Bug In Fire TV Screensaver Tears Through 250 GB Data Cap 349
jfruh (300774) writes Tech writer Tyler Hayes had never come close to hitting the 250 GB monthly bandwidth cap imposed by Cox Cable — until suddenly he was blowing right through it, eating up almost 80 GB a day. Using the Mac network utility little snitch, he eventually tracked down the culprit: a screensaver on his new Kindle Fire TV.
A bug in the mosaic screensaver caused downloaded images to remain uncached.
Re:Why do we have screen savers? (Score:0, Interesting)
If some idiot leaves a space heater running 24/7.. (Score:0, Interesting)
Do you blame the power companies for charging per Kilowatt hour or do you blame the person who left the heater running for the massive bill that will follow? Do you feel that person shouldn't have to pay the power company because it was just an innocent mistake and the utility is just being too greedy?
Re:Why can't (Score:4, Interesting)
When you grow up and buy a house, you're going to be shocked how other utilities work. They charge you for the capacity of your connection, then charge you for the amount of product you move through it. Water for example. My last house was around $62 to have the 1/2" connection. That's it. Just the potential to move water into my house. That cost went from about $35 for 1/4" to hundreds of dollars for larger pipes. Once I flushed a toilet, the usage meter started ticking and I paid $2.73 per 100 cubic feet of water. The usage rate was constant all the way from a 1/4" to 6" connection. That's how all the utilities were set up. A monthly fee for the connection based on capacity, a per-unit cost for the amount delivered. And, if you have a water leak, they rarely give you a warning. They just send a bill.
Cable and internet are the oddballs that charge a flat "connection" rate with no metered usage. That works for cable TV but not so much for internet which functions more like water or electricity. Trouble with internet is they'll cut you off for using "too much" of their product but don't give you a way to purchase more of it. I wouldn't mind the caps so much if they'd give an accurate measure of usage and the option to purchase additional product at $10 per hundred gigs or so. That seems reasonableish to me. But they don't want you paying for the product that you use. They want you paying for product that you don't use.
Re:It's 2014 (Score:3, Interesting)
Not true. Anyone can start an ISP as long as they are willing to pay for the infrastructure to deliver the last mile connection to their customers.
You just criticized both the government and lack of competition and your answer is to eliminate competition and let the government run it?
Re:Why do we have screen savers? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would ask why we still have screen savers
Although it isn't a hard-and-fast rule, screensavers nowadays are less about preventing burn-in and more about utilizing idle displays. For example, on a Linux-based machine, it's not unusual to have screensaver options that let you display the system load and uptime. Photo screensavers are another prime example. If I'm in my home office for an hour at a time, but only using the computer for 10 minutes, why not have my otherwise idle screen act as a large digital photo frame? You are correct in asserting that power consumption is an issue, but display technology has come a long way, so my 24" monitor draws much less power than my 19" CRT. Reducing power usage is a wonderful slogan, but modern society has a very poor grasp on exactly how much power their devices consume compared to their microwave, water heater, air conditioning, dusk-to-dawn lighting, and other amenities. It's great to hear that your cell-phone charger now reduces it's power consumption by 95% when not in use, but do you have any idea how that compares to an running your AC and heat an extra day each fall/spring, microwaving your pre-cooked meal every other night? /rant
Re:It's 2014 (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think that the $ AT&T is getting from USF is at all meaningful to them, or comes even close to the benefit they'd get from being able to raise their other rates to capture the 15%+ USF tax (i.e. instead of consumer paying $100, USF getting 15, and AT&T getting 85, AT&T could get 95, and consumer's bill would drop), you really haven't thought much about this.
As for your complaint that USF subsidizes the wrong things, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the program is designed to ensure that every household in the US, even if poor, rural, or both, has phone service.