X-Stream Network

The X-Stream Network was the first free ISP based in Britain launched in 1998 and founded by Canadian businessmen Christopher Sukornyk and Gregory Sukornyk, founder of Project Breakout and Wippit founder Paul Myers.

The company were the first to offer free internet access from March 8, 1998 and then "unmetered" access through 0800 numbers. The X-Stream network was usually accessed via an 0845 number and required all users to install their bespoke dialler software, which ran independently of the browser and displayed an advertising banner above the windows start menu at all times while the user was connected. As this was a source of revenue in a market where all other ISPs charged a monthly subscription fee on top of the call costs, it was not possible to remove the X-Stream banner whilst the user is connected, although the banner was buggy and at times would crash leaving the connection active. The X-Stream banner was visible even when all other windows were maximised. Trial periods were set up mainly at evenings and weekends to allow 0800 access to the X-Stream network for 1 hour periods. This is the first instance of the development of "unmetered" access to the Internet in the UK. The X-Stream user base increased significantly after the launch of Freeserve.

Stream

A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, crick, gill (occasionally ghyll), kill, lick, mill race, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run, or runnel.

Streams are important as conduits in the water cycle, instruments in groundwater recharge, and corridors for fish and wildlife migration. The biological habitat in the immediate vicinity of a stream is called a riparian zone. Given the status of the ongoing Holocene extinction, streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology and is a core element of environmental geography.

Types

Stream (computing)

In computer science, a stream is a sequence of data elements made available over time. A stream can be thought of as items on a conveyor belt being processed one at a time rather than in large batches

Streams are processed differently from batch data – normal functions cannot operate on streams as a whole, as they have potentially unlimited data, and formally, streams are codata (potentially unlimited), not data (which is finite). Functions that operate on a stream, producing another stream, are known as filters, and can be connected in pipelines, analogously to function composition. Filters may operate on one item of a stream at a time, or may base an item of output on multiple items of input, such as a moving average.

Examples

The term "stream" is used in a number of similar ways:

Stream (album)

Stream is the eighth album by Fischer-Z. The album contains the single "Protection", which explored the dark area of child exploitation. Following the album, John Watts concentrated on his solo career again, making this the last album by Fischer-Z, before its slight revival again in 2002.

Track listing

All songs written by John Watts except were noted.

Personnel

Additional musicians

Additional personnel