You missed the boat if you havent read any Richard Stevens. ANY decent bit of *nix network code has benefited from "UNIX Network Programming", it geek-e-ly changed my life.
My wife still hates it when I bring that book to bed.
Ben Greear, who is pretty active in the OS community (specifically networking) has a company at http://www.candelatech.com/. Two flavours of his product LANForge allow you to 1) Generate a variety of network traffic types VoIP, Ethernet, TCP/IP, HTTP,... 2) Allows you to simulate different network environments (T1, FT1, OC2, GigE, DSL, DialUp)
Although I agree with the general position in most of these replies there are some subtle rationals behind the NWS policy.
The NWS neither had the funds, nor the infrastructure, to provide weather data to the widest audience possible so they asked the private sector to accomplish this for them (think 25 years ago). The private sector (5 companies Kavoris, Unisys,..) were granted exclusive access to the NWS feeds to assist the NWS in their mandate to dissemeniate the weather data as widely as possible. Technically not everyone could connect to the NWS so these companies were 're-distribution' points. If you were an airline and wanted weather data you couldnt drop a line into NWS but you could into UNISYS. In turns these companies secured some garauntees that if they were going to invest in this infrastructure that a goverment organization (NWS) wasnt going to compete with their business. This worked very well for its time.
That time has gone. Cheap distribution mechanisms such as the internet, satellite, have changed that. This has increased the number of player in the weather game and changed their role. They now (should) be fulfilling the role of value-added generator and not re-distributor. The raw and marginally processed packages should be available to anyone via the internet and satellite feed (and they are). Pretty animated pictures, custom forecasts, lightning strikes,... these products should still be left to the private sector.
Being a connoisseur of free beer (I have a very discriminating palate) I can tell you that I will endeavor to make the trip from Canada just for this thing you are calling a 'shindig'
You missed the boat if you havent read any Richard Stevens. ANY decent bit of *nix network code has benefited from "UNIX Network Programming", it geek-e-ly changed my life.
My wife still hates it when I bring that book to bed.
There is a twitter version (grugru) kinda working.
Ben Greear, who is pretty active in the OS community (specifically networking) has a company at http://www.candelatech.com/. Two flavours of his product LANForge allow you to ...
1) Generate a variety of network traffic types VoIP, Ethernet, TCP/IP, HTTP,
2) Allows you to simulate different network environments (T1, FT1, OC2, GigE, DSL, DialUp)
Although I agree with the general position in most of these replies there are some subtle rationals behind the NWS policy.
..) were granted exclusive access to the NWS feeds to assist the NWS in their mandate to dissemeniate the weather data as widely as possible.
... these products should still be left to the private sector.
The NWS neither had the funds, nor the infrastructure, to provide weather data to the widest audience possible so they asked the private sector to accomplish this for them (think 25 years ago). The private sector (5 companies Kavoris, Unisys,
Technically not everyone could connect to the NWS so these companies were 're-distribution' points. If you were an airline and wanted weather data you couldnt drop a line into NWS but you could into UNISYS. In turns these companies secured some garauntees that if they were going to invest in this infrastructure that a goverment organization (NWS) wasnt going to compete with their business. This worked very well for its time.
That time has gone. Cheap distribution mechanisms such as the internet, satellite, have changed that. This has increased the number of player in the weather game and changed their role. They now (should) be fulfilling the role of value-added generator and not re-distributor.
The raw and marginally processed packages should be available to anyone via the internet and satellite feed (and they are). Pretty animated pictures, custom forecasts, lightning strikes,
Being a connoisseur of free beer
(I have a very discriminating palate)
I can tell you that I will endeavor
to make the trip from Canada just for
this thing you are calling a 'shindig'
Dibs' of the pretzels.
How does one get from the Airport to
the event.