this robot is actually a copy of the Polybot built at Xerox-PARC (under a DoD contract, though). there's actually a whole bunch of people under Dr. Mark Yim (though his litte page on the PARC site seems to be doing bad things right now) who work on this in the Modular Reconfigurable Robotics project. they were at the last Comdex with the (more advanced than the model NASA's using) robot that's pictured at the top of their page.
there are also a lot of related projects, such as Proteo and Digital Clay that are also very interesting stuff.
disclaimer: I currently work on this project at PARC (well, when I'm not in school), and I used to work for that group at NASA (for a summer).
no problem! just put all your priceless articles on an NT webserver* in Word2000 format. they'll be available for the ages to Share and Enjoy!#
* assuming the evil "hackers" don't trash your webserver (though we have no idea how, since there are no security holes in IIS)
# at least until we release the next version of Word
seriously, I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. I'm publishing a paper this summer, and there is a whole freaking PAGE I have to add in saying that SAE owns any and all rights to my paper, etc.
personally, I find that a little scary.
nor do I think that they're going to let just anyone archive them -- maybe that service that already archives about a zillion news sources. that's subscription-based, though, and I don't want to see what's going to happen once we don't have paper copies to rely on anymore!
it's not just microsoft who likes the no-transfer agreement, violating the principle of first sale on first glance (and then when you look a little closer you see that you're not "buying" anything anyways)... I see software moving there, esp. if UTICA passes all over, and that will make it much easier to throw all sorts of information under that sort of a licence ("what do you MEAN I'm being sued and locked out of access to all my books and software for saying that a so-called medical textbook contains infomation and advice that, if followed, will kill the patient -- while they assume no liability!")
well, my interpretation is a little different from yours... greed is working for one's own self-interest. personally, I believe in the concept of "enlightened self-interest".
Amazing how money continues to oil the world in favor of the big companies. ABC prints a poll that says most people don't support a Microsoft breakup, when most people don't even know what the issues are; the Washington Post echoes the poll, we'll be seeing it on the news pretty quickly, and I can just about guarantee that the pundits will quickly fall in line with the parent company's cash cow, AKA Microsoft marketing $. [off topic personal peave alert: the same way that magazines reliably rate HP scanners, printers, etc. as Editor's choices using really screwey logic to lower the competition's ratings -- in order to keep the HP advertising $ flowing in.]
actually, there tend to be very big scandals (I'm reminded of one in LA a few years ago) in 'traditional' media at least (I'm thinking newspapers, I don't know about other ones) if the reporting crosses over into caring about the advertising. in theory, reporters don't know/care about advertising $$, and try to preserve their objectivity -- after all, that's what we're paying em for. no need to visit a site which is all empty MS (or linux) advocacy. I need information, and TRUE information. I need to be able to weigh it for myself -- but it's helpful to have a (supposedly somewhat) trusted other give their opinion...
obligatory vaguely on-topic part: free to innovate? they've always been free to innovate, but their business model doesn't seem to support it very well. I'm also not sure that a breakup is supportable, though it might benefit everyone in the long run.
I can only hope that the drivers created for this device would be released to the public in at least binary form. Unfortunately, I doubt that the greedy company (Sigma Designs) will be so generous. I'm sure they view this as a proprietary trade secret which could generate serious revenue for their company.
nothing wrong with being 'greedy', exactly, it's just a matter of knowing where your interests lie -- and it's possible that they don't.
well, you have to remember that you have to get up and down -- and if you fly into places like utah, they have you fly around and around and around and around becasue you're not quite as fast as a 727...
sorry:)
in any case, you're going to get everything in between as well, but the temperatures are going to be very cold for the amount of vapor.
The biggest problem with portable devices (like MP3 players) is that storage is so expensive, because leaving a conventional HDD in a cold car can demagnitize and permanently damage it.
I, my mother, my sister, and my father all regularly put our laptops (unless my sister steals mine to play Civ:CTP or HoMM3 or dad and I use his to look up flight charts) in the nose storage of a plane that flies at about 30,000 feet. No pressurization, no heat. And my laptop still works fine, thankee very much, sir (actually I'm looking at selling one of em if someone wants a TP 570 -- works great, almost new). I believe that heat is another matter, but I've had some laptops that get hot enough that the manual specifically states that you should never, ever put it on your lap (which is where I have it), and the hard drive works just fine.
Another point is that this is self-assembling magnetic storage. I was at the last Foresight Convention on Nanotechnology, and for all the amazing and interesting things people had done or were trying to do, the real roadblock was self-assembly. building a motor with an AFM is not exactly practical.
Offtopic: why can't we make players that read/write MD media, and play MP3's? Now that is something I would buy instantly. (or when I have enough PointClick dollars to get one -- really offtopic: why doesn't PointClick let you use Mozilla, dammit?)
1. I'm not saying dial-up is dead at all... sooner or later, it will be, but not yet, for sure...
2. yes, they hang things on light and utility poles... you are limited, but it's getting better all the time, apparently
3. thy're coming out with 128k service "sometime this summer." I'm waiting for that before getting anything... otherwise it'll be DSL into a gateway machine and a wireless network in the apartment... assuming, however, that I get a nice girl geek as a roomate...
4. it's not really a bulky transmitter... it's a smallish box, and you don't attach it to your car. there seem to be some companies going for PCMCIA sized ones, which would be absolutely ideal.
disclaimer: I don't work for this company, never met anyone who does, etc. I do, however have a laptop that I would really, REALLY like to have mobile access on, at least in the Bay Area. I know one guy with this service, and the modem isn't all that large (think portable floppy drive for a thinkpad), and he seems satisfied with the service and convenience, if not the speed.
Even still, accessing that connection will be over some method of dialing. Maybe cellular, but dialing nonetheless
I was sorta under the impression that packet radio didn't involve dialing. I think we have a good chance of ending up on that instead, at least in the short term. Ricochet is coming out with 128k service this summer -- they won't tell me exactly when, or what it will cost, but they seem to be very devoted to having a flat-rate plan... (hopefully it won't be too expensive for this poor student!)
just take a look at the Linux on Laptops page. it was vastly helpful setting up my thinkpad (of course, most IBM's are easy, becasue they use pretty standard hardware -- there's even a Linux driver for the Lucent Winmodem). in any case, you'll get an idea of how hard/easy/impossible it'll be to set up. in most cases, it's pretty easy, especially if there's a CDROM drive built in, (I don't have one -- ftp install is your friend) except for X.
and of course, there are all these helpful/. people around... everyone I emailed about my thinkpad was very helpful (thank you, if you're reading this). nice thing about the Linux community -- there is a Linux community, and people are really nice about helping.
My worst nightmare is being stuck on the side of the road at 2am and have to listen to an advertisement for Chucky Cheese before I can call a tow truck.
gee, that's your worst case scenario? not mine -- but then again I'm female in southside Berkeley, it's enough to make anyone paranoid. waiting for a minute to call a tow truck is ok. waiting for a minute to call the police/ambulance/fire trucks is NOT. the rapists aren't going to wait for the ads to finish...
Oh and one more thing. Someone was joking about double click and how they would be able to track your cell phone usage. Well it's more than that. GTE has a working system that can track a ESN to within a couple of feet by using the timing that signals return to base stations.
I believe that all the cell phone carriers legally have to be able to do this within a few years. no paranoid attacks here -- it's becasue there are so many 911 calls coming from cell phones, and they can't really trace where it's coming from without this sort of a system. I agree it can be misused, but for me, this is a VERY important feature. I'm not looking at cell phones primarily for convenience, but for safety.
Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?
whoa, whoa. calm, cool, collected.
this is space garbage. the mission was judged to be worth whatever they spent on it. then they got three times as much use out of it as was in the original mission guidelines. as much as we litter our own orbits and ecosphere, I hope you haven't gotten the idea that it's a good idea.
they can gain valuable data by doing a suicide mission into Jupiter or Io. don't get the idea that they picked these targets randomly.
*sigh* I really wasn't in the mood for an abortion fight, so I'm just going to say a few things, since it's offtopic:
one prospective member of one (overcrowded) species != wiping out the entire moon's worth of life (and/or) spoiling all future studies and knowledge we might gain from Europa
My campus is having the same problem. Instead of banning Napster, the campus people capped the dorm bandwidth really low (this is Berkeley -- the dorms have a LOT of people). the network was/is slow and unreliable enough that I could not install RH 6.1 from ftp (I have a laptop with no cdrom drive -- I dont' exactly have a choice. I eventually found a mirror in the dorms, but it was still bad.)
it's a pity that people use so much bandwidth gratuitously -- streaming audio/video that they don't even watch/listen to, illegal MP3's, warez... (slashdot's my entry on that list, I guess:) )
and, despite what they say there, my connection to some of the campus servers is still quite slow. is it possible that a lot of internet traffic trying to get out over a capped link can make other traffic (which is not capped) slow? it's entirely possible that it's the servers -- the EECS department needs some more unix boxen!
Lea
Dear Lea,
I wrote to you two weeks ago regarding slow network connections in the Residence Halls. I am writing you today with an update. At present, residence halls have high speed connections (100Mbs) to each other and to all resources located on campus. Transfer rates to servers outside of campus, however, may continue to be slow at times.
The amount of traffic from the residence halls to the outside world has increased dramatically over the past few months. Residents who are using large amounts of bandwidth to the outside world, by running the popular software Napster or popular FTP and web servers, are greatly diminishing network transfer rates for everyone else with a residence hall connection.
The residence halls share bandwidth with all other campus users, including ongoing research projects which rely on consistent connection rates. To ensure adequate bandwidth availability for all campus uses, the department of Communication and Network Services has restricted the total amount of bandwidth available to the residence halls for communication with the outside world. The e-mail below from the Director of Communication and Network Services provides details on the actions they have taken.
Residential Computing is continuing to work with Communication and Network Services to achieve a balance between competing demands for bandwidth throughout campus. We understand that current transfer rates from sites beyond campus are slower than they have been in the past. If you are currently using Napster or running a web server, we strongly encourage you to stop. If you have a friends who are running Napster, we encourage you to ask them to stop. Through increased resident education and ongoing discussions with Communcation and Network Services, I will do my best to improve network connectivity for all reshall students.
Please read the message from Communication and Network Services below for more information.
>From Cliff Frost, Director of Communication and Network Services regarding network connections in the residence halls:
Background:
The Berkeley campus pays approximately $600 per megabit/second/month for connectivity to the worldwide Internet. (There are start-up costs not included in that figure, and a base cost below which the total cost cannot go, but that is a good approximation of our current cost.)
The Residence Hall networks are very well-connected to the rest of campus, and to the Internet in general. This is accomplished via a 100 megabit/second connection between the residence halls and the rest of the campus network.
Up until approximately November, 1999, the sustained use of the Residence Hall network connection was approximately 15 megabits/second. This was for all traffic--both with other campus sites and with the Internet in general.
Recent History:
Coinciding with the tremendous popularity of "napster" (which is a very nice tool in many ways) there has been a tremendous and rapid growth in the campus's traffic to and from the Internet. This growth also coincided with a similar growth to and from the Residence Halls.
In looking at the traffic patterns, and concerned about how we would pay for the exploding use of the Internet, CNS staff noticed that traffic across the 100 megabit/second connection to the Residence Halls had sprung up to peaks of 40 megabits/second and a sustained level of 25. At that point, CNS put a cap onto the traffic that the Residence Halls could exchange with off-campus sites, at 20 megabits per second. Note that this cap did NOT apply to traffic with other on-campus sites.
The effect of the 20 megabit/second cap was immediate. Traffic across the link dropped to peaks of 22-25 megabits/second, implying that most of the traffic across the link is with off-campus sites.
CNS later set the cap at 15 megabits/second and then to 10. From the data gathered it appears that the Residence Halls exchange between 2 and 5 megabits/second with the rest of campus. All the rest of the traffic is bound for the Internet.
Current Status:
At the request of Housing & Dining Services, CNS has temporarily raised the cap to 15 megabits/second while we try to work out ways to manage the explosive demand for Internet bandwidth from the Residence Halls. Housing & Dining has asked for CNS's assistance in analyzing the situation and developing potential solutions.
>and its not worth it when IE is freaking build into >peoples operating systems...
oddly enough, it's not built into mine. and I have no use for anything else in windows, and I can not do my work on it, so I can't switch. see the problem here? you have excluded a good number of people from your customer base with this. (now, I don't buy insurance, so you don't give a damn about me, but that's not the point:) )
yes, in an intranet you can force everyone into windows, but do you really want to? perhaps you develop applications for windows. otherwise, why would you want to force them? personally, I would have about zilch productivity on a windows platform...
do you not need things that use crypto? personally, I have mr. spammail (and slashmail) box at hotmail that I couldn't get to in M13... of course I expect this to change, but it sure as hell hasn't yet (I just checked hotmail in M14 for linux).
something that Rob and crew have tried very hard to preserve is that you can see EVERY post -- even those modded down all the way. so losing their +1 bonus, yes. even having them start out at -1 (like the +2 bonus for high karma the other way around), yes. however, just erasing their posts seems to go against the intentions so far.
and having them kicked off is inappropriate -- not to mention that no ISP would probably do it, except perhaps for NetZero, Frewwweb, etc... however, how would you report them? if you (for example) track IPs, then the whole/. crew (and Andover) open themselves up for all sorts of legal action. common carrier status is a precious thing.
wow. I guess that big huge pile of CD's in my CAMPUS DORM drawer doesn't exist, as well as that Les Mis original cast recording set that's coming in the mail... (just like the large pile of DVD's that I'd like to play under linux doesn't exist either:) ). people buy CDs around here. people buy a LOT of CDs. you should take a look at the dorm mailrooms. or at the two very large music stores (Rasputin and Ameoba) that are a block away from each other, in the heart of student-land.
number 2 -- you SHOULD NOT be downloading those crap quality MP3s. it's illegal, in general. complaining that your pirated MS software is crap is going to get you about the same amount of sympathy from me, or from anyone else. for some odd reason my MP3s sound fine, and I'm sure the ones you rip do too -- and since those are the only ones (besides some that you can buy at mp3.com, etc) you can legally listen to, you really don't have anything to complain about. ripping MP3s for yourself is fair use (anything to not have to crawl under my bed to change the CD!). taking advantage of it is only going to encourage things like SDMI-enabled players, which won't play my HHGTTG original-radio-show MP3s, or anything else I've ripped that the RIAA won't be offering.
now, I do agree with you about micropayable music. these are likely to be high quality as well, even high quality MP3s, so that would take care of your other complaint. :)
Lea
(oh, and if people know good rippers/encoders for linux... I haven't ripped anything since I switched over a year and some ago, and I've got a lot more stuff to throw on that extra hard drive that used to have windows on it...)
Slashdot Mirror
there are also a lot of related projects, such as Proteo and Digital Clay that are also very interesting stuff.
disclaimer: I currently work on this project at PARC (well, when I'm not in school), and I used to work for that group at NASA (for a summer).
Lea
no problem! just put all your priceless articles on an NT webserver* in Word2000 format. they'll be available for the ages to Share and Enjoy!#
Lea
* assuming the evil "hackers" don't trash your webserver (though we have no idea how, since there are no security holes in IIS)
# at least until we release the next version of Word
no problem! just put all your priceless articles on an NT webserver* in Word2000 format. they'll be available for the ages to Share and Enjoy!#
* assuming the evil "hackers" don't trash your webserver (though we have no idea how, since there are no security holes in IIS)
# at least until we release the next version of Word
seriously, I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. I'm publishing a paper this summer, and there is a whole freaking PAGE I have to add in saying that SAE owns any and all rights to my paper, etc.
personally, I find that a little scary.
nor do I think that they're going to let just anyone archive them -- maybe that service that already archives about a zillion news sources. that's subscription-based, though, and I don't want to see what's going to happen once we don't have paper copies to rely on anymore!
Lea
I thought it was smart, attractive and GEEKY that everyone wanted!
well, most of the guys in engineering, at least (the rest of em seem to want dumb and attractive and easy)
Lea
it's not just microsoft who likes the no-transfer agreement, violating the principle of first sale on first glance (and then when you look a little closer you see that you're not "buying" anything anyways)... I see software moving there, esp. if UTICA passes all over, and that will make it much easier to throw all sorts of information under that sort of a licence ("what do you MEAN I'm being sued and locked out of access to all my books and software for saying that a so-called medical textbook contains infomation and advice that, if followed, will kill the patient -- while they assume no liability!")
I just find the whole thing a bit scary...
Lea
well, my interpretation is a little different from yours... greed is working for one's own self-interest. personally, I believe in the concept of "enlightened self-interest".
Lea
actually, there tend to be very big scandals (I'm reminded of one in LA a few years ago) in 'traditional' media at least (I'm thinking newspapers, I don't know about other ones) if the reporting crosses over into caring about the advertising. in theory, reporters don't know/care about advertising $$, and try to preserve their objectivity -- after all, that's what we're paying em for. no need to visit a site which is all empty MS (or linux) advocacy. I need information, and TRUE information. I need to be able to weigh it for myself -- but it's helpful to have a (supposedly somewhat) trusted other give their opinion...
obligatory vaguely on-topic part: free to innovate? they've always been free to innovate, but their business model doesn't seem to support it very well. I'm also not sure that a breakup is supportable, though it might benefit everyone in the long run.
Lea
nothing wrong with being 'greedy', exactly, it's just a matter of knowing where your interests lie -- and it's possible that they don't.
Lea
because that's how much respect is due.
Lea
does anyone else find this interesting?
/bin/ls. ..
...
ftp> cd netscape6
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 5 888 999 60 Mar 27 19:11 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 888 999 4096 Mar 23 16:17
drwxr-xr-x 3 888 999 23 Mar 23 16:17 english
drwxr-xr-x 3 888 999 23 Mar 23 16:18 japanese
drwxr-xr-x 2 888 999 4096 Apr 5 03:55 marketing
marketing is now apparently a language...
Lea
well, you have to remember that you have to get up and down -- and if you fly into places like utah, they have you fly around and around and around and around becasue you're not quite as fast as a 727...
:)
sorry
in any case, you're going to get everything in between as well, but the temperatures are going to be very cold for the amount of vapor.
Lea
I, my mother, my sister, and my father all regularly put our laptops (unless my sister steals mine to play Civ:CTP or HoMM3 or dad and I use his to look up flight charts) in the nose storage of a plane that flies at about 30,000 feet. No pressurization, no heat. And my laptop still works fine, thankee very much, sir (actually I'm looking at selling one of em if someone wants a TP 570 -- works great, almost new). I believe that heat is another matter, but I've had some laptops that get hot enough that the manual specifically states that you should never, ever put it on your lap (which is where I have it), and the hard drive works just fine.
Another point is that this is self-assembling magnetic storage. I was at the last Foresight Convention on Nanotechnology, and for all the amazing and interesting things people had done or were trying to do, the real roadblock was self-assembly. building a motor with an AFM is not exactly practical.
Offtopic: why can't we make players that read/write MD media, and play MP3's? Now that is something I would buy instantly. (or when I have enough PointClick dollars to get one -- really offtopic: why doesn't PointClick let you use Mozilla, dammit?)
Lea
1. I'm not saying dial-up is dead at all... sooner or later, it will be, but not yet, for sure...
2. yes, they hang things on light and utility poles... you are limited, but it's getting better all the time, apparently
3. thy're coming out with 128k service "sometime this summer." I'm waiting for that before getting anything... otherwise it'll be DSL into a gateway machine and a wireless network in the apartment... assuming, however, that I get a nice girl geek as a roomate...
4. it's not really a bulky transmitter... it's a smallish box, and you don't attach it to your car. there seem to be some companies going for PCMCIA sized ones, which would be absolutely ideal.
disclaimer: I don't work for this company, never met anyone who does, etc. I do, however have a laptop that I would really, REALLY like to have mobile access on, at least in the Bay Area. I know one guy with this service, and the modem isn't all that large (think portable floppy drive for a thinkpad), and he seems satisfied with the service and convenience, if not the speed.
Lea
I was sorta under the impression that packet radio didn't involve dialing. I think we have a good chance of ending up on that instead, at least in the short term. Ricochet is coming out with 128k service this summer -- they won't tell me exactly when, or what it will cost, but they seem to be very devoted to having a flat-rate plan... (hopefully it won't be too expensive for this poor student!)
Lea
and of course, there are all these helpful /. people around... everyone I emailed about my thinkpad was very helpful (thank you, if you're reading this). nice thing about the Linux community -- there is a Linux community, and people are really nice about helping.
Lea
one word: Microsoft.
if they don't have it, they'll make you so miserable you'll sell to them. under utica, this is pretty damn easy.
Lea
gee, that's your worst case scenario? not mine -- but then again I'm female in southside Berkeley, it's enough to make anyone paranoid. waiting for a minute to call a tow truck is ok. waiting for a minute to call the police/ambulance/fire trucks is NOT. the rapists aren't going to wait for the ads to finish...
Oh and one more thing. Someone was joking about double click and how they would be able to track your cell phone usage. Well it's more than that. GTE has a working system that can track a ESN to within a couple of feet by using the timing that signals return to base stations.
I believe that all the cell phone carriers legally have to be able to do this within a few years. no paranoid attacks here -- it's becasue there are so many 911 calls coming from cell phones, and they can't really trace where it's coming from without this sort of a system. I agree it can be misused, but for me, this is a VERY important feature. I'm not looking at cell phones primarily for convenience, but for safety.
Lea
Does anyone else think that country is worthy of ridicule, that will crash $1.5 billion of equipment to avoid even the remote chance that it might hurt some single-celled bacteria, and then legalize the destruction of millions of unborn babies? Do those mythical one-celled motes from outer space have more rights than human children?
whoa, whoa. calm, cool, collected.
Try New Orleans -- their police cars, barriers, etc are all labeled:
N.O. {logo here} P.D.
Lea
it's a pity that people use so much bandwidth gratuitously -- streaming audio/video that they don't even watch/listen to, illegal MP3's, warez... (slashdot's my entry on that list, I guess :) )
and, despite what they say there, my connection to some of the campus servers is still quite slow. is it possible that a lot of internet traffic trying to get out over a capped link can make other traffic (which is not capped) slow? it's entirely possible that it's the servers -- the EECS department needs some more unix boxen!
Lea
Dear Lea,
I wrote to you two weeks ago regarding slow network connections in the Residence Halls. I am writing you today with an update. At present, residence halls have high speed connections (100Mbs) to each other and to all resources located on campus. Transfer rates to servers outside of campus, however, may continue to be slow at times.
The amount of traffic from the residence halls to the outside world has increased dramatically over the past few months. Residents who are using large amounts of bandwidth to the outside world, by running the popular software Napster or popular FTP and web servers, are greatly diminishing network transfer rates for everyone else with a residence hall connection.
The residence halls share bandwidth with all other campus users, including ongoing research projects which rely on consistent connection rates. To ensure adequate bandwidth availability for all campus uses, the department of Communication and Network Services has restricted the total amount of bandwidth available to the residence halls for communication with the outside world. The e-mail below from the Director of Communication and Network Services provides details on the actions they have taken.
Residential Computing is continuing to work with Communication and Network Services to achieve a balance between competing demands for bandwidth throughout campus. We understand that current transfer rates from sites beyond campus are slower than they have been in the past. If you are currently using Napster or running a web server, we strongly encourage you to stop. If you have a friends who are running Napster, we encourage you to ask them to stop. Through increased resident education and ongoing discussions with Communcation and Network Services, I will do my best to improve network connectivity for all reshall students.
Please read the message from Communication and Network Services below for more information.
>From Cliff Frost, Director of Communication and Network Services regarding network connections in the residence halls:
Background:
The Berkeley campus pays approximately $600 per megabit/second/month for connectivity to the worldwide Internet. (There are start-up costs not included in that figure, and a base cost below which the total cost cannot go, but that is a good approximation of our current cost.)
The Residence Hall networks are very well-connected to the rest of campus, and to the Internet in general. This is accomplished via a 100 megabit/second connection between the residence halls and the rest of the campus network.
Up until approximately November, 1999, the sustained use of the Residence Hall network connection was approximately 15 megabits/second. This was for all traffic--both with other campus sites and with the Internet in general.
Recent History:
Coinciding with the tremendous popularity of "napster" (which is a very nice tool in many ways) there has been a tremendous and rapid growth in the campus's traffic to and from the Internet. This growth also coincided with a similar growth to and from the Residence Halls.
In looking at the traffic patterns, and concerned about how we would pay for the exploding use of the Internet, CNS staff noticed that traffic across the 100 megabit/second connection to the Residence Halls had sprung up to peaks of 40 megabits/second and a sustained level of 25. At that point, CNS put a cap onto the traffic that the Residence Halls could exchange with off-campus sites, at 20 megabits per second. Note that this cap did NOT apply to traffic with other on-campus sites.
The effect of the 20 megabit/second cap was immediate. Traffic across the link dropped to peaks of 22-25 megabits/second, implying that most of the traffic across the link is with off-campus sites.
CNS later set the cap at 15 megabits/second and then to 10. From the data gathered it appears that the Residence Halls exchange between 2 and 5 megabits/second with the rest of campus. All the rest of the traffic is bound for the Internet.
Current Status:
At the request of Housing & Dining Services, CNS has temporarily raised the cap to 15 megabits/second while we try to work out ways to manage the explosive demand for Internet bandwidth from the Residence Halls. Housing & Dining has asked for CNS's assistance in analyzing the situation and developing potential solutions.
>and its not worth it when IE is freaking build into
:) )
>peoples operating systems...
oddly enough, it's not built into mine. and I have no use for anything else in windows, and I can not do my work on it, so I can't switch. see the problem here? you have excluded a good number of people from your customer base with this. (now, I don't buy insurance, so you don't give a damn about me, but that's not the point
yes, in an intranet you can force everyone into windows, but do you really want to? perhaps you develop applications for windows. otherwise, why would you want to force them? personally, I would have about zilch productivity on a windows platform...
just some food for thought...
Lea
do you not need things that use crypto? personally, I have mr. spammail (and slashmail) box at hotmail that I couldn't get to in M13... of course I expect this to change, but it sure as hell hasn't yet (I just checked hotmail in M14 for linux).
Lea
something that Rob and crew have tried very hard to preserve is that you can see EVERY post -- even those modded down all the way. so losing their +1 bonus, yes. even having them start out at -1 (like the +2 bonus for high karma the other way around), yes. however, just erasing their posts seems to go against the intentions so far.
/. crew (and Andover) open themselves up for all sorts of legal action. common carrier status is a precious thing.
:)
and having them kicked off is inappropriate -- not to mention that no ISP would probably do it, except perhaps for NetZero, Frewwweb, etc... however, how would you report them? if you (for example) track IPs, then the whole
perhaps we could just slap em around a bit...
Lea
wow. I guess that big huge pile of CD's in my CAMPUS DORM drawer doesn't exist, as well as that Les Mis original cast recording set that's coming in the mail... (just like the large pile of DVD's that I'd like to play under linux doesn't exist either :) ). people buy CDs around here. people buy a LOT of CDs. you should take a look at the dorm mailrooms. or at the two very large music stores (Rasputin and Ameoba) that are a block away from each other, in the heart of student-land.
:)
number 2 -- you SHOULD NOT be downloading those crap quality MP3s. it's illegal, in general. complaining that your pirated MS software is crap is going to get you about the same amount of sympathy from me, or from anyone else. for some odd reason my MP3s sound fine, and I'm sure the ones you rip do too -- and since those are the only ones (besides some that you can buy at mp3.com, etc) you can legally listen to, you really don't have anything to complain about. ripping MP3s for yourself is fair use (anything to not have to crawl under my bed to change the CD!). taking advantage of it is only going to encourage things like SDMI-enabled players, which won't play my HHGTTG original-radio-show MP3s, or anything else I've ripped that the RIAA won't be offering.
now, I do agree with you about micropayable music. these are likely to be high quality as well, even high quality MP3s, so that would take care of your other complaint.
Lea
(oh, and if people know good rippers/encoders for linux... I haven't ripped anything since I switched over a year and some ago, and I've got a lot more stuff to throw on that extra hard drive that used to have windows on it...)
no, it's stylistically incompatable. look for one in tranlucent plastic in fruity colors.
Lea