Gizmodo 
Enter your username and password.
Tip your editors:
Editorial Director:
Brian Lam | | Twitter
Editor:
Jason Chen
| AIM | Twitter
Features Editor:
Wilson Rothman
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editors:
Jesus Diaz
| AIM | Twitter
Mark Wilson, Reviews
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Matt Buchanan
| AIM | Twitter
Adam Frucci
| Twitter
Sean Fallon
| Twitter
Jack Loftus
| Twitter
John Herrman
| Twitter
Dan Nosowitz
Chris Mascari
Kat Hannaford
| Twitter
Rosa Golijan
| Twitter
Chris Jacob
Columnist:
Brendan I. Koerner
Interns:
Don Nguyen
Kyle VanHemert
Comment Account Questions:
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/26/09
It's TORTURE, I say!
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/26/09
12/25/09
Speaking of TWC, there *are* areas where they deliver advertised speeds. Here, out in the TX Hill Country, their 7/512 (plus PowerBoost) tier if $40, their 15/2 (plus PowerBoost...both tiers don't have upstream PB though and no DOCSIS 3 yet) is $50 and from what I've seen speeds are solid as long as the path between you and the server is clear. This last caveat means that in practice a 12/2 Comcast connection may beat 15/2 on TWC due to Comcast's MUCH larger national backbone, but you take what you can get.
FWIW I'd tend to agree with Verizon's speed tiers, though for *playing* games (not downloading them) dialup is indeed sufficient, as long as you don't need to pull down custom maps or something. That said, I think Verizon is labeling their tiers conservatively (compared with the rest of the industry) because they don't want the majority of internet-capable customers, who can't get more thn 3 Mbps DSL, to feel left out. Because it's all FiOS and games until someone's in a not-so-urban market...then Verizon wants to sell you off ASAP.
Back to TWC: along with everyone else here, I agree that gaming and online shopping being classified as things that can only be done on RR Turbo is outright fraudulent. Turbo makes ZERO difference as far as latency goes on TWC, and even if you wanted to argue that PowerBoost speeds up ticket-buying (assuming the servers on the other end have plenty of capacity...and they never do) that feature is available on RR Standard as well. As for gaming, I'd have no problem downloading a game over a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection. It'd just take an hour or three rather than a few minutes over TWC.
As for AT&T, I'm not sure what their deal is with putting anything important on the 18 Mbps tier. Some of their U-Verse customers won't see that tier for awhile yet, due to being too far from the VRAD. Same thing with videoconferencing; last I checked iChat and GMail Video Chat both work fine over a connection with 512k up, though more bandwidth is always better for that sort of thing. Last but not least, AT&T's classification of social networking and photo sharing as requiring the 3 Mbps tier rather than 1.5 Mbps is a total crock; 3 mbps U-Verse service doesn't provide any more upload (photo sharing) ability than 1.5 Mbps (both have 1 Mbps up) and Facebook loads just fine over my computer when wirelessly tethered to my Sprint phone, a connection that averages around 1.2 Mbps. One more thing: as others have said, you can do pretty much every sort of streaming media (except HD) online with a 3 Mbps connection; you don't need 12 Mbps.
Okay, I'm done now. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.
12/24/09
12/24/09
12/24/09
US broadband penetration is 60-90%, depending on which statistics you look at.
12/24/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
Bad Rosa Santa scares me!
(I know I did it again!)
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
*Starts feeling withdrawals again*
Must... not... go... back...
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
(At least the comments are better here.)
12/23/09
But no! Even with the cookies! No!
=P
12/23/09
The first is his "It's never Lupus" line, and the second is a crack on his striking resemblance to Gordon Freeman (hence the crowbar).
However, as many posters have pointed out, these are memes specific to one corner of the internet.
I mean, seriously, how can you have a "meme density picture" that never references traps, the inability to give someone up, the capability of rendering a certain FPS, the impossibility of a power level, lying desserts, bases that don't belong to you, a city-state in Greece, and Leroy.
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
<3 Alabama leprechaun.
12/23/09
Also, where's my mystical flute....
12/23/09
There's the Reddit alien Soapier.com soap in the pocket of Horatio Cane.
On the cork board is a Post-It which says "Test Post, Please Ignore" which, as a joke, became the highest ranked post on Reddit ever.
There's a backpack with a map and GPS unit which I am assuming is referencing the invented yet awesome geocache girl.
There's a secret santa sign up for Reddit's secret santa, the largest organized secret santa ever.
There's an interrobang on the narwhal's wizard cap, which is the symbol for Cuil Theory (look it up, it's quite humorous).
Lastly, there's Cthulhu in the ball pit, but who could ever forget him. Behold he comes.
12/23/09
The House bit is actually because of the frequency people will suggest that Hugh Laurie would make an excellent Gordon Freeman, thus the crowbar. You'll also notice he's wearing a Reddit t-shirt.
12/23/09
I blame this on the Lupus:(
12/23/09
12/23/09
12/23/09
Here is the video of the Reddit JetBlue Travelers helping him: [www.youtube.com]
12/23/09
12/23/09