> solar costs something along the lines of 3-4 times more than nuclear per KwH.
Yeah, but when an earthquake his a solar plant...
Don't get me wrong. Nuclear's cheaper than anything cleaner, and cleaner than anything cheaper; but there are significant risks involved.
1) You pay $40/month for an unlimited 10Mbps connection, but can only get 10Mbps at 2-4am in the morning. Other times, because of high network usage, you get an unstable connection that goes 3-5Mbps, or even slower during peak times.
2) You pay $40/month for a 10Mbps connection with a 100GB limit. Most of the time, your connection speed is around 10Mbps, but you just need to watch how much you download. There is a tool provided for you by the ISP to check your usage, updated daily.
I would much, MUCH rather go for the second option.
Speak for yourself. I would much rather have the first option.
I would much rather have an Internet plan where I pay $40/month and I know it's going to cost me $40/mo.
My Internet usage is variable; I rarely hit a particular 'average' - I've used as much as 300GB to as little as 10GB in a month.
That's one problem.
Another problem is that the caps are low and overage prices are exhorbitant. $1.00 (or more) per GB is just highway robbery, especially since bandwidth costs the ISPs about $0.02 at max per GB. The only reason one would be able to charge that much per GB is because the ISPs are either defacto monopolies or oligopolies - $0.10/GB would be reasonable AND would provide a 500% profit at least.
A third problem is that I just don't trust my ISP to measure bandwidth effectively. Since the measurement happens on their end, they could be inaccurate and I'd just not know.
There's no reason ISPs can't offer a "unlimited speed but per/GB" vs "limited speed during peak hours but unlimited GB" plan, using QoS policies for the former and latter. So that people CAN make that choice as you suggested.
Because I'm going to be honest - I just spent 6 months in New Zealand. I found it a very hard adjustment and moved back to the states - one of the reasons I did so was because I don't think the Internet has affected the culture of New Zealand the way it has the culture of the United States.
New Zealand has pretty much always had UBB from the beginning, and there's no Internet plan that doesn't have UBB in the country.
So people use the Internet sparingly; they associate use of the Internet with cost and do not wish to incur that cost themselves, nor do they want to impose that cost upon their friends.
In the long run, it ends up that people don't use the Internet socially. It's less often in New Zealand that people organize social gatherings on the Internet, it's hard to find businesses, services, events, etc. on the Internet - in short, the entire country pretty much feels like you're living in the mid 1990s, where Internet is *there* but nobody really considers it central to the way they organize their lives. It's a culture shock that was just a huge problem for me; and I think it's actually retarded New Zealand's cultural growth. Now, there were other reasons I moved back, but that was a big one.
So I think there are some serious social problems associated with UBB.
1) Those on-demand services are a joke - you get a choice between one episode of thier 10 least popular shows.
2) YOUR cable includes all those channels except BBC3 and BBC 4 - mine doesn't. Mine doesn't even include CNNi unless I pay another $20 a month to buy ANOTHER 200 digital channels that I don't want...
3) You're getting 200 channels, which I'm assuming you like. Me, since I'm only watching five of your cable service's offered channels, I'm effectively paying about $12 per channel - and still not getting all the channels I want to watch!
Mine's better because -you- can still have the 200 channels for $56+tax, and I can have only the channels I want to watch at $5 a channel. If it worked out cheaper to get the big 200 channel package, I'd probably switch over to the 200 channel package at a later date.
Here's the bonus - you can still pay for your 200 basic channels and if you see a channel that you'd like to have - say, BBC3, - you could just plop on an extra $5 for that channel. Under your plan, there's -no way to see it at all.-
$5 a channel is actually a fair price -IF- I get a really good range of selections with my channels.
I want: BBC One, BBC Three, BBC Four, Comedy Central, CBC, CNN International, Cartoon Network, and maybe SciFi. That's $40, I have all the programming I want, it's better than what you get, and I'm paying $10 less than you... who probably doesn't get 3-5 of those channels. Tack on HBO-type channel, and we break even, and I get the Sopranos too.
Some people may be happy with 200 channels, but other people want a-la-carte as an option. Having the option, in any case, would increase the quality of all channels, because, for example, Sci-Fi might actually have to put on some good goddamn science-fiction shows in order to get people to subscribe. What you get now is "200 channels and nothing on" syndrome as a stunning array of fluff, repeats, 80's movies... airplay JUST so that they fill the slot, rather than have dead air.
Your first point: Yes, Gateway had an agreement with Hardocp.com, Dell did not. We felt that it was worth it to take a look at the Dell before the holiday season even if we didn't, simply because of the size and the holiday season.
But this didn't have an impact on the review. In fact, we could have very well chosen not to review Dell's products because we simply didn't have an agreement. But Dell's too big to ignore for Santa Season.
As a front-line writer, it really didn't matter to me whether we got Dell's promise to RMA the system or not. Kyle tells Chris to do the article. Chris tells me to write the article. I don't get a whole lot of choice in what to review. I do get a lot of choice in -how- to review.
If Dell had an RMA agreement, this review would have been exactly the same. I mentioned it because I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. We have given bad scores to companies that had RMA agreements with us.
Second Point: Yes, the Gateway had a number of similar problems, but the first difference was that of degree: The Dell had far more bloatware on the system, and the second difference was that of kind: The Gateway's bloatware did not interfere with system operation. There was a performance hit, sure. But we didn't have stability problems with the Gateway.
"Pre-installed software" has two big benifits - the kickbacks keep the price low, and they actually are useful for a novice user who doesn't know how to install software. We have to balance that out. Don't get me wrong - we prefer clean systems. But there's bloatware and then there's BLOATWARE.
Journalistic integrity means alot to me, personally - and I can understand this criticism. And you know what, I'm glad you bring it up. Questioning is the best way to get at something and sunlight's the best disinfectant. HardOCP.com has forums set up so that peole can ask questions and we'll do our best to answer them.
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> solar costs something along the lines of 3-4 times more than nuclear per KwH. Yeah, but when an earthquake his a solar plant... Don't get me wrong. Nuclear's cheaper than anything cleaner, and cleaner than anything cheaper; but there are significant risks involved.
1) You pay $40/month for an unlimited 10Mbps connection, but can only get 10Mbps at 2-4am in the morning. Other times, because of high network usage, you get an unstable connection that goes 3-5Mbps, or even slower during peak times. 2) You pay $40/month for a 10Mbps connection with a 100GB limit. Most of the time, your connection speed is around 10Mbps, but you just need to watch how much you download. There is a tool provided for you by the ISP to check your usage, updated daily.
I would much, MUCH rather go for the second option.
Speak for yourself. I would much rather have the first option.
I would much rather have an Internet plan where I pay $40/month and I know it's going to cost me $40/mo.
My Internet usage is variable; I rarely hit a particular 'average' - I've used as much as 300GB to as little as 10GB in a month.
That's one problem.
Another problem is that the caps are low and overage prices are exhorbitant. $1.00 (or more) per GB is just highway robbery, especially since bandwidth costs the ISPs about $0.02 at max per GB. The only reason one would be able to charge that much per GB is because the ISPs are either defacto monopolies or oligopolies - $0.10/GB would be reasonable AND would provide a 500% profit at least.
A third problem is that I just don't trust my ISP to measure bandwidth effectively. Since the measurement happens on their end, they could be inaccurate and I'd just not know.
There's no reason ISPs can't offer a "unlimited speed but per/GB" vs "limited speed during peak hours but unlimited GB" plan, using QoS policies for the former and latter. So that people CAN make that choice as you suggested.
Because I'm going to be honest - I just spent 6 months in New Zealand. I found it a very hard adjustment and moved back to the states - one of the reasons I did so was because I don't think the Internet has affected the culture of New Zealand the way it has the culture of the United States.
New Zealand has pretty much always had UBB from the beginning, and there's no Internet plan that doesn't have UBB in the country.
So people use the Internet sparingly; they associate use of the Internet with cost and do not wish to incur that cost themselves, nor do they want to impose that cost upon their friends.
In the long run, it ends up that people don't use the Internet socially. It's less often in New Zealand that people organize social gatherings on the Internet, it's hard to find businesses, services, events, etc. on the Internet - in short, the entire country pretty much feels like you're living in the mid 1990s, where Internet is *there* but nobody really considers it central to the way they organize their lives. It's a culture shock that was just a huge problem for me; and I think it's actually retarded New Zealand's cultural growth. Now, there were other reasons I moved back, but that was a big one.
So I think there are some serious social problems associated with UBB.
1) Those on-demand services are a joke - you get a choice between one episode of thier 10 least popular shows. 2) YOUR cable includes all those channels except BBC3 and BBC 4 - mine doesn't. Mine doesn't even include CNNi unless I pay another $20 a month to buy ANOTHER 200 digital channels that I don't want... 3) You're getting 200 channels, which I'm assuming you like. Me, since I'm only watching five of your cable service's offered channels, I'm effectively paying about $12 per channel - and still not getting all the channels I want to watch! Mine's better because -you- can still have the 200 channels for $56+tax, and I can have only the channels I want to watch at $5 a channel. If it worked out cheaper to get the big 200 channel package, I'd probably switch over to the 200 channel package at a later date. Here's the bonus - you can still pay for your 200 basic channels and if you see a channel that you'd like to have - say, BBC3, - you could just plop on an extra $5 for that channel. Under your plan, there's -no way to see it at all.-
$5 a channel is actually a fair price -IF- I get a really good range of selections with my channels.
I want: BBC One, BBC Three, BBC Four, Comedy Central, CBC, CNN International, Cartoon Network, and maybe SciFi. That's $40, I have all the programming I want, it's better than what you get, and I'm paying $10 less than you... who probably doesn't get 3-5 of those channels. Tack on HBO-type channel, and we break even, and I get the Sopranos too.
Some people may be happy with 200 channels, but other people want a-la-carte as an option. Having the option, in any case, would increase the quality of all channels, because, for example, Sci-Fi might actually have to put on some good goddamn science-fiction shows in order to get people to subscribe. What you get now is "200 channels and nothing on" syndrome as a stunning array of fluff, repeats, 80's movies... airplay JUST so that they fill the slot, rather than have dead air.
Your first point: Yes, Gateway had an agreement with Hardocp.com, Dell did not. We felt that it was worth it to take a look at the Dell before the holiday season even if we didn't, simply because of the size and the holiday season.
But this didn't have an impact on the review. In fact, we could have very well chosen not to review Dell's products because we simply didn't have an agreement. But Dell's too big to ignore for Santa Season.
As a front-line writer, it really didn't matter to me whether we got Dell's promise to RMA the system or not. Kyle tells Chris to do the article. Chris tells me to write the article. I don't get a whole lot of choice in what to review. I do get a lot of choice in -how- to review.
If Dell had an RMA agreement, this review would have been exactly the same. I mentioned it because I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. We have given bad scores to companies that had RMA agreements with us.
Second Point: Yes, the Gateway had a number of similar problems, but the first difference was that of degree: The Dell had far more bloatware on the system, and the second difference was that of kind: The Gateway's bloatware did not interfere with system operation. There was a performance hit, sure. But we didn't have stability problems with the Gateway.
"Pre-installed software" has two big benifits - the kickbacks keep the price low, and they actually are useful for a novice user who doesn't know how to install software. We have to balance that out. Don't get me wrong - we prefer clean systems. But there's bloatware and then there's BLOATWARE.
Journalistic integrity means alot to me, personally - and I can understand this criticism. And you know what, I'm glad you bring it up. Questioning is the best way to get at something and sunlight's the best disinfectant. HardOCP.com has forums set up so that peole can ask questions and we'll do our best to answer them.
Hope to see you there.
-- Brian Boyko
-- The Guy Whut Rote That Shtuff.