Apparently, the number is now 7,041,000. The problem with an unlabled Y-Axis (which, I'll mention again, FOX did correct later), is that since that number is still less than the number they have for the goal (7,066,000), they could use exactly the same graphic, with the same bar sizes, even though the difference is now 25,000 instead of 1,066,000.

Sorry, HM.
It's not just the chart I don't understand, it's what it is actually referring to in the first place.

I take it it's a bad thing that less people have "signed up"? But I thought Obamacare was about social healthcare, so wouldn't a right wing media mouthpiece like Faux news be in favour of only! 6m people?

Don't feel the need to reply if it's complicated.
I have a better than average (British) grasp of American politics and current affairs, but that's not saying much.
So I admit my complete ignorance of Obamacare.
I get much of my real American education here, and I've deliberately avoided the threads that refer to it, after getting annoyed at criticisms of the NHS. Which you're only allowed to bitch about when you pay for it :)

They are citing the failure to reach expectations as an example of the law not working, and exaggerating the amount it fell short to exaggerate how much it failed to work.

This number isn't the number of people getting subsidies; it's the number who enrolled in private insurance using the Federal and state exchanges. Not all of them got subsidies, and many who would have needed subsidies were put in Medicare instead. So, on a more "conservative vs liberal" axis, they would have wanted a low number for "Medicare enrollees and subsidized private enrollees". This was on an "Republicans vs Obamacare" axis - they want few people to sign up so they can call the law a failure and have a bunch of people who have to pay the penalty for not signing up, who can be used in ads a year from now (when the penalty is due).

Fox wishes to celebrate the "failure" of the President (from the opposing party) falling short of his goal. (Which he didn't actually do.)

As far as being "social" goes this is the farthest thing from it. People are being forced to purchase health care from private companys. It's a conservative idea pushed through by the left. It has positive effects on who gets covered but...

New York Public Library has over 20,000 maps... now you do to.

Nobody lives here.

Attachment 47425

from mapsbynik.com

Looks like a map of mountains and deserts. With some black fly habitat thrown in for fun.

A lot of it is Federal Land, especially in the west.

That's true, every state and national park is going to have tons of people in it every day and even nightly, but no one technically "lives" there.

It says "Most Popular Athlete by State", according to Google search queries. Maybe not most popular, but most "Who the hell is Andrew Wiggins?".

Left it big so ya can see the names:

Attachment 47461

Andrew Wiggins is the Xenocide.

Yeah. His teammates had better nick name him Ender.

What's weird is I didn't think anyone followed basketball anymore...:neutral:

In Kentucky and Kansas??????

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

How The World Gets Drunk

It's pretty surprising:

Attachment 47523

Attachment 47524

Attachment 47525

Attachment 47526

Was March warmer or colder than usual?

:rolleyes:

I like that.

If it's colder where I live, that disproves global warming.

Seconded.

I finally have proof of my theory!

http://i.imgur.com/q54sO25.png

moar charts like that

edit: doh!

I guess digger and i both like Cake on facebook. at least that's where I saw that page.

I do like cake, but, I don't Facebook. I found the site through Ernie's House Of Whoop Ass (ehowa.com).

It does prove that we know what's cool.

I preferred the bee/pot arrests correlation. Yes I too am cool as well.

.

Leaping lizards! That rascally reptile.

Speculation exists that Bugs Bunny will appear in a Geico commerical. Will Elmer Fudd also go hunting for M&Ms?

http://cellar.org/2014/w-ChinaPollution.jpg

source

That Godzilla graphic is interesting. 150 Meters for the current Godzilla.

I just saw this image on another site. And I looked up the Transamerica Building. Its 260 meters. And Godzilla looks about 3 times taller than it. (What with camera angles and apparent relative distances.) So Godzilla is around 750 meters tall.

Attachment 47704

Disgraceful. And there's a ton of people in the US that can't get broadband, which is more disgraceful. :mad:

Another symptom of what Michael Powel did in the FCC. By changing the rules (because rules were created by Clinton), he successfully bankrupted all competition (PSI, Covad, etc). "Best" internet should only have two providers in each region. Companies such as Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner then decided where they would and would not provide broadband. Since no competition exists.

Dish is one alternative. But even that will be consumed by the big duopolies. BTW Michael Powel is now a highly paid lobbyist for those companies.

Due to an intentionally created monopoly after 2001, we all now have slow and getting even slower internet. We pay $30 or $45 per month for 20 Mb. Koreans routinely pay $20 for 100 Mb. And Korean businesses are not blackmailed to pay for special service because their 'Comcasts' do not have software to even intentionally subvert Skype packets and skew NetFlicks service. Because their providers did not throttle BitTorrent to increase profits.

This is my phone's speed tests at work and at home. Work is fast. Home is slow. We get the slower cheaper data package at home, but it's really not that cheap. Pisses me off.
Attachment 47719

Actually, they list these in kbps units. That can't be right, can it? My old 56k modem from 15 years ago was 56k, which is short for 56 kbps, right? How can I be slower now?

An entire HD movie from Netflix streams at 5 Mb/s so I am not sure what you gentlefolk need so goddamn fast

We'd prolly be happy with "so goddamn cheap", but, we'd like "so goddamn fast".

We'd love both.

And:

Why are we so far behind the countries we're so far ahead of?

In general, not just wires and tubes.

I'm sure part of it is how we're spread out, part is when our tech revolution occurred (do we require hardwired copper phones or can we just build past that).

But a big lot of it is just marketing because there are precious few people that actually need more than 10 Mb/s. The bits arrive there at the same time; you can't buy more bandwidth and make the Cellar faster, or even make Youtube stop buffering.

People think they want Google Fiber (1000 Mb/s) when they can't even get a 20th that number out of any devices connected over their WiFi. Now, Google Fiber tries to help speed up the other side of their network, so this is one case where an internet provider may "feel" faster. But it's not the big number they push up front that makes it so.

Latency, or the ping number you get from speedtest.net and elsewhere, is a bigger factor in how "snappy" the web seems, and how quickly requests for stuff turn around. But it's on the order of tenths of a second, so this is not what's making some webpages load all slowly. (That is more poorly scripted pages, on slow servers, allowing ads to interfere with the experience, with memory-hog browsers taking up all the memory on slower desktops, as technology changes, and so forth.)

I spose if you have a household of both gamers and media watchers, you may actually require 20Mb/s from time to time. Of if you torrent a lot.

And smooth, without hiccups.

So....

Why do others countries bother having high speeds? Have they overcome the problems you describe? How can we overcome those problems?

Is some of the issue that most countries, and Europe in its entirety IIRC, have a single protocol for devices?

Problems? O you mean

Upgrade your computer sparky!

And use AdBlock.

not sure if I posted this
 

Germany seems to do a lot of things right outside of taking peoples homes away...

They're subject to the same marketing and misunderstanding of the net as we are. While at the same time, being much more densely populated means they can swap all their copper for fiber at low cost. Once you have fiber the whole way, there are fewer limitations on what you can do.

At some point it is not much more expensive to provide 1000 Mb/s than it is to provide 20 Mb/s. Once you run fiber for the entire connection, it's just physics, you suddenly have a tremendous amount of bandwidth. So the initial run is very expensive but suddenly the bandwidth is cheap.

OK BUT let's imagine that BANDWIDTH, 1000Mb/s or 20Mb/s, is like the number of lanes in a highway to downtown.

If you have a lot of land, you can build a 100 lane highway. That's wonderful and all but if you only have 8 cars per day that want to get downtown, it won't be any faster with a 100 lane highway than with a 2 lane.

The speed limit will be much more important. I would say speed limit = latency, but the metaphor soon starts to break down. Everything is actually going at the speed of light. I must stop now because if the metaphor gets worse it may cause harm to the whole thread.

Yeah, but then I could draw a chart of the thread crashing and burning after that metaphor, and that would bring it back on track again. In fact, I'd have to get all meta, and include that rebound in the chart.

The higher your GPA, the more your earning potential..... But mostly it helps to be male.

from Time http://time.com/110443/grades-gender-pay-gap/

Same reason justified 2400 and 1.4K baud modems. Nobody needed DSL (1400K and 3000K) in 1990 because advance technology 2.4K modems were fast enough.

Silicon Valley suffered a 1990s downturn, in part, because technologies developed for DSL speeds (ie 1 Gig computer) had no market. Due to fear of technology (ie packet switching) in the last mile, innovation and economic growth was stifled. Microsoft even had to sue Qwest who refused to provide anything other than obsolete circuit switched technology.

Same was learned from pollution control. When the American auto industry stifled innovation, then other countries developed those products that would reap major profits and jobs. American cars then contributed to Bosch's profits because Bosch developed oxygen sensors that Americans knew were unnecessary. "I don't need no stinkin oxygen sensor. My car starts just fine." I don't need no fast internet because products that could use it do not exist.

Same reasoning is why other technologies (ie smart phones, PC and laptops, VCRs, light bulbs, disk drives, semiconductor memory, quantum dots, transistor radios, lithium batteries) moved overseas.

DSL (Broadband) was demonstrated when the IBM PC was introduced. Broadband technology is that old. New products and innovations were denied for almost 20 years because telcos (last mile providers) refused to innovate using the same reasoning that says we don't need 100 Mb. We did not need 1000K modems because we had 1.2K modems. Lessons to be learned from history.

Expect innovative products from Korea because their residential internet has been 100 Mb for only $20. Five times faster for one half the price. Some here are still on 33K modems due to fear of innovation inspired by costs controls, lack of competition, and Michael Powel's rhetoric. Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, AT&T, etc also want to destroy net neutrality for increased profits. Encouraged by rules that also stifle innovation.

Geography is a troglodyte myth. "Death of distance" has long proven that communication costs increase almost zero with distance. Without competition, cable and fiber companies have stopped expanding their networks. They have gone into a 'maximize profits' mode; common to monopolies and duopolies. For example, the most urbanized states in America are NJ and lower NY. Verizon refused to installed fiber or copper wires into Mantalokin NJ and Fire Island NY after damage from near zero hurricane Sandy. With a new American internet advocated by Michael Powel, residents must spend more money on a slower wireless service that does not support some communication functions. Why can Verizon not afford to install service in the most urban state in America - where distances are shortest? Geography is irrelevant.

Laws that created 'last mile' duopolies mean American internet has fallen to about 20 in the world - and dropping. Many know 8 Mb will always be fast enough for the same reason 2.4K modems were fast enough. Comcast, Verizon, et al love that myth.

Amazing that so many have no idea what, how, and why innovation is created and is so necessary. 20Mb internet means more jobs, wealth, productivity, products, profits, and markets go to our foreign competition. America was once a world leader in internet. Since Michael Powel, America is slowly conceding another industry due to companies that want to make profits; the product be damned.

Nobody said that. Literally nobody.

~

We're in a different place, now from when merely boosting speeds would lead to different ways to use that speed. Right now we're in an innovation gap because, other than streaming bigger and more high resolution video, nobody can figure out any interesting productive way to use all the bandwidth people have right now.

Can you think of something? I ike how you picked the year of the founding of the Cellar. In 1990 we had all sorts of things we wanted to transmit over the networks we had, but couldn't because there just wasn't that kind of capability. We sat in garages with our BBSes with hard drives full of text files and low-resolution porn, our Usenet full of conversations like this one, and we tried vainly to figure out ways to share it all. We used up every bit of bandwidth we had and demanded modem upgrades every year.

Now we're right at the point where we can stream an entire Hollywood movie at resolutions not even available to us until 10 years ago. Full video resolution will be the only thing to push the envelope in the future. Can you think of anything else you need more bandwidth to do? Not right now! It's fine to just say "Oh we need that speed for next generation applications we haven't thought of yet." But really, at every time in the past, we were actually angry that our bandwidth requirements weren't met.

Lower latency will be the future. That is what will allow us to make music together, perform remote surgery, and do battle on realistic play battlefields. We have enough lanes, now we need a faster speed limit.

In this area with Comcast and Verizon we're in good shape if you can afford it. But I know several people across the country that need more, they can't stream movies that don't stutter. And poor Nirvana, not being able to download damn near anything.

I heard this stuff often from business school types.

When the video disc was introduced, I saw a device of tremondous potential. It could hold all words from a dictionary. The same response. Why would anyone need that? None of the engineers I worked with could understand a purpose for a 'read only' device other than movies. Same myopia then as I see now. Business school types routtinely stifle innovation because because nobody can cite a useful product using that technology.

Same myopia occurred with the laser. Nobody could think of a useful purpose for coherent light. Why was expensive light more useful than existing incoherent light? That response was universal.

Same occurred with liquid crystals demonstrated in RCA in the early 1960s. RCA eventually killed the group in Raritan NJ that was developing LCDs. Because nobody could propose a product. LCD was another example of innovaton that only wasted money.

Nobody could see purpose in a microprocessor. Intel published a maybe 100 item list of potential applications including traffic lights. It was universally scoffed at since relays did that job just fine. Ironically, even Intel never proposed a microprocessor as a computer. In 100 so listed purposals, even Intel never once mentioned a computer. Provide the solution. Then problems are quickly identified and solved.

Why does Bell Labs all but no longer exist? Because AT&T (and then Lucent) decided research on ideas without a purpose must be eliminated. Therefore one of America's greatest source of innovation was destroyed. By troglodytes who know nobody needs it because a product cannot be defined.

I specifically remember management in JC Penny's processing center state that nobody needed more than 64K modems. These easily transfered data from magnetic tapes to other JC Penny data centers throughout the nation just fine on four wire 64K modems in the 1970s. That was more than fast enough. Troglodytes are widepread.

We are expected to learn from history. Google is installing faster internet because so many in Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner have this silly idea that 20 Mb is fast enough for everyone. Using myopic reasoning, a purpose for 100 Mb does not exist. Same business school types refused to restore wired (copper or fiber) services in highly urban areas in Mantalokin NJ and Fire Island NY.

These duopolies refuse to up broadband speeds using same reasons used to stifle DSL. They don't want to increase backbone speeds unless someone else pays for it (the reason for destroying net neutrality). And they do not want to service more rural areas or even some parts of the most urban state such as Mantalokin NJ. Like GM, they only want to make profits - screw better products. This same reasoning even destroyed the Bell Labs.

BTW, how many today know what the Bell Laboratories were? I am surprised that a majority do not.

In Where broadband is not available, curiously Mississippi is almost fully covered while adjacent Alabama has wide 'blackout' areas. Delaware has great coverage while adjacent Maryland east coast has little.

Being able to steam an entire hour and a half of 5Mb/s when they have 20Mb/s service is sometimes an issue, because the providers are not buying enough bandwidth at the other end of the pipe.* Meanwhile, South Korea and Hong Kong with their mighty 100Mb/s bragging rights, will have the exact same problem.

Let me soothe your furrowed brows! Anyone who can see the southern sky without any trees in the way can get broadband: the little dishes will do satellite internet. You can get enough bandwidth but lousy latency; so you can stream Netflix, but browsing the Cellar will be a pain in the ass. In fact Dish just offered 6 months of free Netflix with a hookup! They are trying to make this point.

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news...rs-1201190288/


*a longer consideration of this is reserved for the next post.

*

Broadband providers are trying to get Netfllix to pay for more bandwidth at their end of the pipe. Comcast has convinced Netflix to pay. Other providers such as Dish are making it a marketing question.

But shortly after this issue became serious - last summer, roughly - someone came out with "Popcorn Time", an app that streams Hollywood movies using peer-to-peer networking. No longer would you have to rely on both your end and the Netflix end of the pipe being large enough - basically, your stream comes from 1000 different points on the network, and if one of them is clogged or blocked, it just uses the other 999. And you pay nothing.

Once again, when they think they can get a toehold, the major players forget this simple fact:

WE ARE IN CHARGE HERE, AND WE CAN DO WHATEVER WE WANT.

The hitch: Popcorn Time is totally illegal. It's piracy. The crazy thing: you benefit from piracy even if you don't use it, because it provides an unstoppable free alternative representing what people want, and the big corporations are forced to compete with it no matter what. If content is expensive, piracy goes up. If content is hard to get, piracy answers that.

Y'know, after a certain point in time, you could always get Hollywood movies illegally on the net - you just couldn't stream them. You could connect to whatever peer-to-peer networks were around, and download your entire Hollywood movie, and then watch it. In the early days it might take a few days to download it. Now, you can download it in minutes.

And as always, piracy provided a superior product, without unskippable previews, and without those FBI warnings saying you aren't supposed to pirate your movies.

This is the real reason why the "Netflix is not fast enough" problem won't be a long-term problem: Hollywood's interests are in providing what people need to NOT go the piracy route. It will take a little time for those interests to express themselves to the providers, but they are all one now and the market disruption is really quite amazing.

At the time I was working in document imaging. We had jukeboxes full of video discs, trying to replace entire floors of file cabinets full of documents. With every advance in laser storage there was a new jukebox device ready to take advantage of it. Every engineer was waiting for the next level of write-once, read-many technology and trying to employ it as quickly as possible. And this was at Unisys, one of the least-effective engineering companies at the time. Your argument is invalid.

http://cellar.org/2014/catwatermelon.jpg

I'd be happy to be able to afford the quicker speeds we have now.

When speeds increase, latency also diminishes. Backbone speeds must also increase (if data transporters are not permitted to destroy net neutrality). Consumers then spend same money for hardware that is also tens times faster. More myths shattered by how innovation works.

Arguments about latency are bogus. We should remain inferior to enrich the data transporters. That is the American way. Protect some industries so they need not upgrade and innovate. It took a Federal law to force data transporters to stop obstructing and subverting innovation. Then Michael Powel, et al undermined that law to enrich the data transporters. What is Michael Powel doing today? He is a well paid lobbyist for the data transporter industry that insists 20 Mb will always be good enough.

We pay more so that Comcast can buy and build multiple and tallest skyscrapers in Philadelphia, NBC, Universal Studios, Time Warner, theme parks, major league sports teams, etc. They need not provide better service. And need not provide service to so much of the country that still does not have any broadband. Why does UT say this is good? Why is cable TV that once was so profitable at $8 per month (when equipment was so expensive) now cost $50+ (despite inexpensive equipment and 'Death of Disatance')? In a competitive, innovative, and advancing America, 100 Mb would be $20 per month. But that means no duopolies that invent myths to protect their slow internet services.

This need to protect duopolies even got UT to torture his cat.

Methinks their definition of "Broadband" leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.:nadkick:

Not directly, no. The speed of light has a say in this, as does all the firmware in all the routers between you and wherever you like to connect to.

The term broadband did not exist until Clinton's 1996 Federal Communication Act forced major telecommunciation companies to innovate. Remember, some industries are so corrupt as to think profit (not the product) are more important. This hatred of innovation is even why Microsoft had to sue Qwest to get what we would later call broadband.

I believe the term broadband (as defined by Federal law) was above 1 Mb. A 3 Mb number, that was great back then, is minimal by today's standards. However, major data transporters remained so protected by what changed after 2000 as to even refuse to expand broadband services into the rest of America. This and America's slow internet speeds are directly traceable to extremists (ie Michael Powel) who advocate monopolies or duopolies rather than what made America great - innovation. He knows who butters his bread.

Maxiumizing profits even explains why Michael Powel, now a major lobbyist for the data transporters, is promoting the destruction of net neutrality. They destroyed competition. Now they need net neutrality destroyed so that Google, Netflicks, Microsoft, Apple, etc will pay for upgraded service (ie a faster backbone) while Comcast, et al build more skyscrapers and buy more content providers (ie NBC, Universal Studios and theme parks). And so that smaller data transporter (ie Level 3 Communications) will be at a disadvantage. They even deny we need anything more than 20 Mb. Since that exceeds a Federal definition of broadband. Therefore must be good enough.

Notice how much of American cannot even get 3 Mb.

When I said "Not directly, no," I meant, "This is the sort of statement made by someone who simply doesn't know what they're talking about." Stick to oil changes and CEOs buddy. That's your strong suit.

High speed internet would cost a fortune. If everyone could get 500 or 100 Mb, the NSA budget would skyrocket from $50 billion, through the roof. :eek: