Thanks for that info. Looks like network chips for PC/server architectures need to start supporting interrupts on header receipt.
Even if an outgoing link is faster than the incoming one, time can still be saved by starting to transmit the outgoing header as soon as the whole packet can be transmitted continuously. Even sooner if the physical protocol supports gaps, or when wasted bandwidth is less important than reduced latency.
Buffering and switching latency is the main source of delay, not signal latency in the copper and fiber. Microwaves would do exactly nothing to improve the switching and buffering latency. If anything they'd make it worse: light in fiber travels much further than line-of-sight microwave before it has to be regenerated with another delay.
There's not much delay for a simple repeater compared to a node that must read the packet so it can re-route it.
My question would be: To what extent do Internet nodes (with empty buffers) start forwarding a packet after reading its IP header, rather than waiting for the whole packet to be received? For example, does Linux support this? Not doing this ubiquitously would really increase end-to-end packet latency, which the cited paper argues is more important than speeding up protocols for getting a lower-latency Internet.
As well as being on the side, there are also several search engine ads placed at the top of the main result list, forcing you to scan past them to read the first organic result. They're also coloured, which draws your eye to them.
But my main thrust was that even if they're out of the way, they're still ads with agendas to relieve you of your cash.
Search engines should provide "view all relevant ads" link that even those using ad-blockers can see. This would allow such people to see what's on offer when they are in a buying mode, without having to disable their blockers, refresh and page to see a good selection of ads, then re-enable their blockers.
So my question to all of those infuriated by those content producers who would "dare" to try to protect their ads is this: what viable alternative do you suggest?
Here's the alternative to advertising on which I've been working. Advantages: no cost to users, publishers earn money from their content rather than the stuff around it, and allows monetization of unbiased content (that unlike ads tries to tell the whole truth).
Yes, this is an ad. But because it's on-topic and in some way solicited, I think it's acceptable, and shouldn't be equated to something intrusive.
This is why I actually don't have a problem with Google's text ads. You do a search on some terms, and alongside your search results you also get some ads based on those terms. This can be really helpful if you're looking for a product to solve a problem you have, and the ad shows you something which is exactly what you're looking for.
While such search engine ads are less of a problem because they're often relevant to both your current motivation (finding things) and your topic of interest, they're still presenting you with information that's biased both in presentation (pay for prominence) and content (spin), as well as being distracting when you're not in a buying or curious mode. Sure, organic results aren't perfect, with SEO manipulating rankings, and company websites that spin natively. But at least you've got a chance of seeing some independent sources of advice. So I can understand those who block search engine ads.
Thanks for posting those stats. An interesting dip in the 60s (and more no-opinions). Was this the result of the general cultural liberation, before increased crime hardened people's attitudes, then before decreased crime and a spate of wrong convictions started bringing it down again?
Massachusetts is more liberal than the US average, meaning that only one-in three support death sentences (one-in-four in Boston). Even fewer support it in this case.
The only people that are interested in making a stand against the jury's decision in this particular case would be those opposed to the death penalty in all cases, basically those that do not believe that the State should kill people.
And those who are opposed to the death penalty aren't allowed on capital crime juries. One reason to oppose the death penalty is that it's only decided by the dwindling number of people willing to impose it, who will increasingly fail to collectively represent the average citizen.
Yeah, no wonder US start-up culture seems to be restricted to the young. Government health insurance, or at least a system where the best protection from price gouging and illness isn't to be in the womb of large company, would make US entrepreneurship even more awesome than it already is.
That's surprising. You'd think that market forces would lead insurance companies to discriminate on every relevant factor that they're legally allowed to take into account, as long as the burden of obtaining that information didn't outweigh the advantages.
In Australia, motor property insurers base their premiums on just about anything, including the factors you mentioned. However health and motor 3rd-party injury insurance providers are forced to "community rate" many factors to avoid otherwise nasty discrimination.
Here in Australia, private health insurance premiums are allowed to increase according to the age at which the person joined the fund, penalising people who only join (to supplement the universal back-up) in old age when 90% of health spending occurs. It seems fair.
The difference with the US is that health insurance isn't associated with employers — you buy your own. This is why you get the age discrimination you mention.
In other words, go back to the way ads used to work in the paper era. Publishers vetted the ads and printed them themselves.
The downside of this is that the publisher then needs to have direct contact with advertisers, which may influence their editorial unless they have old-school Chinese wall policies, not strong in new-media players.
The dichotomy in Facebook posts I mentioned above has communist parallels — denunciations, painted-on smiles, and nothing in between. Do you see a similarity?
I've once had the fortune (misfortune?) of living in East Germany for a year, back when the Berlin Wall existed. Do you want to know what living surveillance state is like? It's a place where you are ALWAYS on guard. You can never be honest with anyone - your teacher in school could be with the government, your best friend could be undercover, even your own family could be recruited. You have to bottle up everything inside yourself, and you present this lovely facade to the public.
This need to be too nice is also true of non-anonymous forums like Facebook, where there's a split between anodyne comments and over-the-top complaints. The former comes about because no-one wants to be accused of being a hater or a whinger, and wants to maximize their "likes", so nearly all comments are content-free sunshine and roses. But once the target is a corporation or a prominent person who may have done something wrong, everyone smugly gangs up and lets loose. The middle path of polite and measured criticism is lost, which is where the meat is in any discussion.
Amazon probably won't (initially) force service suppliers to be exclusive to Amazon, though they could offer a fee reduction for those who do.
What Amazon are doing however is forcing any offer on Amazon to be no worse than any other offer, so providers can't charge Amazon customers more to cover the fees. Providers must yield some of their margin to Amazon but hope to make it up through greater volume.
The $10,000 model? That's the first Apple price I've seen without a "9". Pricing of non-mass-market luxury products is usually more classy, which is why I think they're tainting their mainline products with such pricing.
It's hard to have respect for a company that doesn't respect your intelligence through ubiquitous use of a dumb pricing trick.
Right, Apple is sure unusual to use those price points. Dick.
Wall-to-wall "9" pricing is unusual in tech companies, though Apple are encouraging a trend. It's more common in discount retailers.
At least on me, such pricing doesn't have the intended effect of reducing the headline digit by one and making it seem like prices have been precisely cut to the bone. Instead they make prices seem more what-the-market-will-bear than cost-plus.
Revealing a trolls identity isn't asking for trouble.
It implicates them as a suspect for anything bad that may happen to you in the future.
...but makes it more likely that something bad will happen to you. While you lay dying or nurse a permanent disability you can comfort yourself that you were able to give the police a list of your enemies.
I don't know why more open source projects don't just charge for their software. Sure this removes Freedom 0 (the freedom to run), so it's not (big-O) Open Source.
The GPL lets you charge for software. The problem is that whoever you sell it to can then distribute it willy-nilly, and who's going to pay you for a copy when they can just download it for free somewhere?
I'm advocating a nearly-Free licence where the purchaser can indeed distribute the software willy-nilly (altered or unaltered), but the recipient cannot run it until they pay the development chain. To ensure this point is brought to the software recipients' attention, you would need a licence condition that prevented removal of a small bit of code that checked for the presence of a licence file, plus non-distribution of those licence files. (Easily hacked, but it takes an act of will that brings the law and conscience into play.) Small restrictions, but big benefits to funding the development ecosystem.
I don't think that's true, especially for business users, and especially if a purchase comes with support.
This is precisely why businesses like Red Hat charge megabucks for support and changes and give the product away for free.
And why a thousand as many companies still charge for their software (but stuff things up by keeping it closed).
Humanity shouldn't be in the business of rewriting software hundreds of times over because they can't afford a license that would suit tailored needs. Let's write some good software to solve a problem, then move on and solve some other problem.
A paid open source development model that distributes payments down derived work chains should increase the re-use of software because it combines unhindered redistribution & modification with a work incentive for programmers. Because it doesn't pay well, often Open Source software is usually either done as a hobby or as a way to gain employment (ironically, developing proprietary software).
But sure, charging for software will make it unaffordable for some. But that's how capitalism works in order to make open software development a viable job. There no stopping licence discounts being given to worthy recipients like non-profits, students, small business, and contributors to the software.
Creating software isn't cheap, or effortless, however once it is completed it can be duplicated and shared at near no additional costs.
So using good old Economics 101 supply and demand you have a fixed demand, and an infinite supply, so the market rate for any software is near $0.00 below the cost to make it. Software does want to be free.
I don't know why more open source projects don't just charge for their software. Sure this removes Freedom 0 (the freedom to run), so it's not (big-O) Open Source. But it preserves all the important tinkering freedoms, especially if original authors get a cut from sale of derived works.
What you wrote above implies that most users will pirate anything not completely locked down. I don't think that's true, especially for business users, and especially if a purchase comes with support. Charging is better than a donation model, where donors are made to fee like chumps, usually gaining nothing more than karma, and freeloaders haven't done anything wrong.
The old RMS model of making money off of software is selling the distribution. Putting it on Tape, Disk, CD... Some physical media, then you can add manuals to jack up the price. These physical media reduces the available supply so you can make money off of software. Now with nearly everyone with high-enough speed internet access, such physical distribution of software is antiquated. And not a good business model.
Quite true. You can't make money from Open Source software in itself. But you can from software that's free in every way except price.
I really appreciate LibreOffice's existence in making Linux a complete desktop OS. However do I find it hard to use due to the lack of live updates or an "Apply" button when making changes in character, paragraph, and, page dialogs. I must estimate the change I want, press "OK", and bring the dialog up again if it's wrong. It's still this way in 4.4.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for that info. Looks like network chips for PC/server architectures need to start supporting interrupts on header receipt.
Even if an outgoing link is faster than the incoming one, time can still be saved by starting to transmit the outgoing header as soon as the whole packet can be transmitted continuously. Even sooner if the physical protocol supports gaps, or when wasted bandwidth is less important than reduced latency.
Buffering and switching latency is the main source of delay, not signal latency in the copper and fiber. Microwaves would do exactly nothing to improve the switching and buffering latency. If anything they'd make it worse: light in fiber travels much further than line-of-sight microwave before it has to be regenerated with another delay.
There's not much delay for a simple repeater compared to a node that must read the packet so it can re-route it.
My question would be: To what extent do Internet nodes (with empty buffers) start forwarding a packet after reading its IP header, rather than waiting for the whole packet to be received? For example, does Linux support this? Not doing this ubiquitously would really increase end-to-end packet latency, which the cited paper argues is more important than speeding up protocols for getting a lower-latency Internet.
As well as being on the side, there are also several search engine ads placed at the top of the main result list, forcing you to scan past them to read the first organic result. They're also coloured, which draws your eye to them.
But my main thrust was that even if they're out of the way, they're still ads with agendas to relieve you of your cash.
Search engines should provide "view all relevant ads" link that even those using ad-blockers can see. This would allow such people to see what's on offer when they are in a buying mode, without having to disable their blockers, refresh and page to see a good selection of ads, then re-enable their blockers.
So my question to all of those infuriated by those content producers who would "dare" to try to protect their ads is this: what viable alternative do you suggest?
Here's the alternative to advertising on which I've been working. Advantages: no cost to users, publishers earn money from their content rather than the stuff around it, and allows monetization of unbiased content (that unlike ads tries to tell the whole truth).
Yes, this is an ad. But because it's on-topic and in some way solicited, I think it's acceptable, and shouldn't be equated to something intrusive.
This is why I actually don't have a problem with Google's text ads. You do a search on some terms, and alongside your search results you also get some ads based on those terms. This can be really helpful if you're looking for a product to solve a problem you have, and the ad shows you something which is exactly what you're looking for.
While such search engine ads are less of a problem because they're often relevant to both your current motivation (finding things) and your topic of interest, they're still presenting you with information that's biased both in presentation (pay for prominence) and content (spin), as well as being distracting when you're not in a buying or curious mode. Sure, organic results aren't perfect, with SEO manipulating rankings, and company websites that spin natively. But at least you've got a chance of seeing some independent sources of advice. So I can understand those who block search engine ads.
Thanks for posting those stats. An interesting dip in the 60s (and more no-opinions). Was this the result of the general cultural liberation, before increased crime hardened people's attitudes, then before decreased crime and a spate of wrong convictions started bringing it down again?
Massachusetts is more liberal than the US average, meaning that only one-in three support death sentences (one-in-four in Boston). Even fewer support it in this case.
The only people that are interested in making a stand against the jury's decision in this particular case would be those opposed to the death penalty in all cases, basically those that do not believe that the State should kill people.
And those who are opposed to the death penalty aren't allowed on capital crime juries. One reason to oppose the death penalty is that it's only decided by the dwindling number of people willing to impose it, who will increasingly fail to collectively represent the average citizen.
Yeah, no wonder US start-up culture seems to be restricted to the young. Government health insurance, or at least a system where the best protection from price gouging and illness isn't to be in the womb of large company, would make US entrepreneurship even more awesome than it already is.
That's surprising. You'd think that market forces would lead insurance companies to discriminate on every relevant factor that they're legally allowed to take into account, as long as the burden of obtaining that information didn't outweigh the advantages.
In Australia, motor property insurers base their premiums on just about anything, including the factors you mentioned. However health and motor 3rd-party injury insurance providers are forced to "community rate" many factors to avoid otherwise nasty discrimination.
Here in Australia, private health insurance premiums are allowed to increase according to the age at which the person joined the fund, penalising people who only join (to supplement the universal back-up) in old age when 90% of health spending occurs. It seems fair.
The difference with the US is that health insurance isn't associated with employers — you buy your own. This is why you get the age discrimination you mention.
In other words, go back to the way ads used to work in the paper era. Publishers vetted the ads and printed them themselves.
The downside of this is that the publisher then needs to have direct contact with advertisers, which may influence their editorial unless they have old-school Chinese wall policies, not strong in new-media players.
Ad Block is probably going to have to get a little craftier about running in stealth mode in the future.
Yes, I'd say what will happen is that ad blockers will end up making page scripts see an unaltered shadow DOM, but display the page with ads removed.
But this won't work with (closed) apps, which are increasingly squeezing out the (open) Web.
The dichotomy in Facebook posts I mentioned above has communist parallels — denunciations, painted-on smiles, and nothing in between. Do you see a similarity?
I've once had the fortune (misfortune?) of living in East Germany for a year, back when the Berlin Wall existed. Do you want to know what living surveillance state is like? It's a place where you are ALWAYS on guard. You can never be honest with anyone - your teacher in school could be with the government, your best friend could be undercover, even your own family could be recruited. You have to bottle up everything inside yourself, and you present this lovely facade to the public.
This need to be too nice is also true of non-anonymous forums like Facebook, where there's a split between anodyne comments and over-the-top complaints. The former comes about because no-one wants to be accused of being a hater or a whinger, and wants to maximize their "likes", so nearly all comments are content-free sunshine and roses. But once the target is a corporation or a prominent person who may have done something wrong, everyone smugly gangs up and lets loose. The middle path of polite and measured criticism is lost, which is where the meat is in any discussion.
Amazon probably won't (initially) force service suppliers to be exclusive to Amazon, though they could offer a fee reduction for those who do.
What Amazon are doing however is forcing any offer on Amazon to be no worse than any other offer, so providers can't charge Amazon customers more to cover the fees. Providers must yield some of their margin to Amazon but hope to make it up through greater volume.
The original Apple 1 computer. Sold for $666.66.
Interesting. At least they dealt early with the "don't be evil" question.
Still it indicates Jobs' fondness of using price appearance as a marketing tool.
Do any of its prices not have a 9 in it?
Yeah. All of the Watch Edition models.
The $10,000 model? That's the first Apple price I've seen without a "9". Pricing of non-mass-market luxury products is usually more classy, which is why I think they're tainting their mainline products with such pricing.
It's hard to have respect for a company that doesn't respect your intelligence through ubiquitous use of a dumb pricing trick.
Right, Apple is sure unusual to use those price points. Dick.
Wall-to-wall "9" pricing is unusual in tech companies, though Apple are encouraging a trend. It's more common in discount retailers.
At least on me, such pricing doesn't have the intended effect of reducing the headline digit by one and making it seem like prices have been precisely cut to the bone. Instead they make prices seem more what-the-market-will-bear than cost-plus.
Apple really is queen of the 9s. Do any of its prices not have a 9 in it?
It's hard to have respect for a company that doesn't respect your intelligence through ubiquitous use of a dumb pricing trick.
They didn't like you, now they're riled up and more dangerous.
Revealing a trolls identity isn't asking for trouble. It implicates them as a suspect for anything bad that may happen to you in the future.
...but makes it more likely that something bad will happen to you. While you lay dying or nurse a permanent disability you can comfort yourself that you were able to give the police a list of your enemies.
I don't know why more open source projects don't just charge for their software. Sure this removes Freedom 0 (the freedom to run), so it's not (big-O) Open Source.
The GPL lets you charge for software. The problem is that whoever you sell it to can then distribute it willy-nilly, and who's going to pay you for a copy when they can just download it for free somewhere?
I'm advocating a nearly-Free licence where the purchaser can indeed distribute the software willy-nilly (altered or unaltered), but the recipient cannot run it until they pay the development chain. To ensure this point is brought to the software recipients' attention, you would need a licence condition that prevented removal of a small bit of code that checked for the presence of a licence file, plus non-distribution of those licence files. (Easily hacked, but it takes an act of will that brings the law and conscience into play.) Small restrictions, but big benefits to funding the development ecosystem.
I don't think that's true, especially for business users, and especially if a purchase comes with support.
This is precisely why businesses like Red Hat charge megabucks for support and changes and give the product away for free.
And why a thousand as many companies still charge for their software (but stuff things up by keeping it closed).
Humanity shouldn't be in the business of rewriting software hundreds of times over because they can't afford a license that would suit tailored needs. Let's write some good software to solve a problem, then move on and solve some other problem.
A paid open source development model that distributes payments down derived work chains should increase the re-use of software because it combines unhindered redistribution & modification with a work incentive for programmers. Because it doesn't pay well, often Open Source software is usually either done as a hobby or as a way to gain employment (ironically, developing proprietary software).
But sure, charging for software will make it unaffordable for some. But that's how capitalism works in order to make open software development a viable job. There no stopping licence discounts being given to worthy recipients like non-profits, students, small business, and contributors to the software.
Creating software isn't cheap, or effortless, however once it is completed it can be duplicated and shared at near no additional costs. So using good old Economics 101 supply and demand you have a fixed demand, and an infinite supply, so the market rate for any software is near $0.00 below the cost to make it. Software does want to be free.
I don't know why more open source projects don't just charge for their software. Sure this removes Freedom 0 (the freedom to run), so it's not (big-O) Open Source. But it preserves all the important tinkering freedoms, especially if original authors get a cut from sale of derived works.
What you wrote above implies that most users will pirate anything not completely locked down. I don't think that's true, especially for business users, and especially if a purchase comes with support. Charging is better than a donation model, where donors are made to fee like chumps, usually gaining nothing more than karma, and freeloaders haven't done anything wrong.
The old RMS model of making money off of software is selling the distribution. Putting it on Tape, Disk, CD... Some physical media, then you can add manuals to jack up the price. These physical media reduces the available supply so you can make money off of software. Now with nearly everyone with high-enough speed internet access, such physical distribution of software is antiquated. And not a good business model.
Quite true. You can't make money from Open Source software in itself. But you can from software that's free in every way except price.
I really appreciate LibreOffice's existence in making Linux a complete desktop OS. However do I find it hard to use due to the lack of live updates or an "Apply" button when making changes in character, paragraph, and, page dialogs. I must estimate the change I want, press "OK", and bring the dialog up again if it's wrong. It's still this way in 4.4.
Yes, the "good enough" films will mostly be viewed at home, with premium cinemas like IMAX still getting business for the eye-candy blockbusters.