Most YouTube videos are 360P at 330 Kbps, topping out at 720P at 2.25 Mbps. But I hear 720P is very rare. (Source)

That project in Alaska burned me up. $5.2 million to bring broadband to 60 people when my county's application only wanted about $4.1 million to bring broadband to *40,000* people. What's wrong with that picture?

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I hope it doesn't. I'll be extremely upset if it does. This money isn't for you. You've got broadband, I don't. Nobody around here does. No 2Mbps DSL, no 30Mbps cable, no wireless, not anything.

This money is supposed to go to underserved and unserved areas, not make your existing connection faster. If you want a faster connection, complain to your provider. I don't even have that luxury because there are no providers here.

What part of that don't people get? Why would it ever be acceptable to spend millions of dollars cranking up the speed of an existing connection "just a faster connection for day to day stuff" when there are millions of people that don't have anything at all?

To hell with that. I'm sorry your DSL isn't as fast as you want, but least you've got it.

Apple hardware launches are like game launches, they have a huge legion of fans that buy anything they make which means huge upfront sales that don't hold. Apple will not sell 1 million iPads per month. Comparing a hardware launch month to regular sales (for an entire class of hardware no less instead of an individual item) is apples and oranges right off the bat.

Didn't Apple say it sold 300,000 iPads in the first day (projected 700,000 by analysts)? That would mean they only sold another 600,000 in the remaining 30 days.

Day 1: 300k
Days 2-30: 20k per day average.

48 million netbook units per year is ~131,000 per day, average. A straight average, while Apple's is a curve from the launch.

The telcos will never, ever run new lines to people like you. The cost per subscriber would be so high that they could never recover their investment, ever (factoring in time-value of money).

Sorry, but that's BS. They can build it out and it will cost a lot, but it's an investment, not a loss. And for telcos not even all that large.

Consider my own situation. I live roughly 9 miles from the exchange, and from what I understand it'd take a grand total of 1 regenerator to reach me. But that's not even necessary, because I also live roughly 1.9 miles from an equipment site that has power, a cinderblock "shed" with halon fire suppression systems and air conditioning, and perhaps 4-5 outdoor metal boxes with various equipment inside of them -- all connected to that exchange I just mentioned via fiber, fiber that has been in the ground for half a decade already.

If they put a DSLAM out there and flip a switch, not only do the people out here get DSL, they get pretty decent DSL at that. So what's that cost, $100k? $150k today?

You can't tell me with a straight face that they can't afford that investment. I've got a dial tone, and I've got electricity. Those lines weren't paid for with magic beans, they were paid out of debt and have long since been recouped.

Either these shitty companies need to start making investments -- for their own damn good -- or the government needs to force them to do it. Hell, we're bailing out the insurance companies, let's bail out the telcos too while we're at it. At least it'll be a one-time thing.

In the article, broadband internet and cellular access are considered to be available to everyone, though many Americans are still without decent internet access.

Well that's news to me, since I have no broadband. Sprint->Embarq->CenturySomethingOrOther has told our county that they've rolled out all the service they intend to, pretty much. My exchange isn't even over 50% for DSL availability. Time Warner has told the county the same thing. They've got all the easy customers they want and are telling anyone that asks from the state that they have no intention of rolling out new service anywhere, for any reason. Not even if the state pays them with subsidies and grants. Both companies have refused to even submit proposals for the broadband stimulus money -- they don't want it. They've got what they want and screw the entire communities being left behind.

So AT&T, fuck you. There are a ton of people in this country that have nothing and will get nothing for the foreseeable future.

As to landlines, fuck you again. I get one bar at home and have to wander around the yard to send a text. My battery that lasts 14 days in any normal place lasts about a day out here, it has to run so hot. I've got 40,000 people with me, so it's not like there are five guys living in a barn out here.

I swear these telco companies are some of the most evil our country has.

My exact same thoughts as I read the summary/article; why would netbooks fade away? They fill a gap that must be filled: an ultra-portable computer. Laptops are not the same, and phones have nowhere near the capabilities for a lot of people. Yes, mobile phones are getting more and more technologically advanced by the quarter, and yes, I'm loving every bit of it, but netbooks will still hold their own.

But not everyone has four PCs or Macs to set up a LAN. Console games let four players look at one screen. (I admit that the setup is not ideal for first-person shooters, but not all shooters are first-person, and not all games are shooters.) It would be possible to play multiplayer games on a PC and an HDTV, but PC games tend to ignore this possibility because not everyone has an HDTV, let alone an HDTV in the same room as the PC.

Yes but it's "normal" for companies to infringe vast numbers of patents in any product of decent size.

If I understand right (not trying to straw man this) you're saying our choices are ruled by enterprise or give up the choice to rule?

I'd say that contrasts with all modern society?

A treatment is akin to an inventor writing down an idea on a cocktail napkin. Before they even get to the pilot script, it'll have to be expanded by another nine pages or so, and if it exists as part a development deal rather than something done on spec, it'll most likely go back and forth between the exec and the studio a half dozen times before just that ten page treatment is given the OK.

The pilot script will probably go through at least that amount of haggling, and would need to be followed up with or maybe even proceeded by an entire series treatment which will probably take weeks if not months to do, before the studio would even consider shooting the pilot.

Not trying to rain on the parade or anything, I just want to put into perspective what this means, which isn't a whole lot right now. This is step one out of tens of dozens. Long way to go here.