Lets require that each user of the net record all of his/her activities while on the net with monitoring software installed on thier PCs. And we all know that the good citizens have nothing to hide and will go along with anything Uncle George says.
Now lets see, who should get the contract for that software... why MicroSoft of course, they are into trust worthy computing now a days.
Well, I guess I have to pick another line of work now. Before you know it every one (red necks included) will be getting thier linux at WalMart and I will be out of a job.
I can hear it now, "Honey I'm starting an I-S-P right here in our Livin' room. Jest as soon as I can figure out how to edit all these miss files". (thats MS. for the humor impared)
Practitcal if you live near public transport, maybe. Most places that are located near convinient public transport are very expensive. Look at Bethesda, Rockville, and Shady Grove on the Red Line out side of DC in Maryland here. Any place near metro stops gets real expensive to live, which nullifies the economics of owning a car argument.
I would love not to have to drive every day, but I live out where housing is somewhat affordable. The train out here is on the other side of town, which requires a car to get to anyway, take 1.5 hours to get me to downtown DC. Then I have to take the Metro to some place elce in the city
I have since stoped working in downtown DC. The time is just not worth it.
If I lived in DC, or any whear near a Metro stop this would make sence. As it is I have to drive 45 min to the Metro stop. Then an hour on the metro and walking to work + cost of metro. Compare that to just driving all the way in, and it takes less time, and costs much less.
There are no public transportations alternatives that do not take over 3 hours round trip from out where I live. So driving in is it...
As far as I can see, and this is confirmed by my own experience of two decades of commuting, people drive because they do not seriously try to find alternatives. Make an effort, look for places to live in the inner cities, find ways to work from home...
Speaking as one of those "people", we do not commute using public transport because there generally is no "serious" alternative avaiable. In Washington DC, the metro is just dandy, if you count beeing packed into a sardine can and standing for 30 min to an hour a nice way to commute. Not to mention the lack of parking after 7 am at all the major sububian stations. and the close to $12 round trip cost for parking and fare
It is FAR cheaper, and takes less time (20 min) for me to drive into DC, and get two parking tickets a week then it is to take the Metro.
When a real commuting alternatives are available I would use it, until then stop blaming the commuter, they are in their cars for economic and time saving reasons. Why should the sacrifice thier time and money?
Raise the price of gas and lower the cost of public transport, and make it more efficient/convinient, then we can talk.
I would put it even more explicitly; Verizon et al were strong-armed into supporting 3rd parties by the regulators, but rapidly brought all their (considerable) wealth to bear on buying their way out of that arrangement. They got their way; first tacit approval that the feds would look the other way while they murdered their competition, and now the coming stamp of official approval on the new monopoly.
I agree with this. The bells paid lip service to the regulators/public and screwed the over the 3rd party users.
The major infrastructure investments have long since stopped.
There is no doubt about this. There is no incentive to invest at all in new technology. The bells want to lock up the market before they put in capital into the infrastructure.
I think this is a phantom shortage
I think you are partly right here, there are plenty of pahntom shortages to keep prices up, but there are parts of the Cable and DSL networks that are congested. This is cuased by some of the users that try to use up all avaiable bandwidth that they can for sustained periods of time. And there is the rub. There are only a couple people that do that that are causing the majority of the problems.
So my question is, what do you see in the future for your business?
It has been a well known fact in this buisness for quite a while, if you are not growing you are going to have to sell, or go out of buisness. The margins are so thin between the cusomer to ISP end that it is very hard to make money unless you are a massive company.
That being said, my ISP is not my main income source, it is more of a hobby, lead in for consulting work. I just love to run this buisness, and I have a lot of fun doing it. It keeps me on my toes and makes me stay current with Linux.
The future for small mom and pop ISPs is really bleak if you ask me. Medium sized ISPs will have a hard time. The costs are too great, the revenus too small. What really worris me is that you end up with a bunch of giant providers that dictate to you how you can use the net. That is scarry.
I'm saddled with Verizon too; complaining to the PUC... that's a good joke, my friend. Very funny. I know some people who may have more luck trying to sue them (along with the phone company), actually, but that's another story, and one I can't really talk about here.
Well, my original responce was somewhat sort of toung in cheek. I think the regulators are pretty much controled by verizon (insert favorite baby bell here). We are becoming a corperate state. There is no easy way around this. But you are supposed to be able to complain to your PUC, the general public stopped doing that a while ago, and now the PUCs only pay attention to lawyers.
I know that $1000 a month for a T1 is too much money.
It is too much, I don't pay that much... Again, check out bandwidth.com for prices, get a few people together and split the cost. They are more affordable then you might think. Find a local provider like myself and see if you can strike a deal.
The question is, for residential service (which as you point out doesn't need the reliability - hah - and quality of a Verizoned T1), what is the real cost? Is it really over $50 per person per month?
What is the real cost? Well I'm sure that Rhythms and thier bretheren found out the hard way when they filed for chapter 11. It was more costly then they expected. I cannot say if it is $50 or $100, but there are so many things that you have to deal with just to get the cable/DSL turned on to begin with that it would be hard to measure the real cost. Most of the bankrupt DSL providers probably never realized just how bad Verizon could screw them. They had to spend more time and effort just to get verizon to do the DSL job right the second or third time. (We have all heard the horror stories) This is most likley the leading cause for failure for the big DSL providers.
The cable providers oversold capacity. To get 2 and 3 MBits of speed, you have to have some Phat Pipes, nice equipment and tier 1 connections. These all cost big $$$. Once they rolled out service the 3 Mbits tricked back down to dialup speed during peak times.
Also, I think the cable comapnies and DSL providers skimped on customer service and call centers, tracking, etc, because they could. It lowered thier costs. Thats why you get crappy service most of the time. This furthur frustrates customers, and it only takes a few people to broadcast how bad the service is to scare away future customers. Verizon, for all thier problems is regulated into haveing to try to have some customer service...
However, in general, Verizon is still evil from my perspective. Verizon is making (no stike that) printing money despite thier massive, bloated, buricratic size. I am lucky enough to be able to work with a few people there that actually think that taking care of the customer is what they are there to do.
Verizon will try to crush you like a bug if they think that they can get more money from your customers. I run a very small ISP so I an not a threat.
Getting quality service from a mainstream provider is somewhat competative because there are generaly plenty to choose from. Quest, UUnet/Worldcom, Sprint, Verizon, and a plethora of local shops like mine.
The simple truth is that bandwidth costs money, and really good quality bandwidth costs more money. If you are getting 3 Mbits from a $50/mo DSL line, more power to you, you are getting a good deal. But if you ask me $50/mo is dirt cheap, and I do not know how anyone can be making money on that if all the subscribers are vigiously using it. The ISP buisness is a giant pryamid scheme. You buy X amount and resell X x 10 bandwidth expecting that for the most part your users will not use all of that bandwidth. If you have 1 or 2 users that use the bandwidth all the time, your service degrades to the rest of your customers, and your business model is shot.
I think what we are seeing is that 1 or 2 users complaining that they can't get that ultra cheap super fast bandwidth anymore, subsidised by all the other users any more.
I think I have a pretty good grasp of broadband econimics, I own and run a small ISP (and I make a little money at it too)
I can tell you that I am no cheer leader for the local monopolies (mine is Verizon). But I will say that the cost of keeping up a T1 is not cheap. They have replaced 4 smart jacks at my place in the last year, due to lightning strikes. They test the lines each time I call with a problem. Each incident requires that there be a call ticket opened and tracked. A tester typicaly has to get on the line and test it, and some one has to be dispactchd to my place. And due to regulations this all has to happen in a certain amount of time.
They have to maintian a support infrastucture that is better them what the DSL and cable companies have to do. The DSL and cable companies are not regulated the same way.
As a result of this lack of regulation you get chaper service that can be less reliable. Sometimes is it blazingly fast, other times is sucks wind.
As for the 2.50/mo for call waiting, complain to your local PUC. They are the ones that approve most of what is passed on to the public as a service. The Bells have to make money for the shareholders, the problem is that the Gov't let them get into to many services that they can levereage with thier monopoly on the last mile.
If we could turn back the clock we should have told the bells that they can maintain the last mile, and let any company run services over it. That way there would have been a level playing field. But that will never happen now...
Depends on where you live, what you want, and the length of the contract. I would guess that you can get a "deal" on a T1 for about $600/mo and the price can go up to $2000/mo. It all depends on length of the contract and your provider. (check out bandwidth.com for pricing)
I have a hard time listening to the broadband whiners saysng that they are getting ripped off by the cable providers, etc. It costs money to support infrastructure, and to get connected to the top level providers. You want dedicated bandwidth that is always avaiable? Your gonna have to pay for it. If you are getting service from your cable/DSL provider and it works most of the time, you probably are getting your monies worth.
In the US T1s are a "tarrifed service" from the phone company. It is my understanding that they have to deliver the line/service if it is requested just about anywhere it is requested. Thats why they charge an arm and a leg for the local loop. They have to support the lines whereever it is installed.
Both of my girls are wonderfull, but geez kids cost a lot (money, time, worry). Definitly not an investment to be made lightly, but the dividends can be enourmous at times.:-)
I do not think that this is a good example. Here, one writter has managed to manipulate the market to his advantage, while most used books are probably selling for cheaper then they originaly went for. He can do this because he still holds the copyright. If you tried to collect all of his books then the authoer could just have more books published and defeat your intentions.
If the author is not involved then it is more of a level playing field for the used book market, and the price would not be artifcialy(?) inflated.
This is a great example of how capitalism is suppoesed to work. The system will squeeze out as much efficiency as possible from the market. A way for "recycling" these items has become avaiable and now the market has sprung up around it.
I'm sure it pisses off the book publishers, but they can join the ranks of the candle makers and buggy whip producers.
This is good in theory, but if the local provider has a lock on the market, and is blocking content, there is not going to be much you can do. You are dealing with a high infrastructure cost medium. There is a high barrier to entry into the market.
If (and this is a big if) some other provider wants to get in on the action, the first provider (for all intents and purposes a monopoly) can easly squeeze the new provider by dropping thier price and or loosening up the control over the content to passify their current clients.
Even if a second provider wanted to get into the local market they would have to be highly capitalized and would probably resort to the same tactics (almost collusion) that the first provider resorted to.
Just look at all the CLECs carcases near the baby bells. Do you think that Verizon, and all their evil bretheron, just passivly sat by while new competition was gaining a foot hold. Hell no, they fought them every step of the way, in the courts, with predditive pricing, and sloppy/incopentent service.
I hate to say it, but there needs to be strong regulation of at least the last mile or there will never be any competition.
The deadlyness of the clock would depend on weather the aim is good and the momentum of the clock as it hits you is high enough. A small clock from a night stand moving at 40 to 50 MPH would pack quite a whollop, esp from an angry spouce at 3 am. You would never have time to duck in the dark as you try to creep in quietly.
All of the web servers for which I'm responsible present an http server to the world on ports 80 and 443, and nothing else
To take that one step further, at the firewall I block all the outgoing connections as well. The web server, in most cases, should not be initiating connections to the outside.
But what kind of program? Perhaps its something as trivial as a complex "Game of Life" scenario. Perhaps the universe itself is trivial in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it represents a single CPU in a vast SMP system of trillions upon Trillions of other processors. Imagine the framerate on THAT monster.:)
Are you kidding? We are the "Pong" Universe, our creators probably moved on to bigger better faster universes a long time ago.... They just forgot to turn us off.
CPUs always do something, even if it's just look for something to do when "idle". Unless it uses the STOP / WAIT instruction to wait for something to wake it up. Maybe that's what the big bang was.
So the Universe was triggered by an interrupt? Perhaps GOD pressed the "Any" key. I'll bet he thinks twice before he does that again....
It is a little campy, but over all an excelent book, I highly recomend it. I'm surprised the more enterprising geeks I knew at the time had not thought of this. At least I do not recall anyone doing this in school.
Slashdot Mirror
Lets require that each user of the net record all of his/her activities while on the net with monitoring software installed on thier PCs. And we all know that the good citizens have nothing to hide and will go along with anything Uncle George says.
Now lets see, who should get the contract for that software... why MicroSoft of course, they are into trust worthy computing now a days.
Hope the electrical contractor used GFI plugs... but then again the tube discharge would probably take care of you pretty quick... youch!
Well, I guess I have to pick another line of work now. Before you know it every one (red necks included) will be getting thier linux at WalMart and I will be out of a job.
I can hear it now, "Honey I'm starting an I-S-P right here in our Livin' room. Jest as soon as I can figure out how to edit all these miss files". (thats MS. for the humor impared)
I would love not to have to drive every day, but I live out where housing is somewhat affordable. The train out here is on the other side of town, which requires a car to get to anyway, take 1.5 hours to get me to downtown DC. Then I have to take the Metro to some place elce in the city
I have since stoped working in downtown DC. The time is just not worth it.
If I lived in DC, or any whear near a Metro stop this would make sence. As it is I have to drive 45 min to the Metro stop. Then an hour on the metro and walking to work + cost of metro. Compare that to just driving all the way in, and it takes less time, and costs much less.
There are no public transportations alternatives that do not take over 3 hours round trip from out where I live. So driving in is it...
Speaking as one of those "people", we do not commute using public transport because there generally is no "serious" alternative avaiable. In Washington DC, the metro is just dandy, if you count beeing packed into a sardine can and standing for 30 min to an hour a nice way to commute. Not to mention the lack of parking after 7 am at all the major sububian stations. and the close to $12 round trip cost for parking and fare
It is FAR cheaper, and takes less time (20 min) for me to drive into DC, and get two parking tickets a week then it is to take the Metro.
When a real commuting alternatives are available I would use it, until then stop blaming the commuter, they are in their cars for economic and time saving reasons. Why should the sacrifice thier time and money?
Raise the price of gas and lower the cost of public transport, and make it more efficient/convinient, then we can talk.
I agree with this. The bells paid lip service to the regulators/public and screwed the over the 3rd party users.
The major infrastructure investments have long since stopped.
There is no doubt about this. There is no incentive to invest at all in new technology. The bells want to lock up the market before they put in capital into the infrastructure.
I think this is a phantom shortage
I think you are partly right here, there are plenty of pahntom shortages to keep prices up, but there are parts of the Cable and DSL networks that are congested. This is cuased by some of the users that try to use up all avaiable bandwidth that they can for sustained periods of time. And there is the rub. There are only a couple people that do that that are causing the majority of the problems.
It has been a well known fact in this buisness for quite a while, if you are not growing you are going to have to sell, or go out of buisness. The margins are so thin between the cusomer to ISP end that it is very hard to make money unless you are a massive company.
That being said, my ISP is not my main income source, it is more of a hobby, lead in for consulting work. I just love to run this buisness, and I have a lot of fun doing it. It keeps me on my toes and makes me stay current with Linux.
The future for small mom and pop ISPs is really bleak if you ask me. Medium sized ISPs will have a hard time. The costs are too great, the revenus too small. What really worris me is that you end up with a bunch of giant providers that dictate to you how you can use the net. That is scarry.
I'm saddled with Verizon too; complaining to the PUC... that's a good joke, my friend. Very funny. I know some people who may have more luck trying to sue them (along with the phone company), actually, but that's another story, and one I can't really talk about here.
Well, my original responce was somewhat sort of toung in cheek. I think the regulators are pretty much controled by verizon (insert favorite baby bell here). We are becoming a corperate state. There is no easy way around this. But you are supposed to be able to complain to your PUC, the general public stopped doing that a while ago, and now the PUCs only pay attention to lawyers.
I know that $1000 a month for a T1 is too much money.
It is too much, I don't pay that much... Again, check out bandwidth.com for prices, get a few people together and split the cost. They are more affordable then you might think. Find a local provider like myself and see if you can strike a deal.
The question is, for residential service (which as you point out doesn't need the reliability - hah - and quality of a Verizoned T1), what is the real cost? Is it really over $50 per person per month?
What is the real cost? Well I'm sure that Rhythms and thier bretheren found out the hard way when they filed for chapter 11. It was more costly then they expected. I cannot say if it is $50 or $100, but there are so many things that you have to deal with just to get the cable/DSL turned on to begin with that it would be hard to measure the real cost. Most of the bankrupt DSL providers probably never realized just how bad Verizon could screw them. They had to spend more time and effort just to get verizon to do the DSL job right the second or third time. (We have all heard the horror stories) This is most likley the leading cause for failure for the big DSL providers.
The cable providers oversold capacity. To get 2 and 3 MBits of speed, you have to have some Phat Pipes, nice equipment and tier 1 connections. These all cost big $$$. Once they rolled out service the 3 Mbits tricked back down to dialup speed during peak times.
Also, I think the cable comapnies and DSL providers skimped on customer service and call centers, tracking, etc, because they could. It lowered thier costs. Thats why you get crappy service most of the time. This furthur frustrates customers, and it only takes a few people to broadcast how bad the service is to scare away future customers. Verizon, for all thier problems is regulated into haveing to try to have some customer service...
However, in general, Verizon is still evil from my perspective. Verizon is making (no stike that) printing money despite thier massive, bloated, buricratic size. I am lucky enough to be able to work with a few people there that actually think that taking care of the customer is what they are there to do.
Verizon will try to crush you like a bug if they think that they can get more money from your customers. I run a very small ISP so I an not a threat.
Getting quality service from a mainstream provider is somewhat competative because there are generaly plenty to choose from. Quest, UUnet/Worldcom, Sprint, Verizon, and a plethora of local shops like mine.
The simple truth is that bandwidth costs money, and really good quality bandwidth costs more money. If you are getting 3 Mbits from a $50/mo DSL line, more power to you, you are getting a good deal. But if you ask me $50/mo is dirt cheap, and I do not know how anyone can be making money on that if all the subscribers are vigiously using it. The ISP buisness is a giant pryamid scheme. You buy X amount and resell X x 10 bandwidth expecting that for the most part your users will not use all of that bandwidth. If you have 1 or 2 users that use the bandwidth all the time, your service degrades to the rest of your customers, and your business model is shot.
I think what we are seeing is that 1 or 2 users complaining that they can't get that ultra cheap super fast bandwidth anymore, subsidised by all the other users any more.
well enough rambling...
I think I have a pretty good grasp of broadband econimics, I own and run a small ISP (and I make a little money at it too)
I can tell you that I am no cheer leader for the local monopolies (mine is Verizon). But I will say that the cost of keeping up a T1 is not cheap. They have replaced 4 smart jacks at my place in the last year, due to lightning strikes. They test the lines each time I call with a problem. Each incident requires that there be a call ticket opened and tracked. A tester typicaly has to get on the line and test it, and some one has to be dispactchd to my place. And due to regulations this all has to happen in a certain amount of time.
They have to maintian a support infrastucture that is better them what the DSL and cable companies have to do. The DSL and cable companies are not regulated the same way.
As a result of this lack of regulation you get chaper service that can be less reliable. Sometimes is it blazingly fast, other times is sucks wind.
As for the 2.50/mo for call waiting, complain to your local PUC. They are the ones that approve most of what is passed on to the public as a service. The Bells have to make money for the shareholders, the problem is that the Gov't let them get into to many services that they can levereage with thier monopoly on the last mile.
If we could turn back the clock we should have told the bells that they can maintain the last mile, and let any company run services over it. That way there would have been a level playing field. But that will never happen now...
Depends on where you live, what you want, and the length of the contract. I would guess that you can get a "deal" on a T1 for about $600/mo and the price can go up to $2000/mo. It all depends on length of the contract and your provider. (check out bandwidth.com for pricing)
/DSL provider and it works most of the time, you probably are getting your monies worth.
I have a hard time listening to the broadband whiners saysng that they are getting ripped off by the cable providers, etc. It costs money to support infrastructure, and to get connected to the top level providers. You want dedicated bandwidth that is always avaiable? Your gonna have to pay for it. If you are getting service from your cable
In the US T1s are a "tarrifed service" from the phone company. It is my understanding that they have to deliver the line/service if it is requested just about anywhere it is requested. Thats why they charge an arm and a leg for the local loop. They have to support the lines whereever it is installed.
Oh my, you are correct. The book seller is hoarding the book, not the author. My humblest appologies.
Well then it seems to me that if there is enough demand for the books the author should have incentive to republish them.
Both of my girls are wonderfull, but geez kids cost a lot (money, time, worry). Definitly not an investment to be made lightly, but the dividends can be enourmous at times. :-)
How about VJ day?
That was costly, and we are still feeling the ramifications today...
I do not think that this is a good example. Here, one writter has managed to manipulate the market to his advantage, while most used books are probably selling for cheaper then they originaly went for. He can do this because he still holds the copyright. If you tried to collect all of his books then the authoer could just have more books published and defeat your intentions.
If the author is not involved then it is more of a level playing field for the used book market, and the price would not be artifcialy(?) inflated.
This is a great example of how capitalism is suppoesed to work. The system will squeeze out as much efficiency as possible from the market. A way for "recycling" these items has become avaiable and now the market has sprung up around it.
I'm sure it pisses off the book publishers, but they can join the ranks of the candle makers and buggy whip producers.
This is good in theory, but if the local provider has a lock on the market, and is blocking content, there is not going to be much you can do. You are dealing with a high infrastructure cost medium. There is a high barrier to entry into the market.
If (and this is a big if) some other provider wants to get in on the action, the first provider (for all intents and purposes a monopoly) can easly squeeze the new provider by dropping thier price and or loosening up the control over the content to passify their current clients.
Even if a second provider wanted to get into the local market they would have to be highly capitalized and would probably resort to the same tactics (almost collusion) that the first provider resorted to.
Just look at all the CLECs carcases near the baby bells. Do you think that Verizon, and all their evil bretheron, just passivly sat by while new competition was gaining a foot hold. Hell no, they fought them every step of the way, in the courts, with predditive pricing, and sloppy/incopentent service.
I hate to say it, but there needs to be strong regulation of at least the last mile or there will never be any competition.
...and shoot the cartographers!
The deadlyness of the clock would depend on weather the aim is good and the momentum of the clock as it hits you is high enough. A small clock from a night stand moving at 40 to 50 MPH would pack quite a whollop, esp from an angry spouce at 3 am. You would never have time to duck in the dark as you try to creep in quietly.
To take that one step further, at the firewall I block all the outgoing connections as well. The web server, in most cases, should not be initiating connections to the outside.
Are you kidding? We are the "Pong" Universe, our creators probably moved on to bigger better faster universes a long time ago.... They just forgot to turn us off.
So the Universe was triggered by an interrupt? Perhaps GOD pressed the "Any" key. I'll bet he thinks twice before he does that again....
Is that what MS uses to load its software? So you get a boat load of bloat... But this is hardly a secret.
It is a little campy, but over all an excelent book, I highly recomend it. I'm surprised the more enterprising geeks I knew at the time had not thought of this. At least I do not recall anyone doing this in school.
No you can only sue
~Sean
Hasn't DeCSS already experience wide spread disclosure. This is kind of like closing the barn door after the horse has left the building.
It is the RIAA/MPAA that are becoming powerless...