Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:01:40 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Those internet tubes...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 7/3/2006 06:36 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>Michael Walsh wrote:
> > On occasion I've made jocular references to "internet tubes" being
> > filled with dust bunnies to explain why email might be slow...
> >
> > Senator Ted Stevens seems to have been reading my email...
> >
> > <http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/02/sen_stevens_hilariou.html>
> >
> > mjw
> >
>Keep in mind that this bozo is Chairman of the Senate Committee on
>Commerce, Science, and Transportation.  Essentially, he's responsible,
>directly or indirectly, for all legislation affecting the Internet.
>
>It'd be less scary if I thought he was just drunk ....

Well, the problem he's trying to describe, in his confused, inaccurate,
semi-incomprehensible blather, is more or less correct:  there is limited
bandwidth on the net, and some people (MOST people) don't seem to realize
that.  That's why we get things like Vonage, streaming movies, and
MIME/HTML mail that uses 200K bytes to say "Visit our website!".

Now, his particular problem, of his staff sending him something and it
taking a really long time to get to him, may or may not have been affected
by this issue.  It depends where he was accessing it from, where the mail
server is located, and where they sent it from...as well as what was up and
what wasn't at the time.

If it was sent from one machine on a LAN in his office, to a mail server on
the same LAN, and he read it with a client on the same LAN, then it should
have gotten to him in seconds (at most), assuming all parts were up and
working, and not configured by a chimp.  If it was sent from a client in
his office to AOHELL.com, whose spam blocker was being swamped by a major
mailing blitz to each of their millions of members, and then on to his home
ISP at sprint.com or something, I can see it taking a while, and the
"commercial" e-mailers would be responsible for the delay...since they
"clogged up the pipe" at AOHELL with their unwanted garbage.

His solution, of involving the phone company to charge for commercial
access, is unworkable, stupid, insane and shows a complete lack of
understanding of the situation....but the way he stated the problem does
too, so this is at least consistent.  The problem is, I don't think he's
all that unusual for Congresscritters in general, their staffs or the
American public at large...

-- Mike B.
--
Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.