Counting Bytes

Let me start by saying I never thought per byte billing was a good idea.  But it is what the industry is largely stuck with.  Why? Because we're too dumb to understand other methods.  Nevermind that we're too dumb to really understand bytes, but it is a concept we think we understand.  We don't.  Here's a a brief attempt to explain.

It seems simple to say you get charged a fixed rate for a chunk of downloads.  Say 10 cents for 1 gig of data.  Use 10 gig and pay $1.  Totally cake, right?  Well... did you mean gigaBITS or gigaBYTES?  A byte is 8 bits... so if you bought 10 gigabits you got 8 times less than 10 gigabytes.  Now... does gig mean 1,000,000,000 to you? or 1,024,000,000 to you?  You see a kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes... not a 1000.  Back in the day this difference was tiny and easily ignored.  Today we see the error maginified as kB moved to MB and then to GB and someday to Terrabytes. 

So immediately we find potential confusion in byte counting without even getting in to the technology.  Let's look under the hood...  Let's focus on download bytes as that is what most of us care about and pay for.  We go to YouTube and download 1 gigabyte of video for 10 cents.  So our usage should be 1 Gigabyte, right? Wrong... While it will be pretty close to 1 gig, we run in to problems with overhead.  You see the video you watched was "user data" or "payload".  It was packaged up by YouTube's servers and then sent to other network devices that added their own information in order to send it.  There are some control messages also be sent back and forth to verify all the data was received.  This extra chunk of data is considered "overhead" to you and I, but we couldn't get the funny kitten videos if we didn't have overhead.  So who pays for overhead? Me or the Provider?  Well usually consumers do.  So if I was just counting video size, I'll be a little low of the actual bytes sent.  How low? Well that's a really hard question since it depends on dozens of factors.  How many clips did I download? One big download will have less overhead than many small downloads.  How busy was the line between me and YouTube? If the line was busy, there is a chance a chunk of data got mangled or dropped and had to be re-sent (more overhead).  These factors go on and on making exactly how much overhead experienced impossible to predict.  So again, without looking very hard we've found confusing areas in byte counting.

Now consider malice.  As in, malicious software.  You may be running the cleanest PC on earth completely free of viruses and spyware, but thousands of other users are not.  Their PC's are frequently scanning zombies sending out megs of probes to random address ranges looking for other unprotected hosts.  This background noise on the Internet is constant and unstoppable.  The best we can do is filter out the worst and tell consumers to use various protection techniques.  But a Provider can not fully stop all the background noise.  These unsolicited bytes are sent to you and the Provider counts them against your bill.  The full amount of these will also vary widely on conditions.

Lastly, we have plain ol' boneheaded ignorance.  We don't know how much we're downloading.  We don't realize that CNN's homepage is a few hundred megabytes.  We don't know how big the pop-up ads are.  We don't know how big that video stream really was.  We don't know how big Window's Update really was.  There are million things communicating on consumer PCs these days (and Playstations and networked game consoles).  We are woefully unaware of these transactions.

Byte counting is terrible.  It is always going to be open to very wide interpretation.  Your Provider is always going to seem a bit high and what you're really downloading is (for now) always going to be largely a mystery unless you're a network monitoring professional with a packet analyzer connected on your outgoing link... which is a challenge even for hardcore geeks to get good analysis on DSL or Cable modem lines.

So far this has all been pretty simple concepts.  From here it gets much more complex, but no less confusing and significant.  There are a million valid ways your Provider could be counting bytes.  It will barely make sense to them let alone the customer.  The only thing they have going for them is that whatever system they use will likely be consistent across all consumers.  That is if it 10% wrong, it will be 10% wrong all the time.  As consumers we have to live with it.  Don't ask your Provider to tell you how they do it.  It is unlikely you'll get a coherent answer.  Even if you were an expert in billing systems it would likely take you weeks of research to plot exactly how the byte counting is done from one Provider to the next.

Counting bytes is what we're stuck with for the short term.  But don't get too hung up about accuracy.  The question is too subjective.  I think the only thing we can tell our service providers is "we want it to cost less".  We don't care how.  Just make it cost less... OR be more valuable to us.  But please... lose the byte counting.  It has become meaningless.

A strange string of thoughts

Okay... so Amy woke up humming the tune to "Those were the days" which got me humming it.  Then I played it on YouTube and that made me think of songs by Doris Day.  So I played a little Doris Day.  In that list she sang a song with a co-star, Gordon MacRae.  It was a lovely song and his voice was really amazing.  I was surprised I had not remembered the actor.  So I looked him up on wikipedia.  His bio sums up with, "Gordon died in 1986 at his home in Lincoln, Nebraska." My home town!  It was just sorta weird.  So I looked up more and found a picture of his headstone in Wyuka Cemetery.  That particular graveyard is the largest I can recall in Lincoln.  Related to that search I found out that his widow died just a couple of week ago (also in Lincoln).

Strange how things work when we start chasing a string of thoughts.

Dominating my thoughts has been Doris Day.  On one side I know virtually all the roles she most fondly remembered for were so completely sexist and stereotyping.  Yet, how could you not dream of that perfect Hollywood world?  Movies have certainly changed.  But I still look back on those films (old even before I discovered them) as some of the best I've seen.  Doris, of course, is an amazing performer.  I do wonder sometimes who the greatest actors of our time will turn out to be.  I think folks will look back on Sandra Bullock in a similar way as Doris Day, but Sandra will never carry a tune the same way.  Hard to say what time will bring.

Doris Day is still knocking around after all these years.  Born in 1922, she'll be 88 this year.  I don't think I discovered her until the mid 80's so she would have been in her 60's already.  Ah the magic of movies... Doris will be stealing the hearts of young fans for at least a 100 years.

The real Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff lived a far from perfect life.  Her story is inspiring by itself.  It highlights many of the flaws remaining in American gender roles at the same time it tells of her ability to overcome.  I only hope I can be so resilient in my own life.  When Doris sings in my mind, I feel I can be.

A new meme

Today on Twitter I happened to receive the follow bit of pure gold...

"Totally fucking batshit whack-a-doodle" is completely inappropriate, even when referring to Lindsay Lohan.

Totally Fucking Batshit Whack-a-doodle is a phrase that simply must be added to the list of chat acronyms for all time.  After a bit of consideration, I think FBW is adequate.  This allows you to put in your own adjective.  For example...

Sarah Palin is absolutely FBW.

Everyone associated with Fred Phelps is totally FBW.

Most of what Glenn Beck says is FBW and hypocritical--although he has every right to say it.

The ideal that every American should give 80% of everything they earn over their whole lives to the 10% wealthiest individuals in the world as just the way Capitalism works is completely FBW.

FBW folks... Add it to your list of LOL's, FTW's, OMG's, and ROTFLMAO's. I think it is going to very handy for the next decade.

Aging, as told by George Carlin

George Carlin on aging! (Absolutely Brilliant)

George Carlin's Views on Aging

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we would like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

'How old are you?' 'I'm four and a half!' You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

'How old are you?' 'I'm gonna be 16!' You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!
 
And then the greatest day of your life! You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone...

But wait!!! You MAKE IT to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE IT to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You GET INTO your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; 'I Was JUST 92.'

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. 'I'm 100 and a half!'
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay them.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning! Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever, even ham radio. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' And the devil's family name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

On Kindle, Twitters, and Publishing

Some of you may recall that Oprah did a show back in October featuring the Kindle device from Amazon.  I must admit that I missed it.  For those of you that don't watch Oprah or know what the Kindle is (pictured), the Kindle is an electronic widget that downloads books on to a high contrast large display screen.  It's wireless (uses the Sprint network as a matter of fact) and can store hundreds of titles--each purchased off Amazon's website for a fee from a few dollars to $20 USD.

Why is this blog-worthy?  Well it is a demonstration of a new publishing era.  If you fancy yourself an amateur author (all you NaNoWriMo's) then all you need to do nowadays is convert your masterpiece to a PDF file and post it for sale.  Amazon will even take your book (for a piece of the profit).  Other sites exist to post your books like...

http://www.smashwords.com

http://www.fictionwise.com

...and I'm sure many others.  This is pretty new business and probably a good time to be looking at it.

Publishing in this way has a slim fraction of the overhead costs of a paper printing.  Authors can get a much larger portion of the purchase price.  Digital media will never completely replace the book, but it is a nice way to dabble and take some risks with new authors.

There are other devices as well.  The Kindle2 is probably the coolest, but it only works in North America--due to that wireless dependence on Sprint.  But other versions of readers sync to your computer and therefore can store all the same content for travel--you just won't be able to download from the airport.  Unless, that is, you travel with a laptop.  Clunky, but cheaper.  The Kindle2 comes in at $359 USD.  That's a chunk for most folks--even in America.  But readers will likely come down.  Certainly if readership picks up (and thus purchase revenue increases) you'll see more subsidized devices--where Amazon give the device away cheaper to facilitate more eBook sales.

Stephen Fry is a UK comedian and actor.  While you might remember him from the blockbuster film "V is for Vendetta" (also starring Natalie Portman), he is more recently famous for being the biggest user of Twitter on the planet.  Stephen has over 250,000 followers on the trendy new application.  Twitter lets you type out a short 160 character message that will be broadcast to everyone that choses to follow you.  These messages are usually delivered to your mobile phone via SMS (thus the 160 character limit).  Why is Stephen important to this story?  Well Stephen has recently purchased a Kindle while on holiday in America.  He's broadcasting his positive experiences with the device to all 250,000 of his followers.  While this is only a small fraction of Oprah's viewership, it is a more mobile device oriented crowd.  There is a powerful surge of marketing behind the Kindle now.  Digital publishing is going to increase in the next few years.  Will it hold out as a lasting media? Who knows?  But certainly the short-term outlook is all positive growth.

Digital Blasphemy

For years now I have subscribed to a computer art site at http://www.digitalblasphemy.com.

The site is run by a guy named Ryan Bliss who makes 100% of his living from the annual subscriptions of the site (only $25 a year).  All of the content is top notch.  None of it is even a little bit risque.  It is one of the few money making businesses that is not associated in anyway with "adult content".  For that simple fact alone I think it is worth supporting.  But on top of that factiod, the artwork is amazing.  You gain access to entire library going back to like 1999 plus much more.

It's a great site and I just wanted to plug it.  That pic is just a small image.  He blows them up to 2200x1900 in most cases.  He also has dual and even triple screen images.  But go check it out.  He has an extensive selection available for free.  I don't get anything if you sign up, I just think its a great deal.