3 Nov
2002
3 Nov
'02
1:07 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Tothwolf once stated:
Which comes to you via the Internet, which is a local call. Imagine if
you had to dial long distance to participate? Or wait several days for your
message to propagate via UUCP/FIDO? Would it still be as effective?
-spc (Possibly, but it would be a lot slower ... )
I actually made more use of local BBS systems then the web right up till
the end. I found once I lost those, that I still had little use for the
web, and instead more often made use of services such as irc, usenet, and
ftp. Reluctantly, I have been forced more and more to use the web over
more efficient services such as ftp, but I have not been happy with that
change.
I was the opposite. I used BBSs until I found the Internet (actually,
first I found the IBM internal forums when I worked there in 1990, then in
1991 I really started using email/Usenet) and I never looked back. With a
wider range of people and topics to talk about, the local BBS scene just
didn't interest me any more.
That, and the porn was easier to get 8-P
Also, FTP is no more efficient than HTTP---once the data starts coming
there is *no* difference in the protocol at this point---it's just a
straight TCP copy from one system to another and it then comes down to how
efficient TCP is. Zmodem is probably the *most* efficient in the
transferring of data, but you need a nice clean 8-bit communications channel
to gain those benefits; I could *not* use Zmodem reliably while dialed into
the university for instance (couldn't even use Xmodem reliably and instead
had to use Kermit, which is probably the *least* efficient in transferring
data but it works when nothing else can).
I do remember using archie to locate programs available via FTP, and even
pulling one or two packages off Usenet but nowadays I find most of the
software on the web (via Google). Also, using FTP is a pain in these days
of firewalls and NATing (try, just try, FTPing a file between two systems,
each behind a firewall. Can you say ``futility?'')
Perhaps I am being abit of an alarmist here, but I
really don't see the
internet _as a whole_ being able to continue along its current path of
corporate abuse. In reality, it goes well beyond just the internet, and
can be expanded to technology and society in general.
[ snip ]
Most of this I can attribute to entrenched interests maintaining the
status quo, and learning that legislation is a very effective way to those
ends.
The current US (and sadly, even the evolving global)
patent and copyright
systems tend to allow for major corporate abuse. Even universities today
have really tightened down on the free-flow of information, which overall,
has really hurt R/D and innovation in general. Many of the very R/D labs
that gave us the technology that created the internet no longer exist. The
ones that do still exist are for the most part not in R/D mode anymore.
R & D takes a long view on investments, which our current economic system
does not reward. Heck, today, a long view is considered a year, maybe two.
Not enough to support basic research.
CC has the
minds that could set up some sort of FIDO, the thing is to
do it.
Yes, CC seems to be made up of some of the best and brightest minds I've
found on the internet (and over the years, I've been all over the darned
thing). I really wish I'd found classiccmp years ago, since it seems to be
one of the few places where I can often find like minded people that can
understand what I happen to be talk^H^H^H^Hranting about at any given
moment ;)