Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:00:53 -0400
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Those internet tubes...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Mike B. wrote:

>  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...

Stevens is Seriously Insane anyway.  This is only a minor symptom.

--Ted White