They would've needed additional hardware to do this verification as a standard CLASS 5 switch does not have this capability. You're talking about an additional piece of hardware that would have to interface between the customer's equipment and the provided PRI.
I must admit, I'm amazed there is a Telco that would do this, though I do admit it is possible. Doing this would be akin to putting a deep packet inspection sniffer/rejector in between your customer's internet connections and every major internet router in your network.
Nortel's DMS family of telephone switches has part of what you're talking about. SCA (Selective Call Acceptance) allows you to specify a list of phone numbers you ACCEPT calls from, but it has no way to specify time of day.
This brings up an important point though. You may assume lack of a feature is due to the ineptitude or carelessness of your telephone company, but the exact opposite is usually the case.
There are very few telephone companies with the ability to dictate to their equipment vendors what type of technologies they would like to have. 9 times out of 10 it is the equipment vendor that dictates to the telephone company what features are available for them to use.
So some nice feature, that the telephone company would love to supply you with is simply not available on the market, and most telephone companies don't have the clout to force the vendors to offer it. The telephone companies that are large enough to carry this type of clout are the ones that don't care, and usually force the market's feature set to that which is currently available.
You are thinking about the CCS7 switching protocol in comparison to the Calling Name and Number system.
CCS7 is the protocol that's used to send originating/terminating phone number information across the telephone system in order to help route calls. The Calling Name and Number system is used to send phone number/customer name information to a telephone set. CCS7 cannot be lied to, as it's populated by the telephone company on a per call basic. The Calling Name and Number system can be lied to, as in certain cases (for instance, a telemarketer with a PRI) it's actually the CUSTOMER that provides the information.
I should also mention that the overhead is composed of packet headers for each preceeding layer to the packet data.
IE: For HTTP traffic the overhead would be as so (in a standard LAN environment)
802.3 Headers (144 Bits)->IP Headers (160 Bits)->TCP Headers (160 Bits)->HTTP Headers (Variable. But usually at least 240 Bits)
This would total about 704 Bits on a good day.
Now consider also the fact that a standard Ethernet Frame can only reach 12,144 Bits (1518 Bytes) you have 5.8% of each packet being eaten up by headers.
So, for a Gigabit Link (1,000,000,000 Bits/Second), you could only see in the best of circumstances 942,000,000 Bits/Second.
Now the rule of thumb is quite a bit different. A typical IP Routing dude would give way for about 8% overhead due to packet headers. This would give a maximum Data Throughput of 920,000,000 Bits/Second.
Now these are theoretical numbers. You have to remember that this is assuming your computer can encapsulate, fragment and assemble the data at the same speed the Gigabit Network card operates. This is not the case!
In actuality, in a typical PC with a Gigabit Network card, you will see (including packet overhead) a data throughput loss of 20% or greater!
Add to this Window Scaling and MTU sizing, and you have yourself quite a few variables that will effect your throughput at any one time.
If you actually want to see this type of throughput you need a high end router that does all of it's packet transport using ASICs and then you might actually get close to the theoretical numbers. In the mean time, if you can get 300Mbit/second off of your PC's Gigabit NIC, consider yourself lucky!:)
Having worked in the ISP market for the past 7 years I have seen the access portion of Internet access go through multiple fazes. From a single T1, to 4T1's, a 10Mbps feed, 100Mbps and now Gigabit and even multiple Gigabit connections to multiple peers.
For a standard ISP it's a given. Your bandwidth needs double, if not triple once every 2 years, 3 if you're lucky. New technologies come up at a regular pace, it's a part of the industry. Whether it's graphical websites, streaming audio, peer to peer networks, or streaming video, new technology creating more demands for bandwidth requires you to upgrade your network access over time.
Having said this, working for a company with over 10,000 highspeed and dialup internet subscribers, I have found some interesting trends. It's not the Youtube's, VoIP, Peer2Peer &etc eating up our resources... It's spyware infected machines, spam attacks and hacked servers that eats up the bandwidth. When I take a look at my network utilization and see a spike I don't say to myself "Oh no! There must be a hot new movie on YouTube that everyone is watching." Far from that! I say to myself "Stink! What spyware program is it this time." or "is my web server under attack again?"
In addition, as access rates increase I've noticed that performance issues is less affected by the speed of the provider network I'm connected to and more by the remote sites access speeds. You'd be surprised by the puny amount of bandwidth the majority of websites on the internet run on. High Bandwidth sites running on fractional T1's, it's just crazy! Entire computer networks run on the cheapest network equipment known to man.
Has anyone taken a good look at the WorldComm's, Level3 and Bell networks of the world? They are already at 10Gbps with MPLS are their core, and multi-gig connections to their customers. The internet backbone looks better than it ever has! There are far more problems with the endpoints of the internet than the backbone, and it's about time that people took more responsibility in making sure that their network elements are properly backed by the appropriate amount of bandwidth and secured from basic security threats than complaining about their backbone providers.
Yes, this is another interesting thought. Does the act of creation actually limit the creator? Do I, by my simple understanding, limit the possibilities of what an object I "create" does, by specifying it to mold itself into my initial purpose for it. I would have to say in a great degree yes! But, there is something else to consider. In the creation of this object, how much thought did I actually put into it? As we can see in a well-thought out program, it can transmogrophy itself into an entirely different beast, if it has the ability of adaptibility. (try saying that 10 times fast!) Yet, even in our most well thought out plans, we find areas of failure.
Now, for a brief moment, imagine an entity that has intellect which is not limited by experience (he has lived since before since), nor by intelligence (as Webster's Dictionary defines God as "The Supreme or Ultimate Reality, the being from which all Truth Flows"), nor by ability (he has, after all, created all things.) This "being", with an infinite potential, as well contains "within" himself an infinite opportunity for creation.
Take a minute and think about how your body works. You have arms, hands, feet, eyes, etc; all of which enable you to perform the daily tasks that we all take for granted. Now look deeper: Your skin, hair, toe-nails, belly button, etc. These are things which are important as well. Now look even deeper: Your blood, bones, intestines, etc. And Deeper: Your cells, proteins, etc. And closer, DNA/RNA, Cell Nuclei, Nerves. And Deeper: Your atoms, quirks, and quarks. The farther we delve into the simplicity of human matter, the more baffled we are at the amazing complexity and sheer obvious nature of it's "divine" creation. How flabergeisted we are to see how our bodies are able to adapt to every situation that we are faced with. How apalled we are to look at the wickedness we are capable of. And that brings yet another vast subject. Our conscience, moods, evil nature, etc. How wonderfully complex and Unimaginable!!! are we. Yet, there are many more complex structures out there. Plant life, the stars, black holes, the "universe." Can we actually say that there is a confining nature to all of this? A part that would actually limit the creator of such beautiful masterpieces as his creation?
Yes! But how can he still be God if he is limited? Now this is yet another intriquing concept. "God", has set these boundaries up by his own volition. He knowingly set in effect an action (creation), which has for the past how many years made a whallop of a reaction. The wonders of that action as well, are enough to make us stand back in awe, and horror. How can he allow sickness and suffering? How can an "all-knowing", "all-powerfull" God allow such atrocities? Well, it's his boundaries. He has set laws into effect which cannot be reversed, because being a God makes him stuck to his word.
A simple analogy would be my recent experience with Fibre Optics. We have a box at the ISP I work for which translates the light waves into electric voltages for normal Ethernet Network trafficing. Now we have not been getting the performance that we have been hoping for, so we called the makers and asked them what was up with their hardware. After a lot of head-scratching, they came back with the answer: "We only send out what's been put in. We provide the medium for transportation, you do the rest." Now this is a very inadequate analogy, I must admit. But it serves to bring this thought across; For God to create, he had to set boundaries, and as well, had to set a starting point. What man has done by his own, God-given Free-Will (free will being something which is so vast a subject that I will not even try to touch in this), has chosen to malignate into some humongous sore. Hence, the "chaos" theory. With fallaced creations, it's inevitable for corruption to take place.
So how does an "all-powerfull" God deal with this? How can we say he can do all things, if he can't undo our own mistakes? Isn't he limited? I will then say this. With his "limitations" by his creation, he also has the opportunity for redemption. If he can create, if he truly holds the power over our atoms, and even vastly more complex structures that our comprised in his universe, he also has the intelligence to use such things for another purpose.
In short: If God is truly all-powerful, he must also be all-accountable. He cannot break his own laws, or he would be no better than us. Yet, he can use things of extraordinary composures, things unknown to us that he had prepared in the beginning for such "situations" that can make all things right. Now I can only guess that you are understanding the point that I am trying to indirectly draw, but I will leave that for you to decide what it is.
It's amazing to think of something so vast, so intelligent, and so able to make something which was prepared in the beginning for a specific purpose that may even seem flawed to us, and yet have an alternative "way" in view from the beginning. When we create something, we have limited knowledge to understand how to cope for future changes and needs. Yet, if God is truly all-knowing, all-powerfull, and all-able, then it is no wonder to assume that his creative acts are so precise, that while unbreakable laws are created, the ways by which they are to be followed can be so "free" that we cannot even begin to understand.
I'm just going to quit trying to explain my thoughts now. I've just been so impressed for the last few years on this very subject. And I cannot help but think that the focal point of all existance has by his own choice limited himself seemingly, but still has provided so much room for freedom, that I wonder if we can actually consider it a limiting factor. It's simply beyond my understanding.
I would have to agree on a great many of your statements. When we look at any source of order, we always find some exterior force at work. Whether it be the consequence of action (cause and effect), or the consequence of inaction (mental stimuli?).
For instance, you see a ball moving and you have to assume that some force (whether the kicking of the ball, or maybe a mini earthquake) was involved in it's movement. Now, when we come to the question of origins, we are delved into an issue much more complicated than a moving ball. For, as we can readily notice, kicking a ball does not require a great sense of order. Yet, the complexities of our universe requires a mass amount of order to keep it going, let alone to set it going in the first place.
We can see as well, that unlike the ball we are unable to re-create the effects from which it came about. So being stuck in the "effect", we are hard-pressed to figure out the cause. So what happens? We take all of the reactions that we have found and try to find a method to the un-madness. As Science has progressed, and the study of our origins continue, we have been introduced with a plethora of interesting thoughts. One, would be the theory of Evolution. Another, is the thought of intelligent design. The first method tries to explain how we came about by mere lucky chemical "hick-ups" in the genome. The problem with this, as you said Hoyle has pointed out, is that it does not contribute to the complexity AND order of us, and the universe. Mere biological, and seismilogical "mistakes" cannot explain how something can become so orderly from an object of dis-order. Even as our Biological Text books will cite "Life cannot come from non-living matter." And the "chaos" theory, of Newton's Laws. "All things are in an ever going process of decay."
As Hoyle, and others have brought out, we must come up with some explanation! It is not enough to sit back and say it happened by chance, when we cannot intellectually agree with that statement. So, we come to the next problem, How can intelligent design account for *itself*. If there is a creator (which I believe quite firmly in), then how can he account for his own existence? Now this question is the one that baffles even the most profound thinker. We can only take into account that there has to be a single point of origin, and that point of origin has always existed, or it cannot have created all things, being a creation "it"self. With this in mind, all things are a product of this beings creative acts, therefore, as you said, the entirety of creation is "his offspring."
But how can we prove this? We have not witnessed his creative acts of power, neither have we witnessed evolution of increasing complexity. It comes down to the fact that there is a time when we must interperate the facts that we have been presented with. We must, with the magnifying glass of our bias, take a look and have "faith" in what we believe to be the answer. And yet, as Hoyle points out, I believe that Intellectual design is the only pheasible explanation. Incomplexity cannot upgrade to complexity, it is an impossibility of nature. Therefore, there must be a creator more complex than his creation.
The linux joystick modules have improved greatly over the last couple of years. Also, maybe if the author got some cash in pocket he would be persuaded to work on some of the new and cool joysticks that have been coming out.
Hear, hear! TV is simply corporate America's way of brain-washing the youth of today into wasting their entire lives trying to become successfull, monopolistic, business men in order to boost our economy so the presidant can afford to have some interesting guests in his office! (Not meant to diminish from other countries which use television for similar purposes.)
But truthfully now; TV has never done anyone any good and probably never will. It's spouted out as a possibility of education and enrichenment, while it really just encourages people to be lazy good-fer-nothins wasting their lives away, always wandering who John in Whats-that-soap-opera is going to dump next. Their are some insightful shows out there *cough**X-Files**cough*, but even they do not nullify the radiation the TV emits, from frying your eye/brain cells.
If I would attribute my current standings to any two things, it would be God and reading. God, because he made me and looks after me. Books, because they are the only non-braincelldestructive way I know of, besides having someone else explain something to you, that you can learn about the world, and stimulate your mind in ways to encourage new ways of thinking.
Of course this is totally MHO, and is subject to change at any time.
Yeah. I personally think that either they could either:
Take somone like the renegade "group" member and show his adventures trying to undermine the plans that the "Smoking man" comes up with. That could probably last a few seasons.
Continue it on only in movies (This idea stinks IMHO.)
Kill it off and come up with something new (Now that's a novel idea.)
Have someone replace Mulder and Scully. If this idea is to work they must have two people with two COMPLETELY different dispositions than Mulder & Scully. To try to reproduce them would be a complete failure to revitalize the show. Maybe instead having a person that is half on the verge of skepticism, yet also wanting to believe. With a partner that really couldn't care more or less about the philisophical aspect of the cases and is just there to enjoy the ride (trigger happy mad man?) Now that would be a rather good spin off. Though this type of show would still run into the problem of not much material being available. Maybe instead of funky alien interactions they could be in the midst of multiple alien civilizations trying to infiltrate the earth (AKA: Earth Final Conflict, without the friendly contact), and they are experiencing all of the wierdness of these species slowly infiltrating into earths conscience? While trying to keep the fact that the aliens are there totally hush, hush (Like MIB.) The search for truth could still be there but maybe with a different twist. Like one of the FEDS wife was abducted by aliens, had a wierd entity inside of her, and is slowly mutating into one of them? There are many possibilities!
Though you must admit, since when has anyone made a good spinoff of a show? There are many possibilities but generally the producers are already so engulfed in ideas of money instead of quality, they don't care about uniqueness anymore.
I heartily agree with your statements on the validities, and meaningfullness of Katz writings. He greatly reminds me of a certain *no-named* individual who works for Ziff Davis. Simply taking issues that have already been chewed and spit out hundreds of times by various other news sources (including computer professionals talking amongst themselves) repeats arguements already known, and adds nothing to it. Not to mention he speaks with no true knowledge of the issues he supposedly adamantly holds an opinion on. Has Jon ever "hacked" at a computer? Or has he ever worked for an actual software company, and seen the way they work? NO! He simply spouts off words he's heard someone else say without bothering to find out the facts, or get the experience in the subject himself. I must say he rather exemplifies himself as a poor journalist, though he is a rather ok writer. I myself work for a software company, and before this a computer manufacturer. Quality is always the utmost concern in every computer business I have ever participated in. Just because a few rogue software companies (like Microsloth) have shunned the idea of putting quality before release dates, does not mean this is kept as a whole. Programmers generally take great pride in their work, and constantly work on it to make it the best that they can, even the commercial ones!
Point being, Jon Katz should stick with fiction which he seems to be rather talented at, unless he plains on actually doing some research, or actually (for goodness sakes!) writing about something he knows about!
I have 3 Linux workstations, and have administered about 4 or more Linux Servers for the last 3 or so years. I have NEVER seen Linux freeze. I have seen X Windows Freeze, but all I had to do was telnet into the box from another machine and kill X to fix the problem. And even when it had the problem all the other services were running fine, and I could ftp, www, etc. to the box with no problem at all. My personal computer here at work has an uptime of 44 days right now, because for the longest time I didn't have a UPS (South-West Florida is really bad for power outages). I had a Linux Server running for about 70 or so days until I had to take it down cause it wasn't needed anymore. I know quite a few people that have linux servers with uptimes at 300+ days. A few even have uptimes of over a year! Keep in mind all of these machines are being HEAVILY used. One of my workstations also serves as an Apache WWW server running PHP4 under it, also ftp, smtp, pop3, ssh, etc. That gets hit quite a bit, while rendering povray3 scenes or even editing 40 meg images in The GIMP. Not one crash, and this is an AMD K6 233 with only 64 megs of SDRAM! One Linux Server was handling a couple of gigs of Samba traffic a day without so much as flinching. Actually the Idle CPU usage was at 99.9%!
I've administered quite a few Windows NT/98/95 machines also. One NT Server doing nothing but running IIS with about 1 and a half million hits a month has never lasted longer than a week. Running Service Pack 4, quite highly tuned. It hasn't ever given BSOD's, or Kernel Panics, but after about a week of running it just gets really buggy, to the point that IIS can barely even run anymore, and the memory usage will be hitting the roof. I also have an NT machine running SQL Server, and doing some fileserving, also quite highly tuned. Using the only remote administration software that half way works on the SMP machine, it gets totally locked at totally different intervals at times, to the point that the OS is completely wacked, including all the services etc. I also know quite a few other people running NT as their servers all having to reboot weekly, or even more often. Under any type of semi heavy use their boxes just crash all the time. A LOT of them have switched over to linux just so they don't have to reboot their server everyday, and they are now quite happy... Including my Mother!
So you can make all of the unfounded FUD based "Comments" that you want, but the truth still remains. NT is a bloated buggy "Server OS" While Linux just chugs away. There are a few areas in Linux that needs improving, like some of the SCSI card drivers are still a bit buggy, and some SMP stuff could be worked on a bit (Though Linux does SMP MUCH better than NT). As always any piece of art has areas that were untouched by the artist given restraints on time, etc. but the great thing about Linux is that it's a piece of art not yet completed. Better yet it probably will never be perfected continually giving it's benefactors the chance to mold it, and form it into a wonderful, elegant, beauty of an OS. In conclusion, you should become more familiar with a subject matter before you make inadequate, fuzzy, and incomplete statements about it. Go to school, learn how to comprehend (and maybe even learn how to study!), envelope yourself in the topics you are so quick to take up and then come up with your own opinion that you can actually back up. One based on fact... And remember that something being lovingly made by thousands of devoted people happy to work on it, will generally be much better than anything a commercial money-grubbing monopolistic corporation can spring out of it's hat!
All I have to say on this matter is that I hope Jon Kats was just joking with us about how he's planning to write on subjects relating to that book. I have personally had enough of Jon's narrow minded, and mis-guided articles. He's barely a few steps above Jesse Berst with his stories on subjects he hasn't the vaguest idea about. Just cut it out and stop wasting the few kb of bandwidth it takes to realize that the article I just loaded was written by you!
That's true, but if Linus did sell out (which is very unlikely given his supposed philosophies on life), all the other developers which did not agree with his tactics would just fragment the source off into a whole other project. Sure it would cause incompatibilities, etc. with programs between the two forks of the code if either side went to far over, but at least we would have an alternative. Also, we always have the HURD project, which being that is is for the FSF, and OSS movement (IE: The presidant of FSF is helping to code it), it's even more unlikely that that project would go the way of the dodo bird. I personally do not believe that this problem will happen with linux.
The main point being here is that the Linux developement effort DOES NOT rely on Linux Torvalds. He is a major contributor to the project, and happens to be the one that started it, but given the GNU license he has no hold over the project except that which everyone else gives him.
I do believe it's possible for RedHat, Corel, SuSe, etc. to make distro specific apps, but who cares. If you want to sell your soul to some stupid word processor that's your problem. Everyone else with half a brain will stick with the open system which we love so much!
I hear ya. As soon as I see a barely dressed woman modeling for a product I understand the following things.
1) It's a new product trying to gain customers. 2) Their advertisers are as dumb as rocks 3) The product isn't worth my time if they feel that they must try to catch my attention with a barely clothed woman, probably because there product isn't that good.
And then I disregard the product entirely and move on.
On my home machine I simply downloaded Slackware 3.5 and have upgraded from source for every update I needed/wanted. It's much simpler, gives you much more control over your system, and helps you to learn a lot about the whole linux software cycle. IE: ls cd, etc. are all bundled up in one little package by the GNU dudes, which is really simple to install, etc. and even comes with example rc scripts. After about a year this system is much nicer software wise than any of the latest greatest, whizbang linux distro out there.
Well I personally believe that the brain may be some sort of ultimate storage device with almost limitless range of space. You take various case studies and you can see that pretty much every little fact a person encounters in his life is stored, it's just a matter of retrieving it. Using various trivial techniques people have reported instances dating to the womb, there early child-hood years, and things that happened yesterday. Down to the most precise details. Being that our mind is basically a vast collection of electromagnetic junctions each eminating, and working through a mass know as our brain, which has the type of shape and size, and being that is has a lot of liquid also, as too hold vast information, probably beyond our comprehention. It seems only logical to me that everything we see, hear, touch, etc. are stored via electromagnetic impulses to various places in our brain forming to date the most powerful storage medium ever seen, and maybe ever will be. After all it sure seems capable of storing the information of a persons entire life though that person may have a hard time recollecting those facts, they are there.
In Bonita Springs FL, it cost me 21 bucks for 3 tickets at $7 a pop, showing at 12:30 am on May the 19th. I guess the theatre has THX sound, but they sure don't advertise it.
Why you ask did I buy the tickets so early? Because it adds to the excitement of the movie when you are half a sleep when it starts (That is if it is a good movie, if it isn't I can sleep through the entire thing justifiably:)).
I have used at least 50 different HTML editors for linux, windows, and mac; of all of them I have not seen one WYSIWYG that doesn't generate the most god awful HTML seen by human or alien. ALL of them are a waste of any serious web developers money/time. Out of the plain text editors I've found one nice one for windows named Homesite. It allows semi-remote editing, great search & replace, projects, humongous code reference and great help files for HTML newbies. But I must admit that the best HTML editor I have encountered has been vim. The way the cursor moves along your last position, and the many different vi-key combinations available; once you learn it's wanders you can do almost anything in very limited time, not to mention it has wonderful syntax highlighting.
I code C++, PHP3, SQL, and a smidget of C here and there. PHP3, and SQL I use for web developement and C++ is my fav for application work. The language you use really depends upon the line of work you're in.
Slashdot Mirror
The stinking worm formatted my Windows Vista PC and installed Ubuntu Linux! Darn you!!!!
I like my PS3 Achievements better, but this is still cool.
They would've needed additional hardware to do this verification as a standard CLASS 5 switch does not have this capability. You're talking about an additional piece of hardware that would have to interface between the customer's equipment and the provided PRI.
I must admit, I'm amazed there is a Telco that would do this, though I do admit it is possible. Doing this would be akin to putting a deep packet inspection sniffer/rejector in between your customer's internet connections and every major internet router in your network.
I second this. ANI and Caller ID are definitely 2 separate animals.
Nortel's DMS family of telephone switches has part of what you're talking about. SCA (Selective Call Acceptance) allows you to specify a list of phone numbers you ACCEPT calls from, but it has no way to specify time of day.
This brings up an important point though. You may assume lack of a feature is due to the ineptitude or carelessness of your telephone company, but the exact opposite is usually the case.
There are very few telephone companies with the ability to dictate to their equipment vendors what type of technologies they would like to have. 9 times out of 10 it is the equipment vendor that dictates to the telephone company what features are available for them to use.
So some nice feature, that the telephone company would love to supply you with is simply not available on the market, and most telephone companies don't have the clout to force the vendors to offer it. The telephone companies that are large enough to carry this type of clout are the ones that don't care, and usually force the market's feature set to that which is currently available.
You are thinking about the CCS7 switching protocol in comparison to the Calling Name and Number system.
CCS7 is the protocol that's used to send originating/terminating phone number information across the telephone system in order to help route calls. The Calling Name and Number system is used to send phone number/customer name information to a telephone set. CCS7 cannot be lied to, as it's populated by the telephone company on a per call basic. The Calling Name and Number system can be lied to, as in certain cases (for instance, a telemarketer with a PRI) it's actually the CUSTOMER that provides the information.
I should also mention that the overhead is composed of packet headers for each preceeding layer to the packet data.
:)
IE: For HTTP traffic the overhead would be as so (in a standard LAN environment)
802.3 Headers (144 Bits)->IP Headers (160 Bits)->TCP Headers (160 Bits)->HTTP Headers (Variable. But usually at least 240 Bits)
This would total about 704 Bits on a good day.
Now consider also the fact that a standard Ethernet Frame can only reach 12,144 Bits (1518 Bytes) you have 5.8% of each packet being eaten up by headers.
So, for a Gigabit Link (1,000,000,000 Bits/Second), you could only see in the best of circumstances 942,000,000 Bits/Second.
Now the rule of thumb is quite a bit different. A typical IP Routing dude would give way for about 8% overhead due to packet headers. This would give a maximum Data Throughput of 920,000,000 Bits/Second.
Now these are theoretical numbers. You have to remember that this is assuming your computer can encapsulate, fragment and assemble the data at the same speed the Gigabit Network card operates. This is not the case!
In actuality, in a typical PC with a Gigabit Network card, you will see (including packet overhead) a data throughput loss of 20% or greater!
Add to this Window Scaling and MTU sizing, and you have yourself quite a few variables that will effect your throughput at any one time.
If you actually want to see this type of throughput you need a high end router that does all of it's packet transport using ASICs and then you might actually get close to the theoretical numbers. In the mean time, if you can get 300Mbit/second off of your PC's Gigabit NIC, consider yourself lucky!
For general purposes, it's 10 bits to the byte. 8 for data and 2 for overhead.
I had always understood there were exactly 8 bits to the byte. Overhead eats up additional bits on top of this.Having worked in the ISP market for the past 7 years I have seen the access portion of Internet access go through multiple fazes. From a single T1, to 4T1's, a 10Mbps feed, 100Mbps and now Gigabit and even multiple Gigabit connections to multiple peers.
For a standard ISP it's a given. Your bandwidth needs double, if not triple once every 2 years, 3 if you're lucky. New technologies come up at a regular pace, it's a part of the industry. Whether it's graphical websites, streaming audio, peer to peer networks, or streaming video, new technology creating more demands for bandwidth requires you to upgrade your network access over time.
Having said this, working for a company with over 10,000 highspeed and dialup internet subscribers, I have found some interesting trends. It's not the Youtube's, VoIP, Peer2Peer &etc eating up our resources... It's spyware infected machines, spam attacks and hacked servers that eats up the bandwidth. When I take a look at my network utilization and see a spike I don't say to myself "Oh no! There must be a hot new movie on YouTube that everyone is watching." Far from that! I say to myself "Stink! What spyware program is it this time." or "is my web server under attack again?"
In addition, as access rates increase I've noticed that performance issues is less affected by the speed of the provider network I'm connected to and more by the remote sites access speeds. You'd be surprised by the puny amount of bandwidth the majority of websites on the internet run on. High Bandwidth sites running on fractional T1's, it's just crazy! Entire computer networks run on the cheapest network equipment known to man.
Has anyone taken a good look at the WorldComm's, Level3 and Bell networks of the world? They are already at 10Gbps with MPLS are their core, and multi-gig connections to their customers. The internet backbone looks better than it ever has! There are far more problems with the endpoints of the internet than the backbone, and it's about time that people took more responsibility in making sure that their network elements are properly backed by the appropriate amount of bandwidth and secured from basic security threats than complaining about their backbone providers.
Yes, this is another interesting thought. Does the act of creation actually limit the creator? Do I, by my simple understanding, limit the possibilities of what an object I "create" does, by specifying it to mold itself into my initial purpose for it. I would have to say in a great degree yes! But, there is something else to consider. In the creation of this object, how much thought did I actually put into it? As we can see in a well-thought out program, it can transmogrophy itself into an entirely different beast, if it has the ability of adaptibility. (try saying that 10 times fast!) Yet, even in our most well thought out plans, we find areas of failure.
Now, for a brief moment, imagine an entity that has intellect which is not limited by experience (he has lived since before since), nor by intelligence (as Webster's Dictionary defines God as "The Supreme or Ultimate Reality, the being from which all Truth Flows"), nor by ability (he has, after all, created all things.) This "being", with an infinite potential, as well contains "within" himself an infinite opportunity for creation.
Take a minute and think about how your body works. You have arms, hands, feet, eyes, etc; all of which enable you to perform the daily tasks that we all take for granted. Now look deeper: Your skin, hair, toe-nails, belly button, etc. These are things which are important as well. Now look even deeper: Your blood, bones, intestines, etc. And Deeper: Your cells, proteins, etc. And closer, DNA/RNA, Cell Nuclei, Nerves. And Deeper: Your atoms, quirks, and quarks. The farther we delve into the simplicity of human matter, the more baffled we are at the amazing complexity and sheer obvious nature of it's "divine" creation. How flabergeisted we are to see how our bodies are able to adapt to every situation that we are faced with. How apalled we are to look at the wickedness we are capable of. And that brings yet another vast subject. Our conscience, moods, evil nature, etc. How wonderfully complex and Unimaginable!!! are we. Yet, there are many more complex structures out there. Plant life, the stars, black holes, the "universe." Can we actually say that there is a confining nature to all of this? A part that would actually limit the creator of such beautiful masterpieces as his creation?
Yes! But how can he still be God if he is limited? Now this is yet another intriquing concept. "God", has set these boundaries up by his own volition. He knowingly set in effect an action (creation), which has for the past how many years made a whallop of a reaction. The wonders of that action as well, are enough to make us stand back in awe, and horror. How can he allow sickness and suffering? How can an "all-knowing", "all-powerfull" God allow such atrocities? Well, it's his boundaries. He has set laws into effect which cannot be reversed, because being a God makes him stuck to his word.
A simple analogy would be my recent experience with Fibre Optics. We have a box at the ISP I work for which translates the light waves into electric voltages for normal Ethernet Network trafficing. Now we have not been getting the performance that we have been hoping for, so we called the makers and asked them what was up with their hardware. After a lot of head-scratching, they came back with the answer: "We only send out what's been put in. We provide the medium for transportation, you do the rest." Now this is a very inadequate analogy, I must admit. But it serves to bring this thought across; For God to create, he had to set boundaries, and as well, had to set a starting point. What man has done by his own, God-given Free-Will (free will being something which is so vast a subject that I will not even try to touch in this), has chosen to malignate into some humongous sore. Hence, the "chaos" theory. With fallaced creations, it's inevitable for corruption to take place.
So how does an "all-powerfull" God deal with this? How can we say he can do all things, if he can't undo our own mistakes? Isn't he limited? I will then say this. With his "limitations" by his creation, he also has the opportunity for redemption. If he can create, if he truly holds the power over our atoms, and even vastly more complex structures that our comprised in his universe, he also has the intelligence to use such things for another purpose.
In short: If God is truly all-powerful, he must also be all-accountable. He cannot break his own laws, or he would be no better than us. Yet, he can use things of extraordinary composures, things unknown to us that he had prepared in the beginning for such "situations" that can make all things right. Now I can only guess that you are understanding the point that I am trying to indirectly draw, but I will leave that for you to decide what it is.
It's amazing to think of something so vast, so intelligent, and so able to make something which was prepared in the beginning for a specific purpose that may even seem flawed to us, and yet have an alternative "way" in view from the beginning. When we create something, we have limited knowledge to understand how to cope for future changes and needs. Yet, if God is truly all-knowing, all-powerfull, and all-able, then it is no wonder to assume that his creative acts are so precise, that while unbreakable laws are created, the ways by which they are to be followed can be so "free" that we cannot even begin to understand.
I'm just going to quit trying to explain my thoughts now. I've just been so impressed for the last few years on this very subject. And I cannot help but think that the focal point of all existance has by his own choice limited himself seemingly, but still has provided so much room for freedom, that I wonder if we can actually consider it a limiting factor. It's simply beyond my understanding.
I would have to agree on a great many of your statements. When we look at any source of order, we always find some exterior force at work. Whether it be the consequence of action (cause and effect), or the consequence of inaction (mental stimuli?).
For instance, you see a ball moving and you have to assume that some force (whether the kicking of the ball, or maybe a mini earthquake) was involved in it's movement. Now, when we come to the question of origins, we are delved into an issue much more complicated than a moving ball. For, as we can readily notice, kicking a ball does not require a great sense of order. Yet, the complexities of our universe requires a mass amount of order to keep it going, let alone to set it going in the first place.
We can see as well, that unlike the ball we are unable to re-create the effects from which it came about. So being stuck in the "effect", we are hard-pressed to figure out the cause. So what happens? We take all of the reactions that we have found and try to find a method to the un-madness. As Science has progressed, and the study of our origins continue, we have been introduced with a plethora of interesting thoughts. One, would be the theory of Evolution. Another, is the thought of intelligent design. The first method tries to explain how we came about by mere lucky chemical "hick-ups" in the genome. The problem with this, as you said Hoyle has pointed out, is that it does not contribute to the complexity AND order of us, and the universe. Mere biological, and seismilogical "mistakes" cannot explain how something can become so orderly from an object of dis-order. Even as our Biological Text books will cite "Life cannot come from non-living matter." And the "chaos" theory, of Newton's Laws. "All things are in an ever going process of decay."
As Hoyle, and others have brought out, we must come up with some explanation! It is not enough to sit back and say it happened by chance, when we cannot intellectually agree with that statement. So, we come to the next problem, How can intelligent design account for *itself*. If there is a creator (which I believe quite firmly in), then how can he account for his own existence? Now this question is the one that baffles even the most profound thinker. We can only take into account that there has to be a single point of origin, and that point of origin has always existed, or it cannot have created all things, being a creation "it"self. With this in mind, all things are a product of this beings creative acts, therefore, as you said, the entirety of creation is "his offspring."
But how can we prove this? We have not witnessed his creative acts of power, neither have we witnessed evolution of increasing complexity. It comes down to the fact that there is a time when we must interperate the facts that we have been presented with. We must, with the magnifying glass of our bias, take a look and have "faith" in what we believe to be the answer. And yet, as Hoyle points out, I believe that Intellectual design is the only pheasible explanation. Incomplexity cannot upgrade to complexity, it is an impossibility of nature. Therefore, there must be a creator more complex than his creation.
The linux joystick modules have improved greatly over the last couple of years. Also, maybe if the author got some cash in pocket he would be persuaded to work on some of the new and cool joysticks that have been coming out.
Hear, hear! TV is simply corporate America's way of brain-washing the youth of today into wasting their entire lives trying to become successfull, monopolistic, business men in order to boost our economy so the presidant can afford to have some interesting guests in his office! (Not meant to diminish from other countries which use television for similar purposes.)
But truthfully now; TV has never done anyone any good and probably never will. It's spouted out as a possibility of education and enrichenment, while it really just encourages people to be lazy good-fer-nothins wasting their lives away, always wandering who John in Whats-that-soap-opera is going to dump next. Their are some insightful shows out there *cough**X-Files**cough*, but even they do not nullify the radiation the TV emits, from frying your eye/brain cells.
If I would attribute my current standings to any two things, it would be God and reading. God, because he made me and looks after me. Books, because they are the only non-braincelldestructive way I know of, besides having someone else explain something to you, that you can learn about the world, and stimulate your mind in ways to encourage new ways of thinking.
Of course this is totally MHO, and is subject to change at any time.
- Take somone like the renegade "group" member and show his adventures trying to undermine the plans that the "Smoking man" comes up with. That could probably last a few seasons.
- Continue it on only in movies (This idea stinks IMHO.)
- Kill it off and come up with something new (Now that's a novel idea.)
- Have someone replace Mulder and Scully. If this idea is to work they must have two people with two COMPLETELY different dispositions than Mulder & Scully. To try to reproduce them would be a complete failure to revitalize the show. Maybe instead having a person that is half on the verge of skepticism, yet also wanting to believe. With a partner that really couldn't care more or less about the philisophical aspect of the cases and is just there to enjoy the ride (trigger happy mad man?) Now that would be a rather good spin off. Though this type of show would still run into the problem of not much material being available. Maybe instead of funky alien interactions they could be in the midst of multiple alien civilizations trying to infiltrate the earth (AKA: Earth Final Conflict, without the friendly contact), and they are experiencing all of the wierdness of these species slowly infiltrating into earths conscience? While trying to keep the fact that the aliens are there totally hush, hush (Like MIB.) The search for truth could still be there but maybe with a different twist. Like one of the FEDS wife was abducted by aliens, had a wierd entity inside of her, and is slowly mutating into one of them? There are many possibilities!
Though you must admit, since when has anyone made a good spinoff of a show? There are many possibilities but generally the producers are already so engulfed in ideas of money instead of quality, they don't care about uniqueness anymore.I heartily agree with your statements on the validities, and meaningfullness of Katz writings. He greatly reminds me of a certain *no-named* individual who works for Ziff Davis. Simply taking issues that have already been chewed and spit out hundreds of times by various other news sources (including computer professionals talking amongst themselves) repeats arguements already known, and adds nothing to it. Not to mention he speaks with no true knowledge of the issues he supposedly adamantly holds an opinion on. Has Jon ever "hacked" at a computer? Or has he ever worked for an actual software company, and seen the way they work? NO! He simply spouts off words he's heard someone else say without bothering to find out the facts, or get the experience in the subject himself. I must say he rather exemplifies himself as a poor journalist, though he is a rather ok writer. I myself work for a software company, and before this a computer manufacturer. Quality is always the utmost concern in every computer business I have ever participated in. Just because a few rogue software companies (like Microsloth) have shunned the idea of putting quality before release dates, does not mean this is kept as a whole. Programmers generally take great pride in their work, and constantly work on it to make it the best that they can, even the commercial ones!
Point being, Jon Katz should stick with fiction which he seems to be rather talented at, unless he plains on actually doing some research, or actually (for goodness sakes!) writing about something he knows about!
I've administered quite a few Windows NT/98/95 machines also. One NT Server doing nothing but running IIS with about 1 and a half million hits a month has never lasted longer than a week. Running Service Pack 4, quite highly tuned. It hasn't ever given BSOD's, or Kernel Panics, but after about a week of running it just gets really buggy, to the point that IIS can barely even run anymore, and the memory usage will be hitting the roof. I also have an NT machine running SQL Server, and doing some fileserving, also quite highly tuned. Using the only remote administration software that half way works on the SMP machine, it gets totally locked at totally different intervals at times, to the point that the OS is completely wacked, including all the services etc. I also know quite a few other people running NT as their servers all having to reboot weekly, or even more often. Under any type of semi heavy use their boxes just crash all the time. A LOT of them have switched over to linux just so they don't have to reboot their server everyday, and they are now quite happy... Including my Mother!
So you can make all of the unfounded FUD based "Comments" that you want, but the truth still remains. NT is a bloated buggy "Server OS" While Linux just chugs away. There are a few areas in Linux that needs improving, like some of the SCSI card drivers are still a bit buggy, and some SMP stuff could be worked on a bit (Though Linux does SMP MUCH better than NT). As always any piece of art has areas that were untouched by the artist given restraints on time, etc. but the great thing about Linux is that it's a piece of art not yet completed. Better yet it probably will never be perfected continually giving it's benefactors the chance to mold it, and form it into a wonderful, elegant, beauty of an OS. In conclusion, you should become more familiar with a subject matter before you make inadequate, fuzzy, and incomplete statements about it. Go to school, learn how to comprehend (and maybe even learn how to study!), envelope yourself in the topics you are so quick to take up and then come up with your own opinion that you can actually back up. One based on fact... And remember that something being lovingly made by thousands of devoted people happy to work on it, will generally be much better than anything a commercial money-grubbing monopolistic corporation can spring out of it's hat!
All I have to say on this matter is that I hope Jon Kats was just joking with us about how he's planning to write on subjects relating to that book. I have personally had enough of Jon's narrow minded, and mis-guided articles. He's barely a few steps above Jesse Berst with his stories on subjects he hasn't the vaguest idea about. Just cut it out and stop wasting the few kb of bandwidth it takes to realize that the article I just loaded was written by you!
That's true, but if Linus did sell out (which is very unlikely given his supposed philosophies on life), all the other developers which did not agree with his tactics would just fragment the source off into a whole other project. Sure it would cause incompatibilities, etc. with programs between the two forks of the code if either side went to far over, but at least we would have an alternative. Also, we always have the HURD project, which being that is is for the FSF, and OSS movement (IE: The presidant of FSF is helping to code it), it's even more unlikely that that project would go the way of the dodo bird. I personally do not believe that this problem will happen with linux.
The main point being here is that the Linux developement effort DOES NOT rely on Linux Torvalds. He is a major contributor to the project, and happens to be the one that started it, but given the GNU license he has no hold over the project except that which everyone else gives him.
I do believe it's possible for RedHat, Corel, SuSe, etc. to make distro specific apps, but who cares. If you want to sell your soul to some stupid word processor that's your problem. Everyone else with half a brain will stick with the open system which we love so much!
I hear ya. As soon as I see a barely dressed woman modeling for a product I understand the following things.
1) It's a new product trying to gain customers.
2) Their advertisers are as dumb as rocks
3) The product isn't worth my time if they feel that they must try to catch my attention with a barely clothed woman, probably because there product isn't that good.
And then I disregard the product entirely and move on.
On my home machine I simply downloaded Slackware 3.5 and have upgraded from source for every update I needed/wanted. It's much simpler, gives you much more control over your system, and helps you to learn a lot about the whole linux software cycle. IE: ls cd, etc. are all bundled up in one little package by the GNU dudes, which is really simple to install, etc. and even comes with example rc scripts. After about a year this system is much nicer software wise than any of the latest greatest, whizbang linux distro out there.
Well I personally believe that the brain may be some sort of ultimate storage device with almost limitless range of space. You take various case studies and you can see that pretty much every little fact a person encounters in his life is stored, it's just a matter of retrieving it. Using various trivial techniques people have reported instances dating to the womb, there early child-hood years, and things that happened yesterday. Down to the most precise details. Being that our mind is basically a vast collection of electromagnetic junctions each eminating, and working through a mass know as our brain, which has the type of shape and size, and being that is has a lot of liquid also, as too hold vast information, probably beyond our comprehention. It seems only logical to me that everything we see, hear, touch, etc. are stored via electromagnetic impulses to various places in our brain forming to date the most powerful storage medium ever seen, and maybe ever will be. After all it sure seems capable of storing the information of a persons entire life though that person may have a hard time recollecting those facts, they are there.
Yeah, that was the days of good tv shows. I will remember that phone booth till my dieing days :)
In Bonita Springs FL, it cost me 21 bucks for 3 tickets at $7 a pop, showing at 12:30 am on May the 19th. I guess the theatre has THX sound, but they sure don't advertise it.
:)).
Why you ask did I buy the tickets so early? Because it adds to the excitement of the movie when you are half a sleep when it starts (That is if it is a good movie, if it isn't I can sleep through the entire thing justifiably
I have used at least 50 different HTML editors for linux, windows, and mac; of all of them I have not seen one WYSIWYG that doesn't generate the most god awful HTML seen by human or alien. ALL of them are a waste of any serious web developers money/time. Out of the plain text editors I've found one nice one for windows named Homesite. It allows semi-remote editing, great search & replace, projects, humongous code reference and great help files for HTML newbies. But I must admit that the best HTML editor I have encountered has been vim. The way the cursor moves along your last position, and the many different vi-key combinations available; once you learn it's wanders you can do almost anything in very limited time, not to mention it has wonderful syntax highlighting.
I code C++, PHP3, SQL, and a smidget of C here and there. PHP3, and SQL I use for web developement and C++ is my fav for application work. The language you use really depends upon the line of work you're in.