"Quit tuning into Fox news. It rots your brain. Read between the lines."
Do you have these WHOOSH moments all the time? Or just over this subject?
I don't HAVE to read between the lines. What, you're going to base your argument on a rumor about a possible alliance between NASA and a corporation? Big fucking deal.
Repeat: I was talking about CURRENT OFFICIAL POLICY. I don't give the slightest damn whether you think it will change in the future. I'm talking about RIGHT NOW.
And I repeat again: the OFFICIAL administration policy right now. I remind you that the administration (Congress and the President) are who determine NASA's budget. And as of right now, they have publicly declared that we DO NOT have any plans to go to the moon.
I am fully aware that NASA wants to. And I am behind them in that effort. But I was clearly referring to OUR GOVERNMENT and their short-sided policies, not what NASA "wants" to do.
There's another market segment too: watches (like mine) that do things like compass, altitude, barometric pressure, temperature, heart rate, etc.
Sometimes the appropriate place for a "smart" device is on your wrist.
Try telling a rock climber they're better off carrying a phone in their chalk bag or whatever. Or a backpacker on a week-long hike that they're better off carrying their smartphone which only holds a charge for 3 days. (As a backpacker myself, if you told me to just carry extra batteries or portable chargers I'd laugh at you.)
Of course, that doesn't mean I think the appropriate place for a Microsoft smart device is on your wrist. I don't know the details yet but I probably won't want one.
"I can't remember the last time I saw somebody wearing a watch except for some feeb trying to prove something by having a Rolex and pointing it out. If you need the time your smartphone is synched with the USNO and multiple GPS satellites that must know the time to such a degree that your distance from them alters your reference frame. What part of "people don't wear watches any more" is confusing to Microsoft? "
The part about how most people aren't you.
MOST people DO wear watches. Still. And there are good reasons: your watch doesn't lose its charge (except for maybe once a year); your watch stays on when you go to bed, you don't have to pick it up off the nightstand to see what time it is; you don't have to dig your watch out of your bag to see what time it is; most watches are accurate enough today that USNO hardly matters; etc. etc. etc.
Probably the biggest reason, though, is that this is probably not primarily a watch. It is also, and probably more importantly, an adjunct to your smartphone: showing caller id and other alerts, probably music controls, and so on.
As such, I still think it's a dumb idea, but for reasons far different from yours. For one thing, it will probably have a rechargeable battery only lasting a couple of days. For another, it will duplicate a lot of functionality that is already in your phone, just on your wrist.
I can understand why some people might want them. I'm just not one of those people.
"I mean the guys could make a mint that got in on the ground floor, because mining was super duper easy, but as more and more enter it becomes harder and harder and now I seriously doubt anyone that isn't stealing the electricity will ever break even."
That isn't why they made a killing. First, it wasn't "super duper easy" even in the beginning. I made a couple of bitcoins back in the early days, and it took my laptop grinding away for a total of about a couple of days each (I ran it overnight when I was sleeping).
That's not "super duper easy" when you consider that a Bitcoin was only worth about 50 cents to a dollar. You were lucky if you broke even on the electricity.
Most of the people who made lots of money in the market were not bitcoin miners (though that has probably changed if anybody has half a brain). It was the investors. People who bought bitcoins hoping their market value would go up.
But there's a problem with that, too, see. Last I checked (which wasn't very long ago), it was costing in the neighborhood of around $30 to mine a bitcoin, if you add up the amortized equipment cost, time and electricity. Yet Bitcoins went up as high as $250.
Wouldn't you like to be able to make something for $30 and sell it for $250? Yeah, me too. Of course it's down from that now but it's still selling for about 5 or 6 times what it costs to make. That's a pretty good markup. So people who are making bitcoins TODAY are making a killing. Not just the initial investors (though they did pretty well).
Which of course means more people will make Bitcoins, which means the price will come down, until the difficulty (cost) of making them is not that far from market price.
All you are seeing right now is a bubble. As long as they are selling for lots more than they cost to make, you are going to have an irrational, lopsided market that could crash at any time. But it's hardly a "pyramid scheme". There is lots of opportunity right now for somebody to invest in hardware and make a lot of money... if they do it quick.
I would be remiss if I did not add: a while back the Obama administration announced that it had NO official plans to go back to the moon. Did you forget that already?
Once again: while private industry may do it, that is a very far cry from official Government policy.
"Idiots like u are killing us. NASA is having private space go to the moon while NASA does things that need to be done but private space can not afford."
"Idiot", am I?
Please show me where there are official Government plans for private space industry to go to the moon. I follow the space program closely, yet I've never heard of that one. Yes, recently a private firm announced a plan to go to the moon (one announced plans to go to Mars, too) but those are in spite of NASA. They are not even remotely part of NASA's official plans.
Second, we can't afford it? REALLY? We can afford useless military action in Afghanistan and Syria, which cost MANY TIMES more, but we can't afford this? Bullshit.
And yet the Russians and the Chinese CAN afford it? REALLY? Their economies are doing THAT MUCH better than ours? Hint: Russia's definitely is not, and China has been in a bit of a slump lately. Or hadn't you heard about that?
And I'm the idiot, huh? I think that's a very interesting point of view.
"Did you even bother to read the next sentence after that?"
Yes. But his next sentence hardly matters. It doesn't change anything. They are compliant, or they are not. They promised to become compliant by next year. Big deal.
While it is great that NASA is focusing on efforts to do something that may be very worthwhile in the long run, they (and the government) are ignoring the critical strategic importance of the moon.
With Russia pledging to spend 7 times NASA's annual budget on space exploration this year, and with both Russia and China determined to establish permanent moonbases, the U.S. government is seriously dropping the ball.
I really have to say, honestly, sometimes I think this administration is trying to pull the U.S. down on purpose.
"Maybe the problem here is toys from manufacturers that did not learn that lesson decades ago."
Maybe the problem here is people who feel secure in their stupidity because they want government to save them from it... thinking (stupidly) that it can.
By the way: "buckyballs" and "buckycubes" (exactly the same product, just without the brand name) are easily available online to anybody who has even a tiny amount of talent at using Google or Bing.
"No you cannot, and the major responsibles for that are the governments with their increasing hunger for information and control."
This is VERY disputable.
I do not dispute that governments have wanted more information and control. But I do dispute that you "can't have" privacy in the U.S. today if you want it.
Some states have already passed laws against drone use by civilians OR government. The more enlightened versions limit the ban to drones used for "surveillance".
Other states -- I know of at least one example -- have privacy laws such that although drones are not specifically mentioned, if used for surveillance they would be in violation of the existing law.
"Comcast is already offering 100 mb in some markets and they can probably steal more bandwidth from their cable TV spectrum to ramp up to a gig if it really becomes necessary. Coax has a lot of room in it as long as it's in good physical shape. "
The point isn't that the same service might be available elsewhere. It's what they CHARGE for it.
"Try reading your own messages sometimes - I wouldn't have brought up instagram if you hadn't."
Jesus Christ. Do you have reading comprehension issues? Here is a quote of my first sentence. Emphasis added:
"Actually, I don't think you need an instagram filter to make these pictures uncool. "
This was in response to someone else's joke about Instagram. Are you reading the same words I am? Where in that sentence of mine is there anything negative about Instagram?
"Um, no. Try reading your own messages sometimes. You were discussing the features of the flakes as seen in these images."
Um, yes. Repeat, again:
"I've seen lots of crystalline snowflakes under magnifiers and microscopes before, and they look nothing like these pictures. The ones I saw had nice sharply-defined edges, but these... -- including the nice symmetrical ones -- are noticeably fuzzy around the edges... It's just that they're actually pretty shitty pictures."
Repeat again: it is a discussion of these pictures VERSUS OTHER PICTURES of snowflakes I have seen. It is right there in plain English. Same as I wrote it the first time. In context, no changed words.
I agree. And I wasn't disparaging this technology, which may well turn out to be valuable. But let's face it... the pictures aren't of wonderful quality. No doubt that will improve.
"First of all, I think anyone wanting to start a business needs to go into it with a solid chunk of funding knowing full well that they'll burn money for a couple of years."
In most cases I would agree with that only if it is YOUR OWN funding, not borrowed money. DHH (if you know who he is) watches the tech industry closely and he has said it many times: the FIRST and often fatal big mistake many small companies make is going straight into heavy debt to finance their startup.
" It's entirely unprofessional these days to have absolutely zero internet presence and puts them in a position of having an uphill battle for me to respect them as a business."
That works both ways. It's entirely unprofessional to expect a web presence from a company that isn't interested in doing business with you.
Don't misunderstand me: I have myself had plenty of experience with the former. But the latter do exist, and they may be more common than you think.
I think we should begin with the names Jack Vance gave the planets in some of his Science Fiction series. The many planets in his Rigel Concourse, for starters.
Few people have a talent for coming up with names equal to Vance.
Slashdot Mirror
"Quit tuning into Fox news. It rots your brain. Read between the lines."
Do you have these WHOOSH moments all the time? Or just over this subject?
I don't HAVE to read between the lines. What, you're going to base your argument on a rumor about a possible alliance between NASA and a corporation? Big fucking deal.
Repeat: I was talking about CURRENT OFFICIAL POLICY. I don't give the slightest damn whether you think it will change in the future. I'm talking about RIGHT NOW.
And I repeat again: the OFFICIAL administration policy right now. I remind you that the administration (Congress and the President) are who determine NASA's budget. And as of right now, they have publicly declared that we DO NOT have any plans to go to the moon.
I am fully aware that NASA wants to. And I am behind them in that effort. But I was clearly referring to OUR GOVERNMENT and their short-sided policies, not what NASA "wants" to do.
There's another market segment too: watches (like mine) that do things like compass, altitude, barometric pressure, temperature, heart rate, etc.
Sometimes the appropriate place for a "smart" device is on your wrist.
Try telling a rock climber they're better off carrying a phone in their chalk bag or whatever. Or a backpacker on a week-long hike that they're better off carrying their smartphone which only holds a charge for 3 days. (As a backpacker myself, if you told me to just carry extra batteries or portable chargers I'd laugh at you.)
Of course, that doesn't mean I think the appropriate place for a Microsoft smart device is on your wrist. I don't know the details yet but I probably won't want one.
"I can't remember the last time I saw somebody wearing a watch except for some feeb trying to prove something by having a Rolex and pointing it out. If you need the time your smartphone is synched with the USNO and multiple GPS satellites that must know the time to such a degree that your distance from them alters your reference frame. What part of "people don't wear watches any more" is confusing to Microsoft? "
The part about how most people aren't you.
MOST people DO wear watches. Still. And there are good reasons: your watch doesn't lose its charge (except for maybe once a year); your watch stays on when you go to bed, you don't have to pick it up off the nightstand to see what time it is; you don't have to dig your watch out of your bag to see what time it is; most watches are accurate enough today that USNO hardly matters; etc. etc. etc.
Probably the biggest reason, though, is that this is probably not primarily a watch. It is also, and probably more importantly, an adjunct to your smartphone: showing caller id and other alerts, probably music controls, and so on.
As such, I still think it's a dumb idea, but for reasons far different from yours. For one thing, it will probably have a rechargeable battery only lasting a couple of days. For another, it will duplicate a lot of functionality that is already in your phone, just on your wrist.
I can understand why some people might want them. I'm just not one of those people.
"I mean the guys could make a mint that got in on the ground floor, because mining was super duper easy, but as more and more enter it becomes harder and harder and now I seriously doubt anyone that isn't stealing the electricity will ever break even."
That isn't why they made a killing. First, it wasn't "super duper easy" even in the beginning. I made a couple of bitcoins back in the early days, and it took my laptop grinding away for a total of about a couple of days each (I ran it overnight when I was sleeping).
That's not "super duper easy" when you consider that a Bitcoin was only worth about 50 cents to a dollar. You were lucky if you broke even on the electricity.
Most of the people who made lots of money in the market were not bitcoin miners (though that has probably changed if anybody has half a brain). It was the investors. People who bought bitcoins hoping their market value would go up.
But there's a problem with that, too, see. Last I checked (which wasn't very long ago), it was costing in the neighborhood of around $30 to mine a bitcoin, if you add up the amortized equipment cost, time and electricity. Yet Bitcoins went up as high as $250.
Wouldn't you like to be able to make something for $30 and sell it for $250? Yeah, me too. Of course it's down from that now but it's still selling for about 5 or 6 times what it costs to make. That's a pretty good markup. So people who are making bitcoins TODAY are making a killing. Not just the initial investors (though they did pretty well).
Which of course means more people will make Bitcoins, which means the price will come down, until the difficulty (cost) of making them is not that far from market price.
All you are seeing right now is a bubble. As long as they are selling for lots more than they cost to make, you are going to have an irrational, lopsided market that could crash at any time. But it's hardly a "pyramid scheme". There is lots of opportunity right now for somebody to invest in hardware and make a lot of money... if they do it quick.
I would be remiss if I did not add: a while back the Obama administration announced that it had NO official plans to go back to the moon. Did you forget that already?
Once again: while private industry may do it, that is a very far cry from official Government policy.
"Idiots like u are killing us. NASA is having private space go to the moon while NASA does things that need to be done but private space can not afford."
"Idiot", am I?
Please show me where there are official Government plans for private space industry to go to the moon. I follow the space program closely, yet I've never heard of that one. Yes, recently a private firm announced a plan to go to the moon (one announced plans to go to Mars, too) but those are in spite of NASA. They are not even remotely part of NASA's official plans.
Second, we can't afford it? REALLY? We can afford useless military action in Afghanistan and Syria, which cost MANY TIMES more, but we can't afford this? Bullshit.
And yet the Russians and the Chinese CAN afford it? REALLY? Their economies are doing THAT MUCH better than ours? Hint: Russia's definitely is not, and China has been in a bit of a slump lately. Or hadn't you heard about that?
And I'm the idiot, huh? I think that's a very interesting point of view.
:) Point taken.
"Did you even bother to read the next sentence after that?"
Yes. But his next sentence hardly matters. It doesn't change anything. They are compliant, or they are not. They promised to become compliant by next year. Big deal.
"Congrats, did you read the next sentence?"
What difference does it make? A promise to make things better "by next year" does not make Rackspace any more compliant with OpenStack today.
While it is great that NASA is focusing on efforts to do something that may be very worthwhile in the long run, they (and the government) are ignoring the critical strategic importance of the moon.
With Russia pledging to spend 7 times NASA's annual budget on space exploration this year, and with both Russia and China determined to establish permanent moonbases, the U.S. government is seriously dropping the ball.
I really have to say, honestly, sometimes I think this administration is trying to pull the U.S. down on purpose.
"... where that whole country of gun-toting free-thinking individuals wouldn't have been safe from a couple of tourists from the UK."
Don't make the classic mistake of thinking the "average American" is as stupid as their government. You would be wrong.
"Maybe the problem here is toys from manufacturers that did not learn that lesson decades ago."
Maybe the problem here is people who feel secure in their stupidity because they want government to save them from it... thinking (stupidly) that it can.
By the way: "buckyballs" and "buckycubes" (exactly the same product, just without the brand name) are easily available online to anybody who has even a tiny amount of talent at using Google or Bing.
Oops. Never mind. He did too. Processing and data storage.
OP did not tell us WHAT he needs to scale.
Front-end is a given. But that is relatively simple to handle. What else? Database? Business logic?
Kind of hard to give advice when you don't know what you're giving advice for.
"OpenStack. You can start with a hosting provider like Rackspace that has as a faithful implementation of it."
Ahem. Just 2 days ago an article discussed here on Slashdot pointed out that Rackspace is not compliant with OpenStack standards.
"No you cannot, and the major responsibles for that are the governments with their increasing hunger for information and control."
This is VERY disputable.
I do not dispute that governments have wanted more information and control. But I do dispute that you "can't have" privacy in the U.S. today if you want it.
Some states have already passed laws against drone use by civilians OR government. The more enlightened versions limit the ban to drones used for "surveillance".
Other states -- I know of at least one example -- have privacy laws such that although drones are not specifically mentioned, if used for surveillance they would be in violation of the existing law.
"There is no such thing as privacy for a time now."
False. You can have it if you want it.
"And Google is not even the major responsible for that."
It's certainly ONE OF the major entities responsible.
"Comcast is already offering 100 mb in some markets and they can probably steal more bandwidth from their cable TV spectrum to ramp up to a gig if it really becomes necessary. Coax has a lot of room in it as long as it's in good physical shape. "
The point isn't that the same service might be available elsewhere. It's what they CHARGE for it.
Eew. Awkward phrasing. Try:
Few people are equal to Vance when it comes to naming things.
"Try reading your own messages sometimes - I wouldn't have brought up instagram if you hadn't."
Jesus Christ. Do you have reading comprehension issues? Here is a quote of my first sentence. Emphasis added:
"Actually, I don't think you need an instagram filter to make these pictures uncool. "
This was in response to someone else's joke about Instagram. Are you reading the same words I am? Where in that sentence of mine is there anything negative about Instagram?
"Um, no. Try reading your own messages sometimes. You were discussing the features of the flakes as seen in these images."
Um, yes. Repeat, again:
"I've seen lots of crystalline snowflakes under magnifiers and microscopes before, and they look nothing like these pictures. The ones I saw had nice sharply-defined edges, but these ... -- including the nice symmetrical ones -- are noticeably fuzzy around the edges... It's just that they're actually pretty shitty pictures."
Repeat again: it is a discussion of these pictures VERSUS OTHER PICTURES of snowflakes I have seen. It is right there in plain English. Same as I wrote it the first time. In context, no changed words.
I agree. And I wasn't disparaging this technology, which may well turn out to be valuable. But let's face it... the pictures aren't of wonderful quality. No doubt that will improve.
"First of all, I think anyone wanting to start a business needs to go into it with a solid chunk of funding knowing full well that they'll burn money for a couple of years."
In most cases I would agree with that only if it is YOUR OWN funding, not borrowed money. DHH (if you know who he is) watches the tech industry closely and he has said it many times: the FIRST and often fatal big mistake many small companies make is going straight into heavy debt to finance their startup.
" It's entirely unprofessional these days to have absolutely zero internet presence and puts them in a position of having an uphill battle for me to respect them as a business."
That works both ways. It's entirely unprofessional to expect a web presence from a company that isn't interested in doing business with you.
Don't misunderstand me: I have myself had plenty of experience with the former. But the latter do exist, and they may be more common than you think.
I think we should begin with the names Jack Vance gave the planets in some of his Science Fiction series. The many planets in his Rigel Concourse, for starters.
Few people have a talent for coming up with names equal to Vance.