Copper, because you don't string fiber on poles. It needs to be laid underground and as level as possible, so the light going through the strands follows the straightest path from A to B.

With all due respect, that's utter nonsense.

I can illustrate that. These are the old copper voice pairs, crossing the canal on the way up to my village.



And the extra cable at the very top is the fibre they installed to bump our broadband speed (for two cabinets, the whole village) from ~5 Mbits to ~40 MBits.

The goal with Google Fiber is to bring fiber to every home and business in the whole city, and then the ISPs that are there have multiple options: A) keep using their existing infrastructure and become competitive with their pricing and options, or B) lease usage on Google's system and provide competitive pricing since they no longer have to pay for upkeep on the infrastructure.

That's an expensive, but savvy move on Google's part.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

The goal with Google Fiber is to bring fiber to every home and business in the whole city, and then the ISPs that are there have multiple options: A) keep using their existing infrastructure and become competitive with their pricing and options, or B) lease usage on Google's system and provide competitive pricing since they no longer have to pay for upkeep on the infrastructure.

That's an expensive, but savvy move on Google's part.

Yep. When it was first introduced, Google decided it would bring it to six US cities. They had basically an audition/contest to find out which cities deserved it the most.

The reason Google came up with this idea is because.. they had US$24-billion in liquid cash and would have to pay taxes on that if they didn't spend it on something. So they spent it on something, and it was successful enough that they've rolled it out to more and more cities.

And ya know what?

There is simply something really cool 'bout being a nonconformist.
It just fits like fine suit sometimes.
And what is really super cool is the fact that the conformists can't do a damned thing about it. And I give them such a pain in the groin that it makes me squeal with delight.

What you all need to do to grow up a little bit is.....
Learn how to take a bullet.

With all due respect, that's utter nonsense.

..

Sheesh.

Perhaps you want to look up what 'with all due respect' means before posting the complete opposite again.

I wasn't talking about the flimsy cable Richard shows in his photo's, I was talking about the big main fiber going from the houses to the junction and beyond. The one comprising thousands of strands, not just a handful.

Not sure if you know, but here in The Netherlands we bury just about everything, but for the 380KV cables, as it's easier to do so. And there is a lot less risk that a cable breaks due to fire, trees, weather, people or anything in between. I've laid those things in the ground and know from experience how hard it is to weld all those strands together when they break and how much that costs.

Just check out https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelvandekrol/sets/72157625907867245/ for a lot of images that explain what it is we do with our fiber here.

And yes, I have always learned that you want to lay them as flat as possible, no sudden corners, so as that light won't bleed into the next strand, or have more trouble navigating the strand (and thereby impacting the transport speed of the data).

---

lol
I rest my case.

---

Can we change the subject, please?

Are you suggesting we should change the title of the thread?

e.g. "The Seti is down cafe, but you musn't say so!"

:-))

No, I was just tired of reading about your need for a certain product which we will NOT mention again anytime soon. And the general discussion of related products was getting rather political.

---

signature

Not sure if you know, but here in The Netherlands we bury just about everything, but for the 380KV cables, as it's easier to do so. And there is a lot less risk that a cable breaks due to fire, trees, weather, people or anything in between. I've laid those things in the ground and know from experience how hard it is to weld all those strands together when they break and how much that costs.

I have a friend who is retired from the "phone company." One of the stories he tells is about how the owner of an apartment building decided to build a fence between his property and the strip mall it back up against.

His contractor dutifully called Julie (the utility locating service in this state) and the phone company came out and marked the location of their major cable feeding all the businesses in the strip mall.

Then the contractor's employees (or subcontractor) came along and decided that nice orange line on the ground was where the fence was going and proceeded to dig a whole bunch of holes for the posts.

---

signature

The talk about utilities reminds me of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in which Larry David and his wife decide to move because of an overhead line running across their yard.

---

The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Winning after work..

W E E K E N D

Looks like Seti & Beta are BOTH down and unreachable for at least 2 hours now:

Pinging setiathome.berkeley.edu [208.68.240.110] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 128.32.0.99: Destination host unreachable.

Looks like Seti & Beta are BOTH down and unreachable for at least 2 hours now:

Pinging setiathome.berkeley.edu [208.68.240.110] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 128.32.0.99: Destination host unreachable.

It's actually all been down for over 10 hours now.....
Unpingable.
I've sent the usual round of messages to Eric, Matt, and Jeff.
It's about quarter to 9AM in Berk now, so hopefully one of them shall be available to right things soon.

Seti website has been down since around 9.30 am gmt here but uploads /downloads have been happening so aint a total loss

Seti website has been down since around 9.30 am gmt here but uploads /downloads have been happening so aint a total loss

Yeah, work is still flowing here also.

And Eric just responded that Matt is working on it.

Ahhhh.....we are back!!!

Many bits of strangeness. This is the first time in about 10 hours I've been able to get here, as well.

---

Many bits of strangeness. This is the first time in about 10 hours I've been able to get here, as well.

Well, my understanding is that the Boinc server is the same case as the Seti web servers, so a power supply problem takes them all down.

Many bits of strangeness. This is the first time in about 10 hours I've been able to get here, as well.

Well, my understanding is that the Boinc server is the same case as the Seti web servers, so a power supply problem takes them all down.

Ah, makes sense. Hadn't seen the cause ...

---

Many bits of strangeness. This is the first time in about 10 hours I've been able to get here, as well.

Well, my understanding is that the Boinc server is the same case as the Seti web servers, so a power supply problem takes them all down.

Was it a power supply problem?