bandwidth explosion

On Jul 20, 2019, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote
(in article <qgv28s$19l1$1@gioia.aioe.org>):

Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave internet
service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's actually speed
testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free, faster
internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about half our
current price. They swapped out the modem today and the internet
here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and Sonic keep
leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The backbone
fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of data. Each
county around here might need a petabit per second.

Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's bandwidth,
the output torque of a car engine, or the battery voltage on a
portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers give
them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance even if
the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.

Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map app on
their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their location
even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

Marketing had nothing to do with it. One of the major satellite vehicle
upgrades was to increase the transmit power by about 10 dB, a very big deal.
The other upgrade was to turn Selective Availability off.

Joe Gwinn
 
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 8:43:14 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave internet
service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's actually speed
testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free, faster
internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about half our
current price. They swapped out the modem today and the internet
here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and Sonic keep
leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The backbone
fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of data. Each
county around here might need a petabit per second.



Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's bandwidth,
the output torque of a car engine, or the battery voltage on a
portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers give
them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance even if
the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.


Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map app on
their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their location
even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

A lot of that is improvements in the receiver sensitivity and throwing more hardware at the problem to facilitate reception.

Then there was the addition of WAAS which can bring the location error to as low as 10 feet with a bit of averaging. BTW, before all this the error was a lot more than 30 feet. I recall plotting the location of a stationary receiver and seeing it wander nearly 100 feet from the starting reported location overnight.

It's still not accurate enough to tell you which lane your car is in. At least, not with a reasonable level of certainty.

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On 2019-07-20 09:30, tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 15:46:31 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-19 17:10, tabbypurr wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 00:42:14 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:

Most people with substantial disposable income that I know live
a rather low-tech life. On purpose.

Most sales are not sold to people with 'substantial disposable
income'. ...


In terms of profit it is.

I don't have the figures. But fwiw when I look at the most profitable
companies I typically see them cater to people across most of the
spectrum, if not all.

Yeah, like here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/17/profit-ferrari-makes-per-car.html

... Sales cover the whole gamut of incomes. And not everyone who
can afford to chooses to throw money unnecessarily at things.
...


Correct. Frugality is usually how they got to the point of having a
nice disposable income or savings.


... The idea that if you can afford to you should spend more to
get much the same seems to me quite stupid.


Works differently. People who can afford it splurge on things they
really enjoy. They don't get the same, they get better. Nice cars,
maybe an aircraft, a boat, a big RV, travel, good hotels, and most
of all good food. $10 for a small slice of Brie at the market?
WHAT?! But we like it so let's buy a few anyhow.

I'm not sure I can think of much in life I enjoy that I'd need to
splurge on to enjoy more. Life just isn't like that IME. I guess some
people like to improve their lot, some like to pee it up the wall.
Perhaps I belong to a different era.

It depends on your desires. Some people have the desire to see the
world. The ones with money ... just do it. The ones without much
disposable income can only dream on because they do not have the $5k it
takes for even one trip.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
 
On 2019-07-20 10:31, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 20 Jul 2019 07:40:22 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <gpgne7Fo3qhU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-20 00:29, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:23:55 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in
gpf1nuFd8baU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-18 22:55, Jan Panteltje wrote:

[...]


... But no power then you do not need
datasheets anyways, as your design would not work. ...


Huh? I can design anywhere and often did, way out in nature on a lonely
bush trail.

So you do not use Spice either ?

Sure I do but my ideas are all develped without any computer. Using
pencil and paper. I even found a schematic capture for my cell phone but
haven't used it yet. Ye olde pencil is faster.

No cell coverage or anything. Those are my most productiev
places. The only noise you can hear is wind, birds, some wildlife and
the occasional jetliner high up there. Those designs tend to work well.


... Working late into the night with an oil lamp?


We got modern, LED lamp :)


Aha, very good, I have 12V RGB LED strips in the living room,
designed a controller for that.
And a nice USB LED reading light.

I still have to make a 12V light but no controller. Just a few LEDs and
a switch-mode current source.

[...]


... If it works I doubt, with trump stirring up
differences by telling children of immigrants to leave while his own
parent were immigrants themselves, ...


They were legal immigrant. Big difference.

They were fugitives from Germany I think.
Considering how trump behaves he is a disgrace.
Most illegal immigrants just want a better life they will keep a low key
and will avoid getting into trouble been arrested by the police and being deported.

Illegal is illegal. Either we respect the laws we have or we throw them
out the window. I am for respecting the laws and vote accordingly, of
course.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
 
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 1:22:27 PM UTC-4, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
On Jul 20, 2019, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote
(in article <qgv28s$19l1$1@gioia.aioe.org>):

Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave internet
service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's actually speed
testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free, faster
internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about half our
current price. They swapped out the modem today and the internet
here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and Sonic keep
leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The backbone
fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of data. Each
county around here might need a petabit per second.

Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's bandwidth,
the output torque of a car engine, or the battery voltage on a
portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers give
them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance even if
the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.

Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map app on
their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their location
even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

Marketing had nothing to do with it. One of the major satellite vehicle
upgrades was to increase the transmit power by about 10 dB, a very big deal.
The other upgrade was to turn Selective Availability off.

Joe Gwinn

He's not talking about Selective Availability, when that was on the accuracy was more like 300 feet. I recall someone, possibly Bob Pease, giving a review of a handheld GPS. He thought it was pretty useless if it couldn't warn him of a cliff at night. 300 feet is a football field!

It was after SA was turned off that the accuracy improved to about 30 feet which was good enough for geocaching.

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 3:07:18 PM UTC-4, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-20 10:31, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Most illegal immigrants just want a better life they will keep a low key
and will avoid getting into trouble been arrested by the police and being deported.


Illegal is illegal. Either we respect the laws we have or we throw them
out the window. I am for respecting the laws and vote accordingly, of
course.

Really? You don't break any laws? Or you just don't get caught?

Why don't they have RADAR set up on every street to catch speeders? Because it isn't worth the trouble in most cases. Even cops speed. We don't worry about it.

Most illegals are here to have a better life. I'm not suggesting we should open the boarders, but I don't get the need for mass arrests which would actually hurt us since so many illegals are doing jobs we would have a hard time filling otherwise.

If we were to literally remove all illegals from the US overnight, it would likely be the biggest blow to our economy we have ever seen. I would bet many businesses would go under before the economy were able to right itself.. Larkin would miss many of his favorite restaurants that would perish because they can't get enough help to keep the place open.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
 
On a sunny day (Sat, 20 Jul 2019 12:07:26 -0700) it happened Joerg
<news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <gph730Fre6tU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-20 10:31, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 20 Jul 2019 07:40:22 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <gpgne7Fo3qhU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-20 00:29, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Fri, 19 Jul 2019 16:23:55 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in
gpf1nuFd8baU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-18 22:55, Jan Panteltje wrote:

[...]


... But no power then you do not need
datasheets anyways, as your design would not work. ...


Huh? I can design anywhere and often did, way out in nature on a lonely
bush trail.

So you do not use Spice either ?


Sure I do but my ideas are all develped without any computer. Using
pencil and paper. I even found a schematic capture for my cell phone but
haven't used it yet. Ye olde pencil is faster.


No cell coverage or anything. Those are my most productiev
places. The only noise you can hear is wind, birds, some wildlife and
the occasional jetliner high up there. Those designs tend to work well.


... Working late into the night with an oil lamp?


We got modern, LED lamp :)


Aha, very good, I have 12V RGB LED strips in the living room,
designed a controller for that.
And a nice USB LED reading light.


I still have to make a 12V light but no controller. Just a few LEDs and
a switch-mode current source.

As you can see I always use pencil and paper too, the LED ethernet color controller
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/pic/ethernet_color_pic/

It even has a photo cell to automatically switch on lights. programmable timers to change lights so it looks like you are home.,
from 'xpequ'
http://panteltje.com/panteltje/xpequ/index.html
it can read music and have it control the LEDs, lowest frequencies for red, highest for blue,

It gets time from the LAN so no clock setting needed.

Most things that run here I wrote.. so the sky is the limit.


... If it works I doubt, with trump stirring up
differences by telling children of immigrants to leave while his own
parent were immigrants themselves, ...


They were legal immigrant. Big difference.

They were fugitives from Germany I think.
Considering how trump behaves he is a disgrace.
Most illegal immigrants just want a better life they will keep a low key
and will avoid getting into trouble been arrested by the police and being deported.


Illegal is illegal. Either we respect the laws we have or we throw them
out the window. I am for respecting the laws and vote accordingly, of
course.

Character of a person versus a piece of paper.
US cops that shoot people; one was just jailed, others were sacked I did read today.

Usually in a short while you can figure out what somebody is about.
trump maybe legal but he is bad... uses division, threats, lies, bullying,
he cannot even keep the white house together (one after the other leaves), so forget about America.
He was born with a silver spoon or 2 in his big mouth, and thinks he can wrestle the world
and make a show like he did on TV.
The world now has all its weapons pointed at the US.
If he makes more noise he will annoy the wrong one and .. was today
thinking about what's that movie with Peter Sellers? Dr. Strangelove.
The lightning storm here has passed over, hailstones an inch :)-) 25.4 mm big:
https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/5968084/grote-hagelstenen-in-zuid-holland-alleen-nog-code-geel-in-noord-limburg.html
one hit the air exhaust in my kitchen BANG, what is THAT? hail.
 
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 20:13:00 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-20 09:30, tabbypurr wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 15:46:31 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-19 17:10, tabbypurr wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 00:42:14 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:

Most people with substantial disposable income that I know live
a rather low-tech life. On purpose.

Most sales are not sold to people with 'substantial disposable
income'. ...


In terms of profit it is.

I don't have the figures. But fwiw when I look at the most profitable
companies I typically see them cater to people across most of the
spectrum, if not all.


Yeah, like here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/17/profit-ferrari-makes-per-car.html

Fortune 500 is more representative than just one luxury manufacturer


... Sales cover the whole gamut of incomes. And not everyone who
can afford to chooses to throw money unnecessarily at things.
...


Correct. Frugality is usually how they got to the point of having a
nice disposable income or savings.


... The idea that if you can afford to you should spend more to
get much the same seems to me quite stupid.


Works differently. People who can afford it splurge on things they
really enjoy. They don't get the same, they get better. Nice cars,
maybe an aircraft, a boat, a big RV, travel, good hotels, and most
of all good food. $10 for a small slice of Brie at the market?
WHAT?! But we like it so let's buy a few anyhow.

I'm not sure I can think of much in life I enjoy that I'd need to
splurge on to enjoy more. Life just isn't like that IME. I guess some
people like to improve their lot, some like to pee it up the wall.
Perhaps I belong to a different era.


It depends on your desires. Some people have the desire to see the
world. The ones with money ... just do it. The ones without much
disposable income can only dream on because they do not have the $5k it
takes for even one trip.

I've done that, though there are places that might interest me if I get less busy. Every choice blocks out other options.


NT
 
On Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 12:23:16 AM UTC+10, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-20 02:49, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 4:24:47 PM UTC+2, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-18 06:38, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 18 Jul 2019 06:58:00 GMT, Jan Panteltje
pNaOnStPeAlMtje@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Wed, 17 Jul 2019 22:44:42 -0700) it happened
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote in
lg00jeprk72prv8hnua08fhfh9q9rnek30@4ax.com>:

snip

For me it is the same with phone data. Reluctantly I now have a
smart phone but on the cheapest plan I could cobble together.
Unlimited call, 500 texts, then a 30day pay-go 1GB data package. I
need maybe 15-30mins phone per month, 30-50 texts and last time I
used a whopping 0.003GB of the 1GB data package.

What I noted with all providers so far is that sometimes Youtube
videos completely stall out. Maybe they don't like Youtube because
they want to sell their own services.

I've had an Android smart-phone for a few years - I've now got a
Samsung S4 which was cheap, rather than the latest thing.

It came with a bunch of Google apps, and Google maps can be very
handy from time to time.

It also came with Google Play, which I knew nothing about and never
use.


It is the only place from where you can install apps on the phone. For
example for me, when I wanted a RPN calculator on it so I could leave
the HP-11C at home. There is a method to do it "from the side" but AFAIK
some stuff in the phone first needs to be hacked for that. Most apps are
only available via that "Play Store".


... I suddenly got a whopping data bill after a month of so in the
Netherlands mostly because Google play had downloaded 85 Mbytes of
data over the mobile network.


85MB result in a whopping bill? That must have been a stingy cell plan.
I pay $5 for a 1GB chunk of data (pay-as-you-go method).

It's my Australian phone. They charge a lot more for data transfers outside Australia - and last year tried to get me to shift to a plan that didn't allow international roaming at all.
I switched it to getting it's data only over WiFi links, but that was
shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. I was a bit
peeved to find that an app that I've never used had decided that it
needed 85 MB of data in case I might decide to use it.

I could have told you that as a newbie end of last year when getting my
first smart phone :)

The very first thing I did was turning off everything automatic. Then
toss all nagware and unwanted ballast just like one does after buying a
new PC. Updates only when on WiFi and so on. My typical data usage is
3-30MB per month. Out of 1GB which always expires in 30 days so 994MB or
more out of 1024MB expire unused.

I did some of that but wasn't rigorous about it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 12:07:18 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-20 10:31, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 20 Jul 2019 07:40:22 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <gpgne7Fo3qhU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-20 00:29, Jan Panteltje wrote:

... If it works I doubt, with trump stirring up
differences by telling children of immigrants to leave while his own
parent were immigrants themselves, ...


They were legal immigrant. Big difference.

They were fugitives from Germany I think.

Illegal is illegal. Either we respect the laws we have or we throw them
out the window.

Err... how do we know that an immigrant of yesteryear had 'all the paperwork in order'
at all times, and was thus 'legal'? The current 'zero-tolerance' rules deport and apply sanctions to
a lot of folk, on the basis of rules that are NOT handed down by courts of law. A few months
ago, there was a fuss when a failed court appearance was explained thus: the
subject of the immigration hearing had been deported the day before.

They got that one back, but if it had been a week before, good luck finding him.
 
On 21/07/19 08:16, whit3rd wrote:
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 12:07:18 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-20 10:31, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 20 Jul 2019 07:40:22 -0700) it happened Joerg
news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in <gpgne7Fo3qhU1@mid.individual.net>:

On 2019-07-20 00:29, Jan Panteltje wrote:

... If it works I doubt, with trump stirring up
differences by telling children of immigrants to leave while his own
parent were immigrants themselves, ...


They were legal immigrant. Big difference.

They were fugitives from Germany I think.

Illegal is illegal. Either we respect the laws we have or we throw them
out the window.

Err... how do we know that an immigrant of yesteryear had 'all the paperwork in order'
at all times, and was thus 'legal'? The current 'zero-tolerance' rules deport and apply sanctions to
a lot of folk, on the basis of rules that are NOT handed down by courts of law. A few months
ago, there was a fuss when a failed court appearance was explained thus: the
subject of the immigration hearing had been deported the day before.

Such problems aren't theoretical, they are very practical.

Over here we've had the "Windrush Scandal". From wackypaedia...

The Windrush scandal is a 2018 British political scandal concerning people who
were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and, in
at least 83 cases,[1][2][3] wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office.
Many of those affected had been born British subjects and had arrived in the UK
before 1973, particularly from Caribbean countries as members of the "Windrush
generation"[4] (so named after the Empire Windrush, the ship that brought one of
the first groups of West Indian migrants to the UK in 1948).[5]

As well as those who were wrongly deported, an unknown number were wrongly
detained, lost their jobs or homes, or were denied benefits or medical care to
which they were entitled.[3] A number of long-term UK residents were wrongly
refused re-entry to the UK, and a larger number were threatened with immediate
deportation by the Home Office.
 
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:f8a26258-15a2-42b2-8215-9104c146889a@googlegroups.com:

Why don't they have RADAR set up on every street to catch
speeders? Because it isn't worth the trouble in most cases. Even
cops speed. We don't worry about it.

Because radar suffers from paralax error IDing which car downrange
is actually doing the speed indicated and is not even used in court
in California for highways for that reason.

That is also why laser speed finders are used, because they target
specific vehicles for determination.

BOTH require human actuation.

It is not about being worth the trouble. The courts are gummed up
enough and the cost of such a system would be untennable.

All of the overpaid piggies need to get off their lazy asses and
start CHARGING all you jackass drivers that speed, and then cities
can stop pissing and moaning about lack of money. They ALSO need to
CHARGE EVERY car that has one of those damned covers on the tag. It
is illegal to obscure your tag in all 50 states. Even a clear cover
is an obscurance because it causes glare on off perpendicular views.
That and the rings around tags need to go too. And all the states
lacking front tag laws need to get off their asses and REQUIRE front
tags as well. Too many jackasses out there doing whatever they want
because they think they will get away with it, and too many
complacent pigs doing nothing about it.

And the damned open pipe bikers need a ticket too. Shame is a lot
of them are cops and that is the main reason why load pipe laws are
non existent in most states for bikes, yet exist FOOL force for cars.

Goddamned fat assed pigs should ALSO ALL have weight and waistline
restrictions.

If the fat fuck cannot manage his own fucking waistline, what are
we doing allowing the piss poor idiot to manage folks' freedoms?
 
On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 2:50:00 AM UTC-7, Bill Sloman wrote:

I've had an Android smart-phone for a few years - I've now got a Samsung S4 which was cheap, rather than the ltest thing.

It came with a bunch of Google apps, and Google maps can be very handy from time to time.

It also came with Google Play, which I knew nothing about and never use. I suddenly got a whopping data bill ...

Google Play is the applications purchase store, but also the channel for 'updates' to all those
applications you don't use. The automatic updates locked my Android phone up completely
when they used up the entire available memory... for invisible files hidden from user scrutiny.
There WAS a way to uninstall updates, hidden in the OS, under settings/applications, and also
an option to NOT update at all.
 
Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com> wrote in
news:gph7dnFrfqcU1@mid.individual.net:

On 2019-07-20 09:30, tabbypurr@gmail.com wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 15:46:31 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:
On 2019-07-19 17:10, tabbypurr wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2019 00:42:14 UTC+1, Joerg wrote:

Most people with substantial disposable income that I know
live a rather low-tech life. On purpose.

Most sales are not sold to people with 'substantial disposable
income'. ...


In terms of profit it is.

I don't have the figures. But fwiw when I look at the most
profitable companies I typically see them cater to people across
most of the spectrum, if not all.


Yeah, like here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/17/profit-ferrari-makes-per-car.html


... Sales cover the whole gamut of incomes. And not everyone
who can afford to chooses to throw money unnecessarily at
things. ...


Correct. Frugality is usually how they got to the point of
having a nice disposable income or savings.


... The idea that if you can afford to you should spend more to
get much the same seems to me quite stupid.


Works differently. People who can afford it splurge on things
they really enjoy. They don't get the same, they get better.
Nice cars, maybe an aircraft, a boat, a big RV, travel, good
hotels, and most of all good food. $10 for a small slice of Brie
at the market? WHAT?! But we like it so let's buy a few anyhow.

I'm not sure I can think of much in life I enjoy that I'd need to
splurge on to enjoy more. Life just isn't like that IME. I guess
some people like to improve their lot, some like to pee it up the
wall. Perhaps I belong to a different era.


It depends on your desires. Some people have the desire to see the
world. The ones with money ... just do it. The ones without much
disposable income can only dream on because they do not have the
$5k it takes for even one trip.

I can still remember thumbing through a Heathkit catalog and
dreaming of buying one of the 'high end' PCs they had. And one of
their audio amps.
 
Joseph Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> wrote in
news:0001HW.22E3854A011B26D5700003BCB2EF@news.giganews.com:

On Jul 20, 2019, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote
(in article <qgv28s$19l1$1@gioia.aioe.org>):

Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave
internet service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's
actually speed testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free,
faster internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about
half our current price. They swapped out the modem today and
the internet here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and
Sonic keep leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a
gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The
backbone fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of
data. Each county around here might need a petabit per
second.

Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's
bandwidth, the output torque of a car engine, or the battery
voltage on a portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers
give them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance
even if the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.

Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map app
on their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their
location even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

Marketing had nothing to do with it. One of the major satellite
vehicle upgrades was to increase the transmit power by about 10
dB, a very big deal. The other upgrade was to turn Selective
Availability off.

Joe Gwinn

GPS signals are the weakest signals we grab. They are right down
next to the noise floor.
 
Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote in
news:5eb5abc1-1f18-4d6e-9dd1-4c8c735f5604@googlegroups.com:

On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 8:43:14 AM UTC-4,
DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave internet
service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's actually speed
testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free,
faster internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about
half our current price. They swapped out the modem today and
the internet here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and
Sonic keep leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a
gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The
backbone fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of
data. Each county around here might need a petabit per second.



Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's
bandwidth, the output torque of a car engine, or the battery
voltage on a portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers
give them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance
even if the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.


Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map
app on
their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their
location even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

A lot of that is improvements in the receiver sensitivity and
throwing more hardware at the problem to facilitate reception.

Nope. Initially it was not permitted for consumer level GPS
receivers to resolve to 'mil levels'.

After it was OKd it was simply a matter of the chip makers to make
a single chip solution needing onlt a single receive antenna device.

Then there was the addition of WAAS which can bring the location
error to as low as 10 feet with a bit of averaging.

It was an 'addition' to the spectrum of what consumers were allowed
to access.

BTW, before
all this the error was a lot more than 30 feet.

On CONSUMER devices.

I recall plotting
the location of a stationary receiver and seeing it wander nearly
100 feet from the starting reported location overnight.

Back then, it would report a differing location points with each
check, every whatever seconds. It did not matter. The military
gear, however, did not have this problem.

NIST used to ping your PC from Boulder Colo with a time setting
timestamp. It would even make up for latencies in your seral port.
Depending on your modem's ISP connection quality, you might see a
different time set timestamp every time you check. Mine got down to
less than a ms of change each test. Some vary more than a second
each time.

It's still not accurate enough to tell you which lane your car is
in. At least, not with a reasonable level of certainty.

A standing test (no motion) is most accurate and repeatable. A
moving test relies on 'old data', even if it is only a couple
milliseconds old and that causes errors.

Lane position determination is and or should be a purely optical
thing.
 
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 09:47:54 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

Joseph Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> wrote in
news:0001HW.22E3854A011B26D5700003BCB2EF@news.giganews.com:

On Jul 20, 2019, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote
(in article <qgv28s$19l1$1@gioia.aioe.org>):

Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave
internet service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's
actually speed testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free,
faster internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about
half our current price. They swapped out the modem today and
the internet here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and
Sonic keep leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a
gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The
backbone fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of
data. Each county around here might need a petabit per
second.

Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's
bandwidth, the output torque of a car engine, or the battery
voltage on a portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers
give them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance
even if the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.

Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map app
on their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their
location even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

Marketing had nothing to do with it. One of the major satellite
vehicle upgrades was to increase the transmit power by about 10
dB, a very big deal. The other upgrade was to turn Selective
Availability off.

Joe Gwinn



GPS signals are the weakest signals we grab. They are right down
next to the noise floor.

It depends how you define the noise bandwidth.

If you use 1.3 MHz, so indeed the signal is well below the full
bandwidth noise.

However, for DSSS the proper way would be to measure the bandwidth
after despreading, in this case 1 kHz, in which there is a slightly
positive SNR.

The actual GPS data rate is only 50 bits/s so the bandwidth is even
much less and the SNR clearly positive.
 
upsidedown@downunder.com wrote in
news:l8g8jehdfb0ie8ejb15r84slo8209a7j0m@4ax.com:

The actual GPS data rate is only 50 bits/s so the bandwidth is even
much less and the SNR clearly positive.

-160 dBm

A VERY weak signal. One of the weakest signals the world currently
processes.

Short of radiotelescope space noise stuff.
 
On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 10:20:59 -0700 (PDT), Rick C
<gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Saturday, July 20, 2019 at 8:43:14 AM UTC-4, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote in
news:gpfkr2Fgv0jU1@mid.individual.net:

On 18/07/2019 3:44 pm, John Larkin wrote:


At work, we signed up with MonkeyBrains for microwave internet
service. We ordered the 50+50 mbit plan. It's actually speed
testing about 350+350.

And at home, a guy from Comcast (our local cable TV pirates)
knocked on the door and proposed to upgrade us for free, faster
internet and more cable TV (including HBO) for about half our
current price. They swapped out the modem today and the internet
here is now running about 450+50 mbits. AT&T and Sonic keep
leaving flyers on the doorknob offering us a gigabit.

Sounds like mad competition to give away bandwidth. The backbone
fiber links must be moving astronomical amounts of data. Each
county around here might need a petabit per second.



Marketing numbers has always been a thing, whether it's bandwidth,
the output torque of a car engine, or the battery voltage on a
portable drill.

People think higher is better, so that's what the marketers give
them. Sometimes it has some real theoretical significance even if
the user won't notice the difference. Sometimes not.

It's all part of the standard ploy of deceiving the ignorant
punter.

Sylvia.


Look at the GPS accuracy levels when it entered the market.

At first all a consumer could get is maybe 10 yard diameter
resolution and don't even think about getting a reading indoors,
while the mil boys enjoyed full, 'current' accuracy.

Now, folks do not even think about it, they pop up their map app on
their 'smart' phone and their little blue blip pings their location
even if they are tooling down the street in a car.

A lot of that is improvements in the receiver sensitivity and throwing more hardware at the problem to facilitate reception.

It seems that some mobile navigators use some additional tricks to
increase (apparent) accuracy.

With relevant street maps loaded, it appears that it displays a fix
point exactly on the road, even if the received fix point was a meter
or two outside the road. This becomes obvious then you drive on a
highway and then take an exit. The displayed fix continues along the
highway even after the intersection. Only after a while, it really
believes that you have exited the highway.

Then there was the addition of WAAS which can bring the location error to as low as 10 feet with a bit of averaging. BTW, before all this the error was a lot more than 30 feet. I recall plotting the location of a stationary receiver and seeing it wander nearly 100 feet from the starting reported location overnight.

It's still not accurate enough to tell you which lane your car is in. At least, not with a reasonable level of certainty.
 
On Sun, 21 Jul 2019 10:55:14 +0000 (UTC),
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:

upsidedown@downunder.com wrote in
news:l8g8jehdfb0ie8ejb15r84slo8209a7j0m@4ax.com:

The actual GPS data rate is only 50 bits/s so the bandwidth is even
much less and the SNR clearly positive.



-160 dBm

That is about right. The noise density for a 300 K antenna temperature
is -174 dBm/Hz, which applies to upper VHF. In a 50 Hz bandwidth that
would be -157 dBm. However, at lower microwave bands and antennas
pointing towards the sky, the antenna temperature is closer to 100 K
or about -178 dBm/Hz, so you get a positive SNR at 50 Hz.

Of course, if you insist to compare for a 1.3 MHz noise bandwidth, the
total noise would be -117 dBm and with -160 dBm signal you would get
-43 dB SNR :)

A VERY weak signal. One of the weakest signals the world currently
processes.

Short of radiotelescope space noise stuff.

Radio telescopes get good sensitivity due to long integration times
(minutes to hours). For this reason, it took quite a long time before
pulsars were detected. The first detected pulsars had a repetition
rate about 1 Hz, too fast for the long integration times generally
used.
 

Welcome to EDABoard.com

Sponsor

Back
Top