We have some interesting new ones over here in the UK now - they take note of license plates as you drive down the road, and if they see a license plate further on but sooner than it could possibly have arrived there if it was obeying the limit then it notes your plate down and takes a photo.
So you can do 30mph in the 30mph camera zone, do 50 to the next camera, slow down to 30 again and whallop you'll get hammered.
Presumably it's the technology that TrafficMaster licensed from the police, now that it's been refined and its reliable they are using it to enforce the limits in a much more "reliable" way than assuming people will be good and obey the speed limit when they aren't being watched.
We have tons of the red-light cameras here in London and large quantities of speed cameras.
I don't have a problem with them personally, as someone else has said on the thread - yellow means stop unless it is dangerous to do so. Yellow doesn't mean you can still go, it's as good as Red. I still see lots of people using the rule:
Green means go. Yellow means go. Red means go if you think you can.
Lights and speed limits are there for safety folks, and while I would disagree with agencies from manipulating the lights in order to encourage higher "failings", fact is, if there is always a minimum yellow period then you've got no excuse, sorry, if that light is yellow then you are obligated to stop, immediately, no questions and no arguments, unless it is unsafe to do so.
I don't see Tailgating as a valid excuse either, my wifes solution to tailgaters is to speed up to put some distance between them - she hasn't yet twigged that this just means that they'll speed up themselves. The proper solution is to slow down so that you can drive within your normal tolerances given the distance between you and the vehicle behind - if that means you're doing 5mph because they're bumpering you, tough, they'll soon get annoyed and burn rubber past you (which becomes even more satisfying if they then nab themselves a speeding ticket from the camera moments later down the road:) ).
What bugs the hell out of me is that different countries get different quality of DVD for the same movie. When Starship Troopers came out as I recall the Region 1 US disc was fantastic with a bunch of extra features. The Region 2 EUROPE disc (Germany etc) had less features but still atleast had the trailers etc and the Region 2 UK disc had the film on a flipper and that was it.
I just bought a top notch sound system because DVD gives you the best sound quality I figure, may as well take advantage. But do you region 1'ers know that in the UK we have *TWO* DTS dvd's and that's it? We're getting our first film RSN, Gladiator. But I look on the web at places like dvdexpress and Region 1 has a huge number of DTS movies.
What about releases that never make it? One of my favourite movies last year was Antz. I personally thought it was better then Bugs Life because the story line was much more 'adult oriented' than 'kid oriented', meaning they could get a bit deeper, some more subtle jokes etc. Bugs Life made it out in the UK but Antz has not to this day been released over here.
I can deal with the time delay, it annoys the hell out of me but I've dealt with it all my life so i'm not gonna use that as another argument.
So if I restrict myself to Region 2 then I get screwed on features, screwed on sound tracks and don't get the movies that I want to have in my collection. Uhhhhh Sorry, what's up with that? What era are we living in again?
If there's a good movie I want then if there is a DTS version I buy it Region 1, if it isn't available over here I buy it Region 1 but if it is over here and high quality then I prefer to support Region 2 - but they bloody well make it hard and this is just going to make it harder. Time to check with the people I got the player from to see whether the mod will be affected by this.
I can see DVD getting strangled by the manufacturers at this rate. One day they'll realise... The only way to prevent piracy, or to prevent use in a form other than you would like, is to NOT RELEASE IT AT ALL. We're all free thinking people after all, we all come up with ideas - especially the Slashdot community. ==== Dear Diary ==========
There are many websites out there with overlapping functionality. If you don't like the banners on one site then move to another one that has less banners!
My website (Dear Diary) isn't paid for by banners but they do help contribute. Initially we had banners on every page but due to customer comments we agreed to cut the number of banners down to a minimum set and everyone was a lot happier - ok so we arent making as much but the banners now only appear if you are logged in and making use of the site to store your diary, if you are reading (which is 75-90% of the site) then you will never see a banner. Our users are a lot happier about this, our hit rate has gone up and our income after a couple of months is pretty much back to where it was (piddlingly small, but still:) ).
I don't mind seeing banners - yes there are a few (such as Treeloots bloody monkey) that really annoy me, and if a user complains about a particular advert for any reason then I go into the Ad configuration and switch it off.
The solution to this problem is not blanket banning ad banners, if they didn't exist then I would probably not have started this, our server costs a fortune to run, the solution is communication (shock! horror!). For example, I think the adverts on Slashdot are generally great, they aren't too intrusive and I do click on them occasionally when there's something that interests me (indeed, my server hosting came from a Slashdot Banner!).
Conspiracy or not, Like it or not, if you ban advert banners in the browser, in my humble opinion you will see some sites shut down (and/or not be maintained as often) and some sites will start having subscription fee's to make their money. One person commented that making the contract visible might be a solution - that might well be a third track, when you sign up you agree to accept ad banners, if you are the only site with this contract then you aren't going to succeed but if some sites shut down, some sites start charging, a few remain free but under developed, and the rest have this Terms and Conditions thing - Ad Banners then start looking a little more attractive, I know if I had to pay for some of the sites I use directly, I wouldn't use them (i'd be paying for far too many for one thing, it'd cost a blinkin fortune!).
Unless of course, the only free websites that you want to see are the ones run exclusively by big corporations (because they can afford to throw the money away)? No more small upstarts challenging the big boys? Something sounds a bit counter-intuitive here. ==== Dear Diary ==========
When I first started with Linux there was no X, just shell. Later X appeared and I could use TWM, MWM or FVWM. Then came FVWM95, and later on Afterstep, then Windowmaker and most recently we have Enlightenment, KDE and Gnome. All coming along in the next release of the distributions, so you can't say that things necessarily stay common with Linux either. Granted, you can still use FVWM95 on your RedHat 6.1 box but who would? File Manager was always (and still is) present in Windows 95, 98 and I just checked my NT4.0. So is Program Manager, but who uses them? Don't get me wrong, I'm an enormous supporter of Linux and I hope it does really well but all I see in forums like Slashdot are people saying 'We want to kick Windows out! but newbies, go away unless you want to learn the OS like you should!'.
As far as who would use a well designed GUI, well I know loads of people. My wife detests any form of command line. Just having to telnet into my Linux box and type 'pppon' bugs her and she wants a pointy clicky program on her desktop to just click 'go online'. Even myself, as a very well experienced unix server admin and software developer, I prefer well defined operations to be accessible in a well defined GUI because they help to prevent silly errors like typo's - what I dislike is when the GUI is the only access into the configuration because then you get into trouble when the GUI fails on you or doesn't support the latest features! ==== Dear Diary ==========
As true as your sentiment is, and I fully agree with you for the record - you aren't going to get people to accept Linux on the desktop if you have to thump a large wad of manuals down on their desk or hand them a CDRom full of the manuals and say 'read here, go through this lot and spend some time learning it and within a month or two you should be doing everything you were with windows'. Where's the incentive? You're also assuming people actually have the time to do this - I know I for one wouldn't have the time now to learn Unix (good job I did that at Uni heheh), now'days I just need my computer to perform its' task, I don't have time for learning how X app works, what arcane configuration files it uses, what programming language you have to learn to make the most use out of it or whatever.
I think until the Linux 'development team' learn to cater for people that are not even slightly interested in development or any technical issues (think PHB's and computer newbies) then these groups will not accept Linux and will run to the OS that presents them with the pretty pictures that make their life easy, if restrictive. Where Linux has the opportunity to shine here is that it can offer a cut down lean and mean interface to those that know what they want and can get the best out, but offer a pretty singing and dancing one for those that don't and don't want to. ==== Dear Diary ==========
Ask anyone that works on Genetic Algorithms for problem solving and one of the key components is the mutation element. The fact that every now and again a bad element introduces an overall positivity and might stumble upon a 'Real Good Thing (TM)'.
The way that evolution works is diversity, if we become basic images of the same blueprint 'ideal' DNA then we lose the diversity and everything unravels - we're taking responsibility for our future and our ability to solve the obstacles that confront us, whether we know they are there or not - it means we'll begin to RELY on such help in the future when our make-up accidentally LOSES the ability to evolve. Pop, goodbye mankind!
Let's take a different look without going quite so far in to the sci-fi future - ironically by looking at a Sci Fi movie i'm sure everyone has thought of. Gattaca.
If you haven't seen it, watch it. NOW.
There's a special on the DVD that tries to urge viewers NOT to dabble with DNA in this way, imagine the people in our past that would have been 'fixed' or 'terminated' due to their illnesses, some of our greatest minds, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking to name but two.
What good is life going to be if it's just a pre-programmed existence? Part of being here means that we face unknown challenges and find solutions. I'm not talking about us as individuals but as the group known as 'humanity'. We don't know what kind of mind will come up with the idea for the next major leap in our intelligence - it could quite easily be someone that is deaf and can't walk, and because of this they spent all their time reading books and an idea suddenly hit them while they were sitting there.
Genetics is as much of a weapon as any other technology and can and no doubt (cynical view coming) will be misused. The thought that we can rid ourselves of deadly and crippling diseases is great but we lose something then from the futures that these individuals lead and the contribution they can make to society - Stephen Hawking is as much proof as we need that physical disabilities don't mean you can't be one of our greatest minds.
A great article JonKatz - maybe if enough people start to wake up then we can put the brakes on this train before we hit the wall:) (maybe i'm just the eternal optimist:) ).
The best way to look at Internet Romances is to think of them as no different to going to the pub. It has the added benefit that you aren't going to be basing everything on what someone looks like so you're more likely to find that soul-mate, but the problem is that a lot of people online are different people than in real life in some way. Many people are the 'person they would like to be' rather than the person they are and generally it's not done to be spiteful but just because we all want to be better people, so there is room there for disappointment.
I met my wife on the Internet, I was in Essex University in the UK and she was a Brigham Young in Utah. We met via a friend who found her on a mailing list for penpals, and introduced her to the world of online communication via MUD and MOO, which is where I met her since I co-ran the system with aforementioned friend:) My first thoughts of her were that she was stuck up, she wouldn't talk to me - turns out she didn't understand that when it said 'You hear a voice whispering from a great distance....' that it was actually someone paging her, since her character was Deanna Troi from Star Trek she figured it was something to do with that and ignored it:)
We were great friends for about 18 months before she came over here for a vacation and didn't go back again. We've been married now for coming up to 5 years in December.
It can work, it can just as easily go bad. Some people I know have gone to meet someone they are really fond of and found that all the other person (usually the guy of the pair) is after is someone with which to dance the matress mambo.
The important things as far as I can see it are to meet people through the Internet, sure, build up a friendship through the Internet, sure. DONT FORGET to meet these people in real life, become friends with them in real life and do it the old fashioned way from there because you can hide so much behind that monitor that you might shock someone else and/or they might shock you so don't get wound up in something you wish you hadn't 'if only you'd known'. It's like marrying someone before you've lived with them for a while, no matter how good friends you are it's not until you're in each others pockets 24/7 that you realise how much they irk you (or not, if you're lucky).
I'm not knocking Internet Romance - it's how I met my wife, as I say - but i'm saying that you should never rely on it, you still can't beat calling someone or taking them out to dinner etc, personal contact.
Just my $0.02 (actually more like $20.00 judging by the size of the scroll bar hehehe).
Take a look and let me know what you think. At the moment account creation is required but the only reason I haven't changed that is because no one has asked me to, it should only take a minute or two:)
Also, another of my projects Dear Diary if anyone wants to take a look at that too:)
I've been in comms in the UK now at one level or another since back in the days when SuperBBS, RemoteAccess 1 and FrontDoor 2.02 ruled the waves. Let's apply a little more thought to the metered calls situation here:)
In the UK we only have one major telco - BT. There are others but to be honest they are still at a stage where they either can't supply the whole country or their service is not up to the standards. We had one bright light in the distance (Ionica) but that went bust.
Now, at the moment it is *OFTEL* that are forcing BT to keep their prices at a competitive level so that OTHER Telco's can compete. While all the other telco's are struggling to provide free or near free calls BT charge as normal (although their prices are really coming down - it's less than 60p an hour now, which is around $1). If BT were to go unmetered for local calls then you'd almost immediately squash out the competition, you only have to look at FreeServe - they were one of the first (if not, THE first) ISP that did not have any subscription charges and they singlehandedly changed the face of the ISP market (I used to run an ISP, trust me on this one) in the UK.
So we'd have unmetered calls for a while, the competition goes bust, and then BT might start to raise costs (justifying them all the way, *ofcourse*) and without any significant competition for their customer base to shift to what would happen then?
The other major point to consider is bandwidth. Having run an ISP I know exactly how much bandwidth costs in the UK and trust me it is orders of magnitude more than in the US, while most startup ISP's in the US were coming on with a T1 (1.544 Megabit) line, startup ISP's were coming online in the UK with 64k or 128k Kilostreams and probably paying MORE for them. The same is still true, the numbers on both sides of the equation are just bigger now.
You think it's slow in the UK during peak times? Difficult to get on? If we go unmetered at the moment the Internet will become unusable in the UK unless you have access to a fat pipe - you can forget dialups.
Personally, I pay for my subscription to an ISP because I know that this means their subscriber to modem rate is going to be good, as well as their modem to bandwidth rate - which is equally important, not getting a busy signal is only half the story if you can't DO anything when you're online.
I would personally love unmetered time online, but the bottom line is that I still want to use the Internet at a reasonable speed. I upgraded to ISDN 64k to get reliable connections at a decent speed and at the moment my 'pay for' ISP is happily able to fill a single channel or both channels whenever I require it. Until the cost of bandwidth, the lines themselves and the equipment goes down I believe that unmetered calls would spell the end to the Internet, certainly to any ISP smaller than Demon, AOL, UUnet or Freeserve.
Slashdot Mirror
We have some interesting new ones over here in the UK now - they take note of license plates as you drive down the road, and if they see a license plate further on but sooner than it could possibly have arrived there if it was obeying the limit then it notes your plate down and takes a photo.
:) ).
So you can do 30mph in the 30mph camera zone, do 50 to the next camera, slow down to 30 again and whallop you'll get hammered.
Presumably it's the technology that TrafficMaster licensed from the police, now that it's been refined and its reliable they are using it to enforce the limits in a much more "reliable" way than assuming people will be good and obey the speed limit when they aren't being watched.
We have tons of the red-light cameras here in London and large quantities of speed cameras.
I don't have a problem with them personally, as someone else has said on the thread - yellow means stop unless it is dangerous to do so. Yellow doesn't mean you can still go, it's as good as Red. I still see lots of people using the rule:
Green means go.
Yellow means go.
Red means go if you think you can.
Lights and speed limits are there for safety folks, and while I would disagree with agencies from manipulating the lights in order to encourage higher "failings", fact is, if there is always a minimum yellow period then you've got no excuse, sorry, if that light is yellow then you are obligated to stop, immediately, no questions and no arguments, unless it is unsafe to do so.
I don't see Tailgating as a valid excuse either, my wifes solution to tailgaters is to speed up to put some distance between them - she hasn't yet twigged that this just means that they'll speed up themselves. The proper solution is to slow down so that you can drive within your normal tolerances given the distance between you and the vehicle behind - if that means you're doing 5mph because they're bumpering you, tough, they'll soon get annoyed and burn rubber past you (which becomes even more satisfying if they then nab themselves a speeding ticket from the camera moments later down the road
Matt.
What bugs the hell out of me is that different countries get different quality of DVD for the same movie. When Starship Troopers came out as I recall the Region 1 US disc was fantastic with a bunch of extra features. The Region 2 EUROPE disc (Germany etc) had less features but still atleast had the trailers etc and the Region 2 UK disc had the film on a flipper and that was it.
I just bought a top notch sound system because DVD gives you the best sound quality I figure, may as well take advantage. But do you region 1'ers know that in the UK we have *TWO* DTS dvd's and that's it? We're getting our first film RSN, Gladiator. But I look on the web at places like dvdexpress and Region 1 has a huge number of DTS movies.
What about releases that never make it? One of my favourite movies last year was Antz. I personally thought it was better then Bugs Life because the story line was much more 'adult oriented' than 'kid oriented', meaning they could get a bit deeper, some more subtle jokes etc. Bugs Life made it out in the UK but Antz has not to this day been released over here.
I can deal with the time delay, it annoys the hell out of me but I've dealt with it all my life so i'm not gonna use that as another argument.
So if I restrict myself to Region 2 then I get screwed on features, screwed on sound tracks and don't get the movies that I want to have in my collection. Uhhhhh Sorry, what's up with that? What era are we living in again?
If there's a good movie I want then if there is a DTS version I buy it Region 1, if it isn't available over here I buy it Region 1 but if it is over here and high quality then I prefer to support Region 2 - but they bloody well make it hard and this is just going to make it harder. Time to check with the people I got the player from to see whether the mod will be affected by this.
I can see DVD getting strangled by the manufacturers at this rate. One day they'll realise... The only way to prevent piracy, or to prevent use in a form other than you would like, is to NOT RELEASE IT AT ALL. We're all free thinking people after all, we all come up with ideas - especially the Slashdot community.
==== Dear Diary ==========
There are many websites out there with overlapping functionality. If you don't like the banners on one site then move to another one that has less banners!
:) ).
My website (Dear Diary) isn't paid for by banners but they do help contribute. Initially we had banners on every page but due to customer comments we agreed to cut the number of banners down to a minimum set and everyone was a lot happier - ok so we arent making as much but the banners now only appear if you are logged in and making use of the site to store your diary, if you are reading (which is 75-90% of the site) then you will never see a banner. Our users are a lot happier about this, our hit rate has gone up and our income after a couple of months is pretty much back to where it was (piddlingly small, but still
I don't mind seeing banners - yes there are a few (such as Treeloots bloody monkey) that really annoy me, and if a user complains about a particular advert for any reason then I go into the Ad configuration and switch it off.
The solution to this problem is not blanket banning ad banners, if they didn't exist then I would probably not have started this, our server costs a fortune to run, the solution is communication (shock! horror!). For example, I think the adverts on Slashdot are generally great, they aren't too intrusive and I do click on them occasionally when there's something that interests me (indeed, my server hosting came from a Slashdot Banner!).
Conspiracy or not, Like it or not, if you ban advert banners in the browser, in my humble opinion you will see some sites shut down (and/or not be maintained as often) and some sites will start having subscription fee's to make their money. One person commented that making the contract visible might be a solution - that might well be a third track, when you sign up you agree to accept ad banners, if you are the only site with this contract then you aren't going to succeed but if some sites shut down, some sites start charging, a few remain free but under developed, and the rest have this Terms and Conditions thing - Ad Banners then start looking a little more attractive, I know if I had to pay for some of the sites I use directly, I wouldn't use them (i'd be paying for far too many for one thing, it'd cost a blinkin fortune!).
Unless of course, the only free websites that you want to see are the ones run exclusively by big corporations (because they can afford to throw the money away)? No more small upstarts challenging the big boys? Something sounds a bit counter-intuitive here.
==== Dear Diary ==========
But wasn't the Bob product withdrawn because it was considered too insulting? :-) hehehe
==== Dear Diary ==========
When I first started with Linux there was no X, just shell. Later X appeared and I could use TWM, MWM or FVWM. Then came FVWM95, and later on Afterstep, then Windowmaker and most recently we have Enlightenment, KDE and Gnome. All coming along in the next release of the distributions, so you can't say that things necessarily stay common with Linux either. Granted, you can still use FVWM95 on your RedHat 6.1 box but who would? File Manager was always (and still is) present in Windows 95, 98 and I just checked my NT4.0. So is Program Manager, but who uses them? Don't get me wrong, I'm an enormous supporter of Linux and I hope it does really well but all I see in forums like Slashdot are people saying 'We want to kick Windows out! but newbies, go away unless you want to learn the OS like you should!'.
As far as who would use a well designed GUI, well I know loads of people. My wife detests any form of command line. Just having to telnet into my Linux box and type 'pppon' bugs her and she wants a pointy clicky program on her desktop to just click 'go online'. Even myself, as a very well experienced unix server admin and software developer, I prefer well defined operations to be accessible in a well defined GUI because they help to prevent silly errors like typo's - what I dislike is when the GUI is the only access into the configuration because then you get into trouble when the GUI fails on you or doesn't support the latest features!
==== Dear Diary ==========
As true as your sentiment is, and I fully agree with you for the record - you aren't going to get people to accept Linux on the desktop if you have to thump a large wad of manuals down on their desk or hand them a CDRom full of the manuals and say 'read here, go through this lot and spend some time learning it and within a month or two you should be doing everything you were with windows'. Where's the incentive? You're also assuming people actually have the time to do this - I know I for one wouldn't have the time now to learn Unix (good job I did that at Uni heheh), now'days I just need my computer to perform its' task, I don't have time for learning how X app works, what arcane configuration files it uses, what programming language you have to learn to make the most use out of it or whatever.
I think until the Linux 'development team' learn to cater for people that are not even slightly interested in development or any technical issues (think PHB's and computer newbies) then these groups will not accept Linux and will run to the OS that presents them with the pretty pictures that make their life easy, if restrictive. Where Linux has the opportunity to shine here is that it can offer a cut down lean and mean interface to those that know what they want and can get the best out, but offer a pretty singing and dancing one for those that don't and don't want to.
==== Dear Diary ==========
The way that evolution works is diversity, if we become basic images of the same blueprint 'ideal' DNA then we lose the diversity and everything unravels - we're taking responsibility for our future and our ability to solve the obstacles that confront us, whether we know they are there or not - it means we'll begin to RELY on such help in the future when our make-up accidentally LOSES the ability to evolve. Pop, goodbye mankind!
Let's take a different look without going quite so far in to the sci-fi future - ironically by looking at a Sci Fi movie i'm sure everyone has thought of. Gattaca.
If you haven't seen it, watch it. NOW.
There's a special on the DVD that tries to urge viewers NOT to dabble with DNA in this way, imagine the people in our past that would have been 'fixed' or 'terminated' due to their illnesses, some of our greatest minds, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking to name but two.
What good is life going to be if it's just a pre-programmed existence? Part of being here means that we face unknown challenges and find solutions. I'm not talking about us as individuals but as the group known as 'humanity'. We don't know what kind of mind will come up with the idea for the next major leap in our intelligence - it could quite easily be someone that is deaf and can't walk, and because of this they spent all their time reading books and an idea suddenly hit them while they were sitting there.
Genetics is as much of a weapon as any other technology and can and no doubt (cynical view coming) will be misused. The thought that we can rid ourselves of deadly and crippling diseases is great but we lose something then from the futures that these individuals lead and the contribution they can make to society - Stephen Hawking is as much proof as we need that physical disabilities don't mean you can't be one of our greatest minds.
A great article JonKatz - maybe if enough people start to wake up then we can put the brakes on this train before we hit the wall :) (maybe i'm just the eternal optimist :) ).
Read my diary for more thoughts!
http://www.neutronic.deardiary.net
==== Dear Diary ==========
The best way to look at Internet Romances is to think of them as no different to going to the pub. It has the added benefit that you aren't going to be basing everything on what someone looks like so you're more likely to find that soul-mate, but the problem is that a lot of people online are different people than in real life in some way. Many people are the 'person they would like to be' rather than the person they are and generally it's not done to be spiteful but just because we all want to be better people, so there is room there for disappointment.
:) My first thoughts of her were that she was stuck up, she wouldn't talk to me - turns out she didn't understand that when it said 'You hear a voice whispering from a great distance....' that it was actually someone paging her, since her character was Deanna Troi from Star Trek she figured it was something to do with that and ignored it :)
I met my wife on the Internet, I was in Essex University in the UK and she was a Brigham Young in Utah. We met via a friend who found her on a mailing list for penpals, and introduced her to the world of online communication via MUD and MOO, which is where I met her since I co-ran the system with aforementioned friend
We were great friends for about 18 months before she came over here for a vacation and didn't go back again. We've been married now for coming up to 5 years in December.
It can work, it can just as easily go bad. Some people I know have gone to meet someone they are really fond of and found that all the other person (usually the guy of the pair) is after is someone with which to dance the matress mambo.
The important things as far as I can see it are to meet people through the Internet, sure, build up a friendship through the Internet, sure. DONT FORGET to meet these people in real life, become friends with them in real life and do it the old fashioned way from there because you can hide so much behind that monitor that you might shock someone else and/or they might shock you so don't get wound up in something you wish you hadn't 'if only you'd known'. It's like marrying someone before you've lived with them for a while, no matter how good friends you are it's not until you're in each others pockets 24/7 that you realise how much they irk you (or not, if you're lucky).
I'm not knocking Internet Romance - it's how I met my wife, as I say - but i'm saying that you should never rely on it, you still can't beat calling someone or taking them out to dinner etc, personal contact.
Just my $0.02 (actually more like $20.00 judging by the size of the scroll bar hehehe).
Matt (NeutronIC).
==== Dear Diary ==========
Take a look and let me know what you think. At the moment account creation is required but the only reason I haven't changed that is because no one has asked me to, it should only take a minute or two :)
Also, another of my projects Dear Diary if anyone wants to take a look at that too :)
I've been in comms in the UK now at one level or another since back in the days when SuperBBS, RemoteAccess 1 and FrontDoor 2.02 ruled the waves. Let's apply a little more thought to the metered calls situation here :)
:) (/whew)
In the UK we only have one major telco - BT. There are others but to be honest they are still at a stage where they either can't supply the whole country or their service is not up to the standards. We had one bright light in the distance (Ionica) but that went bust.
Now, at the moment it is *OFTEL* that are forcing BT to keep their prices at a competitive level so that OTHER Telco's can compete. While all the other telco's are struggling to provide free or near free calls BT charge as normal (although their prices are really coming down - it's less than 60p an hour now, which is around $1).
If BT were to go unmetered for local calls then you'd almost immediately squash out the competition, you only have to look at FreeServe - they were one of the first (if not, THE first) ISP that did not have any subscription charges and they singlehandedly changed the face of the ISP market (I used to run an ISP, trust me on this one) in the UK.
So we'd have unmetered calls for a while, the competition goes bust, and then BT might start to raise costs (justifying them all the way, *ofcourse*) and without any significant competition for their customer base to shift to what would happen then?
The other major point to consider is bandwidth. Having run an ISP I know exactly how much bandwidth costs in the UK and trust me it is orders of magnitude more than in the US, while most startup ISP's in the US were coming on with a T1 (1.544 Megabit) line, startup ISP's were coming online in the UK with 64k or 128k Kilostreams and probably paying MORE for them.
The same is still true, the numbers on both sides of the equation are just bigger now.
You think it's slow in the UK during peak times? Difficult to get on? If we go unmetered at the moment the Internet will become unusable in the UK unless you have access to a fat pipe - you can forget dialups.
Personally, I pay for my subscription to an ISP because I know that this means their subscriber to modem rate is going to be good, as well as their modem to bandwidth rate - which is equally important, not getting a busy signal is only half the story if you can't DO anything when you're online.
I would personally love unmetered time online, but the bottom line is that I still want to use the Internet at a reasonable speed. I upgraded to ISDN 64k to get reliable connections at a decent speed and at the moment my 'pay for' ISP is happily able to fill a single channel or both channels whenever I require it. Until the cost of bandwidth, the lines themselves and the equipment goes down I believe that unmetered calls would spell the end to the Internet, certainly to any ISP smaller than Demon, AOL, UUnet or Freeserve.
(whew) what a lot of waffle