Thanks for a great heads up! I'm looking at Torque now for my own indie efforts -- it looks really cool, and has great documentation. I like their licensing, too, and the fact they'll help you sell your stuff. Really nice group of people, apparently. Actually, after checking out their site last night, I was so blissed out I couldn't focus on anything for like, an hour. Sigh; wonnerful, wonnerful, wonnerful...;)
What did you mean by "the first year was like pulling teeth"? Did you mean that when Torque first came out, hardware support was iffy, but now it's settled? Or did you mean it took you a year to work out hardware support issues, in your game code? I'm thinking about adopting Torque for my own indie efforts, so I'd really like to hear what you think about it. It looks like a really nice engine.
And, I'll finish up with a simple statement drawn from freshman-level philosophy:
An extreme, individual case, like a PhD you used to know, has never been a valid proof of any point. After all, he could have been an anomaly; he could have lied on his resume, he could have had mental problems, he could have cheated in college, etc. It's anecdotal evidence, the weakest kind, and it means nothing.
On the other hand, apply a little deduction and draw a more reasonable conclusion. We all know that someone who has spent several years in school studying a subject knows a great deal more about that subject than someone who has only tinkered with it for a few months. From this basic information we can draw the conclusion that on the whole, an educated programmer will be superior to an uneducated one. In other words, a programmer who has studied the fundamental constructs of computer programming for several years will be superior to one who has only studied syntax.
I know this flies in the face of your personal "experience" but then, that's life. Since I don't work for you I don't have to pretend to agree with you. It's refreshing, isn't it? I'm guessing you don't get this sort of feedback much.
Well... Ok, I'll give you that, accepting that there is a range of skills among college grads, I mean that's just common sense. However, four to six years of studying computer science brings with it knowledge of discrete mathematics, file structures, data structures, algorithms, basic machine architecture, operating system principles... All bodies of knowledge that give a programmer with such a background a leg up over people who don't have it. And, it is my opinion that a programmer with the background info can actually handle most of the tasks that would be thrown at him. The fact that he graduated at all, thus passing the junior and senior level classes, is in itself a good sign.
So, really, you're a little bit off base. The "most basic level of programming skills" is language syntax, nothing more. And every wannabe with twelve hundred bucks and some time to kill can go to a certificate mill for that.
I don't trust bell curves, because they're usually used to reinforce a small elite's position in society, and I think their utility is fairly limited. Anyway, I think you're misusing the concept of the bell curve. Think about it this way:
The vast majority of data points on a bell curve fall within one or two standard deviations of the mean. So, something like 96% of people are somewhere around IQ=100 on the old-fashioned IQ bell curve, for example. Then you've got the people under IQ 95, and the people up over IQ 105, and you've got the about two percent of people who are up over IQ 120, and then, you've got the small percentage of people up around 140 and higher.
Now consider programming. IF there really is a programming "bell curve" (and I seriously doubt it) then you would expect similar results. Around 96% of programmers would have skills which lie around some mean, and would all be roughly equivalent in ability. Then you'd have about a couple of percent who are really crappy, and a couple of percent who are really amazing. Of course, it doesn't work this way at all!
In real life, because of the politics of IT hiring practices, you've got an entire spectrum of programmer abilities out there. You've got the no-skill wannabes on one side, people who were working in McDonalds and whatnot and took a VB course. Then you've got people with advanced degrees on the other, who could probably roll their own operating system. I met a man once who used to periodically send a few commands to Voyager (no shit! He was kinda cool, worked at Northern Arizona University). And, you've got a mixed bag in between.
My point was that once a person achieves a certain skill level, usually through university study but occasionally through hackerish self-instruction (I've met some pretty good people who did this) he's GOOD ENOUGH and can tackle most tasks without too much trouble. Anything above that just adds icing to the cake. Skill levels BELOW "good enough" are just plain bad of course.
And, in my opinion, on the whole programmers who are actually working as professionals are at that good enough level. So I think the whole idea of uber-programmers is hogwash. It's a bunch of elitists stroking each other. I think it's kind of silly.
Re:Nice, but it's still in New York
on
The Bionic Office
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· Score: 1
Yeah, no kidding. You forgot the two hour commute, the 250.00/month parking fees for OUTDOOR parking, the unbelieveable traffic, the low-lying smog destroying your lung capacity, the hookers and muggers and homeless people flinging bricks at random strangers so they can get locked up and survive the winter...
Yeesh. I don't miss NYC. I moved the hell away from that dungeon two years ago and have never looked back. Ick. Foo.
Yeah, no kidding... I wouldn't work for this Joel character. Who wants to spend all his time with his coworkers? I treasure my time away from them like a fine wine. When it's quitting time, I'm out. I asked my boss to build a big slip-and-slide from our eighth-floor office down to the garage to facilitate this, but he said it would cost too much (yeah, even the inflatible airplane slide). I tried to compromise, and suggested ending the slide at the bar across the street, but it would still have been too expensive. That, and zoning restrictions (rats!). What can you do?
On the other hand, he's cool like you; we generally work between 40 and 50 hours a week, and no one expects us to "essentially live at the office". Thank GOD for unions!;)
Re:Super ultra elite developers
on
The Bionic Office
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I've met a lot of programmers, some good, some bad, from a wide variety of backgrounds including everything from Harvard grads to CC dropouts. I think that when you've met enough people, you find that programming "brilliance" is a lot like physical beauty in women. In other words, it's everywhere, but most people fail to notice it.
Here's what I mean:
There's a wide range of physical beauty in women, going from the truly hideous to the utterly fine. But somewhere to the left of the middle of the range lies "attractive". Once someone is attractive, they're attractive, period. Any additional beauty is just a tiny little incremental change -- beauty isn't linear.
I think that most people who studied computer science in college (and took it seriously) are the comp. sci equivalent of "attractive", at least. They understand the subject, they know the basic constructs, and they understand the languages they work with. Given the opportunity, and a little bit of respect, they produce great work.
So, it's all about perception. Stop trying to look for tiny super-elites, and you'll see talent everywhere you look. That's one of the secrets of life, by the way. The most amazing things are usually right underfoot. Poor Joel seems to have missed this basic truth. 99.9th percentile, indeed. I hope none of them have a bridge for sale...;)
Assume human will respond relatively sanely when provided with sufficient data. Check amount of data provided to human, and correctness of same, then make prediction based on what a reasonable, rational, normal being would do. Remember to take into account personal greed and conflicts of interest!
}else if (human.IQ >= 105)&&(human.EdLevel == AA){
Human will behave more or less rationally, but has less background information to go on. May not behave predictably based on available information. Bears watching, usually will do what a "reasonable person" would do.
} else {//Unwashed masses! Danger!
Human can be counted on to do whatever other humans appear to be doing; all other information available is generally ignored. Predictions can be made via polls, provided the results of those polls are made available to the public AND enough time has been allotted for the public to view those polls. Prediction can be made much easier by nudging human towards one behavior and then predicting *that*. Two methods: A) Tell the human NOT to do the desired behavior, B) Tell the human that he is a member of a despised group if he doesn't do the behavior (examples include terrorists, communists, satanists, hippie freaks). Finally: the safest predictive technique is to imagine the stupidest, most nonsensical possible thing, and predict that. This will be accurate in at least 50% of cases, and can be used to hedge bets along with other mechanisms.
A/C Quote: "The problem isn't that I want to use more bandwidth than I paid for. The problem is that the Terms Of Service won't say how much bandwidth I'm limited to. Without giving me a number (ANY number), I'm left with the service's advertising. The advertising says "unlimited bandwidth". Right now, my bandwidth is capped at 2 Megabaud downstream (a theoretical max I don't think I'll ever reach, but is good for calculations). Therefore, "unlimited bandwidth" means 2e6 bits/sec * 1 byte/8bits * 3600 sec/hour * 24 hour/day * 30 day/month = 648 billion bytes or 603 Gb (2^30 bytes) per month.
Now, I'm not asking to be allowed to download 600 Gb per month. Instead I am asking Road Runner to state IN WRITING, AHEAD OF TIME how much I am allowed to download. If they choose not to let me know what my limit is (in writing, ahead of time), then I think that it's false advertising and unfair trade practices to cut me off for only using 10% (60 Gb) of that advertised maximum ("unlimited")."
End A/C quote
On this I agree with you 100%. Every ISP should draw up some kind of rule of thumb and present it to its users, just to lay it on the line so we know what our boundaries are. I am totally against the deceptive practice of capping bandwidth, then telling nobody what the cap is; I think it's just totally wrong.
But I'm all for bandwidth caps, as long as they're reasonable. For me, a reasonable bandwidth cap would be somewhere around 15-20GB; however that's just my opinion. I don't use the internet anywhere NEAR as much as some of the guys who've weighed in on this discussion (a lot of my computer use is offline, either programming or experimenting with Linux or FreeBSD, and my networking is mostly geared towards looking up HTML and/or text documents). So I can see that what would be a huge, astronomically roomy cap for me (15-20GB) might be perceived as Stalinist oppression by, say, someone who likes to stream a lot of movies to his house and watch them online (something I almost never do).
But you have to admit, something's got to give eventually. Some kind of guideline has to be drawn up so that the few don't use up too many of the resources the rest of us count on.
But I'm with you on the disclosure. The ISPs ought to draw up some kind of memo.
Yes, but at a couple of hundred megs a week, you're looking at maybe 2GB tops a month. That's miniscule compared to the 90GB reported in the article, and the 220GB reported by one of the people who posted a reply to me. Even your 15GB isn't that bad. You have to admit, a 20 - 30 GB limit on most users would be fairly reasonable.
Ok, first of all, how on EARTH are you capping out your 384kbps upstream? I can see an occasional upload of files to a website, etc, but you'd be through a 20MB upload in 60 seconds. So, just how would you keep that rate up long enough to get up over 4GB? You'd have to be uploading continuously. And, what would be the point of that? Your computer would be so busy it would be unusable. Hard disk LED flashing, processor busy, etc. What you're talking about is doing all these things more or less continuously, and I'm sorry, man, but you'd have to be going out of your way to test your comcast account to have that kind of usage. In other words, you're deliberately screwing with them, and they were right to get annoyed at you. 220GB! What were you thinking?
Second, you think you're making some kind of statement by cancelling your OWN high-speed internet account, but really all you've done is castrate yourself. Why would you do that? Do you think Comcast is going to miss your hundred bucks? Of course not -- they're breathing a sigh of relief that you're gone. You probably cost them a mint on the upstream side, and for what? Some kind of weird pissing match? Now you're knocked back to 56K and for what? Really, for what?
I agree. I've run into a lot of people over the years who seem determined to constantly look for some kind of loophole, an angle, an edge... They don't seem to be willing to cooperate with society, it's all about them and them only.
The boomcar guys are so annoying, aren't they? I take one consolation, though: they are slowly making themselves deaf. Remember, as loud as the music seems to you and I, they're basically sitting inside an echo chamber with the speakers only a couple of feet away from their ears. That's devastating on the tissues of the ear... I think they're nuts, personally.
"Unlimited usage" can be interpereted in a variety of ways, the traditional one being "no hourly charges, flat rate service". There's nothing that says they can't cap your bandwidth. In fact, they almost HAVE to cap your bandwidth so that everyone gets the same quality of service. Honestly, you haven't a leg to stand on. You're wrong, here. The needs of the many sometimes DO override the needs of the few, or the one. Sorry about the bad quote, but hey, this IS slashdot...
Yes, but that's really not very nice, now, is it?;)
Of course, the ISP could use the extra money to compensate for the person's advanced usage, so that the other people don't notice any slowdowns, and some ISPs might very well be doing this sort of thing. But, probably not all...
I think, if someone wants the extra bandwidth, they should buy their own leased line. Then, they're effectively uncapped. T3, anyone?
But, what are you DOING with all that stuff? At some point, don't you end up spending all your time downloading instead of (for instance) studying? I mean, come on, let's be honest, just how much time can you spend watching online video and listening to online radio before it starts getting to be a little much? I'm not trying to rip on your lifestyle or anything, but you have to admit, it does sound a little extreme.
The biggest thing I tend to download is an SDK, and they top out around 25MB, so I really can't imagine what's driving up your usage so high. Honestly, I find this entire conversation positively amazing.
You're wrong, and your point of view is very selfish and ungentlemanly.
The ISP is providing you a service. It is providing you a high-speed internet account, something that is still quite rare in this country (the vast majority of people are putting up with a 56k line). A gentleman would say, "I'm glad to have this service, and I appreciate it, so I'm not going to abuse it. I'm going to be a good citizen and play nice with all the other broadband users, and I'm not going to abuse what i've been given by, say, DOWNLOADING 90GB A MONTH FOR CHRISSAKES!"
A gentleman does not look for loopholes and excuses, and a gentleman does not exploit them at the expense of his friends and neighbors, regardless of whether he thinks he can get away with it or not.
Abusing the trust of your ISP by vastly overusing your account is sleazy, and you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't WANT to slow down everyone else's connection, and you shouldn't WANT to cost the ISP all the extra money they're going to have to pay for your usage. You should WANT to do the right thing, and be a good neighbor to all your fellow broadband users. You should WANT to behave within the spirit of the ISP's service agreement, not just the letter. You should WANT to behave well towards others.
Again, you're totally wrong. The selfishness and shortsightedness you're displaying is all too common these days and it's bringing our culture down.
That's cool... But I still don't think you're going to bump into a bandwidth cap with what you're describing. The people the article mentioned were going totally hog wild -- they weren't listening to internet radio. Man, I can't even IMAGINE downloading 90GB. Hell, my hard drive is only 40!!!;)
Fine, but taking cost out of it, their hardware and their wiring can only take so much bandwidth so if someone is eating it all up, the rest of the customers are still suffering. Not cool.
My POINT was, the few people who are complaining were completely, shamelessly abusing the service. You don't go into an "all you can eat" buffet with a sea bag and take all the food out with you, on the basis that while you might not be eating it now, you will, so it's a loophole and the owners can go to hell -- or do you? I bet you do, don't you?
Well, let's consider. Imagine a neighborhood wired for cablemodems. Every resident goes online when they get home from work. 29 residents just web browse, maybe download an ISO, whatever. Their usage is around (just pulling a figure out of the air) 5-10GB tops. One resident is doing god knows what, and pulling down 90GB per month. So, that one resident slows down everyone else's connection and fucks things up for everyone. Plus, he costs the cable company a whole lot more upstream, because they're buying bandwidth from someone else, probably by the GB.
Do you,
A) Just let the guy slide, because you bought into a bad pizza analogy which has nothing to do with the subject at hand?
B) cancel the guy's account completely, thus solving the problem?
C) Throttle all connections at some reasonable number higher than that used by most of the people on the block, but much lower than the bandwidth hog, thus effectively solving the problem while allowing the bandwidth hog to remain online?
2. Even 15GB isn't close to the usage of the people the ISPs were complaining about. I don't think they'd have much of a problem with you. And, the 5GB figure was actually the *minimum* figure being used somewhere up in Alaska, where it's probably a little tougher to be a provider (getting anything up to alaska is a challenge).
3. I don't think anyone is going to cap at 5GB. But they might at 15 or 20. My old hosting service used to cap at 30GB for a standard account; that should give you an idea.
4. There are only 7 days in the week. And, why would you be listening to internet radio continuously? Wouldn't it grate on your nerves after a while? And, don't you have an FM radio? Or a stereo? Or cable TV?
Anyway, that's all I can think of at the moment. The end of the day is nigh!;)
Too true. What I found interesting was that the people used as examples of the target of the caps were downloading the equivalent of 90 movies per month. Earlier in the article, they say two movies take up 2GB. So, assuming one GB per movie, that means the people targeted by the ISPs were using over 90GB per month. 90GB!!!
Perhaps the people who are complaining about this could take a deep breath, drink some soothing tea, and realize that that's a whole lot of downloading. Most of us don't even use 5GB, much less 90GB (90GB!!!). And, when you think about it, during normal web browsing, I doubt you use more than a couple hundred meg a month, total.
At first, I saw the article, and I was like, "bandwith caps? Oh no!" Then I read it and realized they're talking about capping up in the couple-dozen-gigabyte range. For the life of me, I can't see what the big deal is. You know? It's not like it's going to affect very many people...
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for a great heads up! I'm looking at Torque now for my own indie efforts -- it looks really cool, and has great documentation. I like their licensing, too, and the fact they'll help you sell your stuff. Really nice group of people, apparently. Actually, after checking out their site last night, I was so blissed out I couldn't focus on anything for like, an hour. Sigh; wonnerful, wonnerful, wonnerful... ;)
What did you mean by "the first year was like pulling teeth"? Did you mean that when Torque first came out, hardware support was iffy, but now it's settled? Or did you mean it took you a year to work out hardware support issues, in your game code? I'm thinking about adopting Torque for my own indie efforts, so I'd really like to hear what you think about it. It looks like a really nice engine.
And, I'll finish up with a simple statement drawn from freshman-level philosophy:
An extreme, individual case, like a PhD you used to know, has never been a valid proof of any point. After all, he could have been an anomaly; he could have lied on his resume, he could have had mental problems, he could have cheated in college, etc. It's anecdotal evidence, the weakest kind, and it means nothing.
On the other hand, apply a little deduction and draw a more reasonable conclusion. We all know that someone who has spent several years in school studying a subject knows a great deal more about that subject than someone who has only tinkered with it for a few months. From this basic information we can draw the conclusion that on the whole, an educated programmer will be superior to an uneducated one. In other words, a programmer who has studied the fundamental constructs of computer programming for several years will be superior to one who has only studied syntax.
I know this flies in the face of your personal "experience" but then, that's life. Since I don't work for you I don't have to pretend to agree with you. It's refreshing, isn't it? I'm guessing you don't get this sort of feedback much.
Well... Ok, I'll give you that, accepting that there is a range of skills among college grads, I mean that's just common sense. However, four to six years of studying computer science brings with it knowledge of discrete mathematics, file structures, data structures, algorithms, basic machine architecture, operating system principles... All bodies of knowledge that give a programmer with such a background a leg up over people who don't have it. And, it is my opinion that a programmer with the background info can actually handle most of the tasks that would be thrown at him. The fact that he graduated at all, thus passing the junior and senior level classes, is in itself a good sign.
So, really, you're a little bit off base. The "most basic level of programming skills" is language syntax, nothing more. And every wannabe with twelve hundred bucks and some time to kill can go to a certificate mill for that.
We're talking about programmers, not wannabes.
I don't trust bell curves, because they're usually used to reinforce a small elite's position in society, and I think their utility is fairly limited. Anyway, I think you're misusing the concept of the bell curve. Think about it this way:
The vast majority of data points on a bell curve fall within one or two standard deviations of the mean. So, something like 96% of people are somewhere around IQ=100 on the old-fashioned IQ bell curve, for example. Then you've got the people under IQ 95, and the people up over IQ 105, and you've got the about two percent of people who are up over IQ 120, and then, you've got the small percentage of people up around 140 and higher.
Now consider programming. IF there really is a programming "bell curve" (and I seriously doubt it) then you would expect similar results. Around 96% of programmers would have skills which lie around some mean, and would all be roughly equivalent in ability. Then you'd have about a couple of percent who are really crappy, and a couple of percent who are really amazing. Of course, it doesn't work this way at all!
In real life, because of the politics of IT hiring practices, you've got an entire spectrum of programmer abilities out there. You've got the no-skill wannabes on one side, people who were working in McDonalds and whatnot and took a VB course. Then you've got people with advanced degrees on the other, who could probably roll their own operating system. I met a man once who used to periodically send a few commands to Voyager (no shit! He was kinda cool, worked at Northern Arizona University). And, you've got a mixed bag in between.
My point was that once a person achieves a certain skill level, usually through university study but occasionally through hackerish self-instruction (I've met some pretty good people who did this) he's GOOD ENOUGH and can tackle most tasks without too much trouble. Anything above that just adds icing to the cake. Skill levels BELOW "good enough" are just plain bad of course.
And, in my opinion, on the whole programmers who are actually working as professionals are at that good enough level. So I think the whole idea of uber-programmers is hogwash. It's a bunch of elitists stroking each other. I think it's kind of silly.
Yeah, no kidding. You forgot the two hour commute, the 250.00/month parking fees for OUTDOOR parking, the unbelieveable traffic, the low-lying smog destroying your lung capacity, the hookers and muggers and homeless people flinging bricks at random strangers so they can get locked up and survive the winter...
Yeesh. I don't miss NYC. I moved the hell away from that dungeon two years ago and have never looked back. Ick. Foo.
Yeah, no kidding... I wouldn't work for this Joel character. Who wants to spend all his time with his coworkers? I treasure my time away from them like a fine wine. When it's quitting time, I'm out. I asked my boss to build a big slip-and-slide from our eighth-floor office down to the garage to facilitate this, but he said it would cost too much (yeah, even the inflatible airplane slide). I tried to compromise, and suggested ending the slide at the bar across the street, but it would still have been too expensive. That, and zoning restrictions (rats!). What can you do?
;)
On the other hand, he's cool like you; we generally work between 40 and 50 hours a week, and no one expects us to "essentially live at the office". Thank GOD for unions!
I've met a lot of programmers, some good, some bad, from a wide variety of backgrounds including everything from Harvard grads to CC dropouts. I think that when you've met enough people, you find that programming "brilliance" is a lot like physical beauty in women. In other words, it's everywhere, but most people fail to notice it.
;)
Here's what I mean:
There's a wide range of physical beauty in women, going from the truly hideous to the utterly fine. But somewhere to the left of the middle of the range lies "attractive". Once someone is attractive, they're attractive, period. Any additional beauty is just a tiny little incremental change -- beauty isn't linear.
I think that most people who studied computer science in college (and took it seriously) are the comp. sci equivalent of "attractive", at least. They understand the subject, they know the basic constructs, and they understand the languages they work with. Given the opportunity, and a little bit of respect, they produce great work.
So, it's all about perception. Stop trying to look for tiny super-elites, and you'll see talent everywhere you look. That's one of the secrets of life, by the way. The most amazing things are usually right underfoot. Poor Joel seems to have missed this basic truth. 99.9th percentile, indeed. I hope none of them have a bridge for sale...
(in pseudocode to facilitate implementation)
//Unwashed masses! Danger!
declare a "human" object and instantiate it, passing along the IQ and education level (None, HighSchool, AA, BA/BS, MS, PhD).
if((human.IQ >= 105)&&((human.EdLevel == BA/BS)||(human.EdLevel == MS)||(human.EdLevel == PhD))){
Assume human will respond relatively sanely when provided with sufficient data. Check amount of data provided to human, and correctness of same, then make prediction based on what a reasonable, rational, normal being would do. Remember to take into account personal greed and conflicts of interest!
}else if (human.IQ >= 105)&&(human.EdLevel == AA){
Human will behave more or less rationally, but has less background information to go on. May not behave predictably based on available information. Bears watching, usually will do what a "reasonable person" would do.
} else {
Human can be counted on to do whatever other humans appear to be doing; all other information available is generally ignored. Predictions can be made via polls, provided the results of those polls are made available to the public AND enough time has been allotted for the public to view those polls. Prediction can be made much easier by nudging human towards one behavior and then predicting *that*. Two methods: A) Tell the human NOT to do the desired behavior, B) Tell the human that he is a member of a despised group if he doesn't do the behavior (examples include terrorists, communists, satanists, hippie freaks). Finally: the safest predictive technique is to imagine the stupidest, most nonsensical possible thing, and predict that. This will be accurate in at least 50% of cases, and can be used to hedge bets along with other mechanisms.
}
An A/C said something interesting:
A/C Quote:
"The problem isn't that I want to use more bandwidth than I paid for. The problem is that the Terms Of Service won't say how much bandwidth I'm limited to. Without giving me a number (ANY number), I'm left with the service's advertising. The advertising says "unlimited bandwidth".
Right now, my bandwidth is capped at 2 Megabaud downstream (a theoretical max I don't think I'll ever reach, but is good for calculations). Therefore, "unlimited bandwidth" means 2e6 bits/sec * 1 byte/8bits * 3600 sec/hour * 24 hour/day * 30 day/month = 648 billion bytes or 603 Gb (2^30 bytes) per month.
Now, I'm not asking to be allowed to download 600 Gb per month. Instead I am asking Road Runner to state IN WRITING, AHEAD OF TIME how much I am allowed to download. If they choose not to let me know what my limit is (in writing, ahead of time), then I think that it's false advertising and unfair trade practices to cut me off for only using 10% (60 Gb) of that advertised maximum ("unlimited")."
End A/C quote
On this I agree with you 100%. Every ISP should draw up some kind of rule of thumb and present it to its users, just to lay it on the line so we know what our boundaries are. I am totally against the deceptive practice of capping bandwidth, then telling nobody what the cap is; I think it's just totally wrong.
But I'm all for bandwidth caps, as long as they're reasonable. For me, a reasonable bandwidth cap would be somewhere around 15-20GB; however that's just my opinion. I don't use the internet anywhere NEAR as much as some of the guys who've weighed in on this discussion (a lot of my computer use is offline, either programming or experimenting with Linux or FreeBSD, and my networking is mostly geared towards looking up HTML and/or text documents). So I can see that what would be a huge, astronomically roomy cap for me (15-20GB) might be perceived as Stalinist oppression by, say, someone who likes to stream a lot of movies to his house and watch them online (something I almost never do).
But you have to admit, something's got to give eventually. Some kind of guideline has to be drawn up so that the few don't use up too many of the resources the rest of us count on.
But I'm with you on the disclosure. The ISPs ought to draw up some kind of memo.
Yes, but at a couple of hundred megs a week, you're looking at maybe 2GB tops a month. That's miniscule compared to the 90GB reported in the article, and the 220GB reported by one of the people who posted a reply to me. Even your 15GB isn't that bad. You have to admit, a 20 - 30 GB limit on most users would be fairly reasonable.
Wow. I'm speechless. Jeez, louise...
Great gugga mugga!
Ok, first of all, how on EARTH are you capping out your 384kbps upstream? I can see an occasional upload of files to a website, etc, but you'd be through a 20MB upload in 60 seconds. So, just how would you keep that rate up long enough to get up over 4GB? You'd have to be uploading continuously. And, what would be the point of that? Your computer would be so busy it would be unusable. Hard disk LED flashing, processor busy, etc. What you're talking about is doing all these things more or less continuously, and I'm sorry, man, but you'd have to be going out of your way to test your comcast account to have that kind of usage. In other words, you're deliberately screwing with them, and they were right to get annoyed at you. 220GB! What were you thinking?
Second, you think you're making some kind of statement by cancelling your OWN high-speed internet account, but really all you've done is castrate yourself. Why would you do that? Do you think Comcast is going to miss your hundred bucks? Of course not -- they're breathing a sigh of relief that you're gone. You probably cost them a mint on the upstream side, and for what? Some kind of weird pissing match? Now you're knocked back to 56K and for what? Really, for what?
I don't understand you at all.
I agree. I've run into a lot of people over the years who seem determined to constantly look for some kind of loophole, an angle, an edge... They don't seem to be willing to cooperate with society, it's all about them and them only.
The boomcar guys are so annoying, aren't they? I take one consolation, though: they are slowly making themselves deaf. Remember, as loud as the music seems to you and I, they're basically sitting inside an echo chamber with the speakers only a couple of feet away from their ears. That's devastating on the tissues of the ear... I think they're nuts, personally.
"Unlimited usage" can be interpereted in a variety of ways, the traditional one being "no hourly charges, flat rate service". There's nothing that says they can't cap your bandwidth. In fact, they almost HAVE to cap your bandwidth so that everyone gets the same quality of service. Honestly, you haven't a leg to stand on. You're wrong, here. The needs of the many sometimes DO override the needs of the few, or the one. Sorry about the bad quote, but hey, this IS slashdot...
Yes, but that's really not very nice, now, is it? ;)
Of course, the ISP could use the extra money to compensate for the person's advanced usage, so that the other people don't notice any slowdowns, and some ISPs might very well be doing this sort of thing. But, probably not all...
I think, if someone wants the extra bandwidth, they should buy their own leased line. Then, they're effectively uncapped. T3, anyone?
But, what are you DOING with all that stuff? At some point, don't you end up spending all your time downloading instead of (for instance) studying? I mean, come on, let's be honest, just how much time can you spend watching online video and listening to online radio before it starts getting to be a little much? I'm not trying to rip on your lifestyle or anything, but you have to admit, it does sound a little extreme.
The biggest thing I tend to download is an SDK, and they top out around 25MB, so I really can't imagine what's driving up your usage so high. Honestly, I find this entire conversation positively amazing.
You're wrong, and your point of view is very selfish and ungentlemanly.
The ISP is providing you a service. It is providing you a high-speed internet account, something that is still quite rare in this country (the vast majority of people are putting up with a 56k line). A gentleman would say, "I'm glad to have this service, and I appreciate it, so I'm not going to abuse it. I'm going to be a good citizen and play nice with all the other broadband users, and I'm not going to abuse what i've been given by, say, DOWNLOADING 90GB A MONTH FOR CHRISSAKES!"
A gentleman does not look for loopholes and excuses, and a gentleman does not exploit them at the expense of his friends and neighbors, regardless of whether he thinks he can get away with it or not.
Abusing the trust of your ISP by vastly overusing your account is sleazy, and you shouldn't do it. You shouldn't WANT to slow down everyone else's connection, and you shouldn't WANT to cost the ISP all the extra money they're going to have to pay for your usage. You should WANT to do the right thing, and be a good neighbor to all your fellow broadband users. You should WANT to behave within the spirit of the ISP's service agreement, not just the letter. You should WANT to behave well towards others.
Again, you're totally wrong. The selfishness and shortsightedness you're displaying is all too common these days and it's bringing our culture down.
That's cool... But I still don't think you're going to bump into a bandwidth cap with what you're describing. The people the article mentioned were going totally hog wild -- they weren't listening to internet radio. Man, I can't even IMAGINE downloading 90GB. Hell, my hard drive is only 40!!! ;)
Fine, but taking cost out of it, their hardware and their wiring can only take so much bandwidth so if someone is eating it all up, the rest of the customers are still suffering. Not cool.
Uhm, NO.
My POINT was, the few people who are complaining were completely, shamelessly abusing the service. You don't go into an "all you can eat" buffet with a sea bag and take all the food out with you, on the basis that while you might not be eating it now, you will, so it's a loophole and the owners can go to hell -- or do you? I bet you do, don't you?
Tsk...
Well, let's consider. Imagine a neighborhood wired for cablemodems. Every resident goes online when they get home from work. 29 residents just web browse, maybe download an ISO, whatever. Their usage is around (just pulling a figure out of the air) 5-10GB tops. One resident is doing god knows what, and pulling down 90GB per month. So, that one resident slows down everyone else's connection and fucks things up for everyone. Plus, he costs the cable company a whole lot more upstream, because they're buying bandwidth from someone else, probably by the GB.
Do you,
A) Just let the guy slide, because you bought into a bad pizza analogy which has nothing to do with the subject at hand?
B) cancel the guy's account completely, thus solving the problem?
C) Throttle all connections at some reasonable number higher than that used by most of the people on the block, but much lower than the bandwidth hog, thus effectively solving the problem while allowing the bandwidth hog to remain online?
Hint: C is the humane approach.
1. Internet Radio is TWO words.
;)
2. Even 15GB isn't close to the usage of the people the ISPs were complaining about. I don't think they'd have much of a problem with you. And, the 5GB figure was actually the *minimum* figure being used somewhere up in Alaska, where it's probably a little tougher to be a provider (getting anything up to alaska is a challenge).
3. I don't think anyone is going to cap at 5GB. But they might at 15 or 20. My old hosting service used to cap at 30GB for a standard account; that should give you an idea.
4. There are only 7 days in the week. And, why would you be listening to internet radio continuously? Wouldn't it grate on your nerves after a while? And, don't you have an FM radio? Or a stereo? Or cable TV?
Anyway, that's all I can think of at the moment. The end of the day is nigh!
I would have replied to him, but your post is just so perfect; how could I improve on such a witty and elegant explanation?
Thanks!
Too true. What I found interesting was that the people used as examples of the target of the caps were downloading the equivalent of 90 movies per month. Earlier in the article, they say two movies take up 2GB. So, assuming one GB per movie, that means the people targeted by the ISPs were using over 90GB per month. 90GB!!!
Perhaps the people who are complaining about this could take a deep breath, drink some soothing tea, and realize that that's a whole lot of downloading. Most of us don't even use 5GB, much less 90GB (90GB!!!). And, when you think about it, during normal web browsing, I doubt you use more than a couple hundred meg a month, total.
At first, I saw the article, and I was like, "bandwith caps? Oh no!" Then I read it and realized they're talking about capping up in the couple-dozen-gigabyte range. For the life of me, I can't see what the big deal is. You know? It's not like it's going to affect very many people...