On 12/9/06, Robert Livingston <bearboat2_at_comcast.net> wrote: > > I am surprised it is not a converted oil tanker filled to the brim > with tens of thousands of people moving leisurely through the water. Scientific American tends to make better comparisons than the purely hypothetical, I think. Besides, I spent some considerable time on tankers (Sun, Exxon and Chevron) and I don't think that they'd be very efficient even if the tanks were filled to the brim with people stacked up like cordwood. > I remember an argument that a ship filled with CD's had the greatest > bandwidth of any "system". I've heard this argument and think that the proponents tend to ignore "speed". That ship might move a lot of data but it wouldn't be very quick. On an electrical network all packets move at the speed of light so, technically, even your old 28kbps dial-up modem is as fast as the fastest optical fiber system. It has the speed; it just doesn't have the bandwidth. Alaska's Senator Stevens was widely laughed at when he said that the Internet is a series of "tubes" but network engineers often use the term "pipe" when they talk about bandwidth. Stevens, in what must surely be one of the few times he was right (or almost right), probably heard someone talking about getting a bigger "pipe" for a system and mis-remembered what the term was. But networks, like water, work better if they have a wider "pipe". Our old trusty 747 can be used to illustrate this concept. If we compare two jet planes; say the 747 and the 737, we know that they travel at pretty similar speeds (about 500 mph). But the 747 carries more passengers so it has a greater bandwidth. But a 737 is cheaper and if you only need to move than bandwidth then it's the better bargain. Craig Jungers Royal City, WA *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Dec 11 2006 - 09:27:59 PST
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