such a harsh reaction. (Though I *do* deserve the latest one, hehe)
So can we move on pls?
"Another of your excellent "explanations." It is on by default. following your apparently standard pattern, you just guessed it was off by default, and then stated that as fact. So it's reasonable that you would be aware of it, since either you currently had it on or you deliberately turned it off."
:P
You sure about that? Yes, I didn't check into it. If IM wrong, your right. The end. Im pretty sure I turned it on.
*Shrug*
Even if I am a *Twit* I don't think it's going to affect my mood much.
Ya mind explaining yourself then?
:)
I'm asking, not to promote conflict, but out of seriousness.
Even if I'm totally wrong, I'd liketa learn. k?
Um right. He restated what I did, but in such a way to make it sound like he was arguing with me.
"It seems like if one language takes up this amount of resources, then it'll be a while before we have a multi-lingual PDA..." In other words, PDA's will be able to do it in the future.
"I once read (I forget where) that computers keep getting faster..." In other words, PDA's will be able to do it in the future.
So no, he didn't succeed. Sorry.
That was a nice attempt at trying to make me look bad, but you failed. Here's what I said:
"I remember reading that they needed serious processing power and RAM to make this work. (At least 512 megs...) It seems like if one language takes up this amount of resources, then it'll be a while before we have a multi-lingual PDA..."
Notice that I didn't say 'never happen' or 'impossible'.
Heh, I haven't heard Benny Hill humor in a while...
Speaking of semantics, I remember one time a coworker of mine was sick. A friend of hers asked if I could take the sick girl home. I told her I had no idea where I'd keep her.
"The real problem is that semantics (meaning) is more difficult to translate between languages"
Agreed. What will probably happen is that people will initially have to be trained to use these machines. "Instead of using the term 'kicks ass' (which will translate as abusing a donkey...), use the term 'defeat'."
It's cool that they're working on this and all, but their promises of building these into PDA's set off a flag in my mind. There's another company that, as of a couple of years ago, had developed a realtime program that allows one to speak english into a mic and have spoken japanese come out.
I remember reading that they needed serious processing power and RAM to make this work. (At least 512 megs...) It seems like if one language takes up this amount of resources, then it'll be a while before we have a multi-lingual PDA...
Maybe their technique is different? I dunno. I know it's not the same company.
I guess I'm just concerned about this being vaporware.
"What they mean is, we want to shift the cost of distributing this thing to other people."
It's saving bandwidth the limited bandwidth that their site has. The cost isn't shifted, it's dispersed. It doesn't cost me anything to constantly upload a song on that plan that I'm on.
No, a twit yells at somebody else over something trivial.
Let me explain something to you: I am aware of the domain name bit you mentioned only because I turned it on at some point. And yes, that was a startling clue that what I said was in error. However, you had no way of knowing that when you got shitty with me.
I made a factual error, I acknowledge that, but YOU didn't take a moment's thought to ask yourself if I had turned that particular feature on. So by your own definition, you are a bigger twit than I am for making assumptions about what I had to work with.
"Isn't it obvious to all that Amadala will die in the third movie; that her death will be what finally completes Anakin's turn to the Dark Side. "
Not really, no. It's a bit of a complicated situation because somehow Amidala is going to give birth to Princess Leia without Anakin ever knowing. It stands to reason that if Amaidala is alive after being with Anakin, but he's not aware of it, that somebody (the Jedi?) helped hide Amidala from him. The only reason I can see for them doing that is if it is pretty damn obvious he's evil. In other words, his trip to the dark side is complete before Amidala is hidden from him.
If Lucas is smart, Anakin's journey to the dark side will be something more interesting than Count Dookie coming up with some silly plot to piss him off.
There was a couple of hints in Episode II, though, that suggests that Anakin may be on his way to becoming Vader without external help. He mentioned a point of view on government that loosely reminded me of what the Empire is in the later trilogy. Personally, I think what'll happen is that the Clone War will help him realize that chaos is destroying the universe, so he'll take steps to restore order. Then the Emperor comes by and says "join the dark side, and you have the power to rule the universe fairly..."
I can even see it happening that the Jedi attempt to stop Anakin, only to severely injure him and require the use of his suit. That alone could be the cause of Vader's personal feelings against the Rebellion...
Well that's all speculation. Lucas has the opportunity to really make a kick ass story with Episode 3, but I fear what he'll do is write a basic plot and balance it with CG filler. I wish that the guy who wrote Empire Strikes Back would write Episode 3. Could turn out pretty good...
Why?
They haven't shown that Kenobi owns a droid.
I think it's pretty commonly known that Lucas hadn't got all the stories straight before he started making the movie, but that particular line doesn't mess with the continuity.