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How The Internet Works - With Tubes
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Jul 03, 2006 04:29 AM
from the yay-tubes dept.
from the yay-tubes dept.
Chardish writes "In an attempt to explain his reasons for voting against a Net Neutrality bill this past Thursday, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens delivered a jaw-dropping attempt to explain how the Internet works. Said Stevens: 'They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.'"
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Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it bizarre having sub-literate legislators who determine the future of our livelihood: the internet?
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad part here is that this guy feels qualified to stand up and lecture everyone on why he voted like he did, despite the fact that he knows nothing about the subject.
I understand that not every legislator can understand every nuance of every issue being voted on, but this guy seems to have developed a strong opinion on the subject. To my way of thinking he needs to have some basic understanding of the subject under discussion to hold a strong opinion.
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the BAD part.. not the sad part. The sad part is, he was VOTED to power by people like us, to stand up and lecture... The corrective action would be.. Have a set of tests to determine which senator(s) can lecture / vote on a given topic. Those who fail the test lose their voting rights...
this guy seems to have developed a strong opinion on the subject..
Or maybe he has been subjected to a strong influence, to lecture the way he did. Or maybe no one else listening knew enought o call the bluff. Or maybe the rest were lobbied to remain mute as well.. Or maybe all of the above.
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Interesting)
ALTERNATIVELY!!, YOU!! COULD!! -- oh wait, I'll stop yelling. Alternatively, you could consider the system that was practised in ancient Athens -- every elected official, upon leaving office, underwent an independent audit of his conduct in office. Those found wanting were prosecuted for abuse of power -- and not too infrequently, I might add. I've often wondered why this isn't practised nowadays. It's just too haphazard, this being held accountable only when someone happens to call you on something you've done.
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
The man is the President Pro Tempore. If the President, Vice President and Speaker of the House die... he becomes President of the United States.
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when has a lack of understanding ever stopped a politician from meddling in someone else's affairs?
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Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Hahahahahaha! Aha! Ha! Oh man! *wipes away tear*
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No, not like Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
- Robin
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Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Informative)
Of course this typically currently only works in reasonably densly populated areas where ADSL2+ can be deployed (distance contraints from the user to the telco equipment) although it gradually starts to cover the countryside as well.
Of course in this configuration, video is only streamed from the ISP to its users, no through the Internet. So called "last mile" bandwidth can't possibly a problem. It could theoretically be possible that the backbones lacked bandwidth at some point. Isn't there still lots of dark fiber lying around though ?
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I wish he were subliterate (Score:5, Informative)
Stevens presided over this hearing. He knows the facts of the matter quite well. This is not a case of ignorance but of deception. Sorry, it just is.
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12 O'clock flasher (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
That explains why it took so long to turn up in his inbox too. Doesn't he realise that Internets are fucking huge.
No wonder his tubes got all clogged up.
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
I think I'll send him an internet right now.
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Re:Correction (Score:5, Informative)
he should just talk to former Sen. Gore, who should know exactly how it works, on account of being its inventor and all.
Har dee har har, you hear that joke on "Hee Haw" or Rush?
But Gore did have an understanding of how the Internet worked, he made it his business to be informed on relevant subjects when he was a congresscritter. He talked to and listened to subject matter experts, and he wrote position papers and popular articles that clearly showed an understanding of the basic concepts.
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Re:Correction (Score:5, Funny)
Those facts and their damn liberal bias! You aren't being truthy! [wikipedia.org]
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Gore delivered and continues to deliver good stuff (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of things Senator Gore says sound very wooden and otherwise poorly expressed. However, Gore delivers [imdb.com]. In a private email message, Vint Cerf [washingtonpost.com] told me that it was true that Al Gore was instrumental in the development of the Internet. Before Mr. Gore's involvement, it was a semi-private utility known as ArpaNet and NSFNet. Mr. Gore championed the development of the private network as a public utility. This was years before Bill Gates, for example, recognized its importance.
No, Vint Cerf is not a friend of mine; that's not the point. The point is that Senator Al Gore has a brain of his own, and a very good one.
Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska [irregularnews.com] is known as someone who supports destructive causes. So, those who want corruption in the U.S. government go to him. Many people on Slashdot suppose that he views his ignorance as bad; on the contrary, he is openly advertising his ignorance so the corrupters will know to find him when they want someone who will help them corrupt.
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Senate Intelligence Down the Tubes (Score:5, Interesting)
I read the whole thing in hopes that he was addressing why the government & pentagon use their own equipment and lines for communications but he wasn't.
One would hope that if you were planning on giving a speech about the internet that you would either pay an aide to sit you down and brief you on it
Hopefully this will be somewhat of a wake-up call for politicians to educate themselves on the topic of the internet before they start passing legislation on net neutrality. I doubt it though.
I can laugh at this guy, but if I think of any member of my immediate family they probably think of the internet as a "magic tube" just as much as Senator Ted Stevens. I could go through the frustrating process of trying to explain it to them but that's not so enticing.
Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:5, Interesting)
Your ignorant words accomplish nothing except make you look like an idiot. Just save your breath, shut up, vote against net neutrality, and take your bribe money like a good little corrupt politician.
Re:Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but I have always wanted to believe they aren't completely retarded. My grandparents don't even own a computer and they could explain the Internet better than that. You don't have to be a mechanic to know that a car has pistons, needs gas and oil.
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Re:Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:5, Funny)
It's one of the magic tubes inside your car engine. When put your foot on the gas or the brake, you send a transmission across the engine (the transmission is another tube). See, the engine is not the sort of thing you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand how those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your 'transmission' in, it gets in line and is going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, like for example listening to pirated music on your car stereo.
I just the other day got, a brake transmission was sent by me at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, and I just slowed down yesterday. Why? Because I was listening to music I'd gotten from Kazaa at the time. The problem is, I was braking the transmission because there was a truck stopped in front of me. Because the transmission was slowed by enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material (pirated music), my piston tubes never got the signal in time. And a truck is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
Long story short, there was a horrible crash, a big explosion, and I was fatally killed. You see, a person isn't something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. In the end, though, all the material left my pipes as a result of the explosion. This is what happens if you don't regulate the flow of material through those pipes properly.
And that is why I voted against road neutrality.
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Netwhat?/? You know, taht inter-movie-thingy!!1!`! (Score:5, Interesting)
Internet?!? That bozo can't even understand Netflix:
I'm calling Netflix in the morning to ask where my other 7 DVDs are... and argue that I shouldn't be charged for changing my Queue. I'll also ask them where their non-internet website is at. My other 7 DVDs better arrive when I get home!
CSPAN is sometimes indistinguishable from Comedy Central. I can't believe this guy is the President pro Tempore of the senate (third in line of presidential succession). He also chairs the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. If you voted for this asshat, do the rest of us a favor and please don't ever vote again.Re:Netwhat?/? You know, taht inter-movie-thingy!! (Score:5, Insightful)
A majority of the US population seem to have taken variations of this advice already.
Besides, this is a variantion of the whole 'only the intelligent know they're stupid'-problem.. if you have everybody who realise they're wrong withdraw because of their own perceived stupidity, you'll just be left with the people who weren't capable of realising their errors. Learning is doing mistakes; people who never do mistakes are just good at shifting blame.
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Re:Netwhat?/? You know, taht inter-movie-thingy!!1 (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps so, but he'll beat you hands down in a spelling bee.
Back to topic.
Stevens is known to be very powerful in the Senate ("Dances with Bottomless War Chest"). Despite Alaska's low population (let alone population density), it makes you wonder how it happens...unless you know about this:
I don't know if this is still the practice, but in college (early 80s), my roommate and his brother were from Juneau|Douglas, AK.[1] When it came time to memorialize the Sinking of the Titanic (IRS - April 15), it turned out they didn't have to pay state taxes. Instead, they were the recipients of oil rebate checks; in essence, profit-sharing. I think they were receiving [at least] $1'500/year [each]. One would think there would have to be graduated degrees of monies received considering how much money+oil is flowing up there. And where there's money passed around...there are politicians.
Because there aren't many voters up there, it doesn't take all that many votes to elect someone, e.g., to the Senate. With a well-oiled machine, why stop?
As far as N^2 goes, I think it's a foregone conclusion as to what the outcome will be but that doesn't mean everyone has to give in without a fight. It took awhile for taxation to grasp an inevitable hold. (I suppose they could assess some fixed Internet tax against all who have the ability to shop online, encouraging them to shop online as much as possible. That obviously wouldn't help the brick & mortar stores.)
If he was going to get up & deal with Internet-related stuff, why not disassemble the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM act which the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) wrote and Congress rubber stamped? That would have shown true insight into how the Internet works. And if it's going to seem like too much work (despite the fact those Congress Critters who have been willing to chat about it have admitted it was a mistake), then add something to it: make it illegal to hire a spammer and illegal to solicit someone for the purpose of spamming. That stops spammers from having a reason to send anything: people can't hire them. That leaves them with spamming everyone for the purpose of solicitation to be a customer of their services, and I just covered that.
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[1]
We slept with the windows open every night with a 24" fan for white noise. (They weren't the only polar bears.) But imagine what it was like for someone who answered a floor-common phone walking into our room in single digit temperatures whilst in nothing but their boxers to get me up to function as one of three EMTs within a twenty minute drive of the nearest hospital.
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And the humour is? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a good analogy to me.
The joke's on us (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously -- do you expect him to hand out copies of a few dozen RFCs and a map of the backbone sites and say "here, read this, and everything will be crystal clear." Politicians have better things to do than try to understand BGP.
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Re:The joke's on us (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ted Stevens, I love the guy..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tubes hah! (Score:5, Funny)
That's a poor choice of quote in the summary... (Score:4, Insightful)
"I don't have to have the type of speed they're introducing, but the people who are streaming through 10-12 movies at a time or a whole book at a time... for consumers use, those are not you and me, they're not the consumers, those are providers."
Re:That's a poor choice of quote in the summary... (Score:5, Funny)
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Clogged Tubes (Score:5, Funny)
Just an observation: (Score:4, Insightful)
What he REALLY wanted to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Without net neutrality, the internet goes down the tubes.
Don't Just Reply on Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that the very structure of this site lends itself to keeping your comments and opinions contained within the slashdot community. However, in this case, it's not a great time to be so inward. You can take just a couple of extra seconds and make a difference with your opinions on Net Neutrality--go to http://stevens.senate.gov/contact.cfm [senate.gov]. Write Senator Stevens a short message expressing your concerns about his lack of expertise on the subject (even his fundamental lack of understanding about what the internet is and how it works). Don't do it by calling him an idiot or otherwise insulting him. Give him a quick summary of how things actually work. Tell him what Net Neutrality *really* is and why it is important--especially to the average consumer. Then take a couple more seconds to go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ [loc.gov], find out how to contact your House rep or your favorite senator from your state, and write a similar message explaining that you were concerned with the views Senator Stevens expressed to the Senate Commerce Committee about his lack of support for even the most basic Net Neutrality legislation. Again explain why you feel Net Neutrality is an important issue for the average consumer. This is particularly important if the Senator to whom you write is one of the other 10 members of the Senate Commerce Committee who voted against adding this minor Net Neutrality amendment to a recent telecom bill (presumably, a Republican from this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Senate_Committe
Best,
Chris
Geek clique (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the issue at hand, he isn't far off the mark although I think Congress is totally ill-equipped to address the issue just as they were ill-equipped to address the SPAM issue. Frankly I think the market should decide. If the telecomm providers try to double-tap the content providers they will more than likely get a very rude shock when the large content providers purchase, if they don't already have it (Google}, dark fiber, fire it up, and do an end run around the telecomms industry. It wouldn't be hard for the larger providers to do so and with cross-trading capacity agreements, they could probably do a better job, cheaper, actually. Then the telecomms providers wouldn't have a basis for complaint at all. All that excess capacity they already have to handle peak traffic would just sit there, not earning them a dime on their capital investment. Couldn't happen to nicer people (SBC anyone?).
Re:Geek clique (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that this isn't your clueless uncle we're talking about. We're talking about someone who will be deciding the future of something he doesn't understand. Understanding basic concepts like this is this man's entire job.
So, yes, it is a problem. The man's not doing his job, and we're all going to suffer for it.
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Re:I'm (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? No, the "bridge to nowhere" [mccarthy.vg] would go from Ketchikan (population 8,000) to Gravina Island (population less than 50). If agriculture on Gravina Island has anything to do with it, that's news to me; the officially defined need [alaska.gov] says nothing about farming the island's mountain ranges. What probably is related is that your governor's wife owns 33 acres on that island. I can understand why you might be unaware of that fact -- he failed to disclose it [anchoragepress.com] as required by state law.
Alaskan politicians may be working on a useless Anchorage-Wasilla bridge also, but that's not that famous "bridge to nowhere."
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Re:It's NOT a truck??!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? No they really are not. Did you ever hear about something call truncating and load-sharing? If there ever comes a time when your ISP (or any in the line between you and your data), they can and will simply upgrade their connection. You see, they are actually be PAID to transmit/carry that data. The more data that flows through their "pipes", the more they can "bill" OTHER ISP's that connect through them. So whenever they have an edge router that starts hitting its limits, it is always in their own best interests to replace/upgrade/load-share/truncate that connection so that they can bill even more money to the people around them. Maybe there are vast amount of data going through those pipe because of porn and p2p applications, but you know what that means to the compaines? They have more data to BILL other companies with to get more money for the service they provide by allowing that data to use the network infrastructure.
In the meantime, all the legit stuff is in threat of getting caught up in a porn jam.
I say "huh?" and "what?" again. You are under the misconception that some data is more important then other data. You see you are falling into the biggest trap there is when dealing with an entity like the internet. You will almost always be "biased" toward what you want to use the internet for. So your particular "types" of data you feel should get priority. Well the problem is that the person next to you will have a completely different set of priorities, and the next one, and the next, and so on and so forth. There are probably thousands of people out there who feel that their NTP traffic should have "realtime" priority over everything. Now imagine if we actually started to try and do things like this. Well, your ISP will because you are so happy to pay extra for it, will prioritize on http traffic, email, and maybe VOIP (assuming you use "their" VOIP and not someone elses). But the people you wish to connect to are not using your same ISP, instead they are using one that results in your traffic crossing, lets say "three" other ISP's inbetween yours and theirs. Let us also greatly assume that because you are not on those other 3 ISP's, they will most likely NOT have the exact same priorities. Why? Because you aren't the one paying them directly. One their network, they have paying customers that want different things, so they prioritize differently as a result. Now, back to my case here, ISP "A" has a priority of http, email and ftp, but VOIP is not considered a priority because they also own a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) network, so VOIP is a direct competition to their phone services, and they do not want anything to do with it. ISP "B" has a priority of http, ftp, and VOIP. Email is not high priority on ISP "B" because they feel that email should be handled the way it was origionally intended, as a simple, unreliable delivery mechanism. ISP "C" prioritizes p2p, ftp, and VOIP because their main business is "content" delivery. They have a major customer who has a p2p video delivery system which uses ftp connections to get the data out first to several servers and then uses them to seed the data into a custom p2p network.
Now your problem is that you want to connect to someone else, and your network connection path goes through all those other ISPs, well, your optimized connection inside your ISP, just have every one of your critical uses degraded and and relegated to transmittion only when there was nothing else occuring through those other ISP networks. This is what WILL happen. Your money isn't enough to change the immediate priorities of every ISP in the world or even the immediate world around your ISP.
You know what? My legitimate downloads or VoIP should get priority over your illegal
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