For too long, the ISPs knew that their infrastructure would eventually get burdened down with data. It's not what kind of data, per se, but how many users are going to start requesting and sending data. The amount of users accessing the internet has reached a large enough point that the development of social networks seemed obvious. Every ISP knew about the potential to deliver video, but they must have underestimated the adoption of it by.....about ten years. How come we don't all have fiber to our houses? Better question, how come I don't have DSL and I live in a city of over 200K people? I had a cable modem since 1997 and all I can get is Comcast. When asking Qwest when I could get DSL, they insisted it would be in my neighborhood in two years. Two years go by and I actually called them. They said the same thing! Two years, sir. Eleven years have passed and I still have to be within a two mile radius of their main line or it's a no-go. If demand for faster speeds is so high, why, I ask is there no competition in my poor city?
Only now is Verizon taking charge, seemingly, to lead fiber directly into a single residence. I do remember a story in the late 90s about the former owner of Qwest saying he acquired the rights to 'improve' the length of most railroad lanes. Supposedly, he laid fiber in one tube and left the other empty so when the next, best-quality fiber became available, he could fill that tube. I don't know why I mentioned that, other than to illustrate the fact that people have been 'thinking' of upgrading the infrastructure, but it appears that they haven't.
If I had just made major investments in laying the major infrastructure for anything, I'd try to max-out my investment, too (aka, milk it for as long as you can before people get sour over quality.) Comcast has a maximum amount of bandwidth they can reasonably supply to a shared pool of users. When they try to balance users' internet demands while trying to sell more users on high-bandwidth HDTV and VOIP, they are just setting themselves up for having to do what they've been, rightfully, criticized for --throttle the most-demanding applications. While I strongly disagree with their actions, I guess I could understand it it I were a CEO wanting to impress shareholders, or if I were an IT manager wanting to get a raise.
In the end, I think we will see standard market forces doing what they do best --compete. I don't like the fact that I may have to give my money to Verizon, but I'd sure rather give it to them in the future (whenever that may be) than give it to Comcast.
Can you provide a link or more to this story of engineers leaving the USA because of political reasons? I searched several times, but didn't see any mention of a mass exodus of engineers in 2000.
On a similar note, I did think of moving out of the country in 2000 if Bush received the Presidential bid. After eight years of watching the fabric of the market erode around me because Bush thinks that outsourcing is our best export.
But, nonetheless, I'd like to see some documentation on the 'Engineer's Exodus of 2000' for a paper I'm drafting.
This is almost like the Cornucopia Machine from "Singularity Sky" by Charles Stross. These machines could make everything from organic implants to exotic weapons. The most interesting part was Cornucopia Machines could replicate themselves.
I'd really like to know who said the (not verbatim) quote, "Science-fiction's purpose isn't necessarily to predict the future, but to avoid it, too"
I do recommend "Singularity Sky" to any sci-fi admirers for it's one of the more interesting books I've read since Ringworld.
Now why would the FBI have to sully the good reputation that porn has generated since the first woman took off her clothes for money? What did porn do the the FBI to make them the new moral police?
"In the UK, you can either get listings straight from the DVB-T signal, or free (for personal use) from an XML feed served by the Radio Times (a commercial arm of the BBC)."
That's way different, though. In the UK, you've already paid for that data from your TV's taxation. That's the same reason that non-UK IP addresses can't access new TV content on the BBC's website --non-UK citizens can't get free programming because we didn't pay our tax to the BBC.
This is the official Olympic website for the Beijing Olympics. Therefore, isn't the International Olympic Committee the one that is truly responsible? I'm not sure here. This is kind if confusing. Is the IOC, who sanctions the creation of that website for promoting the summer games, responsible for possible copyright infringement or the Chinese government? The IOC seems to act like rabid dogs against anyone that is illegally using any Olympic graphic, logo, video, and even blogging about events, even the athletes!
"It's a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet."
Icy water? Replace icy water with napalm and then we have a story.
I have a huge problem with Comcast using DPI to sniff what apps I'm using for whatever reason. Whether I am seeding a 0-day movie or a Linux distro, they have no right to peer into the application layer of my packets to determine I'm using some bittorrent client. That is almost like using their train/bus, but before I can go anywhere, they ask to look in my pockets. Unless there's a reason to suspect I'm up to some illegal activity, slowing traffic should not not an option for them. And even if I was up to something bad (copyright infringement seems to be the worst offense in the media's eyes) then I'm sure the FBI would be knocking on my door.
Bandwidth metering isn't something they should be doing since they can control in/outbound speeds via the cable modem. If the modem has a cap, I should be able to use any and all of what I pay for (which already costs too much for what I get.) Now, if they are claiming that a few people in a neighborhood are slowing the experience of the other neighbors, then they clearly oversold the available bandwidth in that area. And, if that's true, maybe someone hacked their modem for faster speed? --I'd figure they'd be found faster and cut off, though. I do agree with harrkev that injecting forged RST packets is wrong, but I also think that should be illegal. If I inhibited traffic of any kind (internet, mail, vehicles) I would probably be sent to jail.
The truth is that we have almost no consumer choice for ISPs --this country has been called the world's 'Broadband Backwater' for a reason. Capitalism isn't working with internet access compared to other market forces that eventually give consumers more choice than they can fathom. For too long ISPs have relied on the current infrastructure to deliver the profits they needed to recoup the installation costs. It would seem they have been taking too many profits and not investing in their future by upgrading to a newer technology. I'm not talking about just Comcast. One notable company that seemingly wants to get ahead of the competition is Verizon. I hear more and more about FIOS reaching more communities.
As for now, Colorado basically sucks for broadband access (FYI, I am on the extremely crowded Front Range, not in the mountains.)
"You are talking about high school here? This isn't a College prep course for the "real world". They aren't going to get a job at a high paying graphic design firm right out of 12th grade! Come on!"
Actually, you are horribly wrong. Anyone can get a job in the creative field, even with little or no 'academic or professional experience'. Why? Because if your portfolio is f#*&ing kick-ass, any company will see that and hire that person, period. I know several people that have tons of experience, but their portfolios stink. Thus, that's probably why they're having problems getting a job in the field they studied in. I was having the same problem, so I reworked my portfolio, added some newly-created content and I finally got a job in the field I studied to work in. One of the better artists that is in our department was hired fresh out of high school, so, I'd say you're completely wrong.
I don't think it's about devaluing a title, but to redefine what criteria be present to make said title applicable. What about quantum computers? Should quantum computers be the new supercomputers, hence redefining what a supercomputer is and de-listing current supercomputers?
"...citing one software house president as saying, 'People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it.' "
It's crap like this that shouldn't even be making headlines here at Slashdot. If this president had some industry numbers showing that demand has gone down, maybe he'd have a point. Perhaps his software house didn't anticipate the popularity and is scrambling to deliver a title or two? Perhaps they invested too much time/people into other consoles? Whatever the case, it's still speculation.
Well, here's a link to an article written in 1996 already complaining how the congestion of the early internet was a known problem with the (then) current US-based infrastructure. It's fairly detailed regarding how the early networks use for military and educational use transitioned to a commerce-based model controlled by private industries.
Here's an excerpt from the Summer 1996 issue of VECTOR (a Colorado State University publication):
"Why is the Internet so slow lately? How come it takes forever for an FTP file transfer to finish? What's a DNS error? All these questions have the same answer. The Internet is overloaded, sometimes to the point of gridlock.
In the Summer 1996 issue of VECTOR, Michael Moravan, ACNS network analyst, discussed the issues surrounding Internet overload. Lots of users mean lots of traffic on the information highway. The really cool features of the web such as real-time audio, live video, whiteboards, frames, and on-line, long-distance phone calls need lots of bandwidth--a commodity that is in short supply these days. Patrick Burns, professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of Westnet, has some suggestions for getting the Internet back on track. In his article, "Back on track to the NII?," he discusses why the network is important to higher education. For the full text of his article, including possible solutions for getting out of the current mess, see URL: http://www.westnet.net/back-on-track.html "
This looks similar to how Photosynth stores and makes image correlation. And I'd say, it's one of the more impressive things I've seen Microsoft do, but I think they bought this technology.
That's a good thought I didn't consider, much like Dmitry Sklyarov at the 2001 DefCon in Las Vegas.
My initial thought was M$ hired some local henchmen to go rough up them and threaten the same to their family/loved ones. Gee, have I watched "Antitrust" too many times? Did Tim Robbins present such a compelling and chilling version of a person with too much to lose in an industry fraught with theft and scandal? I'd have to say 'yes' because this was my first thought.
"Our Mission Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
Yup. Sounds just like a Republican candidate/incumbent's rhetoric. Or a Democrat, for that matter. Jello Biafra called them Rebublicrats.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought that... (see sig.)
For too long, the ISPs knew that their infrastructure would eventually get burdened down with data. It's not what kind of data, per se, but how many users are going to start requesting and sending data. The amount of users accessing the internet has reached a large enough point that the development of social networks seemed obvious. Every ISP knew about the potential to deliver video, but they must have underestimated the adoption of it by .....about ten years. How come we don't all have fiber to our houses? Better question, how come I don't have DSL and I live in a city of over 200K people? I had a cable modem since 1997 and all I can get is Comcast. When asking Qwest when I could get DSL, they insisted it would be in my neighborhood in two years. Two years go by and I actually called them. They said the same thing! Two years, sir. Eleven years have passed and I still have to be within a two mile radius of their main line or it's a no-go. If demand for faster speeds is so high, why, I ask is there no competition in my poor city?
Only now is Verizon taking charge, seemingly, to lead fiber directly into a single residence. I do remember a story in the late 90s about the former owner of Qwest saying he acquired the rights to 'improve' the length of most railroad lanes. Supposedly, he laid fiber in one tube and left the other empty so when the next, best-quality fiber became available, he could fill that tube. I don't know why I mentioned that, other than to illustrate the fact that people have been 'thinking' of upgrading the infrastructure, but it appears that they haven't.
If I had just made major investments in laying the major infrastructure for anything, I'd try to max-out my investment, too (aka, milk it for as long as you can before people get sour over quality.) Comcast has a maximum amount of bandwidth they can reasonably supply to a shared pool of users. When they try to balance users' internet demands while trying to sell more users on high-bandwidth HDTV and VOIP, they are just setting themselves up for having to do what they've been, rightfully, criticized for --throttle the most-demanding applications. While I strongly disagree with their actions, I guess I could understand it it I were a CEO wanting to impress shareholders, or if I were an IT manager wanting to get a raise.
In the end, I think we will see standard market forces doing what they do best --compete. I don't like the fact that I may have to give my money to Verizon, but I'd sure rather give it to them in the future (whenever that may be) than give it to Comcast.
Can you provide a link or more to this story of engineers leaving the USA because of political reasons? I searched several times, but didn't see any mention of a mass exodus of engineers in 2000.
On a similar note, I did think of moving out of the country in 2000 if Bush received the Presidential bid. After eight years of watching the fabric of the market erode around me because Bush thinks that outsourcing is our best export.
But, nonetheless, I'd like to see some documentation on the 'Engineer's Exodus of 2000' for a paper I'm drafting.
This is almost like the Cornucopia Machine from "Singularity Sky" by Charles Stross. These machines could make everything from organic implants to exotic weapons. The most interesting part was Cornucopia Machines could replicate themselves.
I'd really like to know who said the (not verbatim) quote, "Science-fiction's purpose isn't necessarily to predict the future, but to avoid it, too"
I do recommend "Singularity Sky" to any sci-fi admirers for it's one of the more interesting books I've read since Ringworld.
Now why would the FBI have to sully the good reputation that porn has generated since the first woman took off her clothes for money? What did porn do the the FBI to make them the new moral police?
In all reality, this smacks of entrapment.
"In the UK, you can either get listings straight from the DVB-T signal, or free (for personal use) from an XML feed served by the Radio Times (a commercial arm of the BBC)."
That's way different, though. In the UK, you've already paid for that data from your TV's taxation. That's the same reason that non-UK IP addresses can't access new TV content on the BBC's website --non-UK citizens can't get free programming because we didn't pay our tax to the BBC.
"This is China. Not United States."
This is the official Olympic website for the Beijing Olympics. Therefore, isn't the International Olympic Committee the one that is truly responsible? I'm not sure here. This is kind if confusing. Is the IOC, who sanctions the creation of that website for promoting the summer games, responsible for possible copyright infringement or the Chinese government? The IOC seems to act like rabid dogs against anyone that is illegally using any Olympic graphic, logo, video, and even blogging about events, even the athletes!
"It's a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet."
Icy water? Replace icy water with napalm and then we have a story.
Concepts like Senator Storms should make her a dinosaur, but have seemingly allowed her to evolve and keep a job in politics.
Even if it were possible to import hydrocarbons from Titan, I'm positive one of two things will have happened long before we are able to do such.
One, we will have killed ourselves by then (or something will reduce the population significantly)
or
Two, we will have already figured how to create energy from renewable sources like solar.
Personally, I don't see some Sean Connery "Outland" scenario where we go to other planets and mine elements we can't already make synthetically.
I have a huge problem with Comcast using DPI to sniff what apps I'm using for whatever reason. Whether I am seeding a 0-day movie or a Linux distro, they have no right to peer into the application layer of my packets to determine I'm using some bittorrent client. That is almost like using their train/bus, but before I can go anywhere, they ask to look in my pockets. Unless there's a reason to suspect I'm up to some illegal activity, slowing traffic should not not an option for them. And even if I was up to something bad (copyright infringement seems to be the worst offense in the media's eyes) then I'm sure the FBI would be knocking on my door.
Bandwidth metering isn't something they should be doing since they can control in/outbound speeds via the cable modem. If the modem has a cap, I should be able to use any and all of what I pay for (which already costs too much for what I get.) Now, if they are claiming that a few people in a neighborhood are slowing the experience of the other neighbors, then they clearly oversold the available bandwidth in that area. And, if that's true, maybe someone hacked their modem for faster speed? --I'd figure they'd be found faster and cut off, though. I do agree with harrkev that injecting forged RST packets is wrong, but I also think that should be illegal. If I inhibited traffic of any kind (internet, mail, vehicles) I would probably be sent to jail.
The truth is that we have almost no consumer choice for ISPs --this country has been called the world's 'Broadband Backwater' for a reason. Capitalism isn't working with internet access compared to other market forces that eventually give consumers more choice than they can fathom. For too long ISPs have relied on the current infrastructure to deliver the profits they needed to recoup the installation costs. It would seem they have been taking too many profits and not investing in their future by upgrading to a newer technology. I'm not talking about just Comcast. One notable company that seemingly wants to get ahead of the competition is Verizon. I hear more and more about FIOS reaching more communities.
As for now, Colorado basically sucks for broadband access (FYI, I am on the extremely crowded Front Range, not in the mountains.)
"You are talking about high school here? This isn't a College prep course for the "real world". They aren't going to get a job at a high paying graphic design firm right out of 12th grade! Come on!"
Actually, you are horribly wrong. Anyone can get a job in the creative field, even with little or no 'academic or professional experience'. Why? Because if your portfolio is f#*&ing kick-ass, any company will see that and hire that person, period. I know several people that have tons of experience, but their portfolios stink. Thus, that's probably why they're having problems getting a job in the field they studied in. I was having the same problem, so I reworked my portfolio, added some newly-created content and I finally got a job in the field I studied to work in. One of the better artists that is in our department was hired fresh out of high school, so, I'd say you're completely wrong.
I don't think it's about devaluing a title, but to redefine what criteria be present to make said title applicable. What about quantum computers? Should quantum computers be the new supercomputers, hence redefining what a supercomputer is and de-listing current supercomputers?
"Who watches the watchers? - Nobody it seems."
Well, of course, it's The Watcher. But his race has sworn to be noninterventionist.
made me remember a post from here over a month ago. It was even stranger when I discovered this post is a dupe of that one.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/03/1721208
that At&T's board members have probably approached T-Mobil with advice or other background resources to help them win in court.
"...citing one software house president as saying, 'People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it.' "
It's crap like this that shouldn't even be making headlines here at Slashdot. If this president had some industry numbers showing that demand has gone down, maybe he'd have a point. Perhaps his software house didn't anticipate the popularity and is scrambling to deliver a title or two? Perhaps they invested too much time/people into other consoles? Whatever the case, it's still speculation.
Well, here's a link to an article written in 1996 already complaining how the congestion of the early internet was a known problem with the (then) current US-based infrastructure. It's fairly detailed regarding how the early networks use for military and educational use transitioned to a commerce-based model controlled by private industries.
http://www.westnet.net/back-on-track.html
Here's an excerpt from the Summer 1996 issue of VECTOR (a Colorado State University publication):
"Why is the Internet so slow lately? How come it takes forever for an FTP file transfer to finish? What's a DNS error? All these questions have the same answer. The Internet is overloaded, sometimes to the point of gridlock.
In the Summer 1996 issue of VECTOR, Michael Moravan, ACNS network analyst, discussed the issues surrounding Internet overload. Lots of users mean lots of traffic on the information highway. The really cool features of the web such as real-time audio, live video, whiteboards, frames, and on-line, long-distance phone calls need lots of bandwidth--a commodity that is in short supply these days. Patrick Burns, professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of Westnet, has some suggestions for getting the Internet back on track. In his article, "Back on track to the NII?," he discusses why the network is important to higher education. For the full text of his article, including possible solutions for getting out of the current mess, see URL: http://www.westnet.net/back-on-track.html "
This looks similar to how Photosynth stores and makes image correlation. And I'd say, it's one of the more impressive things I've seen Microsoft do, but I think they bought this technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-DqZ8jAmv0
A "synthetic mirror of the real world" made me think of Matrix immediately.
"gobble up breaking news, census data, economic indicators"
End of line
That's a good thought I didn't consider, much like Dmitry Sklyarov at the 2001 DefCon in Las Vegas.
My initial thought was M$ hired some local henchmen to go rough up them and threaten the same to their family/loved ones. Gee, have I watched "Antitrust" too many times? Did Tim Robbins present such a compelling and chilling version of a person with too much to lose in an industry fraught with theft and scandal? I'd have to say 'yes' because this was my first thought.
Well, at least they won't be charged for that one day of silence. :-\
What's solid state about a hard drive?
n ics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_(electro
I can't believe enough people tagged this story as 'mobbydick' --I really wonder what books are considered 'essential-reads' in schools today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick
Heritage Foundation = Conservative Think-tank
From their website:
"Our Mission
Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute - a think tank - whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."
Yup. Sounds just like a Republican candidate/incumbent's rhetoric. Or a Democrat, for that matter. Jello Biafra called them Rebublicrats.