My internet is “capped”. Find out why this is horrible.

Australia (which is where I live) doesn’t have a good broadband system. I’ll just put it out there because it isn’t exactly common knowledge. Our system is ancient. Well, it appears that way at least; after all, I don’t think that bandwidth caps have ever been standard in the US. And that is how this begins: bandwidth caps.

Each month, I can only download 30 gigabytes worth of files (that includes web pages and images and videos). After that point I will become capped, which is a term that describes the state of having sub-dial up internet speeds. In fact, I’ve got it better than most – my speeds only get capped off at 256 kb/s, whereas most people only get 64 kb/s. Also worth noting is the system of on and off peak. On peak usually covers the day time, while off peak covers every other hour. It varies from plan to plan but usually off peak is from around midnight to sometime the next morning. Plans are usually split into these on and off peak hours.

Say I have a 50 gigabyte plan. Instead of freely being able to download whatever I like during the month, I would have to keep my downloading to off peak times. See, on peak, you might only have access to 10 gigabytes. After those on peak gigabytes are gone, you’re capped (even if you have the 40 gigabytes left from the off peak time). The really bad part? For this particular plan, the off peak time might be 3 am through 7 am. Horrible. I find this whole peak system is just adding insult to injury.

Now that you know all this (- you’re suddenly well equipped to empathise with Australians who are lagging on [insert online game] when capped -), you’re going to be able to understand what I’m talking about when I use the term capped. Right now, I’m capped. I have reached that 30 gigabyte limit. You’d be surprised at how much you have to limit yourself if you don’t want to cap. Assuming that you don’t want to cap through the month, YouTube becomes almost a chore where you have to monitor how many videos you watch and how many minutes each one is. It really takes the fun out of viewing things.

While capped, perusing the internet becomes surprisingly frustrating. While I’m meant to get 256 kb/s speeds, it varies entirely. One minute I’ll be loading web pages pretty quickly. My Google search might only take 10 seconds to load. Yet the next minute it will over a minute to load the same search.

Videos? Files? Large images? Out of the question. Unless I must have something (you know, for medical reasons an’ all), or I have 15 minutes to spare (that’s roughly how long it takes for a five minute video to load), I won’t download a file or watch a video. This can be somewhat off-putting for some people when I immediately tell them I won’t watch a video when they send me a link to YouTube or a similar site.

To make matters worse, the pages that load the worst are usually the ones I’d like to visit. Each site has a speed it will generally stick to (outside of the aforementioned speed variations) and some are nicer than others.

… It’s hard work not having the internet I deserve.

You people would make horrible pirates!

Welp, this post isn’t regarding pirates (not directly at least) as the title would have you believe; it is regarding the use and misuse of the expression “aye”.

“Aye” is commonly associated with pirates (well of course it originated from common usage but today… Pirate-talk sounds like a good place for aye to start). It means yes. It is pronounced like one reads the letter I or eye. That’s “ai” for all you IPA pronounciation savvy people (the few that there are in the world). Aye means yes.

Aye is not pronounced as the interjection “eh”; this is pronounced “eɪ” (according to IPA standards). Eh means… Well, it’s more of a questioning grunt or even a form of agreement.

Now, I’ve noticed something recently and I’m hardly pleased about it: people are using “aye” in place of “eh”. This is despicable! We (my supporters – currently me) must not stand for this! We can’t stand for this! Aye is not eh! Aye is reserved for pirate related talk (or people who actually knows how it should be used). I see people saying, “how good is that aye?” Horrible. Incorrect use of the word aye.

I can’t help but thinking that the use of aye instead of eh is a problem with the education systems… People are simply not being taught enough about pirates! Fixing the problem of false usage of aye would double as teaching people about pirates. Finally an excuse for the world to learn such topics!

… Or people could just read a bit. You know, books ‘n’ stuff.

Sony… You’re going well so far so don’t screw this up.

Sony recently released their PS3 Slim. Great work, I love the console (though haven’t had a chance to get my greasy paws on one yet). The console was priced at $299US.

To accompany the reduced price and the newly designed console, Sony brought out a new range of advertisements dubbed the “it only does everything” commercials due to their use of that phrase.

See, I love these commercials and they easily beat out the strange commercials of old which involved creepy crying babies. While some might argue (read: do argue) that these commercials sell the console due to the controversy they create, the new advertisements have been doing so in a much more humorous manner, which is always a great way to reach your customers.

Obviously, the new advertising campaign is going to boost sales of the console for the holiday season but there is one key to getting the most out of this situation: LittleBigPlanet. Last year, when LittleBigPlanet was released onto the PS3 (which was then significantly more expensive than it is now) it was well received and everybody wanted to play it. Yet they couldn’t because the console it was on was too expensive for its “obvious” target audience (the youngsters, that is). Now, if Sony would just gently remind everybody that LittleBigPlanet is on the console with just a few advertisements, it would boost sales immensely.

It wouldn’t just boost the sales of the game as the parents buy it for their kids’ newly bought consoles. No, it would also boost hardware sales as the kids see that LittleBigPlanet still exists, thus hassle their parents to get the game. The parents see the reduced costing scheme and BAM!, a shiny new PS3 under the Christmas tree (or similar).

If Sony wants to gain a proper footing this holiday season, instead of letting their success get to their head and effectively blind them, they’re going to have to continue pushing the PS3 Slim as well as previous games.

Welcome!

Yeah! I deleted the first, horribly obligatory post that WordPress blogs come with and have decided to put in its place another post, basically the same!

This blog’ll be where I rant about happenings, blog and define random words (durple rhymes with purple, you see).

That is all.