Now wait a minute, this assumes (though it is possible) that George Lucas will "reveal" in episode III that Ankikin becomes Darth Vader. For all we know, Episode III could end on a dark note as Empire did, with two jedi hurridly shuttling Luke and Leia to their respective adoptive parents, Obi Wan leaving Anikin for dead after their great battle and Padme/Amidala dead, possibly as a result of the fight between Obi Wan and Anikin. The only real problem is that the Jedi council has to discover 1) the emperor is in power and is killing off the Jedi 2) That he would have interest in Anikin's children.
The only reason we know that Anikin is Vader is because we saw Eps. IV V and VI. There is no need to assume that Ep III will explicitly state that Anikin becomes Vader.
So then if the demand for bandwidth is exeeding the supply, guess what it's time to do? Increase the supply. These companies are imposing a pricing stratagey which monopolists use called price discrimination. To a lot of people, that's unfair, but because they are a monopoly in the area, there's no need for them to change it.
What the heck is the point of owning a kick arse car and then not driving it? Seriously, I know a guy who just went out and dropped something like 2 grand on some tires (God only knows why) and is only going to drive the car once a month. Seriously, I could understand if you take your car to shows but otherwise, if you're going to drop that much cash on a car, drive the damn thing or give it to me.
But not in the way that the editorial is saying. No one works alone, period. No one ever has and no one ever will. It's against human nature. We don't like to be alone and we don't trust our selves. We bounce ideas off of our friends, families and even complete strangers. We want feed back, we want to know that we aren't crazy. No one works alone.
People laugh at S.F. but more often than not, the best S.F. & F writers consider the deeper implications of developing technology long before everyone else does. Asimov did lots of stuff with the ethics of robotics and such long before AI was really implimentable.
On the other hand, we've never cared before about things getting out of hand. Remember War Games? A no win situation with nuclear weapons. Same thing with this bugger. We develop and launch, then what happens when the other side catches one of em? They reverse engineer, duplicate/clone them, and then release them on us? Weapons are double edged swords (and double edged swords are weapons) they cut both ways.
The thing is, they're still capping you. Regardless of whether they cap you at their end or your end, they cap you. And if you uncap, they cancel your service.
Of course the question becomes, if I buy a cable modem, configure it myself and leave it uncapped, will they still cancel my service?
How about this one. The local city hall of your city has determined that 5% of the drivers in your city account for 70% of the traffic, therefore, they have decided to start charging those drivers a driving tax for using the roads more than the average driver does.
If it isn't being used, why shouldn't I be able to use it? If 3% max out their connections and use 90% of the bandwidth. And then 20% of the users max out, then you realloticate the bandwidth so that they equal out. Their connection is still maxed, but the badwidth availible to them is less because others are on the system. Divide the users connections equaly.
If you're going to charge me between $40 and $60 a month for a capped service to begin with, I hope you're doing quality control.
Besides, you do what's nesseary for your business. If you advertise unlimited service, you do what is nessesary to ensure we get unlimited service. If you advertise a flat rate, you do whatever is nessesary to ensure a flat rate, if that means increasing costs universaly well then do it. But don't tell me that just because I use my service more than Aunt Millie does that I have to pay more for the same service.
Well in that case, they have a vital flaw with their service. If other people's connections are slowing below their share of speed because Joe Schmoe is downloading porn, then they need to redo the system. They have a set amount of bandwidth, and a set number of users (some how I doubt their user numbers are scaling upwards at huge numbers). Each user should have a peak-time maximum bandwidth determined by downloading the total bandwidth by the total users. The resulting number is the ammount of bandwidth which each user should have assuming everyone is using their connection to it's fullest. The bandwidth for a particular user at any other time should vary dynamicaly with the load on the system. If there is extra bandwidth above the peaktime bandwidth availible, and a user can use it, they should be able to use it.
Try this, "How dare they advertise unlimited internet usage, and then tell you it's not."
I pay for unlimmited internet acess. What this means to me is that I will be allowed to use my connection for whatever purposes I want (baring the breaking of laws, but they have to prove it). Now, if they have 100 customers (keeping it small to make the numbers easier) and 100 units of bandwidth. Theoreticaly speaking, each user is alloticated 1 unit of bandwidth. But if 70 of the users are only using 20 bandwidth units collectively, why should the other 30 users not be allowed to take full advantage of their 30 units and the remaining 50.
There is a certain ammount of bandwidth, if other users are not using it, why can't I? And as another user pointed out, since my modem is capped anyway, how am I using any more than my alloted share anyways?
Most of these "rich middle-class kids" (an oxymoron) are actualy rather well in debt. Whether with college loans or just keeping up with day to day living, most of us have little money to spend.
No prior art, the closest thing is Hello World program, but it's not the same thing. It's a new invention, so should I be able to patent it and collect royalties everytime the code is used? Software patents are just mushy things that don't really help much. You don't want people using your code, close the source.
(Posted without +1 because it isn't worth the attention, posted logged in because I'm not a coward)
Mini Rant:
Wait a minute, isn't cutting out extra stuff and making thins "leaner and meaner" the reason why so many people hate Apple's approach to things? Cut down on all the garbage and stick with a couple standards and things work better. But isn't choice a good thing? Don't we want support and the ability to use everything and anything regardless of how it might affect our performance?
The difference being, Intel, IBM, Sony, Philips, Microsoft, Apple, EA, Blizzard et al don't release their software and hardware as open source / open spec.
It's not a matter of just the current program or making linux more or less useful, it's a matter of setting a precident. What people seem to forget about big things like this is that they're all spawning points for new paths and ideas. If you allow a patent for software that at one point was freely distributable and useable for whatever purpose you see fit. Able to be modified and redistributed as long as the source remained intact, you open a whole can of worms.
Can we limit the use of this software to paying customers (despite the inclusion of source), enforcable through such things as the DMCA.
Can we refuse to let people reverse engineer and redistribute the software?
Can we limit the source to only paying customers?
It's not a matter of closing software and making proprietary software to earn a buck (see Apple's Aqua for that). That tactic is fine with me, release something for an Open Source OS that's proprietary, as long as it's released under that licence. But what happens when you start patenting GPL software? That's what makes this interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Even simpler explination for the name comes from good ol Episode IV when Luke says
"No, my father wasn't in the clone wars, he was a navigator on a spice frigette" (or something to that effect)
Now wait a minute, this assumes (though it is possible) that George Lucas will "reveal" in episode III that Ankikin becomes Darth Vader. For all we know, Episode III could end on a dark note as Empire did, with two jedi hurridly shuttling Luke and Leia to their respective adoptive parents, Obi Wan leaving Anikin for dead after their great battle and Padme/Amidala dead, possibly as a result of the fight between Obi Wan and Anikin. The only real problem is that the Jedi council has to discover 1) the emperor is in power and is killing off the Jedi 2) That he would have interest in Anikin's children.
The only reason we know that Anikin is Vader is because we saw Eps. IV V and VI. There is no need to assume that Ep III will explicitly state that Anikin becomes Vader.
So then if the demand for bandwidth is exeeding the supply, guess what it's time to do? Increase the supply. These companies are imposing a pricing stratagey which monopolists use called price discrimination. To a lot of people, that's unfair, but because they are a monopoly in the area, there's no need for them to change it.
What the heck is the point of owning a kick arse car and then not driving it? Seriously, I know a guy who just went out and dropped something like 2 grand on some tires (God only knows why) and is only going to drive the car once a month. Seriously, I could understand if you take your car to shows but otherwise, if you're going to drop that much cash on a car, drive the damn thing or give it to me.
Believe me, they would know it if I was using it all at once :)
But not in the way that the editorial is saying. No one works alone, period. No one ever has and no one ever will. It's against human nature. We don't like to be alone and we don't trust our selves. We bounce ideas off of our friends, families and even complete strangers. We want feed back, we want to know that we aren't crazy. No one works alone.
People laugh at S.F. but more often than not, the best S.F. & F writers consider the deeper implications of developing technology long before everyone else does. Asimov did lots of stuff with the ethics of robotics and such long before AI was really implimentable.
On the other hand, we've never cared before about things getting out of hand. Remember War Games? A no win situation with nuclear weapons. Same thing with this bugger. We develop and launch, then what happens when the other side catches one of em? They reverse engineer, duplicate/clone them, and then release them on us? Weapons are double edged swords (and double edged swords are weapons) they cut both ways.
If they want to redefine my alloted share, then lower the cap.
The thing is, they're still capping you. Regardless of whether they cap you at their end or your end, they cap you. And if you uncap, they cancel your service.
Of course the question becomes, if I buy a cable modem, configure it myself and leave it uncapped, will they still cancel my service?
If all you're using is email and basic web surfing, why do you need to be adding the the costs of these providers? .
How about this one. The local city hall of your city has determined that 5% of the drivers in your city account for 70% of the traffic, therefore, they have decided to start charging those drivers a driving tax for using the roads more than the average driver does.
If it isn't being used, why shouldn't I be able to use it? If 3% max out their connections and use 90% of the bandwidth. And then 20% of the users max out, then you realloticate the bandwidth so that they equal out. Their connection is still maxed, but the badwidth availible to them is less because others are on the system. Divide the users connections equaly.
If you're going to charge me between $40 and $60 a month for a capped service to begin with, I hope you're doing quality control.
Besides, you do what's nesseary for your business. If you advertise unlimited service, you do what is nessesary to ensure we get unlimited service. If you advertise a flat rate, you do whatever is nessesary to ensure a flat rate, if that means increasing costs universaly well then do it. But don't tell me that just because I use my service more than Aunt Millie does that I have to pay more for the same service.
Fine, but if they're gonna be charging me usage, I want my modem uncapped.
Well in that case, they have a vital flaw with their service. If other people's connections are slowing below their share of speed because Joe Schmoe is downloading porn, then they need to redo the system. They have a set amount of bandwidth, and a set number of users (some how I doubt their user numbers are scaling upwards at huge numbers). Each user should have a peak-time maximum bandwidth determined by downloading the total bandwidth by the total users. The resulting number is the ammount of bandwidth which each user should have assuming everyone is using their connection to it's fullest. The bandwidth for a particular user at any other time should vary dynamicaly with the load on the system. If there is extra bandwidth above the peaktime bandwidth availible, and a user can use it, they should be able to use it.
Try this, "How dare they advertise unlimited internet usage, and then tell you it's not."
I pay for unlimmited internet acess. What this means to me is that I will be allowed to use my connection for whatever purposes I want (baring the breaking of laws, but they have to prove it). Now, if they have 100 customers (keeping it small to make the numbers easier) and 100 units of bandwidth. Theoreticaly speaking, each user is alloticated 1 unit of bandwidth. But if 70 of the users are only using 20 bandwidth units collectively, why should the other 30 users not be allowed to take full advantage of their 30 units and the remaining 50.
There is a certain ammount of bandwidth, if other users are not using it, why can't I? And as another user pointed out, since my modem is capped anyway, how am I using any more than my alloted share anyways?
Most of these "rich middle-class kids" (an oxymoron) are actualy rather well in debt. Whether with college loans or just keeping up with day to day living, most of us have little money to spend.
Personaly, I've like SuSE, I love QNX (it's different), OS X is just plain cool and then there's the mini ditro over at toms.net (tomsrtbt)
My new patent:
void ()
{
cout"Hello USA"
}
No prior art, the closest thing is Hello World program, but it's not the same thing. It's a new invention, so should I be able to patent it and collect royalties everytime the code is used? Software patents are just mushy things that don't really help much. You don't want people using your code, close the source.
(Posted without +1 because it isn't worth the attention, posted logged in because I'm not a coward)
Mini Rant:
Wait a minute, isn't cutting out extra stuff and making thins "leaner and meaner" the reason why so many people hate Apple's approach to things? Cut down on all the garbage and stick with a couple standards and things work better. But isn't choice a good thing? Don't we want support and the ability to use everything and anything regardless of how it might affect our performance?
The difference being, Intel, IBM, Sony, Philips, Microsoft, Apple, EA, Blizzard et al don't release their software and hardware as open source / open spec.
It's not a matter of just the current program or making linux more or less useful, it's a matter of setting a precident. What people seem to forget about big things like this is that they're all spawning points for new paths and ideas. If you allow a patent for software that at one point was freely distributable and useable for whatever purpose you see fit. Able to be modified and redistributed as long as the source remained intact, you open a whole can of worms.
Can we limit the use of this software to paying customers (despite the inclusion of source), enforcable through such things as the DMCA.
Can we refuse to let people reverse engineer and redistribute the software?
Can we limit the source to only paying customers?
It's not a matter of closing software and making proprietary software to earn a buck (see Apple's Aqua for that). That tactic is fine with me, release something for an Open Source OS that's proprietary, as long as it's released under that licence. But what happens when you start patenting GPL software? That's what makes this interesting.
SLUGGY RULES!
for the rest of you, go to Sluggy.com
I miss hyper card, we should petition for it to come back.