Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!ncar!tank!oddjob!matt
From: matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: A Thought Experiment about News.Groups
Message-ID: <3548@tank.uchicago.edu>
Date: 31 May 89 18:31:59 GMT
References: <371@odi.ODI.COM> <3400@looking.on.ca> <3254@epimass.EPI.COM> <3407@looking.on.ca>
Sender: news@tank.uchicago.edu
Reply-To: matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford)
Organization: Backwards R Us
Lines: 20
In-reply-to: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)

In article <3407@looking.on.ca>, brad@looking (Brad Templeton) writes:
) Stargate was expensive, and perhaps too expensive.  ...
) But the principle was sound.  Usenet is essentially broadcast.  A satellite
) that can send from one point to every single place on the continent is
) clearly far more efficient than any other route. ...
) Satellite is still clearly the cheapest method for a net like usenet, even
) today.

It's not necessarily so, and certainly not "clearly".  A piece of the EM
spectrum over the area of a continent is a scarce resource and a power
supply and transmitter in synchronous orbit are costly bits of capital.
And if it's not economically sound for the mass-consumption medium of
network television, it seems very unlikely that it will be for the
obscure medium we call usenet.

(Same old rant follows, rot 13.  The weary should skip it.)
) Fgnl gharq sbe na vzcraqvat naabhaprzrag.
Vs vg'f na naabhaprzrag bs fbzrguvat sbe serr, V'yy rng guvf zrffntr.

				Matt