Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!premise!brian From: brian@premise.ZONE1.COM (Brian Moran) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: How to eliminate the cost of over 1/5 (or more) of net traffic Message-ID: <221@premise.ZONE1.COM> Date: 11 May 88 15:34:33 GMT References: <1616@looking.UUCP> Reply-To: brian@premise.UUCP (Brian Moran) Organization: Premise, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 84 The "Saving $228,000" sounds great. There is a slight problem, however. With the current distribution method, the 240k cost is not incurred by a single billable entity (nor a group of entities). The $12k replacement scheme would unfortunately bring these "hidden" charges to light, since the costs would have to be recovered in a more direct fashion (net costs are hidden in phone bills for many sites). Also, those "free" links (unless they are a direct serial line or something) sometimes really aren't. I'd really like to see the traffic in binaries decrease, since to me it seems the abuse of a good thing (the net). What particularly bothers me is in some groups messages like: "Hey, parts 1 and 2 (of 14) of the latest "FrogSnax fractal DNA sequence modeller and disk formatting utilities" didn't make it to my site. Can someone repost it?" which is then followed (ALL TOGETHER NOW, in n-part harmony) by: "Hey, we didn't get parts 3 and 7." (ed. note: A QUANTUM LEAP IN STATISTICAL INFERENCE FOLLOWS:) "Looks like the propogation is screwed up. Maybe we should repost the whole thing." (keyboard spring resilience and $$ are consumed at an alarming rate). Perhaps if the actual transmission costs were born by the people who are interested in these things, there may be less wastage, and more concern for these "bean counter-ian" tasks. How about a scheme like this: - binaries and sources posted ONCE. - didn't get the information? well then, dial up (yes, use YOUR PHONE) a regional (hey, let's get cheap and just make ONE for each continent) distribution center, and get it yourself with anonymous uucp. Oh, ARPA/internet sites. You guys (& gals) may be charged for usage of what has previously been for free for a long time. You may like doing uucp as well after you get your first bill (1/2 :-), only ; have you read about some of the charge-back schemes lately?). People will still be able to mail stuff around (thereby circumventing any savings) but I bet the few that did this would still be less than the wholesale bit-shipping (say that fast a few times) going on now. Or, ever more draconian: - Binaries and sources don't get posted. DESCRIPTIONS and where to get it gets posted. A person would actually have to be interested enough in the post to expend EFFORT to get what he/she wants. This might even cut down on the "COLLECTIVE DISK STORAGE CONSCIOUSNESS" - how many of you have tucked away that posting, thinking "Hmmm, this looks interesting" only to have those disk blocks sit around, untouched, until you were out of disk space? (Oh, those of you with unlimited quotas -- you either don't realize (yet) that you are doing this, or have an iron will). (Why do capitalized words in otherwise normal text remind me of ZIPPY?) CURE THAT JUNK BINARY HABIT! READ A BOOK INSTEAD! Well, that seems like enough. What do I prefer? Hmmm. I think distributions should be accomplished by encoding binaries and sources alike using the "Kansas City" cassette encoding method, and having a "cassette of the month club". Either that, or paper tape. Can't make this stuff easy for the "computer weenies" out there. (okay, okay, okay, before you hit the 'r' or 'f' key - some of this stuff is tongue in cheek, some of it (well, I thought at least) may deserve some fleeting increase in overall brain activity (don't try this at home - people who understand these things are TRAINED PROFESSIONALS!)). Brian K. Moran { ...harvard!mit-eddie,...!mirror}!premise!brian Premise, Inc. brian@premise.zone1.com 3 Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 225-0422 P.S. Of course, this should NEVER be used to more directly pass on the costs of groups like soc.singles, alt.flame and their ilk. (ooooh doggie, I can feel them keyboards heating up now...) -- Brian K. Moran { ...harvard!mit-eddie,...!mirror}!premise!brian Premise, Inc. brian@premise.zone1.com 3 Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 225-0422