Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2008 mails)

[Randall R Schulz <rschulz@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday April 23 2009, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2009/04/23 12:51 (GMT-0700) John Andersen composed:
> > ...
>
> 1-the overall load large attachments put on the email system (and the
> whole internet) generally, not on specific subscribers on slow or
> metered connections

Preposterous!

The bulk of email traffic worldwide is spam, for one thing.

Secondly, email attachments use only a vanishingly small portion of "the 
whole internet's" capacity.

Thirdly, intelligent quote trimming would more than make up for any 
reasonable use of attachments.


> ...
>
> Then too, some admins simply have no grasp or concern for basic
> conservation or economic concepts. Things on this planet have been
> getting scarce for quite some time. That includes raw materials
> required to support the internet backbone, and energy sources that
> keeping it alive requires. --

While in a very narrow and strict sense information is subject to 
physical limits that bring it under the influence of economic forces, 
but for all practical purposes it is not. Load balancing, spare 
capacity and technological improvements can readily keep supply ahead 
of demand, and hence keep prices low. Our technology has vast room for 
improving the ratio of signal bandwidth to energy consumed or matter 
required.

Surely you're aware that the Internet is being increasingly used to 
stream on-demand video (and not just  YouTube quality, either.)

This silliness about email attachments is infinitesimal in comparison.

(On a lark, I recently watched the 1995 movie "Hackers." The protagonist 
kids were depicted as all agog over the new 28.8 Kbaud modem one of 
them had! Woo-hoo!!)


Randall Schulz


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