[Bloat] First draft of complete "Bufferbloat And You" enclosed.

[Dave Täht]

richard <richard at pacdat.net> writes:

> I like your vehicle analogy but I think today's network-using public can
> relate better to a real-world situation in the internet so I've put
> together my own article on the problem. I'd already started the article
> last week and finally got to finish it today.
> http://digital-rag.com/article.php/Buffer-Bloat-Packet-Loss

Wondeful! That's 3 non-jg pieces in a row that "get" it, and explain
specific bits of it well. 

There are three excellent animations of how TCP/IP actually works here:

http://www.kehlet.cx/articles/99.html

Perhaps that would help your piece somewhat.

I keep hoping that someone graphically talented will show up that can do
animations similar to those above, that clearly illustrate
bufferbloat. Anyone? Anyone know anyone?

Another analogy that was kicked around yesterday on the #bufferbloat irc
channel was the plumbing one - where more and more stuff is poured into
a boiling kettle (a still perhaps) until it overflows, or explodes.

Here's a title of a piece that *I* daren't write: 

                  “Draino for the Intertubes”


I've struggled mightily to explain bufferbloat to so many people. For
example I spent 3 hours talking with an artist that understood protools
- and thought the internet was all slaved to a master clock. 

I'm very glad to see y'all helping out. There's still lots left to do,
not just in communication but in actually getting some work done on both
the easy and hard engineering problems.

But staying on the communication front:

If a little kid asked you, in a small thin voice, 

   “Why is the internet slow today?”

How would you explain it?

How'd you explain it to a doctor? A lawyer? Your mom? Your boss?

As it happens I have studio time this weekend, if anyone is into script
writing I can fake up a few voices. I have two ideas that I might be
able to fit into 2 minutes each, but kind of have to tear myself away
from email to work on... 

> It could have some more technical terms (latency for example) added to
> it but I limited it to the concept of window and ACK for now.
>

This, though dated, is a good reference on latency.

http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/rants/Latency.html

A modernized one would be great... There was some good stuff on one of
the audio lists/web sites that I saw, I'll look for it. 

Audio guys *get* latency. So do the real time guys. Few others.

> It takes the content of a recent ad from a local ISP and talks about
> what is actually going on "under the hood"

Lots of public confusion to counter. The nice thing is - we have
mitigations that *work*. What do they have?



-- 
Dave Taht
http://nex-6.taht.net