Unfortunately, the $2500-ish price for the LTO-5 drive is a bit of an impediment for home use. So is the need for a SAS interface on the PC (or backup server).
Of course. I was pointing out the irony that the excessive disk swapping, in my opinion, could justify the cost of the drive! Of course, the cost of those damned tape drives isn't really justified by anything other than the corporate expense accounts they're usually purchased with...
You're right about the USB disks though. I much prefer the idea of using tape to run backups as opposed to using external hard disks though. It's hard to use tape for much of anything else, whereas most people I know couldn't even begin to resist the temptation to store yet more shit on their external drives:P. The tapes themselves will last longer too. I just wish I could find a convenient backup mechanism for my home storage (~10 TB of space) that doesn't come with an enterprise price or a shitload of USB disks. Without resorting to online backup, anyway. I throw around hundreds of gigs of data on a whim when I back up a client's computers or move around some of my VM's.
I back up all my important stuff to my online storage arrays, but that data sits alongside my media collection and tons of important documents and so on. How would you back up that much stuff easily and reliably? My experience [unfortunately] makes it difficult to think of something that isn't marketed at the enterprise sector. I hate the idea of implementing something for my own data that I wouldn't even think of presenting to upper management because of how hacked together it would be.
Amazon shows dozens of different choices for 25GB BD-R packs, some for as low as about $1/disk.
I'm I the only one that finds it mildly pathetic that, especially when you factor in the cost of swapping disks, it'd be cheaper for consumers to back to up to LTO-5 media in spite of how long Blu-Ray has been on the market?
But considering I've met many people who send more than 50 texts per day, so they are clearly very good at comunicating with texts.
Nah, they're usually just too ADHD to talk to one person at a time.
SMS is great for avoiding conversation while communicating with others, and that most definitely has its merits. However, I remember that, as a teenager, I often talked to girls using instant messaging because it allowed me to compose myself without saying something stupid. Unfortunately though, the stuff it left out eventually taught me that flirting via IM was a foolish and questionably effective endeavor.
Conversation is as much a game as it is a form of art or a tool for communication. Handicapping yourself by limiting your control over that game, your canvas for the art, or a choice of the inferior or improper tool for the sake of----whatever the hell the reason is----when you could simply talk to someone to communicate more efficiently or more accurately in the majority of situations is just... stupid.
And don't even get me started on how I'm supposed to understand 160 characters of nonsense without *any* punctuation.....
Or take 30 minutes to scrape up the backup image, push it out, and restore the data?
Precisely!
Being paid (anything but handsomely... sigh) to do systems admin work is wonderful in how fulfilling it can be. Knowing when to give up and just fix the damn thing already... that definitely takes experience to master.
In the meantime when it happens, which isn't often anymore, I've had much luck with my co-workers letting me know when I'm being ridiculous. In turn, they too appreciate when I can tell them how to fix a problem they would usually reimage or reinstall to get out of:)
Point is, you only need one person with actual sysadmin skill to make and maintain an imagine. Hundreds of point-and-click types can then use that image. It happens in large organizations all the time. Why pay for a hundred skilled, experienced sysadmins when you only need one skilled, experienced sysadmin and 99 paper MCSEs? For many businesses this is an easy decision.
THIS.
It's a problem I run into myself a lot, really, as well. With the rise of virtualization, operating systems have gone from the tool that allows you to maintain your hardware such that it effectively delivers many applications to users to more of a vehicle on top of which single applications sit. But now, that vehicle, in turn, rides on top of your virtualization platform which is basically designed to as blown out and expendable as possible. While a given piece of hardware effectively delivers the same number of applications to end users, the real "Systems" part of administration is no longer the true integral piece of the puzzle that directly coverts "small iron" into "line of business."
Why should a company waste their money on my time spent digging through event logs, flexing the google-fu, and possibly coming up with the answer of "This would take so long to fix that I could probably rebuild the server and reinstall its single application faster than the problem could be resolved manually," when they can get a good enough result by skipping the investigation and just doing that in the first place?
It's extremely unfortunate that it works this way, especially as I feel I learn so much every time I encounter and solve a new problem that's preventing a system from running correctly. While it may be more intellectually stimulating and personally enriching to do things from the "advanced" perspective, on the whole, it usually ends up taking as much as if not more time than just blowing a system out in the event that you've never solved the given type of problem before.
Perhaps I've just got more learning to do though I suppose. It might be a different story with Linux! (where, ironically, I've simply reinstalled my test systems many times rather than actually solve problems:P)
You hit the nail on the head. It was a very flamebait way to say it, but I think the point stands.
Microsoft makes UI changes from version to version because they spend money researching how people use their products. New UIs are created and tested, and the ones that pass QA and so on make it into their products.
As someone who used to revert damn near everything in Windows to the "Classic" UI, I sat down and taught myself how to use the newer ones. Once you learn how to use the modern Windows UI, you'll probably come to the same conclusion I did: it really does just keep getting better.
Yup. How many people in the US would be comfortable on a nude beach? Or even a topless beach?
I often wondered that when I was a teenager. I couldn't fathom being able to walk around any number of nude or topless women without sporting a raging erection.
People who smoke? (Actually that one actually affects other people, so it's not really in the same category.)
Definitely a different category. Especially since, at least in Ohio and plenty of other states, it's illegal to start a coffee shop or restaurant that specifically caters to people who would like to smoke while they enjoy that cup of joe.
Makes me feel bad for all the hookah bars: they made their money on liquor, not tobacco.
However, I often use a laptop in these places, and I don't think its unreasonable so long as I only stay for the time it takes to eat my food and drink. Of course, with more people imagining they are 'digital nomads' or some such nonsense, there will be some who sit there all day.
Indeed. I can only imagine that just about every Slashdotter in his twenties can think of a place full of those "digital nomads." It's particularly obnoxious when one of them decides that downloading some torrents is a good idea.
The place that I used to frequent, and now visit occasionally with friends to sit down and play some DotA (admittedly, the last time was to have fun with Firesheep:P) while drinking some decent coffee is a place on the west side of Cleveland called "Common Grounds." It's all but literally a hole in the wall, but their clientele make for an interesting place to sit and watch what my own life might be like if I hadn't moved to the suburbs and had been more into drugs and sex when I was younger instead of being a suburbanite wrapped up in Diablo 2 and girls that weren't single. [/reminisce]
Either way, while the shop has a fairly strictly enforced "no loitering" policy, I agree that it's rude to buy one drink and goof off on your laptop for an entire shift. I usually make it a point to, while I'm at the place, buy at least one drink every 90 minutes or so and, of course, to tip the barman.
It is, but oddly enough that does not bind the expansion. Space can be expanding faster than c and I believe the inflationary theory says just that.
It did so for a VERY short while following the big bang: a period of superluminal expansion known as the Inflationary Epoch.
Physicists like to separate notable periods in time on a logarithmic scale, referring to each as the "Whatever" Epoch. As novel as the system itself is, what's most novel is how tiny of a portion of it our planet will be around for.
The switch-swapping example is apt for those who don't understand the concept, really, but you pointed it out yourself:
The reason why transfer caps are in place is not because the equipment is wearing out. My transfers this month don't affect anything next month.
QED: transfer doesn't matter. Only bandwidth does.
Like I pointed out, as time approaches infinity, potential transfer does as well. Bandwidth, on the other hand, remains constant. Transfer is the primary effect of using bandwidth irrespective of how much or how little of it that you do over any given period of time.
Now for the most important concept: Bandwidth is only relevant at instantaneous points in time. How much available bandwidth you had an hour ago is completely irrelevant to how much bandwidth you have available for use now, or X seconds from now. Therefore, it follows that the effect (read: transfer) of using bandwidth an hour ago is likewise irrelevant to using bandwidth now.
The problem isn't that billing for discrete units of transfer is a difficult concept to understand, it's that it's fundamentally wrong and similarly unfair. The ironic thing is that you actually do understand why, but I think your position on the argument is reversed because you benefit from the way things are under this model:
I want to know two things: How much can I have, and how fast can I have it. I care very much about the burst rate of my connection. It's probably the most important thing to me, because I hate waiting. Other people like to fire and forget a bunch of movie torrents, not caring how fast they are, and watch them when they're done. That person will probably care more about how many they can fire off before they use more than their allocated share of the transfer pool.
You value bandwidth as the actual commodity it is. It's a tangible thing that you understand, and you want as much of it as you can get whenever you happen to want it. I want my web browsing to be this way too, but I couldn't care less if my 1.5 GB file transfer took 1 minute or 10 because Joe Blow down the street wants to watch his YouTube or check his email.
So, they portion it up sell it to you on the exact same basis -- some GB per month, use it or lose it. Now, they do oversell, and they do tend to sell you more than you'll use - relying on the light email user not to use the full 50 GB that he's paid for.
In the absence of a transfer cap, that statement IS true. Additionally, the fact that I'm willing to wait 10 minutes instead of 1 to download that 1.5GB file shows a gracious, restrained use of that shared bandwidth pool. Yet with a transfer cap in place, that behavior gets completely and unfairly shat upon. And, in a complete twist of irony, when I breach the cap and pay extra, we end up with ME subsidizing YOUR connection, not the other way around.
label a "100Mbps connection" with a 5GB monthly cap as anything above the 16331bps it really is
I completely agree.
I'm getting more and more pissed off as greater numbers of people are beginning to understand what monthly transfer caps are, and then proceed to voluntarily or forcedly believe the outright fucking lie that these assholes are perpetuating (and that most folks here also believe!):
[bullshit]
Enforcing a limit on data transfer over a given period of time is a very direct and extremely effective method of completely alleviating the problems that can be caused by a small number of users consuming most or all of the bandwidth on any given, shared network segment.
[/bullshit]
The statement that you just read, enclosed in [bullshit] tags, is 100% bullshit.
It's a problem with bandwidth, not a problem with transfer. Don't ever believe the utter lie that these two concepts are inherently and directly correlated. While they can be correlated, they do not have to be, and, in true Slashdot spirit, they are most certainly not causal.
Lastly, if you don't understand WHY what I say is true, think of it this way:
Take a look at the gigabit switch sitting on your desk (or pretend you have one). You've used it very lightly. You just browse the web through it. Maybe some games. No youtube, no torrents, no downloading. You've owned it for a while now, and you've transferred about 10 gigabytes of data through it in that whole time.
I own the exact same model, and I'm coming over your house later and swapping out switches with you, but the difference between your switch and mine is that I pushed 5 terabyes of data through mine every single day I've owned it.
Given that neither switch is defective, when I switch hardware with you, will you notice the difference?
The worst part about this whole thing is that bandwidth is a fundamental commodity and property of multi-segment interconnected networks in general (read: the Internet). It's so fundamental that, rather than paying specifically for the connection speed of a physical link into someone's network, ISPs pay specifically for bandwidth usage based on a well accepted model commonly called 95th percentile billing because of how fairly and accurately it reflects a given link's impact on the network. Overall transfer over a given period, while it may be calculated, is irrelevant because the amount of data pushed through a link simply doesn't fucking matter. Data transfer at all levels of a network is a function of bandwidth, not the other way around. Were you to graph it out as a function, as time approaches infinity, transfer does as well.
On behalf of the ISPs though, this misconception and billing model is absolutely genius. If I literally possessed a LIMITLESS source of product (data transfer) and, irrespective of size, somehow managed to convince you that it was reasonable for me to charge you for a finite, expiring quantity of it, I'd laugh all the way to the fucking bank every time you came back for more.
most college grads I have met, particularly in the last five to ten years, are basically unable to speak, read or write in a coherent and grown-up manner - let alone do a proper days work.
I find it funny that you mention this. Many of my close friends have gone to college in or around the greater Cleveland area. I've edited and proofread papers for just about all of them over the years, and the process usually involved running through some of the paragraphs several times to determine precisely what was being said and then rewriting it. Many of them have completed or are nearing completion of a Bachelor's degree.
I, on the other hand, am a high school dropout with a GED. Tried community college, but that didn't work. Turns out I've got a bit of an incompatibility with modern education, in spite of the fact that I'm quite good at learning. Oh well.
With all the bullshit Oracle has pulled since their acquisition of Sun, they've turned a massive set of what is, for better or worse, extremely popular, open source products into nothing but a toxic mess of insanity.
Pffft! Carlin's dead! It's not like you can just resurrect somebody to play a role in a film. I mean, even Neo dies at the end of the third Matrix film so there's no way for them to----
Oh fuck, nevermind.
Any chance we can get them to recast Christian Bale as Neo instead?....It worked for the Oracle.
That's very true, but the way the tiers work is really designed to screw the customer anyway. If they didn't want to do that, they'd bill you based on which tier your usage patterns fit into, rather than you adjusting your usage patterns to fit a specific tier.
I'm happily on AT&T's unlimited plan, and it works well for me: I've got some months where I pull 1 gig, and one where I've pulled as high as 6. Granted, it's mostly from video.
The real problem with the cost of a smartphone is that the baseline price for it is the same as for a dumb phone or a feature phone. With smartphones and their "required" data plans being the only offerings available with the features that the customers want these days---I can't tell you the number of people I know who couldn't care less that their Blackberry is uber-secure or receives emails for them; they bought the phone because it's great for texting (*cha-ching* goes the Verizon cash register)---people often find that getting what they want out of their next phone yields a mandatory upgrade in their monthly bill as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, the $2500-ish price for the LTO-5 drive is a bit of an impediment for home use. So is the need for a SAS interface on the PC (or backup server).
Of course. I was pointing out the irony that the excessive disk swapping, in my opinion, could justify the cost of the drive! Of course, the cost of those damned tape drives isn't really justified by anything other than the corporate expense accounts they're usually purchased with...
:P. The tapes themselves will last longer too. I just wish I could find a convenient backup mechanism for my home storage (~10 TB of space) that doesn't come with an enterprise price or a shitload of USB disks. Without resorting to online backup, anyway. I throw around hundreds of gigs of data on a whim when I back up a client's computers or move around some of my VM's.
You're right about the USB disks though. I much prefer the idea of using tape to run backups as opposed to using external hard disks though. It's hard to use tape for much of anything else, whereas most people I know couldn't even begin to resist the temptation to store yet more shit on their external drives
I back up all my important stuff to my online storage arrays, but that data sits alongside my media collection and tons of important documents and so on. How would you back up that much stuff easily and reliably? My experience [unfortunately] makes it difficult to think of something that isn't marketed at the enterprise sector. I hate the idea of implementing something for my own data that I wouldn't even think of presenting to upper management because of how hacked together it would be.
Maybe that would make a decent "Ask Slashdot."
Amazon shows dozens of different choices for 25GB BD-R packs, some for as low as about $1/disk.
I'm I the only one that finds it mildly pathetic that, especially when you factor in the cost of swapping disks, it'd be cheaper for consumers to back to up to LTO-5 media in spite of how long Blu-Ray has been on the market?
The bug they exploited was in Webkit, so I assume it also exists in Chrome too (and thus in Safari and Chrome on all platforms they run on)
New web based iOS jailbreak, perhaps?
But considering I've met many people who send more than 50 texts per day, so they are clearly very good at comunicating with texts.
Nah, they're usually just too ADHD to talk to one person at a time.
SMS is great for avoiding conversation while communicating with others, and that most definitely has its merits. However, I remember that, as a teenager, I often talked to girls using instant messaging because it allowed me to compose myself without saying something stupid. Unfortunately though, the stuff it left out eventually taught me that flirting via IM was a foolish and questionably effective endeavor.
Conversation is as much a game as it is a form of art or a tool for communication. Handicapping yourself by limiting your control over that game, your canvas for the art, or a choice of the inferior or improper tool for the sake of----whatever the hell the reason is----when you could simply talk to someone to communicate more efficiently or more accurately in the majority of situations is just... stupid.
And don't even get me started on how I'm supposed to understand 160 characters of nonsense without *any* punctuation.....
My Motorola E815 (on Verizon) had this "Send Later" option for SMS where you specified a time. It never worked right.
Ironically, the two times I tried to do it, I was with the people I messaged when it finally showed up.... a week or two later.
Or take 30 minutes to scrape up the backup image, push it out, and restore the data?
Precisely!
:)
Being paid (anything but handsomely... sigh) to do systems admin work is wonderful in how fulfilling it can be. Knowing when to give up and just fix the damn thing already... that definitely takes experience to master.
In the meantime when it happens, which isn't often anymore, I've had much luck with my co-workers letting me know when I'm being ridiculous. In turn, they too appreciate when I can tell them how to fix a problem they would usually reimage or reinstall to get out of
Point is, you only need one person with actual sysadmin skill to make and maintain an imagine. Hundreds of point-and-click types can then use that image. It happens in large organizations all the time. Why pay for a hundred skilled, experienced sysadmins when you only need one skilled, experienced sysadmin and 99 paper MCSEs? For many businesses this is an easy decision.
THIS.
:P)
It's a problem I run into myself a lot, really, as well. With the rise of virtualization, operating systems have gone from the tool that allows you to maintain your hardware such that it effectively delivers many applications to users to more of a vehicle on top of which single applications sit. But now, that vehicle, in turn, rides on top of your virtualization platform which is basically designed to as blown out and expendable as possible. While a given piece of hardware effectively delivers the same number of applications to end users, the real "Systems" part of administration is no longer the true integral piece of the puzzle that directly coverts "small iron" into "line of business."
Why should a company waste their money on my time spent digging through event logs, flexing the google-fu, and possibly coming up with the answer of "This would take so long to fix that I could probably rebuild the server and reinstall its single application faster than the problem could be resolved manually," when they can get a good enough result by skipping the investigation and just doing that in the first place?
It's extremely unfortunate that it works this way, especially as I feel I learn so much every time I encounter and solve a new problem that's preventing a system from running correctly. While it may be more intellectually stimulating and personally enriching to do things from the "advanced" perspective, on the whole, it usually ends up taking as much as if not more time than just blowing a system out in the event that you've never solved the given type of problem before.
Perhaps I've just got more learning to do though I suppose. It might be a different story with Linux! (where, ironically, I've simply reinstalled my test systems many times rather than actually solve problems
You hit the nail on the head. It was a very flamebait way to say it, but I think the point stands.
:)
Microsoft makes UI changes from version to version because they spend money researching how people use their products. New UIs are created and tested, and the ones that pass QA and so on make it into their products.
As someone who used to revert damn near everything in Windows to the "Classic" UI, I sat down and taught myself how to use the newer ones. Once you learn how to use the modern Windows UI, you'll probably come to the same conclusion I did: it really does just keep getting better.
Cheers
Most people ran XP with the classic theme
Right. And I'm sure most people re-sorted their start menus alphabetically. And used the classic control panel.
Nearly everyone. Like, 99% of them. All dug into the settings and changed them. Right.
Yup. How many people in the US would be comfortable on a nude beach? Or even a topless beach?
I often wondered that when I was a teenager. I couldn't fathom being able to walk around any number of nude or topless women without sporting a raging erection.
A decade later... not so much.
People who smoke? (Actually that one actually affects other people, so it's not really in the same category.)
Definitely a different category. Especially since, at least in Ohio and plenty of other states, it's illegal to start a coffee shop or restaurant that specifically caters to people who would like to smoke while they enjoy that cup of joe.
Makes me feel bad for all the hookah bars: they made their money on liquor, not tobacco.
However, I often use a laptop in these places, and I don't think its unreasonable so long as I only stay for the time it takes to eat my food and drink. Of course, with more people imagining they are 'digital nomads' or some such nonsense, there will be some who sit there all day.
Indeed. I can only imagine that just about every Slashdotter in his twenties can think of a place full of those "digital nomads." It's particularly obnoxious when one of them decides that downloading some torrents is a good idea.
:P) while drinking some decent coffee is a place on the west side of Cleveland called "Common Grounds." It's all but literally a hole in the wall, but their clientele make for an interesting place to sit and watch what my own life might be like if I hadn't moved to the suburbs and had been more into drugs and sex when I was younger instead of being a suburbanite wrapped up in Diablo 2 and girls that weren't single. [/reminisce]
The place that I used to frequent, and now visit occasionally with friends to sit down and play some DotA (admittedly, the last time was to have fun with Firesheep
Either way, while the shop has a fairly strictly enforced "no loitering" policy, I agree that it's rude to buy one drink and goof off on your laptop for an entire shift. I usually make it a point to, while I'm at the place, buy at least one drink every 90 minutes or so and, of course, to tip the barman.
It is, but oddly enough that does not bind the expansion. Space can be expanding faster than c and I believe the inflationary theory says just that.
It did so for a VERY short while following the big bang: a period of superluminal expansion known as the Inflationary Epoch.
Physicists like to separate notable periods in time on a logarithmic scale, referring to each as the "Whatever" Epoch. As novel as the system itself is, what's most novel is how tiny of a portion of it our planet will be around for.
Recommended reading for the curious.
The reason why transfer caps are in place is not because the equipment is wearing out. My transfers this month don't affect anything next month.
QED: transfer doesn't matter. Only bandwidth does.
Like I pointed out, as time approaches infinity, potential transfer does as well. Bandwidth, on the other hand, remains constant. Transfer is the primary effect of using bandwidth irrespective of how much or how little of it that you do over any given period of time.
Now for the most important concept: Bandwidth is only relevant at instantaneous points in time. How much available bandwidth you had an hour ago is completely irrelevant to how much bandwidth you have available for use now, or X seconds from now. Therefore, it follows that the effect (read: transfer) of using bandwidth an hour ago is likewise irrelevant to using bandwidth now.
The problem isn't that billing for discrete units of transfer is a difficult concept to understand, it's that it's fundamentally wrong and similarly unfair. The ironic thing is that you actually do understand why, but I think your position on the argument is reversed because you benefit from the way things are under this model:
I want to know two things: How much can I have, and how fast can I have it. I care very much about the burst rate of my connection. It's probably the most important thing to me, because I hate waiting. Other people like to fire and forget a bunch of movie torrents, not caring how fast they are, and watch them when they're done. That person will probably care more about how many they can fire off before they use more than their allocated share of the transfer pool.
You value bandwidth as the actual commodity it is. It's a tangible thing that you understand, and you want as much of it as you can get whenever you happen to want it. I want my web browsing to be this way too, but I couldn't care less if my 1.5 GB file transfer took 1 minute or 10 because Joe Blow down the street wants to watch his YouTube or check his email.
So, they portion it up sell it to you on the exact same basis -- some GB per month, use it or lose it. Now, they do oversell, and they do tend to sell you more than you'll use - relying on the light email user not to use the full 50 GB that he's paid for.
In the absence of a transfer cap, that statement IS true. Additionally, the fact that I'm willing to wait 10 minutes instead of 1 to download that 1.5GB file shows a gracious, restrained use of that shared bandwidth pool. Yet with a transfer cap in place, that behavior gets completely and unfairly shat upon. And, in a complete twist of irony, when I breach the cap and pay extra, we end up with ME subsidizing YOUR connection, not the other way around.
Nevermind the fact that you are abetting in what is technically cheating.
Having someone proofread a paper or essay prior to turning it in is encouraged, and usually mandatory in the lower grades when I was in school.
While what you're saying has a grain of truth, that's quite an exaggeration.
label a "100Mbps connection" with a 5GB monthly cap as anything above the 16331bps it really is
I completely agree.
I'm getting more and more pissed off as greater numbers of people are beginning to understand what monthly transfer caps are, and then proceed to voluntarily or forcedly believe the outright fucking lie that these assholes are perpetuating (and that most folks here also believe!):
[bullshit]
Enforcing a limit on data transfer over a given period of time is a very direct and extremely effective method of completely alleviating the problems that can be caused by a small number of users consuming most or all of the bandwidth on any given, shared network segment.
[/bullshit]
The statement that you just read, enclosed in [bullshit] tags, is 100% bullshit.
It's a problem with bandwidth, not a problem with transfer. Don't ever believe the utter lie that these two concepts are inherently and directly correlated. While they can be correlated, they do not have to be, and, in true Slashdot spirit, they are most certainly not causal.
Lastly, if you don't understand WHY what I say is true, think of it this way:
Take a look at the gigabit switch sitting on your desk (or pretend you have one). You've used it very lightly. You just browse the web through it. Maybe some games. No youtube, no torrents, no downloading. You've owned it for a while now, and you've transferred about 10 gigabytes of data through it in that whole time.
I own the exact same model, and I'm coming over your house later and swapping out switches with you, but the difference between your switch and mine is that I pushed 5 terabyes of data through mine every single day I've owned it.
Given that neither switch is defective, when I switch hardware with you, will you notice the difference?
The worst part about this whole thing is that bandwidth is a fundamental commodity and property of multi-segment interconnected networks in general (read: the Internet). It's so fundamental that, rather than paying specifically for the connection speed of a physical link into someone's network, ISPs pay specifically for bandwidth usage based on a well accepted model commonly called 95th percentile billing because of how fairly and accurately it reflects a given link's impact on the network. Overall transfer over a given period, while it may be calculated, is irrelevant because the amount of data pushed through a link simply doesn't fucking matter. Data transfer at all levels of a network is a function of bandwidth, not the other way around. Were you to graph it out as a function, as time approaches infinity, transfer does as well.
On behalf of the ISPs though, this misconception and billing model is absolutely genius. If I literally possessed a LIMITLESS source of product (data transfer) and, irrespective of size, somehow managed to convince you that it was reasonable for me to charge you for a finite, expiring quantity of it, I'd laugh all the way to the fucking bank every time you came back for more.
most college grads I have met, particularly in the last five to ten years, are basically unable to speak, read or write in a coherent and grown-up manner - let alone do a proper days work.
I find it funny that you mention this. Many of my close friends have gone to college in or around the greater Cleveland area. I've edited and proofread papers for just about all of them over the years, and the process usually involved running through some of the paragraphs several times to determine precisely what was being said and then rewriting it. Many of them have completed or are nearing completion of a Bachelor's degree.
I, on the other hand, am a high school dropout with a GED. Tried community college, but that didn't work. Turns out I've got a bit of an incompatibility with modern education, in spite of the fact that I'm quite good at learning. Oh well.
Oh good grief. I'm so glad I decided to troll slashdot before getting my coffee, else I'd have been cursing you while looking for a napkin :-D
this way we can just fork Oracle and move on.
With all the bullshit Oracle has pulled since their acquisition of Sun, they've turned a massive set of what is, for better or worse, extremely popular, open source products into nothing but a toxic mess of insanity.
Oracle can go fork themselves.
The fact that there have literally been hundreds of Neos is enough to convince anyone.
Nah, the Architect said something about "This will be the Nth time we've destroyed [Zion.]" It was a single digit number, something like 4, 6, or 7.
Carlin as the architect. Missy as the Oracle.
Pffft! Carlin's dead! It's not like you can just resurrect somebody to play a role in a film. I mean, even Neo dies at the end of the third Matrix film so there's no way for them to----
....It worked for the Oracle.
Oh fuck, nevermind.
Any chance we can get them to recast Christian Bale as Neo instead?
Done it. Got photos to prove it.
Pics or it didn't happen.
and at the very least you'd surely get unlimited BBM
But you see, that's not a text message.
God forbid you send someone a blackberry message or an email. It might be free that way!
Not every customer needs an unlimited/giant plan.
That's very true, but the way the tiers work is really designed to screw the customer anyway. If they didn't want to do that, they'd bill you based on which tier your usage patterns fit into, rather than you adjusting your usage patterns to fit a specific tier.
I'm happily on AT&T's unlimited plan, and it works well for me: I've got some months where I pull 1 gig, and one where I've pulled as high as 6. Granted, it's mostly from video.
The real problem with the cost of a smartphone is that the baseline price for it is the same as for a dumb phone or a feature phone. With smartphones and their "required" data plans being the only offerings available with the features that the customers want these days---I can't tell you the number of people I know who couldn't care less that their Blackberry is uber-secure or receives emails for them; they bought the phone because it's great for texting (*cha-ching* goes the Verizon cash register)---people often find that getting what they want out of their next phone yields a mandatory upgrade in their monthly bill as well.
You need to study your theology. Continuous implementation of new ideas. Slowly.
Too damn slow.
Wake me up when Rome deems it acceptable for Africans to use latex.