Private Enterprise and the Free Market

[Philip Chee]

VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections

An Internet service provider has announced the launch of its fiber-based
Internet service in the Vermont area, but this time it isn't Google.
Vermont Telephone Company (VTel) has started to offer its customers
gigabit Internet speeds over its new fiber optic network, and is
managing to do so at half the price of Google Fiber.

<http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/04/29/vtel.charges.35.per.month.for.gigabit.fiber.connections/<

Phil

--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.

[Keith F. Lynch]

Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections

A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

[cryptoguy]

On Apr 30, 10:57 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> > VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain.  But only
> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.

Sour grapes.

pt

[Philip Chee]

On 01/05/2013 10:57, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.

So you're all for private enterprise, except when you don't like it?

[Tim.B...@redbridge.gov.uk]

On Wednesday, 1 May 2013 05:22:42 UTC+1, Philip Chee wrote:
> On 01/05/2013 10:57, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>

> > Philip Chee <philip@...> wrote:
>
> >> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
> >
>
> > A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>
> > if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.
>
> So you're all for private enterprise, except when you don't like it?

I read Keith more as being all for buying things, but only when he wants and can afford them. So if you want to snipe at him, I think you'll have to go for the target of him pointing out the obvious.

[Kevrob]

There are costs to late adapters for staying with obsolete equipment,
as well as advantages. Frex, before it burned down included cable TV
in the price of the rent. I couldn't add a DVR to the hookup without
getting a separate cable contract, so I routed the signal from the
cable box through an old VCR I bought for $Retail<=$10 from Goodwill.
It worked well enough for my purposes, but I couldn't watch one
program and tape another unless what I wanted to watch could be
received with an antenna. So I bought an antenna. Sometimes it
worked, sometimes not, depending on the weather and the vagaries of
the digital cliff.

Have you tried to buy VCR tape lately? If I were continuing with this
kluge, I'd have to find a website selling it. Most of the local
stores that used to carry it have stopped. Same for cassette audio
tape. When you do find tape, the length and brand choices are
limited, and unless you hit a clearance, you pay list price.

I can remember other tipping points: when it became odd NOT to have an
answering machine or voicemail on your phone, or a mobile phone, or a
camera in your phone. Now you are odd if there's no computer in your
home, or no laptop or tablet that you carry with you. People without
this tech who have to beg or borrow the use of it are inconvenienced,
especially when hunting for work.

Kevin

[Ben Yalow]

In <klq0bk$n5f$3...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections

>A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.

And I (and lots of others) would be glad to pay $35/month for gigabit
fiber.

People keep dropping slow connecitons in favor of faster ones. And
$35/month is comparable (higher, but not much higher) than most people pay
for connections 1000 times slower.

Ben
--
Ben Yalow yb...@panix.com
Not speaking for anybody

[Michael Benveniste]

On 4/29/2013 11:42 PM, Philip Chee wrote:

> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections

I'm not sure I understand your point, or at least your subject line.

According to Forbes, VTel got $81 million in U.S. Government grants,
plus a $35 million Government loan. The grant alone comes to almost
$5000 per customer. How can that say anything about the free market?

--
Mike Benveniste -- m...@murkyether.com (Clarification Required)
You don't have to sort of enhance reality. There is nothing
stranger than truth. -- Annie Leibovitz

[Keith F. Lynch]

Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections

>> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only if
>> you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.

> So you're all for private enterprise, except when you don't like it?

Where did I say I was against it?

I recently paid $10 for a 16-gig flash drive. I think that's a pretty
good bargain. Obviously $20 for a trillion-gig flash drive would be
an enormously better bargain, but I wouldn't pay it.

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> In <klq0bk$n5f$3...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
>>Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
>>A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>>if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.
>
> And I (and lots of others) would be glad to pay $35/month for gigabit
> fiber.

And I would be willing to do at least moderately degrading things for
it. I pay $67.76 monthly for 2.5 megabit symmetric.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

[David Goldfarb]

In article <klshd3$m28$4...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>I recently paid $10 for a 16-gig flash drive. I think that's a pretty
>good bargain.

I recently got an 8-gig drive in exchange for 2.66 trillion platelets.
Good bargain or bad?

(I'd say good, inasmuch as I was going to donate the platelets anyway.)

--
David Goldfarb |"'The truth will set you free.'
goldf...@gmail.com | If you love the truth, you'll inevitably
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | come back!" -- Hitherby Dragons

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.

I'd happily pay $35/month for a 25mbit connection, though. If I can get
a gigabit instead, I won't be *less* happy.
--
Googleproofaddress(account:dd-b provider:dd-b domain:net)
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> writes:

> Have you tried to buy VCR tape lately? If I were continuing with this
> kluge, I'd have to find a website selling it. Most of the local
> stores that used to carry it have stopped. Same for cassette audio
> tape. When you do find tape, the length and brand choices are
> limited, and unless you hit a clearance, you pay list price.

For audio tapes, there seem to be only two brands on amazon.com. Still,
that doesn't make them "hard to find" yet, and they'll probably be
available through the rest of my life.

There seem to be a dozen brands of VHS tapes, suggesting considerably
more of them being sold than the audio cassettes.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> There seem to be a dozen brands of VHS tapes, suggesting
> considerably more of them being sold than the audio cassettes.

What about beta tapes? A few years ago, Doug Humphrey (founder of
Digex) took me to a store in Baltimore that sold them, along with lots
of other exotic stuff. I bought some to give my brother, who was
still using a Beta VCR.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections

>> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.

> I'd happily pay $35/month for a 25mbit connection, though.

Twenty-five millibits? :-)

> If I can get a gigabit instead, I won't be *less* happy.

How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
same ratio as what they're offering. :-)

[Keith F. Lynch]

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)

Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the site
you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much bandwidth
total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I don't think so.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently got an 8-gig drive in exchange for 2.66 trillion
> platelets. Good bargain or bad?

42 platelets per bit, is that the going rate? :-)

> (I'd say good, inasmuch as I was going to donate the platelets
> anyway.)

I've often donated whole blood, but never platelets separately. For
one thing, that's very slow. For another, I'm squicked my the idea of
anything going into my veins, even if it just came out of them. (Just
as I wouldn't want to drink a cup of my own spit.) For another, my
main reason to donate is to keep my iron levels on the low end of
normal, since I believe that to be healthier.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
>>> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>>> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.
>
>> I'd happily pay $35/month for a 25mbit connection, though.
>
> Twenty-five millibits? :-)

Yeah, um, maybe not, no.

>
>> If I can get a gigabit instead, I won't be *less* happy.
>
> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)

Great, I'll take 10 of those!

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
>> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)
>
> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the site
> you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much bandwidth
> total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I don't think so.

Mean "anything?" Certainly. There are, conservatively, 8 devices in
this house that connect to the Internet. There are four people who
live here, all of whom use the Internet a lot.

So at the very least, we'll see some benefit from, at the absolute
minimum, 4 times the the bandwidth any one site can ever offer us. If
several of us are grabbing .ISO files (DVD images) for various things
and we start watching Netflix video to pass the time, and maybe somebody
is in a Google video hangout with 8 other people. So I think it might
get to more than 4x (though everybody using this heavily all at once is
somewhat rare).

Then there's Bit Torrent. It can absorb a LOT of incoming bandwidth
because it's being sent from multiple sites. I've certainly seen it
maxing out my DSL at home. It was a LOT faster at work, which had 13x
faster connectivity. (Mostly I've used Bit Torrent for getting Centos
ISO images; mostly for work, so I sometimes did it from work. Nobody in
IT noticed or tried to stop me, either.)

In fact, ISO images aren't big enough to be a big deal in some of these
cases, I might have to invent something bigger to claim we're
downloading.

Anyway, I bet where those gigabit lines from my block all come together
(hypothetical future; it's not available here now) the ongoing
provisioning isn't 100%; maybe 20%? I have no idea what's normal.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> There seem to be a dozen brands of VHS tapes, suggesting
>> considerably more of them being sold than the audio cassettes.
>
> What about beta tapes? A few years ago, Doug Humphrey (founder of
> Digex) took me to a store in Baltimore that sold them, along with lots
> of other exotic stuff. I bought some to give my brother, who was
> still using a Beta VCR.

I've still got a beta vcr. In fact I've never owned a VHS one.

[Philip Chee]

On 03/05/2013 09:02, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
>> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)
>
> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the site
> you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much bandwidth
> total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I don't think so.

Hulu, Vimeo, Youtube, Netflix, the list gets getting longer.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <klv5c0$855$2...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>I've often donated whole blood, but never platelets separately. For
>one thing, that's very slow.

I can usually complete a whole blood donation in about 10-15 minutes,
and platelets in 80-90. Slower, yes, but not as bad as all that.

>For another, I'm squicked my the idea of
>anything going into my veins, even if it just came out of them.

I'm able to conceptualize the machine as being a temporary extension
of my own circulatory system, so I don't think of the blood as really
having left my body at all.

My blood type is A+, so platelet donations are what they want most
from me; and I can donate more often, as often as every week instead
of every 8 weeks. (And since a platelet donation gets as many online
store points as a whole blood donation, I can really rack them up.)

--
David Goldfarb | "LUM-ber. *heh!* *heh!*"
goldf...@gmail.com |
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Scott McCloud, "Some Words Albert Likes"

[Doug Wickström]

On Thu, 02 May 2013 16:38:09 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet
<dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:

>"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
>> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>>
>> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.
>
>I'd happily pay $35/month for a 25mbit connection, though. If I can get
>a gigabit instead, I won't be *less* happy.

Oh, absolutely. I currently pay $42/month for an asymmetric 20M
connection.

--
Doug Wickström

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> writes:

> On 03/05/2013 09:02, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
>>> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)
>>
>> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the site
>> you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much bandwidth
>> total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I don't think so.
>
> Hulu, Vimeo, Youtube, Netflix, the list gets getting longer.

But they're more streaming than download, so you don't need more
bandwidth than the number of HD video streams you watch at once. The
Sun product I worked on gave 4 Mb/sec for HD video streams, I think they
actually use somewhat less at Netflix and company. So it's hard to get
up anywhere near a gigabit that way.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) writes:

> In article <klv5c0$855$2...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>I've often donated whole blood, but never platelets separately. For
>>one thing, that's very slow.
>
> I can usually complete a whole blood donation in about 10-15 minutes,
> and platelets in 80-90. Slower, yes, but not as bad as all that.
>
>>For another, I'm squicked my the idea of
>>anything going into my veins, even if it just came out of them.
>
> I'm able to conceptualize the machine as being a temporary extension
> of my own circulatory system, so I don't think of the blood as really
> having left my body at all.

I'm kind of with Keith on this one. Also two needles instead of one
needle.

> My blood type is A+, so platelet donations are what they want most
> from me; and I can donate more often, as often as every week instead
> of every 8 weeks. (And since a platelet donation gets as many online
> store points as a whole blood donation, I can really rack them up.)

Huh, I wonder why they haven't been bothering me heavily? I thought I
was A+ also...yes, that's what the card says.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can usually complete a whole blood donation in about 10-15
> minutes, and platelets in 80-90. Slower, yes, but not as bad
> as all that.

The Red Cross donor center near here has DVD players for the use
of platelet donors. I'm not sure whether they supply the DVDs, or
whether you have to bring one yourself.

> I'm able to conceptualize the machine as being a temporary extension
> of my own circulatory system, so I don't think of the blood as
> really having left my body at all.

I'm reminded, I read about someone who shot at someone while he (the
shooter) was hooked up to a dialysis machine. He missed his intended
victim, but hit the machine -- and bled to death through the machine.

> My blood type is A+, so platelet donations are what they want most
> from me;

I'm O+, so they prefer whole blood from me.

That's right, I have the most common blood type of all. Isn't
that odd? :-)

> and I can donate more often, as often as every week instead of every
> 8 weeks. (And since a platelet donation gets as many online store
> points as a whole blood donation, I can really rack them up.)

Cue another DD-B complaint about unfairness and inequality. :-)

They don't have online store points around here, just t-shirts. One
time they offered free magazine subscriptions, but when I tried to
collect, the magazine people demanded a credit card number. They
confirmed that the subscription was free, but insisted on such a
number anyway. I argued with them at some length. That put me off
donating for a while. (As you know, Bob^H^H^H David, I don't have a
credit card.)

[Ben Yalow]

In <klv2bt$n49$2...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
>> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)

>Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the site
>you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much bandwidth
>total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I don't think so.

Fortunately, larger sites tend to have many gigabits available, so that's
not an issue.

It's why big DDoS attacks tend to try to throw hundreds of gig into the
attacks, since you need that sort of size to attack larger sites.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <ylfk38u4...@dd-b.net>,
David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:

>gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) writes:
>> I'm able to conceptualize the machine as being a temporary extension
>> of my own circulatory system, so I don't think of the blood as really
>> having left my body at all.
>
>I'm kind of with Keith on this one. Also two needles instead of one
>needle.

At the center I go to, they have more advanced apheresis machines that
are able to do their job using only one needle. Much better than the
ones I used to go on in California, because with an arm free I can read
instead of having to watch video. (They're also noticeably faster:
80-90 minutes, as I said, while the ones in California were more like 150.)

--
David Goldfarb |From the fortune cookie file:
goldf...@gmail.com |"You have an ability to sense and know
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | higher truth."

[David Goldfarb]

In article <km1po7$ek9$3...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I can usually complete a whole blood donation in about 10-15
>> minutes, and platelets in 80-90. Slower, yes, but not as bad
>> as all that.
>
>The Red Cross donor center near here has DVD players for the use
>of platelet donors. I'm not sure whether they supply the DVDs, or
>whether you have to bring one yourself.

The donor center (not Red Cross) that I go to does likewise. The
center that I went to in California (which was Red Cross) had a small
library of bootleg DVDs, or you could bring your own. I don't think
the one in Houston has that, but since they have better machines that
leave an arm free I just read instead. Also at both centers you could
watch cable television broadcasts instead of DVDs.

>I read about someone who shot at someone while he (the
>shooter) was hooked up to a dialysis machine. He missed his intended
>victim, but hit the machine -- and bled to death through the machine.

That strikes me as poetic justice.

--
David Goldfarb |"Any questions?"
goldf...@gmail.com | "Yeah. Who, what, where, and when; whither,
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | whether, whence, and wherefore; and a big
| side order of *why*." -- Hitchhiker's Guide

[David Goldfarb]

In article <klv5c0$855$2...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I recently got an 8-gig drive in exchange for 2.66 trillion
>> platelets. Good bargain or bad?
>
>42 platelets per bit, is that the going rate? :-)

I make that about over 310 platelets per bit, actually. Probably
even a little more, because I suspect that you can't cram a full
eight gigabytes of data onto the drive, but must leave a little
for the operating system to use. (I could easily be wrong.)

(When I type "how many bits in a gigabyte" into Google, it tells
me 8589934592. 2.7 * 10^12 / 8589934592 = 310 -- when you round to
two significant figures, at least, which is what I really have on
the platelet number, rather than the three I used above.)

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <MM9HH...@kithrup.com>,
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu "David Goldfarb" lycurgitated:

> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>I read about someone who shot at someone while he (the shooter) was
>>hooked up to a dialysis machine. He missed his intended victim, but
>>hit the machine -- and bled to death through the machine.
>
>That strikes me as poetic justice.

- 's what comes of interfering with natural karmic cycles -
attempting to prevent what goes around from coming around...

- love, ppint.
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"I personally am rather in favour of herbicide as a hobby."
tamar, on afp, 14/6/98 (6/14/98 for merkins)

[Keith F. Lynch]

Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the
>> site you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much
>> bandwidth total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I
>> don't think so.

> Fortunately, larger sites tend to have many gigabits available, so
> that's not an issue.

Many of the sites I read are so slow that I might as well have stuck
with 2400 bps rather than upgrading to 9600.

For instance see (if you're patient)

http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/05/10/olegs-kozancenko-beaten-for-what.aspx

That's a recent post about a truck driver who was severely beaten by
police because he attempted to read a traffic ticket before signing it.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I recently got an 8-gig drive in exchange for 2.66 trillion
>>> platelets. Good bargain or bad?

>> 42 platelets per bit, is that the going rate? :-)

> I make that about over 310 platelets per bit, actually. Probably
> even a little more, because I suspect that you can't cram a full
> eight gigabytes of data onto the drive, but must leave a little for
> the operating system to use. (I could easily be wrong.)

> (When I type "how many bits in a gigabyte" into Google, it tells me
> 8589934592. 2.7 * 10^12 / 8589934592 = 310 -- when you round to two
> significant figures, at least, which is what I really have on the
> platelet number, rather than the three I used above.)

Correcting you to be polite: You forgot that the drive was *eight*
gigabytes, not one.

[David Goldfarb]

In article <kmmc37$d8i$2...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I recently got an 8-gig drive in exchange for 2.66 trillion
>>>> platelets. Good bargain or bad?
>
>>> 42 platelets per bit, is that the going rate? :-)
>
>> I make that about over 310 platelets per bit, actually. Probably
>> even a little more, because I suspect that you can't cram a full
>> eight gigabytes of data onto the drive, but must leave a little for
>> the operating system to use. (I could easily be wrong.)
>
>> (When I type "how many bits in a gigabyte" into Google, it tells me
>> 8589934592. 2.7 * 10^12 / 8589934592 = 310 -- when you round to two
>> significant figures, at least, which is what I really have on the
>> platelet number, rather than the three I used above.)
>
>Correcting you to be polite: You forgot that the drive was *eight*
>gigabytes, not one.

Oops, you're right. I'm getting 39 platelets per bit rather than 42, however.

(7.0 * 10^11 * 1900 / 500 * 8 * 8589934592 = 39.)

--
David Goldfarb |"You think just because there are more of you,
goldf...@gmail.com | that you have Groo outnumbered! Groo will
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | show you that you are wrong!"
| -- Groo the Wanderer

[Ben Yalow]

In <kmmbve$d8i$1...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything? Unless the
>>> site you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much
>>> bandwidth total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I
>>> don't think so.

>> Fortunately, larger sites tend to have many gigabits available, so
>> that's not an issue.

>Many of the sites I read are so slow that I might as well have stuck
>with 2400 bps rather than upgrading to 9600.

>For instance see (if you're patient)

>http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/05/10/olegs-kozancenko-beaten-for-what.aspx

>That's a recent post about a truck driver who was severely beaten by
>police because he attempted to read a traffic ticket before signing it.

It was slow -- took almost 3 seconds to load, including all the graphics.

[Cryptoengineer]

On May 11, 9:50 pm, Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:

> In <kmmbve$d8...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
> >Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> >>> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything?  Unless the
> >>> site you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much
> >>> bandwidth total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I
> >>> don't think so.
> >> Fortunately, larger sites tend to have many gigabits available, so
> >> that's not an issue.
> >Many of the sites I read are so slow that I might as well have stuck
> >with 2400 bps rather than upgrading to 9600.
> >For instance see (if you're patient)

> >http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/05/10/olegs-kozancenko-beaten-for-w...

> >That's a recent post about a truck driver who was severely beaten by
> >police because he attempted to read a traffic ticket before signing it.
>
> It was slow -- took almost 3 seconds to load, including all the graphics.

About 6 seconds here - the main page in 3, about another 3 for the
images.

pt

[Cryptoengineer]

On May 11, 9:50 pm, Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:

> In <kmmbve$d8...@reader1.panix.com> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>
> >Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
> >>> Also, does a gigabit per second even mean anything?  Unless the
> >>> site you're viewing or downloading from has, not just that much
> >>> bandwidth total, but that much bandwidth to dedicate to you, I
> >>> don't think so.
> >> Fortunately, larger sites tend to have many gigabits available, so
> >> that's not an issue.
> >Many of the sites I read are so slow that I might as well have stuck
> >with 2400 bps rather than upgrading to 9600.
> >For instance see (if you're patient)

> >http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/05/10/olegs-kozancenko-beaten-for-w...

> >That's a recent post about a truck driver who was severely beaten by
> >police because he attempted to read a traffic ticket before signing it.
>
> It was slow -- took almost 3 seconds to load, including all the graphics.

This is an example of a claim that Keith makes, but which others can
trivially show to be incorrect.

pt

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

The site might have been "slashdotted" at the time he acessed the page
(quotes because it did not appear on Slashdot proper).
Anyway... 0.7s the page itself (with lynx), DNS resolution not included
(but that was a fraction of a second)

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!

[Keith F. Lynch]

<garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
> Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>>> It was slow -- took almost 3 seconds to load, including all the graphics.

>> This is an example of a claim that Keith makes, but which others can
>> trivially show to be incorrect.

You can all but see the hate rays emanating cartoon-style from Peter's
forehead.

> The site might have been "slashdotted" at the time he acessed the page
> (quotes because it did not appear on Slashdot proper).
> Anyway... 0.7s the page itself (with lynx), DNS resolution not included
> (but that was a fraction of a second)

The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of that
blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never written him),
and is seeking a better provider.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oops, you're right.

Music to my ears. :-)

> I'm getting 39 platelets per bit rather than 42, however.

I was using powers of 1000 rather than of 1024 to figure the size
of a gigabyte.

[Andy Leighton]

On Sun, 12 May 2013 15:28:48 +0000 (UTC), Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
><garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>> Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Ben Yalow <yb...@panix.com> wrote:
>>>> It was slow -- took almost 3 seconds to load, including all the graphics.
>
>>> This is an example of a claim that Keith makes, but which others can
>>> trivially show to be incorrect.
>
> You can all but see the hate rays emanating cartoon-style from Peter's
> forehead.
>
>> The site might have been "slashdotted" at the time he acessed the page
>> (quotes because it did not appear on Slashdot proper).
>> Anyway... 0.7s the page itself (with lynx), DNS resolution not included
>> (but that was a fraction of a second)
>
> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
> to even start loading.

3.37s ish to load, with a bit more of processing to bring up a total
time of 4.83s to finish for me.

Looking at the request times the server does seem pretty slow at
delivering content - but it is still far more usable than you
portray.

--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_

[Jette Goldie]

How odd - took about 2 seconds to FINISH loading for me.


--
Jette Goldie
jgold...@btinternet.com

Living in the Future!

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

>>> Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
>>>> VTel charges $35 per month for gigabit Fiber connections
>
>>> A dozen elephants for a quarter is a great bargain. But only
>>> if you want a dozen elephants, and only if you have a quarter.
>
>> I'd happily pay $35/month for a 25mbit connection, though.
>

> Twenty-five millibits? :-)

>
>> If I can get a gigabit instead, I won't be *less* happy.
>

> How about 3.5 cents per month for 1 megabit per second? That's the
> same ratio as what they're offering. :-)

And I've just learned this weekend that USI Internet is hoping to bring
their fiber service to my street. They offer 1 gigabit symmetric
service for $115/month, and I can't see how I could possibly resist.
(They don't offer anything between 100Mbit and 1 gigabit).

Drat; now I can't just ignore the concept.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
>> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
>> to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
>> occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of
>> that blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never
>> written him), and is seeking a better provider.

> 6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.

79 second just now for me.

Is anyone else seeing times comparable to that? Anyone else on Panix?
Not on Panix? Thanks.

[Philip Chee]

On 13/05/2013 10:37, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
>>> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
>>> to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
>>> occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of
>>> that blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never
>>> written him), and is seeking a better provider.
>
>> 6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.
>
> 79 second just now for me.
>
> Is anyone else seeing times comparable to that? Anyone else on Panix?
> Not on Panix? Thanks.

I'm in Asia. We usually have large latencies connecting to sites in
Europe and America. I did a cold start with the browser cache cleared.
Time from start to the webpage appearing : 10 seconds.

Warm start with the page in cache : 3 seconds to display.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

"Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
>>> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
>>> to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
>>> occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of
>>> that blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never
>>> written him), and is seeking a better provider.
>
>> 6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.
>
> 79 second just now for me.
>
> Is anyone else seeing times comparable to that? Anyone else on Panix?
> Not on Panix? Thanks.

I did get a much longer time when I followed a URL to a specific old
article. Either it just varies over time and that was at a slower time
than my 6.65 second time, or the current articles are all in the cache
but the site has to go out and really find the older ones. Or, most
likely, some of both. 10 seconds for the front page just now.

(An old article mentioning Joel Rosenberg in the URL came up in my
browser history when I was typing in the URL, and that's the old article
I went to. I remembered what it was when I saw it.)

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
>>> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
>>> to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
>>> occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of
>>> that blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never
>>> written him), and is seeking a better provider.
>
>> 6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.
>
> 79 second just now for me.
>

Still under a second here (6:56 UTC - when are the peak hours in your
timezones?). What does ping and traceroute say? How much of the time is
the DNS query? All those obvious questions...

[David Goldfarb]

In article <kmoefg$c0i$3...@reader1.panix.com>,

Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

>David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Oops, you're right.
>
>Music to my ears. :-)
>
>> I'm getting 39 platelets per bit rather than 42, however.
>
>I was using powers of 1000 rather than of 1024 to figure the size
>of a gigabyte.

My next platelet donation is this coming Thursday. I'll tell the
people there what we've concluded, I expect they'll be amused.

--
David Goldfarb |"'Shut up, shut up, shut up,' says the stranger
goldf...@gmail.com | from the stars!"
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- _Norstrilia_

[Mark Hertel]

On Mon, 13 May 2013 02:37:43 +0000 (UTC), Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
>>> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
>>> to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
>>> occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of
>>> that blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never
>>> written him), and is seeking a better provider.
>
>> 6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.
>
> 79 second just now for me.
>
> Is anyone else seeing times comparable to that? Anyone else on Panix?
> Not on Panix? Thanks.

On Panix using lynx - 4 seconds to load.


--Mark

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:

> David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> writes:
>>> The site in question, http://blog.simplejustice.us/, is usually,
>>> but not always, very slow. I just tried it, and it took 20 seconds
>>> to even start loading. It often takes more than a minute, and it
>>> occasionally times out rather than loading at all. The owner of
>>> that blog is aware of the problem (not from me -- I've never
>>> written him), and is seeking a better provider.
>
>> 6.65 seconds just now for me, just to add another data point.
>
> 79 second just now for me.
>
> Is anyone else seeing times comparable to that? Anyone else on Panix?
> Not on Panix? Thanks.

From my home system it varies from a few seconds to timing out completely.
I suspect that the site is on a minimal-cost hosting plan (the IP block
belongs to GoDaddy). All of their plans are "unlimited", but that only
means everyone gets to fight over the bandwidth, and for $3-9 a month I
doubt they're going head-to head with Akamai.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

[Keith F. Lynch]

<rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
> From my home system it varies from a few seconds to timing out
> completely.

Thanks for confirming that I'm neither imagining it nor making it up.

> I suspect that the site is on a minimal-cost hosting plan (the IP
> block belongs to GoDaddy). All of their plans are "unlimited", but
> that only means everyone gets to fight over the bandwidth, and for
> $3-9 a month I doubt they're going head-to head with Akamai.

Indeed. The blog owner intends to move to a better hosting company
for that reason.

[Keith F. Lynch]

<garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
> Still under a second here (6:56 UTC - when are the peak hours in
> your timezones?).

It seems to be random and unpredictable, but I haven't done a thorough
analysis. And, as you may have noticed, there are many hours during
which I'm almost never online.

At the moment, the main page loads quickly, but the most recent two
articles -- both posted today -- each took more than a minute to load.

> What does ping and traceroute say?

PING blog.simplejustice.us (208.109.80.14): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=0 ttl=116 time=57.687 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=1 ttl=116 time=57.437 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=2 ttl=116 time=58.468 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=3 ttl=116 time=57.979 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=4 ttl=116 time=58.144 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=5 ttl=116 time=57.987 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=6 ttl=116 time=57.046 ms
64 bytes from 208.109.80.14: icmp_seq=7 ttl=116 time=58.104 ms
^C
----blog.simplejustice.us PING Statistics----
8 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 57.046/57.856/58.468/0.449 ms

traceroute to blog.simplejustice.us (208.109.80.14), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 eth2-12.core1.nav.nyc.access.net (166.84.1.25) 0.224 ms 0.163 ms 0.144 ms
2 l3v2.nyc.access.net (166.84.66.12) 1.700 ms 2.130 ms 1.995 ms
3 v995.core1.nyc4.he.net (216.66.0.21) 1.317 ms 1.359 ms 1.860 ms
4 100gigabitethernet11-1.core1.ash1.he.net (184.105.223.165) 10.183 ms 9.058 ms 15.797 ms
5 206.126.236.43 (206.126.236.43) 8.096 ms 7.648 ms 7.434 ms
6 ip-184-168-0-117.ip.secureserver.net (184.168.0.117) 57.837 ms 58.307 ms 58.269 ms
7 ip-184-168-0-117.ip.secureserver.net (184.168.0.117) 57.126 ms 57.788 ms 57.879 ms
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *

> How much of the time is the DNS query?

The slow part is between Lynx telling me

HTTP request sent; waiting for response.

and telling me

** Bad HTML!! Use -trace to diagnose. **

Everything else is quick.

[Keith F. Lynch]

David Dyer-Bennet <dd...@dd-b.net> wrote:
> I did get a much longer time when I followed a URL to a specific old
> article. Either it just varies over time and that was at a slower
> time than my 6.65 second time, or the current articles are all in
> the cache but the site has to go out and really find the older ones.

As I just mentioned, two article posted today each took more than a
minute to load.

> (An old article mentioning Joel Rosenberg in the URL came up in my
> browser history when I was typing in the URL, and that's the old
> article I went to. I remembered what it was when I saw it.)

There are a whole bunch of articles on that blog mentioning him.
Small world.

[garabik-ne...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk]

Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:

> <rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
>> From my home system it varies from a few seconds to timing out
>> completely.
>
> Thanks for confirming that I'm neither imagining it nor making it up.
>
>> I suspect that the site is on a minimal-cost hosting plan (the IP
>> block belongs to GoDaddy). All of their plans are "unlimited", but
>> that only means everyone gets to fight over the bandwidth, and for
>> $3-9 a month I doubt they're going head-to head with Akamai.
>

The bandwidth does not seem to be an issue - more like an overloaded
host. I was involved in optimizing such a site (with hundreds hits per
second and heavy php design), and indeed most of the time it worked
flawlessly, but when a busy times came the php ate all the memory and
CPU cycles and the webpage went down

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

rksh...@rosettacondot.com writes:

> I suspect that the site is on a minimal-cost hosting plan (the IP block
> belongs to GoDaddy). All of their plans are "unlimited", but that only
> means everyone gets to fight over the bandwidth, and for $3-9 a month I
> doubt they're going head-to head with Akamai.

I read that as 'Asakai' and got a much more interesting picture in my head.

--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press