5 ms·

What are those for? My laptop has internet, but I don’t need to plug it anywhere for it to work. Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies li

What are those for? My laptop has internet, but I don’t need to plug it anywhere for it to work. Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies like Back to the Future?

rkagerer 4y ago
It's a kind of safety line to keep your packets from wandering off and getting lost on their way to the cloud. Helps reduce the "401 not found" pages you sometimes encounter. Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies like Back to the Future? Yep, exactly that. We used the 1.21 Gigawatts standard, which was only half as groovy as today's 2.4 Ghz WiFi.
AdamTReineke 4y ago
I'm convinced that a wired connection is better for video calls. Just like headphones. I'm my opinion, those two things are table stakes for a good remote work experience for your coworkers.
- Mogzol 4y ago
  I was convinced of that until I was forced to stop using a wired connection (moved to a room that didn't have ethernet). I'm on wifi now and notice literally no difference compared to when I was on ethernet. As long as you've got a decent router/AP, modern wifi is really not bad. I get a consistent 400-500 Mb/s up and down with no hiccups. On my wifi 6 devices I get closer to a Gb/s.
  - ornornor 4y ago
    It’s not only throughput. Wifi is more susceptible to jitter as well. But yeah in some cases wifi works well, whereas wired always works well. And if wired doesn’t work then your internet connection is bad and wifi won’t help either.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Yep my wired is 10Gb and it is better than wireless.
newaccount74 4y ago
Ethernet has more bandwidth and lower ping than Wifi. And is mostly immune to interference. If you have a lot of devices on Wifi, it helps to put your main devices on Ethernet.
- pletnes 4y ago
  Often true, but since many a corporation now prioritizes wifi or stops deploying ethernet to avoid the cost, AND wifi keeps getting better, the lines have crossed for me. Oh and I need a USB-C to ethernet dongle. Oh, and a cable. TL;DR for me, wifi now beats ethernet at work.
  - brian-armstrong 4y ago
    Your company comes to your home to deploy internet for you? Fancy!
  - celtain 4y ago
    Thanks to USB-C I just keep my Ethernet cable plugged into my monitor (via a USB dongle), and now when I plug in my external display I not only get power but also wired networking.
    - krolden 4y ago
      I was going to do the same but the USB ports on my monitor go down to usb 2 when youre also doing video. I was disappointed when I found that out.
funhatch 4y ago
What’s a laptop, grandad? I can code on my tablet /s
- dmd 4y ago
  I learned recently that most high school students around here (fairly affluent Boston suburb) write papers - even long 10+ page ones - on their phones.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    This is terrible. Using the phone keyboard?
    - dmd 4y ago
      yep
- munk-a 4y ago
  What's a tablet grandpa? I code in Roblox /s
Firmwarrior 4y ago
Cables are so that you don't lag in the middle of an important boss encounter at work or play when someone turns on the microwave
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  Off topic, but if your microwave does that, it is time to either fix or retire it.
  - ornornor 4y ago
    Why? Do you mean because it leaks microwaves? I believe that’s an urban legend as you’d notice very quickly. Microwaves always kill wifi for me if they’re in the path between device and AP.
    - bagels 4y ago
      What's an urban legend? That your kitchen microwave leaks rf? I'd be surprised if any of them somehow didn't. It takes a tremendous effort to stop all rf leaks in a device.
      - lostlogin 4y ago
        Having been around a few MR scanners with RF artifact issues, I agree. Light bulbs with tiny bits of filament in the bulb, holes drilled in the cage by fire safety morons, faulty doors etc.
    - myself248 4y ago
      This happened to a coworker of mine. He was having sporadic wifi trouble, always in the evening but not every evening. Plugging in wired would always solve it, so it was definitely a wireless problem. I handed him one of my old Ubiquiti M-series APs, the ones with the spectrum analyzer function built in. Showed him how to use it on his laptop, how to turn in a circle and estimate the azimuth of the source, etc. He went home that evening and as soon as his connection dropped, he fired up the analyzer. Very quickly localized the source to the driveway side of the house.... to the neighbor's kitchen. At that point he called me for advice, and I said to knock on the neighbor's door, because this is really unsafe. He put me on speakerphone and I was able to tell them what we found, and they cut me off, saying they knew the door seal was damaged -- it got torn a few weeks prior when someone caught something in the door -- they just had no idea it was a big deal. (It's normal to feel a warm draft near the corner of the unit since the fan exhaust blows out down there, so the warm-sunshine feeling wasn't distinct enough to alarm anyone.) They replaced the microwave the next day and the problem went away.
lm28469 4y ago
Not all networks are wireless enabled
russdill 4y ago
There's a large number of reasons, reliability, bandwidth, latency, security, but really with the rise of thunderbolt and USB c docks there's no longer a need to plug a laptop directly into Ethernet.
- comboy 4y ago
  Guys, VincentEvans has almost 10 years old account, I doubt he needs these explanations. I've never seen such joke being misinterpreted on HN. Heartwarming patience for youngsters though.
- TacticalCoder 4y ago
  > but really with the rise of thunderbolt and USB c docks there's no longer a need to plug a laptop directly into Ethernet. Especially when the laptop does not have an Ethernet port. For me it's USB-C to Ethernet adapter when my laptop is in my office room, and pathetic WiFi elsewhere. I take it I should try one of these USB-C to USB-C magnetic things (a la Magsafe): don't know if they're any good.
mig39 4y ago
This is the best troll comment ever :-) Look at the replies taking you seriously :-) Including me. When you have a lot of wireless devices, for every one you take off wireless, you have less radio traffic, less interference, and everyone else has a better connection :-) In my network, unless something has to be wireless, I run a cable :-)
- consumer451 4y ago
  > In my network, unless something has to be wireless, I run a cable :-) i would argue that being seemingly extreme here is worthwhile. If possible, run it inside rigid conduit. Some more cost now, but conduit makes it a much more maintainable system. Solid yet upgradable digital infrastructure, for the home or small office. I once did this for a small office space which I had the freedom and budget to do as I wished. After that, everything was rock solid for years. Floods, critters, insane humidity... survived it all. If somehow a cable went bad, it could be used to pull through its replacement. If in 10-20 years fiber became the new LAN cable, then just pull it through yourself without an electrician. If you need to hire an electrician who has the clbest tools for termination, their billable hours will be much lower. Rigid conduit every room, maybe even two walls per room since you are already paying a pro to be under/over there already. If it's a retrofit then maybe it's too late, but a renovation or new build... I would always spend that extra money if at all possible.
- Smoosh 4y ago
  Same with me re wired whenever possible. Especially for things like streaming boxes which want a good connection and use high bandwidth. I save the wifi for things that really need it, and they should be faster as a result.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

What are those for? My laptop has internet, but I don’t need to plug it anywhere for it to work. Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies like Back to the Future?

rkagerer 4y ago

It's a kind of safety line to keep your packets from wandering off and getting lost on their way to the cloud. Helps reduce the "401 not found" pages you sometimes encounter. Is this for computers like they had in the really old movies like Back to the Future? Yep, exactly that. We used the 1.21 Gigawatts standard, which was only half as groovy as today's 2.4 Ghz WiFi.

AdamTReineke 4y ago

I'm convinced that a wired connection is better for video calls. Just like headphones. I'm my opinion, those two things are table stakes for a good remote work experience for your coworkers.

Mogzol 4y ago
I was convinced of that until I was forced to stop using a wired connection (moved to a room that didn't have ethernet). I'm on wifi now and notice literally no difference compared to when I was on ethernet. As long as you've got a decent router/AP, modern wifi is really not bad. I get a consistent 400-500 Mb/s up and down with no hiccups. On my wifi 6 devices I get closer to a Gb/s.
- ornornor 4y ago
  It’s not only throughput. Wifi is more susceptible to jitter as well. But yeah in some cases wifi works well, whereas wired always works well. And if wired doesn’t work then your internet connection is bad and wifi won’t help either.
bombcar 4y ago
Yep my wired is 10Gb and it is better than wireless.

newaccount74 4y ago

Ethernet has more bandwidth and lower ping than Wifi. And is mostly immune to interference. If you have a lot of devices on Wifi, it helps to put your main devices on Ethernet.

pletnes 4y ago
Often true, but since many a corporation now prioritizes wifi or stops deploying ethernet to avoid the cost, AND wifi keeps getting better, the lines have crossed for me. Oh and I need a USB-C to ethernet dongle. Oh, and a cable. TL;DR for me, wifi now beats ethernet at work.
- brian-armstrong 4y ago
  Your company comes to your home to deploy internet for you? Fancy!
- celtain 4y ago
  Thanks to USB-C I just keep my Ethernet cable plugged into my monitor (via a USB dongle), and now when I plug in my external display I not only get power but also wired networking.
  - krolden 4y ago
    I was going to do the same but the USB ports on my monitor go down to usb 2 when youre also doing video. I was disappointed when I found that out.

funhatch 4y ago

What’s a laptop, grandad? I can code on my tablet /s

dmd 4y ago
I learned recently that most high school students around here (fairly affluent Boston suburb) write papers - even long 10+ page ones - on their phones.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  This is terrible. Using the phone keyboard?
  - dmd 4y ago
    yep
munk-a 4y ago
What's a tablet grandpa? I code in Roblox /s

Firmwarrior 4y ago

Cables are so that you don't lag in the middle of an important boss encounter at work or play when someone turns on the microwave

bornfreddy 4y ago
Off topic, but if your microwave does that, it is time to either fix or retire it.
- ornornor 4y ago
  Why? Do you mean because it leaks microwaves? I believe that’s an urban legend as you’d notice very quickly. Microwaves always kill wifi for me if they’re in the path between device and AP.
  - bagels 4y ago
    What's an urban legend? That your kitchen microwave leaks rf? I'd be surprised if any of them somehow didn't. It takes a tremendous effort to stop all rf leaks in a device.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Having been around a few MR scanners with RF artifact issues, I agree. Light bulbs with tiny bits of filament in the bulb, holes drilled in the cage by fire safety morons, faulty doors etc.
  - myself248 4y ago
    This happened to a coworker of mine. He was having sporadic wifi trouble, always in the evening but not every evening. Plugging in wired would always solve it, so it was definitely a wireless problem. I handed him one of my old Ubiquiti M-series APs, the ones with the spectrum analyzer function built in. Showed him how to use it on his laptop, how to turn in a circle and estimate the azimuth of the source, etc. He went home that evening and as soon as his connection dropped, he fired up the analyzer. Very quickly localized the source to the driveway side of the house.... to the neighbor's kitchen. At that point he called me for advice, and I said to knock on the neighbor's door, because this is really unsafe. He put me on speakerphone and I was able to tell them what we found, and they cut me off, saying they knew the door seal was damaged -- it got torn a few weeks prior when someone caught something in the door -- they just had no idea it was a big deal. (It's normal to feel a warm draft near the corner of the unit since the fan exhaust blows out down there, so the warm-sunshine feeling wasn't distinct enough to alarm anyone.) They replaced the microwave the next day and the problem went away.

lm28469 4y ago

Not all networks are wireless enabled

russdill 4y ago

There's a large number of reasons, reliability, bandwidth, latency, security, but really with the rise of thunderbolt and USB c docks there's no longer a need to plug a laptop directly into Ethernet.

comboy 4y ago
Guys, VincentEvans has almost 10 years old account, I doubt he needs these explanations. I've never seen such joke being misinterpreted on HN. Heartwarming patience for youngsters though.
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> but really with the rise of thunderbolt and USB c docks there's no longer a need to plug a laptop directly into Ethernet. Especially when the laptop does not have an Ethernet port. For me it's USB-C to Ethernet adapter when my laptop is in my office room, and pathetic WiFi elsewhere. I take it I should try one of these USB-C to USB-C magnetic things (a la Magsafe): don't know if they're any good.

mig39 4y ago

This is the best troll comment ever :-) Look at the replies taking you seriously :-) Including me. When you have a lot of wireless devices, for every one you take off wireless, you have less radio traffic, less interference, and everyone else has a better connection :-) In my network, unless something has to be wireless, I run a cable :-)

consumer451 4y ago
> In my network, unless something has to be wireless, I run a cable :-) i would argue that being seemingly extreme here is worthwhile. If possible, run it inside rigid conduit. Some more cost now, but conduit makes it a much more maintainable system. Solid yet upgradable digital infrastructure, for the home or small office. I once did this for a small office space which I had the freedom and budget to do as I wished. After that, everything was rock solid for years. Floods, critters, insane humidity... survived it all. If somehow a cable went bad, it could be used to pull through its replacement. If in 10-20 years fiber became the new LAN cable, then just pull it through yourself without an electrician. If you need to hire an electrician who has the clbest tools for termination, their billable hours will be much lower. Rigid conduit every room, maybe even two walls per room since you are already paying a pro to be under/over there already. If it's a retrofit then maybe it's too late, but a renovation or new build... I would always spend that extra money if at all possible.
Smoosh 4y ago
Same with me re wired whenever possible. Especially for things like streaming boxes which want a good connection and use high bandwidth. I save the wifi for things that really need it, and they should be faster as a result.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]