"Series of Tubes" Metaphor Implemented 266
meisteg writes to tell us about Tubes: a beta application that uses a tube metaphor to enable users to share files over the Internet. The Windows-only app is free and the company hopes to make money on an enhanced version targeted at businesses. See this video for some details of how Tubes works. From the article: "[Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens] endured ridicule last year for his assertion that the Internet is 'a series of tubes.' But one Web startup hopes to bring that metaphor to life with a new service that makes it easy for people to share videos, songs, pictures and other big files."
Re:Already done with anything P2P-based (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a shame they're aiming for such a tech-illiterate user base, though... their site doesn't seem to mention whether they do BitTorrent-style bandwidth sharing to distribute content.
Re:well-Planespeak. (Score:5, Interesting)
But what did she "get" by looking at the picture? Did she actually understand the server conceptually? Or did it further add to mystery, just with an added mental picture of racks of intimidating equipment?
After all, her Dell laptop could easily perform as a server. And a rack-mount machine can easily function as a workstation. The type of enclosure does not determine the function.
The Real Tubes Metaphor (Score:1, Interesting)
And to the other person worried about getting his computer filled with stuff that other people send you, be aware that we implemented a feature called "On Demand" that lets you see what people are sending you before you accept. Or you can accept it all, delete your local copy, and request a local copy any time you want, on any computer.
Hope that helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to post them on our forum!
Re:"The Windows-only app" (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, they've already done that in Japan... (Score:2, Interesting)
You can get to it by clicking on the Exhibit 3 part of the 3rd floor on their flash-y map. [jst.go.jp]
We, of course, made plenty of "tubes" jokes, but the funniest had to be when one of the balls accidentally popped off the conveyor belt, and the message was dropped as it entered the receiving terminal as being badly formed. Great, because their model showed what happens when you literally drop a packet. *grin*
Re:well-Planespeak. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Pipes" would have been a better word than "tubes" (stuff flows along pipes, but not necessarily along tubes) and I feel roads would be a better metaphor, but "tubes" isn't a bad one.
I confess I don't understand what incorrect interpretation of the internet he was trying to dispell with "not a big truck". That stuff arrives a bit at a time, rather than in one indivisible lump?
Perhaps there is other evidence beyond this showing that the senator is technologically clueless?
My preferred metaphor (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the Internet is NOT like a superhighway
"Think of the Internet as a highway."
There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the "Information Superhighway." They don't know didley about the net. It's nothing like a superhighway. That's a rotten metaphor.
Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net. . .
A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection. No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawnmower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitrogylcerin and idle at 120.
No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirtguns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.
NO OFFRAMPS. None.
Now that's the way to run an Interstate Highway system.
(author unknown)
The problem is metaphors not tubes (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that while an abstraction can be a great way to explain a technical concept to someone non-technical, it isn't a complete understanding of the concept, and when non-technical people try to make decisions based on that metaphor they are often wrong.
The internet is, in some ways, like, a series of tubes, but it is not actually a series of tubes, and when you make decisions about the internet as if it were a series of tubes instead of what it actually is, most of the time you'll get it wrong. Most of our elected officials don't have a technical background so we have a bunch of people trying to make decisions based, at best, on abstractions, or on the advice of experts(who are usually bought and paid for by someone).
Probably the best solution to all of this is to start funding independent pools of experts on technical and scientific fields and then taking their advice, but those sorts of people don't tend to tell the politicians what they're being paid to want to hear, so that'll never happen.
What's New ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Two things -
(1) That p2p Networks are fringe activities, and 99% of the web users will use youtube.com to share videos is a fact these p2p networks have to realise.
(2) There can not be a viable business model for p2p based file-sharing networks which doesn't rely on some sort of Adware or (minor) spyware. Since the volumes can never justify the ad-spend by advertisers, the advertisers will increasingly push for personal information of the users - which, considering the technologies involved, is not very hard to get from the back door.
I salute the PR team of this company on having managed to get their crap of a product on slashdot.
Re:well-Planespeak. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:well-Poolspeak. (Score:2, Interesting)
VOIP: Couriers in faster (non-truck) vehicles can transport small payloads with relative ease.
This is fun! What's next?