Chaos Program

A random roundup is what happens when I’m so busy (or lazy, or disorganized) that I start a number of blog posts over a period of several days, but never seem to finish or post any of them. So instead, I slam them together into one big one and pretend like I’m being conscientious. The latest crop includes some notes about Twitter, Facebook, Roadrunner and my old employer the Democrat & Chronicle.

Twitter is bad for you

In other news – if you can call it that – Twitter makes us less moral. Really. Scientists said so (Can Twitter Make You Amoral? Rapid-fire Media May Confuse Your Moral Compass). Apparently, someone thinks that the stream of consciousness that characterizes much Twitter content is too fast to allow people to reflect on other people’s feelings. Do we need to use more smileys? Can you do smileys on Twitter? Having never used a smiley anywhere, I wouldn’t know. But surely those will make us more moral by putting our feelings out there for others to see, right?

Actually, the research seems to imply that Twitter is not good for teaching morality and that someone brought up on 140 character or less communication may have some deficiencies. So when raising children, remember to talk to them sometimes, not just Tweet at them.
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So there’s a story going around that Time Warner Roadrunner is proposing instituting tiered service in Rochester, NY. The levels would start at $29.95/month for up to 5 GB of data transfer and go up to $54.90/month for 40GB of data. There would also be fees for going over your monthly allotment. More details here and here.

This would directly affect me, so I’m not exactly an unbiased observer. But in an unbiased way, my first thought on seeing this structure was, “Between YouTube, Facebook and online Mah Jong or what have you, who on Earth actually uses a lousy 5 gig?” It may sound like a lot to people who don’t know any better but take it from an old – professional – Computer geek. That one is a red herring. They don’t even mean it seriously.  Ignore it (except possibly to be offended by the mendacity of a company that pretends to be offering a low price option that, in effect, no one can use).

My second thought was that there is no need for tiered service. The infrastructure is there, in place. When a particular user downloads some huge file, there is no one in a control center yelling, “Scotty! We need more power! Hurry or she’s gonna blow!” There is no danger that the pipes are going to burst because there are too many electrons going through them. The system works just as well at a user’s first gigabyte downloaded as their hundredth. Tiered usage is a bookkeeping device, completely unrelated to the stresses and strains on the system.

As I said, this will directly affect me and I’m not happy about it. I work from home more often than not. And I take online classes. I can use a half gig (500 mb, 0.5 gb) in a day without even trying. I can do that without downloading any Linux ISOs or software, or using Internet phone (skype – I’ve thought about it but haven’t tried it yet) or viewing YouTube videos or other streaming media, believe it or not. I know this because I have a bandwidth meter installed on my main computer. I’m just that kind of guy. People who use streaming media are likely to use much more.  And pay more. This is starting to sound like a bad thing, especially in a recession.

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