Explain your avatars!

[Tormod]

The server is SLOW? We are probably on the fastest backbone in the world...

[TINNY]

We are probably on the fastest backbone in the world...

what does that mean. i'm not good at sarcasm if it's anything to do with that.

but i downloaded the song at about 20kbs while I normally get around 40 - 60 kbs.

[alexander]

but i downloaded the song at about 20kbs while I normally get around 40 - 60 kbs.[/Quote]

that just means that you have a lot of traffic thats all really...

 

There is a 6 megabyte limit (as in 6,000,000 bytes).[/Quote] techically its 6,291,456 bytes, remember that there are 1024 bytes in a kilobyte and 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte (they are all powers of 2).........

Why do people loose the 24? You might just as well say "hey there are 10 bits in a byte" to make it a nice round number to calculate.

[Tormod]

techically its 6,291,456 bytes, remember that there are 1024 bytes in a kilobyte and 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte (they are all powers of 2).........

Why do people loose the 24? You might just as well say "hey there are 10 bits in a byte" to make it a nice round number to calculate.

 

No, in fact, this is not entirely correct. That's why I stated the full number.

 

Read up here:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212542,00.html

[TINNY]

that just means that you have a lot of traffic thats all really...

well it's 2am here and i'm the only one working at the office right now coz i sleep here. so how come there's traffic? spyware? don't think so coz other downloads, as i said, was 40 - 60kbs.

[Tormod]

2AM??? Go to bed, my friend.

 

The Hypography server is on a very fast abckbone with extremely good redundancy, so I would think that download speeds would be limited by bottlenecks somewhere between Arizona (where the server is) and you.

 

Still, 20kbps is a decent rate. Be happy you're not using dial-up like some of our fellow forum members. ;)

[TINNY]

The Hypography server is on a very fast abckbone with extremely good redundancy, so I would think that download speeds would be limited by bottlenecks somewhere between Arizona (where the server is) and you.

what's a backbone? and redundancy? and bottlenecks? and what's arizona got to do with it?

this'll be my last post be4 i doze off on the monitor screen. ;)

[Tormod]

what's a backbone? and redundancy? and bottlenecks? and what's arizona got to do with it?

this'll be my last post be4 i doze off on the monitor screen. ;)

 

Backbone: The fiberoptic network that connects the large traffic providers worldwide. The closer you are (ie, the fewer connections between you and the backbone), the better quality your line will have.

 

Redundancy: The amount of available connections. If one major connection gets too busy (or a cable is broken), traffic will instantly be routed via other connections. Without redundancy you will lose all connectivity to a host if their connection goes down, but if they have good redundancy then they will remain available.

 

Bottleneck: Anything between the physical connection to the server and your own net connection. Anything from a bad connection to a heavily overused cable can be bottlenecks. Maybe a server somewhere along the line goes down so the signal has to travel via a long alternate route (and via lower bandwith connections) which gives you a connection lag. Usually, the main bottleneck is your own connection or even the connection setup on your computer. The local bandwidth provider may have oversold their traffic capacity too, so that when everyone goes online everyone gets a smaller share of the bandwith. Since you imply that you had a slow connection to our server but not others, it is more likely that the bottleneck in this instance was somewhere else along the connection. Another example of bottleneck problems could be an overcrowded server with too many users.

 

Arizona: The distance between you and the server is important. I used to get complaints that Hypography was slow - but after I stopped paying someone to host it in a server farm here in Norway and moved the site to a very good ISP in Arizona, with extremely good connections and redundancy, there have been very few complaints about the speed. The server could equally well be on the South Pole if only there were the same connectivity and redundancy (and some clever penguins to restart the server when needed).

 

Hope that clears it up somewhat.

[Tormod]

To bring this topic back on track:

 

I changed my avatar from the 33-year-old-version of me to the 3-year-old-version of me. Sometimes I don't even see the difference myself (although I'm not wearing my baseball cap). ;)

[alpha]

Mine is because I'm a fan of the Sopranos, even though I have lost touch of the last 2 seasons.

[pgrmdave]

what can I say, I love Pink Floyd.

[IrishEyes]

FREETHINKER,

is the new avatar a picture of:

1) you in your Father Time personna

2) you in a diaper as Baby New Year

3) both, superimposed by alexander into one cool avatar

 

Either way, I like it. It suits you. Almost as well as that crazy biker dude with the hankie-head you used to sport. Not nearly as angry though, this new one :)

[Aquagem]

My avatar is a picture of a sperm. It was drawn in the early 19th century, after van Leeuwenhoek's microscopes had become powerful enough to see spermatozoa. As usually happens when science finds something new, there are philosophers and priests galore lined up to figure out how the discovery fits into their worldview. This picture is a perfect visual metaphor for how we see the world, and how we want the world to act. Inside the sperm is a little tiny man (homunculus), with a little tiny umbilicus reaching down into the tail, and a little tiny soft spot in its tiny little skull. Of course it's purely imaginary, since the microscope could only resolve a little tiny blob of stuff moving around when the picture was created. It's an extrapolation from scant knowledge to an imaginary higher level, a higher conception (pun intended).

 

We always interpret nature from our viewpoint as a first-order approximation, and a great deal of the history of science has been spent exploding anthropomorphic ideas. At each juncture, we find that nature is deeper and deeper, stranger and stranger, and less and less like us. The closed, warm, familial sense of the traditional religious worldview has given way to a open, constantly changing universe of evolution, and this is the mind-expansion science has made possible.

 

Many never get beyond the first-order approximation, though, and look for human traits in the small and large scales of the universe for traces of themselves. On the small scale, you can read about quanta of intentionality in literature by the Institute for Noetic Sciences (cf. What the *Bleep* Do We Know - a movie). On the large scale, you can find any number of pictures of God as a Big Guy, a Man with a Plan, full of all knowledge, with a full range of human emotions, and so on. Picture the roof of the Sistine Chapel.

 

I use the sperm with a little guy inside to remind me that, if there is a god that isn't just a metaphor we have invented, he, she, it, they, or something else completely, is probably no more like us than a man is like a sperm.

[alexander]

No, in fact, this is not entirely correct. That's why I stated the full number.

I go by the New Hacker Dictionary definition and industry standards set when computers were still something that took up buildings...

 

FREETHINKER,

is the new avatar a picture of:

1) you in your Father Time personna

2) you in a diaper as Baby New Year

3) both, superimposed by alexander into one cool avatar

 

Either way, I like it. It suits you. Almost as well as that crazy biker dude with the hankie-head you used to sport. Not nearly as angry though, this new one :)

Lol, I dont think I superimposed anything (course i would if he asked me to), not if i wasnt sooo tired that i dont remember anything... When did you post your new avatar FT?

[sanctus]

Aquagem, I really like your avatar, mainly for the reason you chose it!

[AsaTaiyo]

My avatar is a single specimin of the ebola virus

[Aquagem]

My avatar is a single specimin of the ebola virus

Why is that meaningful to you? Maybe, because of its potential - small things making great changes? Or the monster we pretend we've overcome, but which is ready to attack any time? I'm just curious...