BS: Declining Internet performance.

Subject: BS: Declining Internet performance?
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 09:23 AM

Have you noticed?
Congestion of the internet is of course to blame. There are means to do your part like turning off video when possible. Europe has older systems so video like Netflix is downgraded to relieve the digital stress.

Barring internet attacks it will return to normal someday.

Perhaps gardening will be a good on line alternative.

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 01:10 PM

We have a BT fibre connection, and have noticed no difference at all, but then we don't watch anything online. I download first then watch on TV from memory stick!

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 01:12 PM

It is. Gardening is becoming quite the stay-at-home remedy to cabin fever (if it ever decides to be spring-like here in Texas I'll be out in the garden again). This is my regular spring-time activity, but a lot of people are starting for the first time, or starting-over after a long absence from the green thumb arts.

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 03:34 PM

IVY TOOK OVER MY GARDEN   eek

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Nick
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 04:13 PM

Wireless: 34.5mbps DOWN 15.3mbps UP
Cabled: 74mbps DOWN 18mbps UP

No real difference to normal

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Rapparee
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 06:40 PM

I live in Idaho and State Constitution states that the State shall do everything it can to promote morality! Anything degraded would be unconstitutional!

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: EBarnacle
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 11:09 PM

Who is Ivy?

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Apr 20 - 12:08 AM

And then there's this:

New Jersey desperately needs COBOL Programmers.

That’s what the State’s Governor, Phil Murphy, apparently meant today, when he said at a press conference that the State needed volunteers who with “Cobalt” computer skills to help fix 40-year-old-plus unemployment insurance systems that are currently overwhelmed as a result of COVID-19-related job losses.

COBOL, for those who are unfamiliar, is a computer language that is over 60 years old, and was once the staple of software development across industry and government. By the late 1980s, however, it had become sufficiently obsolete that many universities did not even include it in their computer science curricula. In fact, while there are certainly are COBOL systems still in use today, relatively few software developers under the age of 50 have ever seen, never mind written, even one line of COBOL. It is not surprising that even New Jersey’s 62-year old governor, who was an executive at Goldman Sachs for decades, had apparently not heard its name recently enough to remember it correctly.

COBOL’s heyday in the 1970s means that the majority of COBOL experts in America are likely well over 60 years old – making them significantly at risk for death or danger by COVID-19 – and probably a bit rusty at their former craft; many of them have likely not developed in COBOL since long before many of the readers of this article were born.

The danger of relying on COBOL despite its obsolescence is not a new issue.

Nearly a quarter century ago, in the mid to late 1990s, as the Y2K bug required updating of antiquated COBOL-based systems, many industry experts sounded the alarm that the supply of qualified COBOL programmers was quickly dwindling; at the time, some COBOL programmers even had to be hired out of retirement in order to carry out Y2K-related repairs. As a result of what was learned dealing with Y2K there was nearly universal industry-wide acceptance of the fact that the many still-remaining COBOL-based systems should be replaced as soon as practical before maintenance became a severe problem.

The rest of the article is at the link.

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 01:33 AM

I remember Y2K - I was a little worker bee in one of the smaller federal govt agencies & the Admin of our Finance system became a national expert & was poached by Big Business!

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Mr Red
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 03:49 AM

Definitely Fakebook is slowing. If you have a parasitic connection (aka notso HotSpot) it is all the more noticeable because the owner of the router may be watching TV via. As a result all the JavaScript modules that Fakebook invokes may not arrive in a timely fashion so the dependant ones timeout. I did try counting the modules once, and on Fakebook without any "apps" (aka snoops) - I gave up at 100, about halfway. I kid you not, no surprise how Cambridge Analytica scraped data, not to mention the dozens of coordinated inauthentics in St Petersberg who are watching you.

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: DaveRo
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 04:13 AM

I used to write COBOL back in the 70s. We (not me personally) were still writing it in the late 90s for a major UK bank. It's simple - anybody could turn their hand to maintaining it if the money was good. (Now MUMPS - that does require a lifetime of experience!)

Loudon Wainwright wrote a song about Y2K:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WY9kUm6TYM

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: JHW
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 03:33 PM

I've resisted posting the K2Y joke re Y2K but on topic my 3 dongle net dropped out five times tonight. Rare until now.

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 03:38 PM

Various servers and ISPs are reducing speeds due to so so many users at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Declining Internet performance.
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 20 - 03:42 PM

I used to lose internet connection 6 times a day but now not once in 48 hours.