I guess that I have been reading/. too long. This flip flop on the ps3 using blu-ray is making me laugh. Not long ago,/. was claiming that the inclusion of blu-ray in the ps3 would be the reason for the death of the ps3. Now it is viewed as the reason for the victory of blu-ray. When do we start hearing the argument that the ps3 is going to win over xbox precisely because it included blu-ray?
Good to hear for two reasons. It says that they are giving more than they promised. It also says that they are willing to give better service wherever their costs are lower. I wonder if their management know that this is happening.
I know that this is slashdot but I'll try to answer some of the OP's question anyway. Of course I won't do any original research myself, but rather rely on information from the previous posters or make things up as I go.
Q1. Is there any valid reason why Comcast would front-load transfers in this way?
Yes. Most requests from browsers are for short files. By upping the speed for short requests, pages will render faster. This is a plus for the user, as he spends less time idling. Long downloads on the other time are expected to take a while to complete; the user expects to be able to walk away from the computer for a while. Thus Comcast can argue that they have greatly enhanced the experience of the web browser by stealing a few cycles from the downloader. I would welcome such a plan as long as the ISO downloading speed is reasonable.
Q2. Is it merely an effort to prevent end-users from being able to assess their bandwidth accurately?
It would have that effect on a poorly designed bandwidth test. Bandwidth testers try to make the download size long enough to counteract tcp connection costs and to average over variations in download speed. Comcast has just given them another variable to take in to account.
Interestingly, there are some test suites that are designed to detect what Comcast is doing and give them extra credit for it. They bill their tests as real world throughput tests. They want to indicate what the effective bandwidth is while browsing web pages that reference many images or javascript files.
Q3. Is Comcast cheating?
If Comcast is just doing this when accessing known test sites then they are cheating. If this is their policy for all connections then the worst that can be said is that they are optimizing their service to a particular class of users (surfers as opposed to downloaders). If you are in this category, then you should be happy.
That is pretty naive. If there was a conspiracy to steal the weapons, the conspirators would know but the official military would not.
Anecdote heard first hand. I once worked with someone who was allowed to emigrate from Russia despite being a knowledgeable member of one of their classified projects. He believed that he was given an exit visa because the investigator did not have a high enough clearance to discover my co-worker's true occupation. None-the-less, two CIA agents were there to debrief him on his work when he stepped off of the plane in Vienna. Conclusion, outside channels can very well know what official channels do not.
Your comment suggests that you only do one thing on your computer at a time. I am generally running many background low-IO processes on my computer at the same time. Wasted cycles for the interpreted language interfere with productivity.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess that I have been reading /. too long. This flip flop on the ps3 using blu-ray is making me laugh. Not long ago, /. was claiming that the inclusion of blu-ray in the ps3 would be the reason for the death of the ps3. Now it is viewed as the reason for the victory of blu-ray. When do we start hearing the argument that the ps3 is going to win over xbox precisely because it included blu-ray?
Good to hear for two reasons. It says that they are giving more than they promised. It also says that they are willing to give better service wherever their costs are lower. I wonder if their management know that this is happening.
I know that this is slashdot but I'll try to answer some of the OP's question anyway. Of course I won't do any original research myself, but rather rely on information from the previous posters or make things up as I go.
Q1. Is there any valid reason why Comcast would front-load transfers in this way?
Yes. Most requests from browsers are for short files. By upping the speed for short requests, pages will render faster. This is a plus for the user, as he spends less time idling. Long downloads on the other time are expected to take a while to complete; the user expects to be able to walk away from the computer for a while. Thus Comcast can argue that they have greatly enhanced the experience of the web browser by stealing a few cycles from the downloader. I would welcome such a plan as long as the ISO downloading speed is reasonable.
Q2. Is it merely an effort to prevent end-users from being able to assess their bandwidth accurately?
It would have that effect on a poorly designed bandwidth test. Bandwidth testers try to make the download size long enough to counteract tcp connection costs and to average over variations in download speed. Comcast has just given them another variable to take in to account. Interestingly, there are some test suites that are designed to detect what Comcast is doing and give them extra credit for it. They bill their tests as real world throughput tests. They want to indicate what the effective bandwidth is while browsing web pages that reference many images or javascript files.
Q3. Is Comcast cheating?
If Comcast is just doing this when accessing known test sites then they are cheating. If this is their policy for all connections then the worst that can be said is that they are optimizing their service to a particular class of users (surfers as opposed to downloaders). If you are in this category, then you should be happy.
Hint: this is slashdot. The summary doesn't mention the test trials therefore the item doesn't exist.
This is the best meta-comment that I have seen in a long time
They are nice guys
That is pretty naive. If there was a conspiracy to steal the weapons, the conspirators would know but the official military would not. Anecdote heard first hand. I once worked with someone who was allowed to emigrate from Russia despite being a knowledgeable member of one of their classified projects. He believed that he was given an exit visa because the investigator did not have a high enough clearance to discover my co-worker's true occupation. None-the-less, two CIA agents were there to debrief him on his work when he stepped off of the plane in Vienna. Conclusion, outside channels can very well know what official channels do not.
Your comment suggests that you only do one thing on your computer at a time. I am generally running many background low-IO processes on my computer at the same time. Wasted cycles for the interpreted language interfere with productivity.