Using the internet like it's 1999 • Hacker News Board

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#201

Post by rawTruthHurts » Mon, Apr 27, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

fasterik wrote: post #174

rawTruthHurts wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the world is better than it's ever been, technology is better than it's ever been, and it's all continuing to get better." Those guys in Sudan or blue whales beg to differ.

You can always point at bad things happening, no matter what time period you're in. You need to look at the graph over decades/centuries. Poverty, child mortality, literacy, standard of living, access to healthcare, etc. etc. are all better than they have ever been, even in the poorest places in the world.

I can't help thinking how those graphs conveniently ignore the damage such improvements have on the environment, on which they themselves depend. Damaged environments -> scarcity -> war. But I agree it's nice to have that happening away from home.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#202

Post by elevation » Fri, May 01, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

flomo wrote: post #82

elevation wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used dialup until 1996, when we got a 10mbps cable internet connection, newly available in our 20k population town. We have never had a slower service plan than that since.

Questioning this, because I worked with a sysadmin who was in an @Home/CableLabs DOCSIS beta region at about that same time, and we all envied him of course. That was in San Jose, CA. So what's the real story behind your piddlly little town getting bleeding edge cable internet service? (Or was it somewhere like Los Gatos?)

> So what's the real story behind your piddlly little town getting bleeding edge cable internet service? (Or was it somewhere like Los Gatos?)

It was a commercial service - Bresnanlink, in a midwest university town. As I recall, the trickiest part was getting Internet Explorer suppress its urge to "dial up" and just use the stack you had in place. Prompted by another comment here, I've been trying to find some record of the configuration and service speed.

Re: Using the internet like it's 1999

#203

Post by elevation » Fri, May 01, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #83

elevation wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used dialup until 1996, when we got a 10mbps cable internet connection, newly available in our 20k population town. We have never had a slower service plan than that since.

Firstly, you’ve spelled “megabits” wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_rate Secondly, that 10 Mbps was only your downstream signaling rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_signaling_rate Was your upstream via analog dialup?

The cable link was full duplex. I had friends whose service used dialup for the upstream but never heard good things about it - the latency made it frustrating and it seemed like a lot of apps weren't tuned to work well.