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The Internet

Follow Internet2's Upgrade 129

An anonymous reader writes "This is a follow-up to this story posted several months back. Abilene, the backbone for Internet2, is starting its upgrade and has a webpage up to follow the installation. Looks like quite a few interestesting documents and photos. The first Juniper T640 router was installed in Indianapolis on Friday. Anyone who's interested in what goes into a nation-wide network deployment should check it out."
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Follow Internet2's Upgrade

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  • Alright (Score:2, Funny)

    by Com2Kid ( 142006 )
    I say that we all try our hardest to /. this baby and show those foo's that the old skool 'net ain't down for the count yet!
  • From the looks of the hi-res pictures on their website, Internet2 is going to need the extra bandwidth. Viva la Slashdot Effect!
    • Re:Hi Res (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      they are taunting the slashdot effect!
      i most surely wouldn't post an index of some 20+ pictures and have each picture go to a 1536x2048 1.5 meg file if i was trying to conserve bandwidth...

      but considering they can transmit an entire cd across several thousand miles faster than it takes me to run outside from my computer room... i don't think the 'effect' will happen...
    • Although the pics are very high-rs, apparently Internet2 is very blurry [iu.edu].
    • Re:Hi Res (Score:3, Insightful)

      I'd rather say that people on Internet2 must be used to fast high quality lines where you don't really think about the size of the files.
      Ah, to work directly connected to the backbone, and here I am on my slow 2mbit line
  • Hurray! (Score:3, Funny)

    by xenocide2 ( 231786 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @02:18AM (#4088003) Homepage
    Now all my intercollegiate... "transfers" will procede faster than I can burn them to CD!
  • If the link to their site gets slashdotted, Internet2 isn't all its whooped up to be. :-) [j/k]

    "Installation Practice and Drills". Damn. When we install at a new co-lo, I usually have this down on a dinner (White Castle) napkin two hours previous, lose it, and do our practice-and-drill in production-real-time. There's definitely something to be learned about build-out and deployment just from looking at their pictures. 8-/
  • by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @02:40AM (#4088049)
    I don't want faster pr0n... pichunter_com is as good as it gets. What I want are my MRI or XRay scans after a hospital visit. I want Video Conference that works as smoothly as a telephone does today. "Can you *see* me now? Good!" Getting rid of lag on RTCW multiplayer is good, but MEDICAL, RESEARCH, and other life changing, usefull applications must take advantage of this.

    And does anyone see the general public being denied access to this, because a DVD can be shared as easily as an MP3 today? I bet the RIAA would try to stop us slashdoters et. al. from using it. If they are starting to sue backbone providers, it's not above their heads to try it.

    Either way, I hope geeks and others who love progress get it up and running. Good luck, Internet v2.0, because Internet v1.0 sure has turned into a pile of crap (and by crap, I mean DeCSS linking being illegal, anything to do with RIAA, and PopUp adds).

    • Good luck, Internet v2.0, because Internet v1.0 sure has turned into a pile of crap (and by crap, I mean DeCSS linking being illegal, anything to do with RIAA, and PopUp adds).

      ...and what makes you think those won't affect Internet v2? I'm sure it's under the same vein legislation-wise

      But, yeah, you're right, let's use for something useful this time...

    • by alexburke ( 119254 ) <alex+slashdot@al ... a ['urk' in gap]> on Saturday August 17, 2002 @03:29AM (#4088125)
      Good luck, Internet v2.0, because Internet v1.0 sure has turned into a pile of crap (and by crap, I mean DeCSS linking being illegal, anything to do with RIAA, and PopUp adds).

      That's because the government of the country where most of the Internet is located has turned into a pile of crap -- or at least has been sufficiently monetarily lubricated to allow the laws which govern the citizens of that country (and therefore many of the Internet's users) to turn into a pile of crap (as far as those citizens/users are concerned).

      The whole fucking situation really sucks. I wish people in charge would just see what's right instead of seeing what's greenest.

      Fuckers.
  • I think that this picture [iu.edu] was actually taken at Exodus in San Jose, CA. or possibly AboveNet.

    "is there an echo in here?"

  • by ikekrull ( 59661 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @02:42AM (#4088055) Homepage
    Since the Internet2's huge amount of available bandwidth is surely grounds for a contributory copyright infringment case.

    Might as well nip these new developments in piracy-enabling technologies in the bud.

  • very usefull (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nzru.() ( 594927 )
    Already the plethora of useful and public applications can become a reality. Real time video conferencing, news streams, medical surgery with full 3d video even with VR enhancement to get that "effect" of real life. Imagine medical procedures being done REMOTELY with this kind of bandwidth, provided it's reliability is in fact, a reality. Double-Plus Good! The talk about the **AA's is irrelivent. Anything that's produced for the common good of the people will always, in some way or another, be used for bad/illegal pourpeses. It's a fact, get over it. __ It's not trolling, it's my honest opinion!
  • Heck that's close enough that I could drive up and hand them the data almost as quickly.

    I'm glad though that it's close, hopefully our local 'bones (TimeWarner, UUNet, etc) can get on this when done.
  • A Student (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jjonte ( 145129 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @03:05AM (#4088090)
    I'm a senior undergrad in New Media [iupui.edu] at IU Indianapolis. The University is always quick to show all this fancy equipment and high technology stuff (Internet2, CAVE)...but the students never see it or use it. We fund it, but we're not allowed to touch.
    • Re:A Student (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gaurang ( 565357 )
      I am at a university in california. Same thing here, the students are not allowed access to the high-tech stuff at the Univ.
      But its correct since the the faculty and research assistant students who do research using that stuff are allowed to use it, and that makes for a proper use of it. If you let all access it, it will turn into a pile of junk soon.
    • Re:A Student (Score:4, Insightful)

      by David Price ( 1200 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @05:44AM (#4088282)
      I'm not sure how it's architected at your school, but at mine [rice.edu], everyone with an on-campus network connection transparently gets benefit from Internet2. It's very simple: If your packets are going to an institution connected to Internet2, then they get routed over Internet2. The routing decision is made at the campus border. No problem, everyone gets to use it. All Internet2 is is a new, fast backbone that a select group of research institutions gets to use.

      I've gotten faster transfers from machines at MIT than ones 400 yards away from my dorm room as a result of this hookup.

      Isn't this how most institutions are using Internet2? Just put another card in the border router and let everyone at it. It doesn't seem to make sense to pay all that money for a high-speed network connection and not integrate it with your campus network.

      (Incidentally, a traceroute to the webserver you linked in your post passes through Abilene.)
      • Washington State's K-20 network [wa.gov] is also connected to I2. Run a traceroute to the border router at my workplace (colville-k12.wa-k20.net) and if you're on I2, your packets will go through Abilene before they get routed to K-20 at the Westin [k12.wa.us] Building [skyscrapers.com] in Seattle.

        It is nice to be able to download a ISO of the latest distro in 10 minutes (we only have 2 T-1's at work).
      • I2 is given priority in the routers over I1. If you want to get at anything on any other I2 site, it will travel over the Abline link. This is good as it provides an average of about 15mbps relief on our main links (which cost a whole lot more) and that number is growing.

        The particular setup we have is there are three seperate border routers, each has an OC-3, one goes to Abline, the other two to our two I1 providers. Those than connect to two other routers that deal with traffic distribution.

        It works very well and we've been very happy with the I2 link so far.
    • Georgia Tech is the same as Rice is according to the other poster. Traffic is automatically routed through the Internet2 if you are going to a connected institute.

      I also know that if you have readon to need access, we have the ability to get access to any technology on campus. Just with two e-mails I have access to at least 5 supercomputers on campus, and if I need more access I can e-mail.

      I'd bet that if you actually need access to the systems, then you can probably get it, but giving access to a CAVE system to all students just so that they can play Quake3 on it would be stupid on the part of the IT department.
    • The guys who responded already are on the money.
      So here's a response from someone on your campus. any packets you send that go to a sight on abilene will get routed through there automatically. (so if you have a choice between a download off of commodity or .edu site, take the .edu site. as a rule of thumb.) On the cave, I don't know the vr lab's specific policies. But if you do have a valid use for it they are happy to work with you. When I last toured it, they offered to work with anyone who had a glimmer of needing to use the tech there.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Students fund it. A university would be just a bunch of people talking to themselves and not getting paidif it weren't for the students. Don't forget who butters your bread.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Actually, no students pay very little for this stuff. Most of the money comes from grants and other subsudies. The university system is just another state sponsored R&D site.

            I would disagree. Students ARE very important. Many private universities are not at all state funded, they are more of a business. If there is sufficient focus on the students, those students will eventually become weathy alumni who fondly remember their college days, and with a substantial gift.

            we've shot ourselves in the foot and can barely keep our budget in line now. Research is the lifeblood of the university. Without it, you'd be paying $1000 a credit hour (like most private institutions) instead of the $150 you do now.

            It is good policy, and very forward looking of the institution, to focus on the students for this reason. Alumni money is vital.

            HOwever, I DO agree that some schools [utsports.com] are completely off focus a\nd need to evaluate the balance between students, research, and making money off side businesses [ncaa.org]. Not that I've never enjoyed a good football game, but anyway, I'm off topic as it is.
    • Have you asked nicely to see something in action when next it's being used? Don't try to get to do whatever you want with $50k worth of equipment, it ain't gonna work. Talk to the people responsible for the equipment, find out more about it, then nicely ask if there's a time you could have a look at it being used.

      Yes you pay a lot of money, but so does everyone else. Your department doesn't get all the money you pay. They have to fight with every other department for your money. And a "senior undergrad" is about as important as "head janitor" in the university food chain :) There's thousands and thousands of you. If you ever get into post-grad studies, it's a different story :)
    • The University is always quick to show all this fancy equipment and high technology stuff (Internet2, CAVE)...but the students never see it or use it.
      I would venture to say that you use it daily. Have you ever transferred a file to or from another university in the US? The packets went over Abilene (the Internet2 backbone).
    • go to unixfest... you can play around with the CAVE, tour the i2/abilene noc, even do lots of hands on stuff. Anyway... come on down to Bloomington, where the big boys are.
  • by unsinged int ( 561600 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @03:32AM (#4088129)
    from the unable-to-slashdot dept.
  • What would make me happiest is if they would turn off IPv4 on the damn thing, and force everyone to use IPv6, or not be able to connect.

    It will truly suck to have all this shiny new equipment deployed and talking to its peers at incredible speed... without a shiny new address space to go with it.

    -- Terry
    • Uhh, ipv6 is kinda the point of it anyway. The "Internet2" (also known as the "6Bone") _is_ the global ipv6 test network, after all. IPv6 is all it runs. Around my neck of the woods, its implemented as a mesh of SIT and GRE tunnels, but the backbone runs native.

      I wonder how many hops off of this shiny new hardware my poor little ipv6 GRE-tunnel sits...

      • I'm not affiliated with Internet2, but reading the docs indicates that it is routing both IPv4 and IPv6. The former done over BGP and the latter over IS-IS. It goes into how the BGP is encrypted via MD5 and that the IS-IS only shares info via a plain text authentication. I imagine it will eventually migrate to just IPv6, but prolly is waiting on support from M$. ...
      • by noahm ( 4459 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @11:03AM (#4088746) Homepage Journal
        Uhh, ipv6 is kinda the point of it anyway. The "Internet2" (also known as the "6Bone") _is_ the global ipv6 test network, after all. IPv6 is all it runs. Around my neck of the woods, its implemented as a mesh of SIT and GRE tunnels, but the backbone runs native.

        No, that is simply untrue. There is no connection between the 6bone [6bone.net] and Internet2 [internet2.edu]. They are certainly not the same thing. It's perfectly normal to speak IPv4 on Internet2. I do it all the time, as do most people who send packets between major .edu sites. Internet2 is the testbed for not only new software networking technologies, but new hardware technologies as well. There is no hardware involved in the 6bone.

        Here is a traceroute that goes over Internet2:

        traceroute to infopath.ucsd.edu (132.239.50.184), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
        1 anacreon (18.24.4.1) 0.854 ms 0.510 ms 0.506 ms
        2 radole (18.24.10.3) 1.505 ms 1.167 ms 1.547 ms
        3 B24-RTR-1-LCS-LINK.MIT.EDU (18.201.1.1) 1.997 ms 1.409 ms 2.448 ms
        4 EXTERNAL-RTR-2-BACKBONE.MIT.EDU (18.168.0.27) 1.140 ms 1.274 ms 1.366 ms
        5 192.5.89.89 (192.5.89.89) 1.768 ms 1.718 ms 1.191 ms
        6 ABILENE-GIGAPOPNE.NOX.ORG (192.5.89.102) 7.337 ms 6.181 ms 6.647 ms
        7 clev-nycm.abilene.ucaid.edu (198.32.8.29) 20.210 ms 18.777 ms 19.306 ms
        8 ipls-clev.abilene.ucaid.edu (198.32.8.25) 26.019 ms 24.682 ms 26.679 ms
        9 kscy-ipls.abilene.ucaid.edu (198.32.8.5) 34.042 ms 35.163 ms 34.527 ms
        10 dnvr-kscy.abilene.ucaid.edu (198.32.8.13) 46.358 ms 45.230 ms 44.955 ms
        11 snva-dnvr.abilene.ucaid.edu (198.32.8.1) 69.201 ms 70.373 ms 69.657 ms
        12 losa-snva.abilene.ucaid.edu (198.32.8.18) 77.485 ms 78.125 ms 77.248 ms
        13 USC--abilene.ATM.calren2.net (198.32.248.85) 78.248 ms 77.353 ms 79.467 ms
        14 UCSD--USC.POS.calren2.net (198.32.248.34) 81.871 ms 81.249 ms 81.188 ms
        15 198.32.248.186 (198.32.248.186) 80.856 ms 81.965 ms 81.400 ms
        16 node-b-msfc--ucsd-gw.ucsd.edu (132.239.255.141) 83.473 ms 82.277 ms 80.897 ms
        17 muir-rsm--node-b-msfc.ucsd.edu (132.239.255.161) 82.902 ms 82.777 ms 81.225 ms
        18 infopath-1.ucsd.edu (132.239.50.182) 83.200 ms * 84.386 ms

        Hop 6 is where my packets enter Internet2, and hop 15 is where it leaves it. There is no IPv6 spoken along the way. Now here, just for fun, is an IPv6 traceroute going over the 6bone:

        traceroute to 6bone.net (3ffe:b00:c18:1::10) from 2002:121a:12:1804:2a0:ccff:fe57:ccd9, 30 hops max, 16 byte packets
        1 3ffe:1ce1:2:1804::2 (3ffe:1ce1:2:1804::2) 1.697 ms 0.391 ms 0.36 ms
        2 sipbv6-rtr-sipb-ether.ipv6.mit.edu (3ffe:1ce1:0:b5::1) 509.888 ms 304.953 ms 305.882 ms
        3 6bone.merit.edu (3ffe:1c00::3) 306.205 ms 305.879 ms 305.286 ms
        4 rap.ipv6.viagenie.qc.ca (3ffe:b00:c18:1:290:27ff:fe17:fc0f) 306.464 ms 306.109 ms 304.732 ms
        5 www.6bone.net (3ffe:b00:c18:1::10) 306.389 ms 308.274 ms 307.396 ms

        Let me repeat that: Internet2 and 6bone are unrelated!

        noah

        • Silly to reply to my own comment, but...

          If you take a look at www.internet2.edu [internet2.edu] you'll see that they've just (as of August 5) announced native support for IPv6. That certainly is cool, as it's a major step towards getting IPv6 some more mainstream use. Provided that the sites on I2 have the ability to route IPv6, this means that users at the sites will be able to get real IPv6 connectivity to other I2 sites without tunneling. Way cool.

          (Of course, anybody can get IPv6 Internet access using tunnels. See freenet6.net [freenet6.net] and some 6-to-4 information [6bone.net].)

          But I2 still isn't the 6bone. ;^)

          noah

      • by shalunov ( 149369 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @01:31PM (#4089361) Homepage
        The "Internet2" (also known as the "6Bone") [...]
        Internet2 and the 6bone aren't related at all.

        Incidentally, we run both IPv4 and IPv6 on our Abilene backbone.

    • What would make me happiest is if they would turn off IPv4 on the damn thing, and force everyone to use IPv6, or not be able to connect.

      I don't see much point in that. Most people today are (or should be!) writing address family independent code (note1 [cscene.org], note2 [cscene.org]). Applications should be able to speak IPv4 and v6 natively with little trouble. So you should be able to speak IPv4 or v6 over I2; there's no reason that you need to prefer one over the other.

      Also, I2 access is completely transparent for most sites. All it really involves is a new interface on a router and the software configuration to send I2-destined bits over it. This makes it really really easy for researchers to use I2. Since IPv6 is still an experimental protocol, it wouldn't really make sense to force research not directly related to IPv6 to use it.

      noah

      • "I don't see much point in [making Internet2 IPv6-only]".

        The main problem is that if people can use IPv4, there is no incentive for them to change over to IPv6. What this really means is that there's no incentive for Microsoft to include it be default in their desktop OS's. IPSec is languishing because Microsoft has not included it until very recently. Even so, the IPv4 IPSec they've included does not include cryptogrpahy, it only include authentication and non-repudiation.

        That's great if you want evidence to accuse someone of a crime, but without the third part of the IPSec specification being implemented, it doesn't provide privacy... for things like credit card numbers.

        "Applications should be able to speak IPv4 and v6 natively with little trouble."

        And if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. Not only is it easier to implement IPv4-only code ("just do what you've always done, instead of learning a new way to carefully code"), and impossible to test non-IPv4 operations without a lot of effort, given the non-deployment of IPv6, doing otherwise damages your code portability to platforms which have not implemented IPv6 interfaces and transport agnostic resolver and other code. As long as this is true, and there's no overriding incentive for IPv6, IPv6 will not be widely deployed.

        Personally, I fully expect my analog television to have signals to receive for the next decade, rather than the 2004 date that's been pushed back to 2006, when analog broadcasts were scheduled to cease.

        I also fully expect to have incredible difficulty getting a static IP, as long as the IPv4 address space is the primary address space.

        While apparently dissimilar, there is a common cause for both of these issues: there is a good reason that the phrase "backward compatability" has the word "backward" in it.

        "Since IPv6 is still an experimental protocol[...]"

        Wrong. RFC 240 is standards track, and has been since December of 1998. All Cisco equipment has had IPv6 capable software loads available since June 24th, 2000.

        What good is Internet 2 going to

        -- Terry
  • It's good to see vendor J getting more exposure (go go BSD!) but I don't see anything in the docs about the choice of routing platform. Does J support something vital that vendor C does not yet provide? Or is it just a preference for clean code over crufty ol' IOS?
    • It's actually kind of interesting - notice while you're looking at it that the switch is a Cisco Catalyst and their termserver is a 2511... So, they must not be overly biased against Cisco, but Junier does have some good things going for it in it's high end routers that the C12000's still can't touch.
  • by Nazmun ( 590998 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @04:26AM (#4088195) Homepage
    I don't really see how this would increase our bandwidth in a revolutionary way. Maybe latency will improve with a better network infastruction but the same thing that prevent large bandwidth usage in the internet will probably plague internet2.

    One of the highest cost backbone providers suffer comes from laying down fiber. This has caused many to declare bankruptcy. Equipment (not talking about those home linksys routers) are crazily expensive as well. I don't see how internet2 will magically bring down the prices of either of the two dramatically. Equipment like this will always be expensive to ISPs and laying down fiber isn't going to get cheaper either.

    I admit I am not an expert in this arena but that doesn't change the cold hard facts that I'm seeing. Money seems to be the major factor that is preventing the current internet from utilizing higher bandwidth applications.
    • Well, the real issue, now that the people who paid for laying fiber down went bankrupt, is not a matter of investment...
      There is actually a bandwidth overcapacity and miles of unused dark fiber. The problem is to find a major operator that can come up with a successful business model / pricing scheme for that bandwidth :
      - if it's too expensive, people won't buy it
      - if it's too cheap, they go bankrupt, and we are back where we started
      It's not really a matter of equipment and investment but rather a matter of maintenance cost and business models.
      • I'm not disagreeing with you at all... I just don't see internet2 as something that will solve our bandwidth issues. This is true... but alot of the hype that internet2 is generating are things like video phones and other high bandwidth applications. Currently the average user is on a 56k modem but most of the hyped applications use at least 10x that bandwidth. If the average user at least 500 kb/s of bandwidth and the number of users increase then I can easily see all that dark fiber being lit and still not be enough.
      • - if it's too cheap, they go bankrupt, and we are back where we started

        Well, if the company goes bankrupt, the next guy will buy the assets for even less money and the service will become even cheaper.

        The fiber is already in the ground. The debt restructuring will continue until the market determines the price at which it will operate... presumably at much cheaper prices, eventually......

    • Fiber? You've got to be joking. There's tons of it looping the earth, completely unused. Connecting two cities is pretty cheap and easy. It's connecting every house to every other house in both cities where you run into problems.

      Anyways, I don't think the point of Internet2 is to increase bandwidth so much as to provide protocol improvements for security, roaming, etc and to alleviate any shortage of IP addresses.

      • This is true... but most of the unused bandwidth is here in the U.S. (I wouldn't say earth). But the applications the internet two are hyping and the applications most slashdotters are concerned with require far more bandwidth then the average net user is using now. In the short term fiber isn't a problem but the same bandwidth problems that plagued the current net will also affect net2. If you go to their site you'll see in their presentations a lot of stuff related to high bandwidth applications. It is true that if you look at their work it's really just infastruction/protocol improvements but that is not what they are hyping.
  • Connection (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tom1974 ( 413939 )
    In Japan we get 8Mbps adsl service for less than $50 and they're testing a 12Mbps service, which is slated for service pretty soon. Damn awesome, like nowhere else in the world :) with that who needs internet2? ;)
    • with that who needs internet2?

      I guess with consumers eating bandwidth like that, your isp and its carriers would :)
    • Re:Connection (Score:3, Interesting)

      by forkboy ( 8644 )
      If all 40 million people (or however many Japan is up to these days) get 8-12 Mbps service, you're going to NEED Internet2 caliber backbones in place. All the bandwidth in the world at your house does you no good if the infrastructure can't support it.

    • I have 100Mbit 8-) at my home, for 10,--, excluding the money I pay for going to the university.
    • Fat pipes don't make a difference surfing the net. Its broadband applications that can use the xtra flow that need it e.g video chat, on-demand video , fat downloads etc., and for that traffic usually stays local here.

      Plus almost everyone I know runs some kind of server and mirrors content and downloads. Like, think of p2p, first few downloads come from the outside, then the rest gets distributed locally.
    • My internet connection isn't near that, but it's still pretty cool. There is an internal speed (to all computers on our ISP's network) of 2-11 Mbps, and a 128 Kbps connection to everything else. It is on one end of a balance: price vs. speed. I can't do stuff that internet2 can, nor could I even if I had a connection of twice your speed. But I do get it cheap: $25 per month, you only pay extra if you exceed 4 GB in a month. And you can get a low-end computer for $150.

      It is a trade-off. Although I sit at one end, I can still look happily to the other, and know that in a few years I'll be going to a college with internet2.

  • I wonder if RIAA will be asking carriers to block sites [slashdot.org] on this network as well.......
  • Shiny Junipers! (Score:2, Interesting)

    Nice to see they're switching to Juniper equipment. Our 'internet2' (being Gigaport [gigaport.nl] is still built upon Cisco 12k's.

    On a more relevant note: I saw a demonstration of some of the capabilities, where a 2GB MRI scan was transmitted from a hospital to a university where it was examined in a CAVE. Very neat and useful stuff.
  • We, in a european university, have noted some time ago a big increase of speed, just since our network get connected to GEANT [geant.net] (the european counterpart for Abilene).

    At least, I thank our goverments for putting our taxes to work for "all" of us and not only for corporations...

  • ah ahem why post port assignments of the routers.. don't they want hackers to stay out?

    Of course what else can you expect from IU? We all know when you need something done right you call Purdue!
  • Wimps! (Score:3, Funny)

    by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @08:32AM (#4088455) Homepage
    From the photos:

    Each crate weighed around 400 lbs, which is why you'll see three people moving one box.

    Now I know that geeks aren't exactly renowned for their great physical strength, but does it really take 3 of them to move a 400lb box on a pallet trolley?

    In my local supermarket I've seen young girls moving pallets full of new stuff for the shelves on these trolleys where the load is up to 1 tonne! (that's one girl moving the trolley, BTW).
    • Yeah, but no-one really cares that much when it's just bottles of milk crashing to the floor...
      • If you bothered looking at the pictures, you'd notice they were using a pallet trolley. The crate couldn't "fall over", and could have been moved with 1 finger...
  • by Quixote ( 154172 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @08:47AM (#4088480) Homepage Journal
    In the 1930s, the Public Works Administration started building lots of highways, interstates, etc. to keep the people occupied, and to pull the US out of the Great Depression (when unemployment reached 25%).

    Could a similar thing be done with the Tech world today? Building and rolling out lots of infrastructure (after all, the Internet is the "highway" of the 'net), could the tech economy be pulled out of the doldrums?
    I'm just musing aloud here...

  • hostnames? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by bobbyt ( 260013 )
    Is ICANN and Verisign going to take over and run a monopoly on Internet2 also?
  • All day I've been wondering why my connection to the world is messed up. Can't get to ebay, can't get to Slashdot. I finally pulled out the modem card I use when traveling and dialed in through an ISP. Poof, everything works.

    Moral: never install big new things on Friday.

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