The SoapBoxers

Story Time

The third quarter of the year is winding down.  With it comes the deadline for finishing up the work for volume 2 of “The Fiction of Kosmo”.  Consolidating the short stories into the document isn’t difficult – but writing the longer, capstone story is quite a bit of work.  I strive for a story of at least 10,000 words for this story.  The capstone story for volume one (Key Relationships) took more than a week of work (in various small pieces of spare time) to complete.  Hopefully I can finish the new story in a similar amount of time.  Currently, I have fewer than a thousand words written (just the ending), so I need to buckle down and finish the story.  This might result in me skipping a few article in the course of the next two weeks.  I’ll try to make the story worth the wait.

Rockies Update

Friday night, the Rockies had their wild card lead cut just 2 1/2 games.  With wins on Saturday and Sunday, couple with Dodgers wins over the Giants, the Rockies now stand 4 1/2 games clear of their nearest pursuers.  With just 12 games remaining in the season, this is a solid lead, but not insurmountable, especially with series left against the first place Cardinals and Dodgers.  It feels weird to be a fan of the team that is being chased.  In 2007, the Rockies were behind until the tail end of the season.  The other times my teams have made the playoffs (1984 and 1989 Cubs, 1995 Rockies) are too far in the distant past to remember the race with any clarity.

Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki deserves some MVP consideration.  After a dreadful start to the season, Tulo turned around his season at nearly exactly the same time that the Rockies turned around the season.  It is doubtful that this is a coincidence.  Tulo now stands just one homer short of reaching 30 for the season.

Annie Le

The authorities seem to be keeping a pretty good lid on the information in this case, but theories are being bandied about.  Apparently, suspect Raymond Clark had warned Annie Le that the cages that housed her mice were too dirty.  While I agree that cleanliness is a good thing, is it really possible that Annie Le was killed because there were too much mouse poop in the cages?

The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol, the latest book by Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, hit the shelves on Thursday.  My daughter loves the book.  She wanted me to read from the book.  I complied, and read the dust jacket and a few other short snippets.

Why didn’t I read more of the book to her?  Well, she’s only two, and the material might be a bit too mature for her.  Honestly, I think she likes the cover.

Lazy Man vs MonaVie

Lazy Man of Lazy Man and Money is a friend of The Soap Boxers.  A benefactor, actually, as he is providing free hosting and invaluable technical support and advice.  Lazy has been critical of the MonaVie corporation, questioning whether or not the product actually provides the benefits that the company and MonaVie distributors claim.

Lazy has been sent not one, but two, cease and desist letters.  When The Consumerist questioned MonaVie, they agreed that the first letter was incorrect.  They subsequently sent a second cease and desist later.  The complaint?  That Lazy Man and Money was using the trademarked term (MonaVie) in the meta keywords for Lazy’s article on the company.  Considering how meta keywords are using by search engines (to create the blurb you see listed in the search results, but typically not used to determine the page’s ranking) it seems perfectly natural to use the company name in the meta keywords.  In fact, it would be a bit strange to NOT use it.

Lazy has written about MonaVie on several occasions (see the complete list here).  The original article has attracted a pretty incredible 3300+ comments in the course of the last 18 months (note the comment at the bottom about archived comments).  By comparison, The Soap Boxers sometimes gets 5 comments on an article …

Spam Comments

Lots of porno-spam in the comments lately (all of which have been caught by my spam filter).  I guess I should be proud of the fact that the blog is successful enough to attract spammers?

Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals is having a great season.  After teasing us with his potential the last few years, he has turned the corner and blossomed into a bona fide, unquestioned ace.  He leads baseball with a 2.14 ERA.  Batters are hitting just .231 against him, with an anemic OPS of .612.  He is second in the American league with 224 strikeouts (in 210 1/3 innings).  He has walked just 44 batters – resulting in a spectacular strikeout : walk ratio of 5:1.  He has also done a nice job of keeping the ball in the park, allowing just 11 home runs this year.

Every pitcher has some bumps in the road during the course of the season.  It is very difficult to spot Greinke’s speed bumps this year.  There are really only  two games that would qualify as “bad” – an August 3^rd matchup with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in which Greinke gave up ten hits and three walks in five innings and a June 5^th game against the Blue Jays in which he gave up seven runs (five earned) and nine hits.  There are only two other games in which he gave up more than three earned runs (including a game in which he allowed three homers, but just four runs).  In Greinke’s other 26 starts, he has allowed three or fewer runs.  Greinke also goes deep into games.  He has pitched at least six innings in 26 of his starts, including nine games in which he has pitched eight or more innings.

In short, when Greinke goes to the mound, the Royals can be very confident that he’s going to go six or more innings and allow three or fewer runs.  This means that Greinke puts them in a strong position to win every time he pitches.

What, then, is the problem?

The problem is the fact that the Royals are not winning.  They have the worst record in the American League, with just 59 wins and 87 losses.  The lack of run support has dragged Greinke’s numbers down.  He has just 14 wins and 8 losses, while also racking up no-decisions in many games during which he has pitched great.  After roaring out to a 10-3 start by June 28, he didn’t pick up his 11^th win until August 8^th.  During his six start winless stretch, he posted a 3.65 ERA with 48 strikeouts in 37 innings pitched – great numbers that should have resulted in a much better record than 0-4.  On a team such as the Yankees, Greinke would likely already have 20 wins in the bank, and would be clearing a spot on his mantle for the inevitable Cy Young award.

Greinke’s win total leaves him three behind AL leader CC Sabathia of the Yankees, although Sabathia has an ERA more than a run higher than Greinke’s.  If Sabathia reaches 20 wins, will the Cy Young voters (sports writers) hand him the Cy Young?  Or will they look behind the traditionally “sexy” statistic of wins and vote for the person who has been the most outstanding pitcher in the American League this year – Zack Greinke?

A rough week for Goodman last week as the spread took me behind the woodshed.

Last Week:
Straight Up – 15-2 ATS: 5-12

For the Year:
Straight Up – 26-6 ATS: 15-17

College

Georgia Tech @ Miami (FL) (-4.5) – Two Words…Hurricane Warning. Miami 31 – GT 24

Boise State (-7.5) @ Fresno State – Battle of two states that actually are not states at all. Fresno plays everyone tough but Boise gets the win. Boise St  35 – Fresno St 28

California (-14.5) @ Minnesota – The Golden Bears are good, but not this good on the road. California 31 – Minnesota 21

Louisville @ Kentucky (-13.5) – A much better basketball matchup. Lousiville 24 – Kentucky 21

Tennessee @ Florida (-28.5) – If you ain’t Gator … you’re Gator Bait …. Florida 56 – Tennesee 17

Nebraska @ Virginia Tech (-3.5) – I am not drinking the Kool Aid for the Huskers just yet. Va Tech 28 Nebraska 21

Michigan State @ Notre Dame (-11.5) – Lou Holtz finds a way to make another positive spin on a Notre Dame loss last week … did he go do a pregame speech for them? Notre Dame 35 – Mich St 24

Cincinnati @ Oregon State (-1.5) BearKats get a big road win here. Cincinnati 34 – Ore St 30

Florida State @ Brigham Young (-7.5) – When is the last time Bobby Started 0-2 … I don’t know but it won’t be this year. Florida St – 21 BYU 20

Texas Tech @ Texas (-16.5) – Longhorns get revenge in a big way this year. Texas 42 – Texas Tech 21

NFL

New Orleans @ Philadelphia – (Pick em) No Mcnabb…No chance. Saints 35 – Eagles 28

Oakland @ Kansas City (-3) The Chefs (yes I spelled that correctly), get on track this week. Raiders can’t hold it together outside of Raider Nation.  Kansas City 21 – Oakland 17

Cincinnati @ Green Bay (-9.5) A large spread. An emotional win last week against the Bears. The Bengals cover but lose. GB – 28 Cin 24

Minnesota (-9.5) @ Detroit – Lions get no respect. AP is even faster indoors. Minnesota 35 – Lions 17

New England (-3.5)@ NY Jets – Jets are talking big time about how good they are. New Enland will remind them who is boss. Patriots 35 – Jets 28

Seattle @ San Francisco (-1.5) I like the Seahawks. I like Singletary. This should be a good one. Sea 24 – SF 23

Baltimore @ San Diego (-3) – Last week Flacco looked like Johnny Unitas. San Diego made Jamarcus Russell look like Johnny Unitas. Bad combination. Baltimore 28 – SD 21

Pittsburgh (-3) @ Chicago – The Steelers are just too tough here. The Bears receiving corps needs a LOT of help. Steelers 24 – Bears 14

SUNDAY NIGHT:
NY Giants @ Dallas (-3)– How bout dem Cowboys! They get the Jerrytron the win in the home opener. Dallas 28 – Giants 24

MONDAY NIGHT:
Indianapolis (-3)@ Miami – Even with a depleted receiving group, the Colts are too potent here. Colts 28 – Dolphins 17

Cindy fidgeted nervously and applied lip gloss before finally knocking on the door of Professor Craig Rollins. Cindy had taken courses with the esteemed professor before, but always got a bit tingly in the presence of such an iconic academic figure. Dr. Rollins’ work on black holes was the basis of much of the current academic work on the subject.

Dr. Rollins’ head popped up at the sound of the knock.

“Oh … it’s Cindy, right? About your thesis?”

“Yes, Dr. Rollins,” squeaked Cindy. “My advisor, Dr. Miller, thought that you might be able to help me find some resources.”

“Could we possibly discuss this over a sandwich? I’m absolutely famished.”

“Sure, Dr. Rollins. Whatever works for you.”

“Please, call me Craig.”

“OK, Dr. Roll … Craig.”

Dr. Rollins quizzed Cindy on her thesis as they walked toward the student union. The professor seemed genuinely interested in her work. Cindy felt herself blush at the attention she was receiving from a man who was such respected member of her academic field.

Cindy ordered a ham and swiss sandwich, while Dr. Rollins got some sort of monstrosity that reminded her of the sandwiches that Dagwood Bumstead enjoyed eating. The conversation shifted to small talk, as they discussed current events and the weather in between bites of sandwich.

When they finished eat, Cindy explained the difficulty she had encountered when attempting to find research materials for one of the sub-topics of her thesis.

Dr. Rollins furrowed his brow and muttered to himself for a moment.

“I can definitely understand your difficulty, Cindy. There really isn’t much current research in that area. I’d recommend Knack’s work, and Atkins’s book could also be very useful. It’s a niche area, though, so I don’t think either of their books had a very large print run – they are hard to find.”

Cindy frowned at the news that she was likely to encounter further difficulties in her research.

“Oh, no need to worry, Cindy. You certainly won’t find their books at the library, but of course I have a copy in my own library.”
“That’s great news, Dr. Rollins! Could I please borrow the books?”

“Well, I’m actually leaving on a vacation tomorrow, so I wouldn’t be able to bring them in for a couple of weeks.”

Rollins glance down at his watch. “Actually, I have some time now. If you like, we could drop by my house and pick up the books. Maybe some other volumes in my collection would interest you, as well.”

“That sounds great,” gushed Cindy. At long last, she would be able to make progress on her thesis.

The library inside Dr. Rollin’s large Victorian home compared favorably to some municipal libraries Cindy had visited. There were rows upon rows of books on a wide variety of subjects. The largest area was reserved for astronomy, and Cindy naturally gravitated to that section.

“Cindy,” said Dr. Rollins, after a very brief search, “it doesn’t appear that those two books are in the library. I’m going to run up to my study to look for them. Make yourself at home.”

Cindy glanced at the hundreds of astronomy books before focusing on one – the memoirs of Dr. Craig Rollins. Cindy grabbed the book and settled down on one of the library’s couches.

She was looking through photos in the book a few minutes later when Dr. Rollins returned from the second floor with two books in his hand.

“Here they are, Cindy. They were on a shelf in my study. What book do you have there?”

Cindy held the book aloft and watched the professor’s face flush with embarrassment.

“I’m not overly pleased with that book, although there are some great photos. Let me point a few of them out to you.”

Cindy slid over on the coach to make room for Dr. Rollins. Cindy became engrossed in the book as Rollins described the academic work of the scientists who were featured alongside him in some of the book’s photos. She was so focused on the book that she didn’t notice when Dr. Rollins slid his arm around her. When he leaned toward her for a kiss, Cindy broke free from her trance and recoiled.

Cindy slapped Rollins across the face, jumped up from the couch, and raced out of the house.

It seemed that Dr. Rollins would not be any help with her thesis, after all.

I have an interest in true crime, and the result is that I can fairly easily absorb news stories that would make a lot of people queasy.  Every once in a while, however, there is a crime that just grabs my attention and won’t let go.

Currently, this is the story of Yale graduate student Annie Le.  For those of you who have been living under a rock lately, Le disappeared last Tuesday and her body was found on Sunday – ironically, the date of her wedding.  The moment I heard of her disappearance, I feared for the worst.  Initial news reports were holding out hope that she simply had a case of cold feet.  This seemed a bit unlikely, though, because of the fact that she had left belongings – including her purse – behind.  When police were able to identify surveillance video of Le entering a medical research building, but were unable to find video of her leaving the building, it became apparent that Le’s body was somewhere in the building.

There are a few unusual aspects to this case.  I’ll speculate on what I think they might mean.  (Note: I have read online reports, but have not seen much of the television coverage – Hopefully I’m not parroting what some talking heads are saying.)

• Le’s body was found inside a wall in the basement – in a recess where utilities and cables are found.  Leaving the body in the building made it very likely that it would eventually be found, due to the eventual impact of decomposition.  Had the killer originally planned to move Le’s body to another location?  Or was this a spontaneous crime, and the location of her body simply the best available hiding spot at the time?
• Bloody clothes were found in the drop ceiling at another location in the building.  The Yale Daily News has stated that officials told them that the clothes were not what Le was wearing when she entered the building.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t Le’s clothes – perhaps she had spare clothes in the building?  Perhaps they belonged to the killer.  Most troubling of all is the possibility that they belong to another victim.
• The medical examiner has said that the cause of Le’s death was strangulation.  Again, this creates confusion with regard to the bloody clothing.  Strangulation is not usually a bloody type of death.  If the blood is indeed Le’s, how did it get on her clothes?  Was there an intense struggle before she was strangled?  Was there torture before her death?

The police have a substantial amount of evidence, as they have 250 pieces of evidence and 700 hours of surveillance video.  I’m assuming the surveillance video is from several locations within the building, as the length of her disappearance was around 100 hours.

Police have issued a body warrant (authorizing taking of DNA sample) and two search warrants for Raymond Clark.  Clark has not been arrested.  Although Clark and others are under surveillance, it is unlikely that an arrest will be made until DNA tests are complete.

I hope that the police are able to quickly bring Annie’s killer to justice, so that she can rest in peace.  My thoughts are with Annie’s family and friends.  By all accounts, it seems that Le was an incredible young woman.  Her death is a great loss to our society.

UPDATE: News reports (CNN.com and others) are circulating this morning saying that there has been a DNA match for Raymond Clark and that an arrest is imminent.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Kosmo – The Lost Symbol has been out for more than a day.  Where’s the review?”

I do indeed have my copy of the book.  I have not yet had the opportunity to read it.  Yesterday was spent getting Direct TV installed, and the next few days will probably be spent in a Direct TV induced coma.  I don’t typically watch much TV at all, but the availability of baseball will be very tempting.  (More on Direct TV in a later article).  However, I plan to finish the book in the next ten days or so, and will publish a review when I’m done.

I do, however, have some initial reactions.

• The book smells really good.  The trees used for the paper were clearly harvested at precisely the correct time.
• When picking up the book, remember to lift with your legs, not your back.  It’s fairly hefty – 509 pages.
• The cover is très chic

Interested in other books by Dan Brown?  Read my author profile (written back in May)

On an unrelated note … I am taking suggestions for Fiction Friday articles.  If you have an idea that you would like to see turned into a short story, let me know (leave a comment below).  While I am perfectly content to keep coming up with my own ideas, I’m also open to the writing about things that are outside of my typical comfort zone.  The ideas can be just a few words, such as “dinosaurs“, “lesbian wedding“, or “attacked by a shark“.  (Note: the links point to stories I have written on those topics).

I can’t guarantee that I will have the time (or interest) to turn every idea into a story, but I will make an effort to use a bunch of the ideas.

As the Internet continues to grow, it continues to become more and more a part of our everyday lives. The sudden explosion of web capable mobile devices and social networking has lead to almost everyone having a presence on the web. As the web pervades every day life, we must take advantage of the opportunities it presents.

Social networks give us the opportunity to network with people across the globe. Gone are the days of easily losing touch with old friends or classmates when people move across the country or even across the globe. With the advent of social networks we can now easily keep in touch with colleagues and share information. This is not just useful for finding out about Chuck getting married or Sarah having a kid, you can also leverage social networking to build a strong professional network.

When most people think of social networks they think of MySpace and Facebook. While Facebook may be useful for professional networking I would warn people to stay away from the abyss that is MySpace. When using Facebook I would also make sure to be cautious of what is public viewable. A better example would be LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking site. LinkedIn allows users to post resumes, gain references, and even help other users with professional questions. You can also find other users linked to your network that might be able to help you in that job you’re applying for or that project you’re working on.

In this day and age a strong web presence is needed in this new Internet friendly professional world. Many employers now google prospective employees, do you really want the pictures of that party you got totally smashed at to come up when a prospective employer is considering you for employment?

Using Facebook for more personal contacts combined with LinkedIn for your professional network you can easily build a quick web presence that can easily be found on the web. This is only the start, from here you can build write a blog, twitter, or even build your own site.

Week #1 of the NFL is in the books.  I am writing this prior to the Monday night match-ups, so I will not comment on either of those games here.  Some real interesting items of note in the first week of action:

• New Orleans offense – Who needs defense when you can score at will each and every week.  I realize they were playing the Lions but still a very impressive show by Brees and Company
• Injuries – The Steelers Lose Troy Polamalu for extended time.  The Colts lose their answer to Marvin Harrison, Anthony Gonzalez, for up to six weeks.  Donovan McNabb cracks some ribs and might miss time.  The Bears Lose Brian Urlacher for possibly the remainder of the season.  What do all of these have in common … they are all on my fantasy football teams.
• Adrian Peterson – A monster opener for AP.  Of course the Browns were porous against the run, but nothing makes a good friend to an over the hill, third comeback QB like having the best back in the game behind you to hand it off to 25 times a game.
• Jay Cutler – He is missing having a receiver right now that knows how to run an accurate pass pattern.  The Bears faithful will be hard on him early and often.  Let’s see if he can be a team leader…which is already being questioned a lot by the talking heads on the radio.
• “I Want Winners!” – Mike Singletary and the Niners win the opener against the defending NFC Champion Cardinals on the road.  A nice win for San Francisco.

Tiger Woods vaulted back to the top of the Fed Ex Points race with a runaway win at Cog Hill.  This gives Eldrick five wins on that course in his career as well as a couple of 2nd place finished.  He obviously likes the golf course, but in the same vein it is obvious that win he brings his “A” game, the rest of the field is playing for second place.

Ichiro captured his 9th straight 200 + hit season.  He is the first Major League baseball player to do so.  How tough is this record…..the last person to smack 200 or more base hits for 8 straight seasons was Willie Keeler….from 1894-1901!

Tennis missed a chance at another battle of the titans with Federer and Nadal.  Nadal was promptly retired by Juan Martin del Potro in the Semi’s on Sunday at Flushing Meadows 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.  Del Patro is playing well, but this match up in the final won’t have the same feel as another battle of the current heavyweights of men’s tennis.

Women’s volleyball gets a mention this week as the Huskers fell for the first time in a home match in 90 contests.  The attendance of 13,870 set a new NCAA record for single game attendance for a volleyball match.  The UCLA Bruins won under the great play of tournament MVP Lauren Cook … who just happens to be the daughter of Nebraska Head Coach John Cook.

College football had some exciting games this past weekend as well.  The two biggest games on the national radar were of course the USC vs. Ohio State contest.  Ohio State seems to play very conservative and Pryor looked rattled often during the game.  USC starts an unproven quarterback as well, but being on the road, with a host of young players proved to be the better team on Saturday night.  Ohio State needs to beat a non Big Ten School….and soon.

I am still waiting for Lou Holtz to apologize for his outrageous comment about the Golden Domers making the BCS title game – undefeated.  I mean you have to get by Michigan first … and that shouldn’t be THAT difficult at this point.

I have been kicking around this idea for a while now.  To delve into politics, or not?  Recent developments have resulted in a bit of extra space in the schedule, so I think it’s time to give it a whirl.

And with that, I throw my hat into the ring for the 2012 presidential election.

Oh, sorry.  Wrong announcement.  Pretend that you didn’t hear that one yet.

I will be looking to compile a staff of 3-5 liberals and 3-5 conservative to write about politics.  Each week, I will choose a topic and have one writer from each camp write about the issue (500-1000 words).  The two articles will be published on The Soap Boxers on the same day (Thursday, most likely).  I will alternate which party gets the top spot.

I have put out some feelers, but am still looking for more writers.  What am I looking for, you ask?

• I am looking for someone with their own opinions on the issues, and not people who simply rehash what the talking heads are saying.  Experience working within a political organization or writing about politics is a plus.
• The columnist must be thick skinned.  They should expect to see comments from readers who disagree with them.  The columnists should not engage in verbal attacks with commenters, or with columnists from the opposite viewpoint.  Debating the merits of an issue is one thing; hurling insults and baseless accusations is yet another.
• Writer must be willing and able to write one article each month on an assigned topic.  Since the two opposing views will be published on the same day, it is critical that deadlines are met.
• There will be no up front pay for this work.  There is the potential for profit sharing if/when The Soap Boxers turns a profit.  For those who are interested, I can share more details.

Due to the sheer number of people necessary to get this off the ground, I don’t expect to have The Political Observers operational until at least the end of the month.

While I intend to make every attempt to make The Political Observers a balanced forum, this does not mean that the entirety of the content of The Soap Boxers will be balanced.

Although we will be focusing on politics once a week, The Soap Boxers will not become a political blog and will continue to focus on a broad variety of topics.

Want to learn more about this opportunity?  Send me an email at kosmo@ObservingCasually.com

What did you miss over the weekend?

• Kosmo’s track and field short story, On Track
• Johnny Goodman’s football picks
• Kosmo’s switch from cable internet to DSL

We have decided to make the jump from cable to Direct TV, largely in order to get the sports programming my wife and I want.  We are about 15 miles north of the “home market” for her favorite NFL team, and nearly a thousand miles outside of the market for my favorite baseball team.

I’ll cover the Direct TV aspect at a later date (after we actually have the service).  However, we also switched over from cable internet to DSL (through Qwest).  Today, I’ll cover that.

Ordering

My wife spent 40 minutes on the phone with the phone company.  This was twice the time she spent on the phone with Direct TV.  Considering that we’re an existing phone customer and that she knew precisely what level of DSL we needed, this seemed like an excessive amount of time.

Installation

Since I’m an IT guy, we went with the self-installation.  The box came via UPS and contained the modem, install CD, DSL filters for the phone lines, and a couple of Ethernet cables.  For those who aren’t familiar with DSL, the filters (essentially, a little pass through device for the phone line) are placed on the phone lines that actual telephones are plugged into, to avoid interference with the DSL modem.  Interestingly, our wall mounted phone (which we never use) doesn’t have a wall mounted JACK, so we didn’t need the special wall mounted filter.

The install process wasn’t overly complex, but it was still more steps than necessary.  With the cable company (Mediacom) it had only been necessary to connect to hardware and go to their walled garden to provision the modem.  I also had to set at a Microsoft Live account just to be able to use the outbound (SMTP) mail server.  Again, this hadn’t been necessary with cable, as they authenticated through alternate means.  The mail servers weren’t listed on the instruction sheet, either – I needed to poke around online to determine what they should be.

So, while the installation wasn’t hard, it was slightly annoying, simply because I knew it could have been easier.

The service

The DSL modem actually had a built in wireless router (with 4 wired ports).  However, I decided against using this for a couple of reasons.  First, I really don’t think it’s necessary for the ISP to be able to know how many computers (and what type) are connected.  Second, you actually need to register computers on their web site when you add them to your network.  I didn’t delve into the reason for this (MAC filtering?). I fix other computers often enough that I don’t want to monkey around with adding and removing computers (the fix process often involves connecting to the internet to download several hundred megabytes of system updates).  So I connected my Linksys router to a wired port, and the other computers will continue to connect to that.  I turned off the wireless function on the DSL modem.

Now to the important part – speed.  We chose the 7 mbps plan (options were 1.5, 7, 12, 20).  This seemed roughly comparable to our current plan with cable.  7 mbps (mega bits per second) means that it will take slightly more than 1 second to download a 1 megabyte file (there are 8 bits to a byte).  We don’t put a lot of strain on our bandwidth by downloading huge files, so this will probably be sufficient.

I tested the cable speed on www.speedtest.net before switching to DSL.  The download speed was 7.35 mbps and upload speed was 0.72 mps.  As far as I know, the cable company never actually specified a specific speed – over the years, they gradually bumped the speed without rasing the price.

I tested the speed for the DSL and it came in at 6.1 mbps – about a 17% drop in speed.  (Why aren’t we getting exactly 7 mbps?  Because network overhead and other issue take away from the raw speed of a connection).  Upload speed was around 0.73 mbps.

We’ll watch the download speed a bit to make sure it’s OK and upgrade to 12 mbps if it is not OK.  I think we’ll be OK, as most problems of slowness we encounter seem to be related to overloaded web servers (Facebook, this would be you), and this is not something that can be fixed by having a fast connection.  I was pleased that the upload speed didn’t degrade, as I do upload large chunks of data on occasion.

What next

Once we have Direct TV installed, I’ll write an article about that process.  I’ll also document any billing and technical issues that might arise.