Tom Merritt's Blog, page 1207
March 6, 2012
FourCast 111: Beam Me Out Mommy
Hosts: Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson
Pregnancy will get easier, safer and we'll pay the hospital bills in hugs.
Guests: Kristin Brandt and Nicole Lee
Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/fc.
Got a prediction of your own? Guest you'd like to see? Question for the show? Email us at fourcastpodcast@gmail.com.
Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Running time: 50:37
S&L Podcast – #93 – Interview with Andrew Mayne
We chat with author and magician Andrew Mayne. And we mean he's actually amagician, not just magical with stories, although also that. Plus we talk about the best ways to sign Kindle books.
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Tom: 2008 Red Diamond Winery Shiraz
Veronica: 2012 Agua
QUICK BURNS
New Terry Pratchett novel given a title
Brandon Sanderson plans 36-volume fantasy series
Michael Whelan to paint the final WHEEL OF TIME cover
Rudy Rucker's new imprint launches with his complete short stories
2 Science Publishers Delve Into Science Fiction
Science fiction writers irked with Amazon.com, redirect links to other booksellers
INTERVIEW
BARE YOUR SWORD
How do I get my kindle signed?
TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES
Latest GAME OF THRONES S2 trailer
GAME OF THRONES S2 trailer: Seven Devils
New BATTLESTAR GALACTICA pilot completed
BOOK CHECK-IN
The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)by Scott Lynch
Purchase The Lies of Locke Lamora
Hi, this is Chris from Poland again from the ""No, I fixed it!"" debacle 
. I'm now all caught up with the podcast. I just graduated from English Studies at the University of Warsaw. I thought I'd send you guys my MA Theis, as it deals with the cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson (the novels "Neuromancer", "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age").
The Thesis explores the themes of innocence and individualism in American fiction and cyberpunk in particular. Check it out if you're ever bored enough to start reading an academic paper 
.
Cheers, Chris.
NEW MEMBER HELLOS
Irene, Paul, Princess Nenji, Jessica-star, David, Tasha, Jani, Ray, Jukka, Penny, Nick, Jill, Joey, Rob, Justin, Jonny, Laura, Vicky, Joel, Kyle, Steve, Dan, Benjamin, Chad, Stuart, Paige, Jordy, Michael, Christine, RK, Adam, Sergio, Jim, Tim, Virgil, Timi, Sil-in-thar, Richard, Steve, Theresa, Gloria, Caribeth, Jamie, Maike, Paul, Jim, Josh, Joe, John, Joey, Zev871, Silvan, Jason, She'Nundi, Skaw, Steve, Brent, Theodore, Matt, Adrian, Christopher, Charlotte, Jared, Jon, Kam, Penny, Cian (key-in), Dexter, Aarón, Julia, Adam
ADDENDUMS
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times Best Sellers. For listeners of this podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook, to give you a chance to try out their service. For a free audiobook of your choice go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
March 5, 2012
Tech History Today – Mar. 6
In 1886 – The first alternating current power plant in the US was put into regular operation in Great Barrington, Massachusetts
In 1937 – The first woman in space and only woman ever to fly solo in space, Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was born in the Yaroslavl region of Russia.
In 1992 – The first media-hyped computer virus reached fever pitch as the Michelangelo boot sector virus began to affect computers. Worldwide catastrophe did not follow.
March 4, 2012
Tech History Today – Mar. 5
In 1975 – The Homebrew Computer Club, held its first meeting in a the garage of Gordon French in Menlo Park, California. 32 people showed up for the first meeting. John Draper, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were some of the more famous members of the club.
In 1981 – Sinclair Research launched the ZX81 in Britain for £69.95 and would go on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world. It was much more successful than it's predecessor the ZX80.
In 1982 Four days after it's twin, the second of two Soviet probes to Venus, the Venera 14 landed on the planet. Venera 13 and 14 would continue to send data until 1983.
March 3, 2012
Tech History Today – Mar. 4
In 1976 – The first Freon-cooled Cray-1 supercomputer was shipped to Los Alamos Laboratories, in New Mexico at a cost of $19,000,000.
In 2000 – The Sony PlayStation 2 went on sale in Japan.
In 2007 – Election Day was held in Estonia, and for the first time in the world, voters were allowed to vote on the Internet. Approximately 30,000 voters took advantage of electronic voting. Ballots had to be completed three days before election day.
March 2, 2012
Tech History Today – Mar. 3
In 1847 – In Ediinburgh, Scotland, an expert vocal physiology and elocution welcomed his newborn son into the world. He was named after his father. Alexander Graham Bell would gon to become synonymous with the telephone.
In 1885 – The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was incorporated in New York State as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone.
In 1966- The BBC announces plans to begin broadcasting television programmes in colour the following year, becoming the first European broadcaster to provide regular colour broadcasts.
Tech News Today 449: Million Dollar Racks
Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell
The new Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Hackers pwn NASA, mutually assured cyber-terrorism, and more.
Guests: Darren Kitchen and Catherine Hall
Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.
Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.
We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.
Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Running time: 46:02
Tech News Today 448: Probing The Limit Of The Unlimited
Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell
Is Zynga leaving Facebook? AT&T stops throttling you… so much, Japan wags a finger at Google, and more.
Guests: Owen J.J. Stone and Rafe Needleman
Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.
Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.
We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.
Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.
Running time: 47:18
Maybe carriers should take a cue from Bridges and Airports
AT&T has decided to throttle users of it's unlimited plans, and the unlimited wireless data plans are disappearing fast in the US.
Yet a recent study indicated that data caps are a crude and unfair tool for relieving congestion. The study recommends "policies honestly implemented to reduce bandwidth usage during peak hours should be based on better understanding of real usage patterns and should only consider customers' behavior during these hours"
The problem isn't how many bits people use. There is not a big bucket of bits that the carriers will run out of if everybody uses too much. The flashing lights on the routers don't cost more to run either if people are moving their bits through the pipes in large numbers.
What is a problem is connection capacity. If too many people are hitting the towers, as I understand it, the towers have a hard time handling the traffic, and you get the poor wireless data service you see in some big cities and at tech conferences.
There's also the good old fashioned flood of packets that cause increased packet loss as routers get overworked by too much traffic. That's what makes DDOS attacks work. So there *are* problems, but limiting the amount of data I use at 3 AM when nobody else is using the Internet, doesn't help the problem.
Throttling may help some because it knocks people into using a slower network with different capacities, but again it's a brick bat to the head kind of solution. Sure, folks who use lots of data are more likely to be connecting at peak times, but it doesn't mean they are, and it doesn't mean they're the root cause of the problem.
The situation reminds me of any kind of situation where a line or queue forms. Look at bridge tool booths or airport security lines for similar behavior. They can get horribly backed up, but the solution is not to somehow punish or throttle people who drive or fly often.
I suggest that carriers abandon data caps in favor of a 'fast pass' model. When the network reaches capacity or congested situation, all regular users get throttled a bit, unless they pay for a higher tier of service. That may sound bad at first, but remember, that right now, all users get throttled anyway in places like San Francisco, and the only option you have is to pay more to use your phone less. What if, instead you had the same service with the same issue you have now, for the same price but no data cap. However, you had the option to pay more per month to get your connection prioritized. You're not violating net neutrality, because all users are connected, and all traffic is treated equally. You just don't get throttled.
Of course the fast pass model requires pricing that makes it so that not everybody uses it. You want to avoid the situation you see sometimes on the Bay Bridge where the fastTrack lanes are backed up but the other lanes are not.
It's possible they might even be able to provide tiers of fastpass where the more you pay the less likely you are to get throttled. And the throttling only happens at peak times. In non-peak hours everyone has full unthrottled access anyway.
I can already imagine some of you screaming why this is a horrible idea, so have at it, respectfully, in the comments. In the end maybe we can figure out some model that is agreeable to most, if not all? Who knows?
East Meets West 279 – What makes a President
We talk about what goes into making an actually good President and how we should plan for a population decline.
