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FAQS
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Q: What is BRTP?

A: BRTP (and it's near ubiquitous, secure mode, BRTPS) is the temporally agnostic internet's main transport protocol. ("BRTP" stands for "BRidge Transport Protocol," but it's seldom "spelled out" in its verbose form). Superficially, BRTP is similar to HTTP (and HTTPS, its secure, SSL-based mode) on the temporally anchored internet. However, significant differences exist, on account of the challenges inherent in TCP/IP transport across "wormbridges" which allow connectivity between one end of a wormhole and its other end. (Wikipedia's "Wormhole" entry offers a good introduction for Ph.D. laypeople.)


Q: What is a "Bancroft"?

A: The 1998 "Bancroft Meetings" were the birthplace of BRTP, BRTPS, BSL, and most concepts related to the temporally agnostic internet. Because of this, "Bancroft" often refers to anything related to BRTP or the temporally agnostic internet - which is why, for example, BRTP browser clients are often referred to as "Bancroft clients," or just "Bancrofts." Strictly speaking, "Bancroft compatibility" denotes adherence to the various standards and protocols which were codified at the Meetings (usually as RFC-8893, 8898, and 8932, and ISO-49012-3, and updates such as BR/2009-A). Also note: B-nodes, relays, pseudobridges, Bancroft-Hammersmith entities, C4's, and other solidware manufactured to these "Meetings specifications" (particularly RFC-8898 and the parts of BR/2009-A which pertain to solidware and rigidware) are often referred to as "Bancroft-compatible."

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Q: So but these technologies let you travel through wormholes, like for time-travel?

A: Absolutely not. A common misconception about BRTP-related technologies (and wormbridges in general) is that they allow for travel through wormholes, and thus for time-travel and/or travel over arbitrarily large spacial distances. BRTP allows absolutely nothing of the kind. Such travel is still the domain of science fiction.

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Q: What is a "blocation"?

A: Just as a website (or its URL) is sometimes referred to as a "location," a "blocation" is a place (a "site") on the temporally agnostic internet which users reach via BRTP clients. "Blocs" (rhymes with "blocks") are often indistinguishable from "regular" web sites, except that visitors reach them via Bancroft clients, not web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc. (To complicate things slightly, however, most Bancroft clients - including WormSurf - offer an "embedded mode," in which a full Bancroft browser may be embedded in a "regular" HTTP web page - accessed via e.g. Firefox or Chrome - that has a "regular" HTTP or HTTPS URL. Much of the scripting associated with BRTP clients acts as the "glue" between an embedded BRTP client's content and the "parent" HTTP client; WSX and Surfex are two of these languages.)

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Q: Do I have to calibrate using the Berkeley Options?

A: Nobody'll put a gun to your head. But while the BRTPS community has attempted to improve on the BOs for almost two decades (they were formulated in late 1999 by Daniel Jorgensson), nobody thus far has done better than this simple set of nine calibrands. And even if they had, there would be (currently) no software allowing end-users to calibrate their clients using schemes other than the Berkeleys. TL;DR: use the Berkeleys, unless you're comfortable, e.g., manually de-tuning Lancaster capacitance levels after an R-3 incident or effecting an IMPINGE operation on a degraded Anderton node or calcified G-type. (Didn't think so. Us either.)

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Q: How is "nightsky" browsing different from regular BRTP browsing?

A: "Nightsky browsing" (or "nightskying") refers to browsing the temporally agnostic internet at night (locally; obviously it's always night somewhere - but nightskying refers to activities performed at night, local time (as well as, if applicable, nighttime at any other sites you may connect to on your route to a bridge). Nighttime browsing allows users to connect to other terrestrial stations via skywave RF propagation (RF which "hugs" the curved surface of Earth rather than straight-lining into outer space, never to be heard from again). The challenges of RFing to other terrastations before pick-n-pricking to an outboard or Sydney-style relay node attract some power-users for various reasons.

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Q: Is browsing the internet with a Bancroft as fast as using a normal web browser?

A: No.

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Q: What is a routelist?

A: Every time a BRTPS client makes a connection to another blocation on the temporally agnostic network, a route between these blocs is formed; this route is described by a routelist. A typical routelist consists of most or all of the following nodes:

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  • A BRTPS client on your desktop computer or mobile device (sometimes called the "initiating blocation," but typically when we refer to a "blocation" we refer to, for example, a web site or other "destination" on the network).

  • A terrastation, sometimes called an EBT or, colloquially, a "jumpoff"; these are identified by their "type" - for example, typical older EBTs are P-Types and tend to be underground (often simply in basements of existing structures, for example) while newer F-types, R-types, and Sanders-Hardiman SH-types are generally outdoors, at ground level, usually in undeveloped areas near urban centers. (An outlier EBT is the XA-type; these double - usually - as Series-II deciprocators, which we will not discuss here.) The connection between your Bancroft and an EBT is either via the terrestrial internet (via your ISP and over the same fiber-optic lines you'd use to connect to any "regular" website), or (at night only) via RF (that is, "radio frequency" transmission, the same way your AM radio receives transmissions). "Nightsky" connectivity, when not subject to interference, is superior to fiber-optic transmission because of recent innovations which take advantage of sideband reciprocity (previously considered a mere curiosity) , allowing for TCP/IP packets to arrive ahead of themselves, in a sense "announcing" their own arrival. Since "sidebanding" allows packets to travel faster than themselves, the further the jumpoff is from you, the better - as long as (crucially) it's also nighttime at the jumpoff. During during daylight hours, the closer the better, as with any standard fiber-optic or other standard connection.

  • An ISM bridge. ISMs are typically in geostationary or geosynchronous orbit, although this is not always the case. ISMs are usually a straight shot from the relevant terrastation/jumpoff; if they're not, a supplementary relay such as a Viscount-R or Pendleton IV (often called "bouncers") is required, generally introducing unnecessary complexity. (However, bouncers - often more than one - are critical during severely inclement local weather, as well as during magnetosphere disturbances and unexpected ISM outages and periods of very high traffic; during such events, specially equipped mobile sidebanders are often deployed, but these are only of use during station-to-station nightsky.) ISMs in geostationary orbit are preferred since if they're a straight-shot now, they'll be a straight-shot an hour from now, tomorrow, etc.)

  • A twiplet. If the ISM is a G-type (a pseudobridge), the routelist will require a twiplet (usually a triband twiplet) to "de-pseudo" from the ISM. Twiplets are bridge-like entities with two redports and three blueports, allowing for synchostatic diffusion across their forward put-overs. Since this is a relatively uncommon occurrence, we won't discuss further here.

  • A wormbridge. Wormbridges make BRTP networking possible; they are the sine qua non of temporally agnostic networking. BRTP blocations, by definition, are through a wormhole relative to the local frame. Travel through wormholes , sci-fi stories aside, is utterly impossible, and may never be possible. What is possible, however, is inter-hole communication via TCP/IP (or UDP, but we will restrict the conversation to TCP/IP for now). The term "wormbridge," as the it's commonly used, in fact refers to one end of the "bridge" across a wormhole (the blocation forming the far terminus of the bridge).

  • The terminal blocation. The "destination" on the other side of the wormhole, relative to the local frame. Since the distance between the wormbridge and the terminal blocation is typically millions of light-years, TCP/IP packets are "enfolded" at either end of the connection: wrapped in a Hasselblad spiral-antispiral pair after they have been unwrapped, or unwrapped before they have been wrapped. Per the Fairchild Effect, such antispiralled pre-matter, once sent through the hole, binds to prospiralled post-matter (that is, antimatter); it is these "super-doubled" particle anti-pairs which tunnel through Shelby Space, effectively arriving at the very moment they depart - or departing at the very moment they arrive, as the case may be.

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