Armed or unarmed the "black folks" don't want to be viewed as a thread due to their skin color.
Gun supporters are in general from the more rural areas, while gun rights activists live in the cities.
Many of the minority groups also have their population in these cities as well.
In a rural area, if something happens, it could take an hour for the police to come... By that time you could be dead, so having guns is seen as a necessary tool for their daily lives.
In Suburban/Urban areas. Police can be in an area in minutes, thus having a presence to protect the area. So individuals don't need guns, and those in those areas may cause more problems then it will solve.
New York State had put a stop to Fracking. And NY is about the most political state out there.
However we need unbiased science on the effect. In the meantime, if they want to Frack, fine... However if something goes wrong, they will be responsible and will need to pay to clean it up, for the next hundred years. The Fracking companies should happily agree to these terms because their method is so clean and safe. That there should be no risk in giving the citizens the extra protection.
I think for this case, it just may be an issue of not continuing to feed the flames. They post his retort then they will get retorts to his retort. Back and forth.
Religious debate has almost as much passion that people have in their personal dietary choices.
Innovation like being able to have low interests on a high risk loan. By selling fractions of that loan across many organizations so the liability of any one loan isn't so great.
This seemed like a good idea at the time. The person getting the loan can get a low interest payment, the person who is selling the loan can get the commission for the loan, the sub prime lenders make out as they get for the most part their money back.... Just as long as the economy doesn't sink, and those high risk individuals start dropping out in droves. Meaning you have a lot of assets in high risk loans which are failing. Because while the risk was reduced for the individual purchase, the risk was increased over the aggregate.
Now during the boom time, this was seen by most people as a good thing. They were worrying about the housing market to pop, but not on the fact the lenders were loading up on high risk loans. Because as most people saw it. That these people can get low interest rates for homes, thus improving the number of home owners that can build wealth over time.
Are you sure it is no contest who uses less energy? I went threw 18 routers/servers to get to slashdot. At an average of 300 watts per server that is over 5,000 watts just for the servers. I will double it to add for the infrastructure. That is 10 kW/h of energy per browsing hour. An electric car gets about 30 kw/h. Then we have all the places powered up that are getting no traffic. The Internet is like having powered roads, where every mile has power all the time. In terms of energy use cars can be competitive. The plus side is that data centers are fixed locations and can take advantages of clean energy, so the Internet may be a bit more green.
Getting replacement parts is the biggest issue. My garage door opener broke. I had to hunt around the Internet to find the broken worm gear. I got it. It took days to ship. When I got the part installed it works better then ever. But it is getting the right part which is the issue. Perhaps with 3d printing we can make a lot of the missing parts.
A not so cool thing about economics, is that there are a lot of complexities to a system. If the Tax is too high, you would put an industry at a standstill, as well many other industries dependant on it. If it is too low they will just charge the customers a little more and factor it in as cost of doing business, as the cost to improve would be greater than the tax penalty.
Good intentions aside when you try to tinker with that supply and demand curve unexpected consequences can happen.
Right now there is a lot of good shipping via Air Travel. People traveling for business, and a economy built around Air Travel. Think of Hawaii.
The Air Craft designers are always looking for ways to save fuel right now. It is a major expense, and give them a competitive disadvantage. If a carrier can get a better fuel economy then their competition then they would jump on it. As to under cut the price.
In the past visions of an utopian future, is based on having a Portable, Safe and Affordable Energy source.
While CO2 causing global warming was know back in these future prediction, the scope wasn't really understood. Oil Was very cheap, and the Idea of Nuclear being good for everyone was still popular.
Flying takes a lot of energy. We never solved the problem of Portable, Safe, Clean (A new modern condition), and Affordable Energy. Back to the Future had Mr. Fusion, If we had Mr. Fusion today I could see flying cars in 10 years.
But we can Have Portable Energy, That is Cheap, but it won't be Safe or Clean. We can Have Portable Energy That is Safe, Clean but it won't be Affordable...
While Aircraft are a big polluter, I still think the goal is to focus on places that doesn't need portable energy Factories, Homes, Etc... This will have a big impact. Then you can work down to sources that may need some portability however doesn't need the high Energy Density. Like Cars.
If you were to copy your Vinyl you will need to use the Analog copy method, which you can do with every other form of digital music.
I can take music off my phone, plug in the headphone jack to a Tape Recorder or to one of many digitial recorders. Then you can copy your music from one media to an other.
However being analog every copy will be degraded, so each copy of a copy will have limited sharing resource. Vinyl being all Analog makes it the perfect DRM.
Going to a movie. You really should go with someone. Sure you can see a movie alone, it feels really weird. Movie Tickets cost about $9 - $15 bucks Being that you bring someone you will need to double that. Even if you are able to cheap out and not get raped by the concession stand. The person you are going with may want something. So that adds $5 - $10 to it.
So you have spend $40 for 2 hours of entertainment, if you don't like the movie then that is a lot of money wasted.
For that money you can get 3-4 months of streaming movies. Where you can watch as much as you want.
If theaters want to improve movie going. They will need to treat their customers as guests. Cheaper prices concession food. Don't nitpick about people who bring in their own food. Put restrooms in quick distance from the theater.
You are stating that Linux is a Desktop OS? That we need Linux for these mundane tasks?
We need Linux for big calculations. Faster Databases (Parallel sorting of data, parallel searches). Faster collection for Decision Support Systems... Err um Business Intelligence Systems... Err um... Big Data... Whatever the buzzard of the week for statistical based calculations.
Some things just need parallelization but others need parallel processing.
A good parallel algorithm can bring computation speed down by one order of magnitude. A Sort can happen in O(log(n)) time. A search can happen in O(c) time.
These improvements happen when you have larger sets of data. Not baby toys like Word Processors, Spread Sheets and Email.
Why not a diverse set of power sources. Wind and Solar where it makes sense, Nuclear in other spots. And why the heck doesn't anyone recognize hydro electric as an excellent source of energy as well.
I keep on hearing these all or nothing approaches to power. Why isn't the conversation about energy diversity?
A good game should have simple rules, but hard to master.
Chess has the maximum amount of rules for a game. Most casual game players the rules need to be simple as they can start playing quickly. Without feeling like an idiot. However even though the rules may be simple, there is a lot of different strategies to try to win.
Some industries will move to wherever they can get the cheapest labor. Others will stick around after they have done a serious investment in an area.
I think the biggest problem is the idea of Ranking. US #1, is China going to take our #1 spot. That is really the wrong worry. China is the size of the US it has 10x the population. China on paper should be able to beat the US handedly for #1 position. But what is it doing wrong where it isn't.
But instead of fighting for #1 spot (which often means trying to knock others down) the goal should be growth at a sustainable rate. So if the whole world has an average of 5% unemployment like the US, the US may not be #1 but over all we will be better off as there would be such a large customer base.
Religious texts are often the few sources that have passed information across the generations.
Many of the archaeological finds are based on religious texts, As well as many of the cultural and social aspects of the cultures they portrait.
Are they a science textbook? No, not in the slightest. Especially due to the fact that Scientific methodology thinking is a relatively new concept. Before that most of what was found out was more via philosophical thinking. The Bible will represent the world as the people at the time understood it. Big, Complex, with many unusual things, Many of the random occurrences will be tied to whatever seems to correlate at the time. You are in a war and you Won. Then God is on your side and your values are better. The nature of God has changed overtime in the bible, as people get a better understanding of the world around them. Early in the Bible, God was very present with the people, Wind in Latin is spiritus, So when people felt the wind, they knew it was Spirits... However further you get God seems more distant and more abstract concept.
But what will people say in 2000 years when they look at our texts from today? Will they laugh at our Quantum Physics knowledge as being just way wrong? Perhaps they will find that our current theory on how the world was created to be off? Will our definitions of life be way off?
Will they laugh about our superstitions about GMO foods, or why we had all these different diets?
Perhaps we have a better method then science to understand the universe.
The Bible needs to be taken in context of the time. Now even the Pope doesn't say that God just waves a magic wand to make it so, he follows the laws of nature. Did God, just tap a particle billions of years ago, and just sit back and watch the results?
Science cannot prove or disprove it. The Bible isn't a science textbook so looking towards it for science fact will be difficult. You can probably get people and places from it. As well many of the moral stories still hold true.
I never promace that the stuff I make will make their lives easier. Actually I state it will make their job harder... Because you will need to focus on the hard stuff (People relations, Understanding the business and exceptions...) and less time on the easy stuff (pushing papers, following a prescribed workflow, Double checking you math, Collecting data that already exists...)
I have been hired to make your job more difficult. But at the same thread it is more efficient. And because you are not doing a lot of the mind numbing job, chances are you are not eyeing the clock as carefully as if you were.
The problem is good software replaces the need for Jr. Employees. This is making it harder for new employees to get in at the ground floor. As the new starting job is already more demanding. Back in them good old days, the stereotypical success stories is about the guy who started in the mail room and worked himself up to CEO. That doesn't happen anymore. Email has replaced that mailroom. Now the person who is starting needs a degree of professional skills even to get hired. So the story no longer works any more.
Nuclear warfare isn't useful. The level of destruction is so high that most war objectives cannot be achieved. After Nuclear weapons were used at the end of WWII, warfare had changed to defend itself from it. No longer big armies against big armies, but towards tactical strikes against targets. The goal isn't how big of a boom (a big enough one will hit your target no matter how poor your aim) but how good of a shot you can be, if you can hit your target without killing as many civilians.
Right now Nuclear weapons are more of a political chest thumping to show dominance. The U.S. has them because me made them for WWII then the Soviets made them to stand protect against the U.S. Then they kept on spreading. In general having Nuclear weapons is just a method for a government to say "LISTEN TO ME I AM POWERFUL!"
All fine and good for HTML 1 mind set. Now a couple of decades later. HTML had become a standard for portable GUI display, for Web Based Applications. Should HTML be this... Probably not, but it is, so we need to deal with that fact. Being that this how things are done now, it should be reasonable to expect every browser to give properly rendered output, So when you code the page, you don't need to try to get dozens of web browsers to work for it.
I doubt you did Web Development a few years ago when IE 6 was still king. You had what All the other browsers can handle then you had what IE can do. There was enough users using other browsers for your pages needed to render well on these and still enough IE 6 users that you just can't ignore either.
If I were to spend $525 for a tablet, I would keep it for 4 years. vs. Paying $200 every year and always staying a bit out of date.
I can tolerate being out of date for a year, however I do like to reward my sacrifice with something top of the line afterwards. When I upgrade I like a noticable difference.
It is normally courteous to have your home around 65-68F when you have guests over.
Normally when guests come over you take their coat, and they really don't want to travel back to their home to get extra clothing, because you are being cheap on the heating for a few hours out of the day.
Being that most hosts will keep their home around a warmer temperature+extra heat from more people. They dress for that temperature. And it is rather impolite to bury themselves in your blankets that may be around.
It isn't about how big the company is but how diverse. Apple was dieing when all they made were Macs. Sure Jobs initially got the company going again with the Colored iMac, and the Powerbooks, but those would only have short term appeal. Once they started to diversify into iPods/music and iPhones and other mobile technologies, that is where apple really came back from the dead, and not just prolong their survival.
Microsoft, is very diverse, Windows, Office, XBox, Business solutions... This allows for major flops like Vista without killing the company.
Nintendo is risky. The Wii U (while I have one and I actually really like it (There aren't too many platform designed for multi-player for non-hard core gamers)) has failed to impress the masses. Its game market has been stuck around the following. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon. With Cart and Smash bros, getting updated, but in essence the same games, third party game makers are often just making cheap ripoffs of games that they make for XBOX and PS which have better specs, however do not take advantage of Wii unique input methods.. The DS is getting eaten alive by smart phones. I can see Nintendo going out in 10 years.
In 10 years I can see mobile apps going away and moving back towards Web/Remote based application where the power of the device will be towards rendering the data, however the logic will be remote. So you really wouldn't care if you had Android, or iOS just like now you don't worry if you have Windows or Linux or OpenBSD to view Slashdot.
My hope in the next 10 years is the death of the Desktop and a rebirth of the workstation. Windows and OS X right now are Desktop OS's while they do Workstation work, their interface isn't perfectly suited for it. Most Linux distributions interfaces are either server based or desktop friendly. The hybrid of Desktop and Mobile (The direction Everyone seems to be going) hopefully will go away. I would like to see the Window methodology go away and move towards resizable frames, that will take advantage of todays larger monitors. (When Windowed OS's came out most displays were 12") Today Workstations have 20" screens. We have a lot of real estate that we are using for white space, However windowing has created a messy desk approach to work. It is now possible to real time resize the data on the display and give options for a faster interface.
I am less concerned about the browser engine. But how well it follows the W3C Specs!
If Trident does X,Y,Z faster than WebKits X,Y,Z but WebKit is faster at P, Q, R. Then we can choose the best browser for our needs... However they ALL NEED TO RENDER THE WEB PAGE THE SAME WAY!
Often the choice of the EMR isn't a rational choice, they put more thought into getting a new car then their EMR, even though it may cost more.
Mistakes. 1. Wrong Size. You have a small practice and you get the system meant for a large hospital. Because you figure you deserve the best. It would be like everyone buying a Mac Truck for their daily car needs, just because they may need that in the future. There are a lot of small EMR systems that are fast and easy to use, but doesn't cover everything under the sun.
2. Unwilling to change your workflow. I have seen too many doctors use their EMR systems and populate information at the end of the day. While they were meant to be used on a Laptop or tablet in Real Time. Once you get the software most people can navigate rather quickly.
3. Fixed Price in your head. They start shopping with a fixed price in their head... Often buying not on features but the one closest to the price.
4. Lack of imagination. Once you get the data digital, there is so much more you can do with the data. Statistical Analysis on effectiveness of procedures. Being able to request and get back results electronically, getting alerts from the hospital. etc....
Slashdot Mirror
Armed or unarmed the "black folks" don't want to be viewed as a thread due to their skin color.
Gun supporters are in general from the more rural areas, while gun rights activists live in the cities.
Many of the minority groups also have their population in these cities as well.
In a rural area, if something happens, it could take an hour for the police to come... By that time you could be dead, so having guns is seen as a necessary tool for their daily lives.
In Suburban/Urban areas. Police can be in an area in minutes, thus having a presence to protect the area. So individuals don't need guns, and those in those areas may cause more problems then it will solve.
New York State had put a stop to Fracking. And NY is about the most political state out there.
However we need unbiased science on the effect. In the meantime, if they want to Frack, fine... However if something goes wrong, they will be responsible and will need to pay to clean it up, for the next hundred years. The Fracking companies should happily agree to these terms because their method is so clean and safe. That there should be no risk in giving the citizens the extra protection.
I think for this case, it just may be an issue of not continuing to feed the flames.
They post his retort then they will get retorts to his retort. Back and forth.
Religious debate has almost as much passion that people have in their personal dietary choices.
Innovation like being able to have low interests on a high risk loan. By selling fractions of that loan across many organizations so the liability of any one loan isn't so great.
This seemed like a good idea at the time. The person getting the loan can get a low interest payment, the person who is selling the loan can get the commission for the loan, the sub prime lenders make out as they get for the most part their money back....
Just as long as the economy doesn't sink, and those high risk individuals start dropping out in droves. Meaning you have a lot of assets in high risk loans which are failing.
Because while the risk was reduced for the individual purchase, the risk was increased over the aggregate.
Now during the boom time, this was seen by most people as a good thing. They were worrying about the housing market to pop, but not on the fact the lenders were loading up on high risk loans. Because as most people saw it. That these people can get low interest rates for homes, thus improving the number of home owners that can build wealth over time.
Are you sure it is no contest who uses less energy?
I went threw 18 routers/servers to get to slashdot. At an average of 300 watts per server that is over 5,000 watts just for the servers. I will double it to add for the infrastructure. That is 10 kW/h of energy per browsing hour. An electric car gets about 30 kw/h.
Then we have all the places powered up that are getting no traffic. The Internet is like having powered roads, where every mile has power all the time.
In terms of energy use cars can be competitive.
The plus side is that data centers are fixed locations and can take advantages of clean energy, so the Internet may be a bit more green.
Getting replacement parts is the biggest issue.
My garage door opener broke. I had to hunt around the Internet to find the broken worm gear.
I got it. It took days to ship.
When I got the part installed it works better then ever. But it is getting the right part which is the issue.
Perhaps with 3d printing we can make a lot of the missing parts.
A not so cool thing about economics, is that there are a lot of complexities to a system. If the Tax is too high, you would put an industry at a standstill, as well many other industries dependant on it.
If it is too low they will just charge the customers a little more and factor it in as cost of doing business, as the cost to improve would be greater than the tax penalty.
Good intentions aside when you try to tinker with that supply and demand curve unexpected consequences can happen.
Right now there is a lot of good shipping via Air Travel. People traveling for business, and a economy built around Air Travel. Think of Hawaii.
The Air Craft designers are always looking for ways to save fuel right now. It is a major expense, and give them a competitive disadvantage. If a carrier can get a better fuel economy then their competition then they would jump on it. As to under cut the price.
In the past visions of an utopian future, is based on having a Portable, Safe and Affordable Energy source.
While CO2 causing global warming was know back in these future prediction, the scope wasn't really understood. Oil Was very cheap, and the Idea of Nuclear being good for everyone was still popular.
Flying takes a lot of energy. We never solved the problem of Portable, Safe, Clean (A new modern condition), and Affordable Energy. Back to the Future had Mr. Fusion, If we had Mr. Fusion today I could see flying cars in 10 years.
But we can Have Portable Energy, That is Cheap, but it won't be Safe or Clean.
We can Have Portable Energy That is Safe, Clean but it won't be Affordable...
While Aircraft are a big polluter, I still think the goal is to focus on places that doesn't need portable energy Factories, Homes, Etc... This will have a big impact. Then you can work down to sources that may need some portability however doesn't need the high Energy Density. Like Cars.
You will lose it if you copy it from Vinyl to Vinyl.
Digital media every copy is exact to the previous one. Analog you will not get a perfect match.
If you were to copy your Vinyl you will need to use the Analog copy method, which you can do with every other form of digital music.
I can take music off my phone, plug in the headphone jack to a Tape Recorder or to one of many digitial recorders. Then you can copy your music from one media to an other.
However being analog every copy will be degraded, so each copy of a copy will have limited sharing resource. Vinyl being all Analog makes it the perfect DRM.
Going to a movie.
You really should go with someone. Sure you can see a movie alone, it feels really weird.
Movie Tickets cost about $9 - $15 bucks Being that you bring someone you will need to double that.
Even if you are able to cheap out and not get raped by the concession stand. The person you are going with may want something. So that adds $5 - $10 to it.
So you have spend $40 for 2 hours of entertainment, if you don't like the movie then that is a lot of money wasted.
For that money you can get 3-4 months of streaming movies. Where you can watch as much as you want.
If theaters want to improve movie going. They will need to treat their customers as guests.
Cheaper prices concession food. Don't nitpick about people who bring in their own food.
Put restrooms in quick distance from the theater.
You are stating that Linux is a Desktop OS?
That we need Linux for these mundane tasks?
We need Linux for big calculations. Faster Databases (Parallel sorting of data, parallel searches).
Faster collection for Decision Support Systems... Err um Business Intelligence Systems... Err um... Big Data... Whatever the buzzard of the week for statistical based calculations.
Some things just need parallelization but others need parallel processing.
A good parallel algorithm can bring computation speed down by one order of magnitude. A Sort can happen in O(log(n)) time. A search can happen in O(c) time.
These improvements happen when you have larger sets of data. Not baby toys like Word Processors, Spread Sheets and Email.
Why not a diverse set of power sources.
Wind and Solar where it makes sense, Nuclear in other spots.
And why the heck doesn't anyone recognize hydro electric as an excellent source of energy as well.
I keep on hearing these all or nothing approaches to power. Why isn't the conversation about energy diversity?
A good game should have simple rules, but hard to master.
Chess has the maximum amount of rules for a game.
Most casual game players the rules need to be simple as they can start playing quickly. Without feeling like an idiot. However even though the rules may be simple, there is a lot of different strategies to try to win.
Some industries will move to wherever they can get the cheapest labor. Others will stick around after they have done a serious investment in an area.
I think the biggest problem is the idea of Ranking.
US #1, is China going to take our #1 spot.
That is really the wrong worry.
China is the size of the US it has 10x the population. China on paper should be able to beat the US handedly for #1 position. But what is it doing wrong where it isn't.
But instead of fighting for #1 spot (which often means trying to knock others down) the goal should be growth at a sustainable rate. So if the whole world has an average of 5% unemployment like the US, the US may not be #1 but over all we will be better off as there would be such a large customer base.
Life: Grow, Reproduce, Consume Energy.
Virus cannot reproduce on their own.
Crystals seem to show many properties of life.
Fire can Grow, Spread and it consumes energy.
What about individual cells that are part of a larger organism...
It still kinda comes down to Ill know if it I see it.
Religious texts are often the few sources that have passed information across the generations.
Many of the archaeological finds are based on religious texts, As well as many of the cultural and social aspects of the cultures they portrait.
Are they a science textbook? No, not in the slightest. Especially due to the fact that Scientific methodology thinking is a relatively new concept. Before that most of what was found out was more via philosophical thinking. The Bible will represent the world as the people at the time understood it. Big, Complex, with many unusual things, Many of the random occurrences will be tied to whatever seems to correlate at the time. You are in a war and you Won. Then God is on your side and your values are better. The nature of God has changed overtime in the bible, as people get a better understanding of the world around them. Early in the Bible, God was very present with the people, Wind in Latin is spiritus, So when people felt the wind, they knew it was Spirits... However further you get God seems more distant and more abstract concept.
But what will people say in 2000 years when they look at our texts from today?
Will they laugh at our Quantum Physics knowledge as being just way wrong?
Perhaps they will find that our current theory on how the world was created to be off?
Will our definitions of life be way off?
Will they laugh about our superstitions about GMO foods, or why we had all these different diets?
Perhaps we have a better method then science to understand the universe.
The Bible needs to be taken in context of the time. Now even the Pope doesn't say that God just waves a magic wand to make it so, he follows the laws of nature. Did God, just tap a particle billions of years ago, and just sit back and watch the results?
Science cannot prove or disprove it. The Bible isn't a science textbook so looking towards it for science fact will be difficult. You can probably get people and places from it. As well many of the moral stories still hold true.
I never promace that the stuff I make will make their lives easier. Actually I state it will make their job harder... Because you will need to focus on the hard stuff (People relations, Understanding the business and exceptions...) and less time on the easy stuff (pushing papers, following a prescribed workflow, Double checking you math, Collecting data that already exists...)
I have been hired to make your job more difficult. But at the same thread it is more efficient. And because you are not doing a lot of the mind numbing job, chances are you are not eyeing the clock as carefully as if you were.
The problem is good software replaces the need for Jr. Employees. This is making it harder for new employees to get in at the ground floor. As the new starting job is already more demanding.
Back in them good old days, the stereotypical success stories is about the guy who started in the mail room and worked himself up to CEO. That doesn't happen anymore. Email has replaced that mailroom. Now the person who is starting needs a degree of professional skills even to get hired. So the story no longer works any more.
Nuclear warfare isn't useful. The level of destruction is so high that most war objectives cannot be achieved. After Nuclear weapons were used at the end of WWII, warfare had changed to defend itself from it. No longer big armies against big armies, but towards tactical strikes against targets. The goal isn't how big of a boom (a big enough one will hit your target no matter how poor your aim) but how good of a shot you can be, if you can hit your target without killing as many civilians.
Right now Nuclear weapons are more of a political chest thumping to show dominance. The U.S. has them because me made them for WWII then the Soviets made them to stand protect against the U.S. Then they kept on spreading. In general having Nuclear weapons is just a method for a government to say "LISTEN TO ME I AM POWERFUL!"
All fine and good for HTML 1 mind set.
Now a couple of decades later. HTML had become a standard for portable GUI display, for Web Based Applications.
Should HTML be this... Probably not, but it is, so we need to deal with that fact. Being that this how things are done now, it should be reasonable to expect every browser to give properly rendered output, So when you code the page, you don't need to try to get dozens of web browsers to work for it.
I doubt you did Web Development a few years ago when IE 6 was still king. You had what All the other browsers can handle then you had what IE can do. There was enough users using other browsers for your pages needed to render well on these and still enough IE 6 users that you just can't ignore either.
If I were to spend $525 for a tablet, I would keep it for 4 years. vs. Paying $200 every year and always staying a bit out of date.
I can tolerate being out of date for a year, however I do like to reward my sacrifice with something top of the line afterwards. When I upgrade I like a noticable difference.
It is normally courteous to have your home around 65-68F when you have guests over.
Normally when guests come over you take their coat, and they really don't want to travel back to their home to get extra clothing, because you are being cheap on the heating for a few hours out of the day.
Being that most hosts will keep their home around a warmer temperature+extra heat from more people. They dress for that temperature. And it is rather impolite to bury themselves in your blankets that may be around.
It isn't about how big the company is but how diverse.
Apple was dieing when all they made were Macs. Sure Jobs initially got the company going again with the Colored iMac, and the Powerbooks, but those would only have short term appeal. Once they started to diversify into iPods/music and iPhones and other mobile technologies, that is where apple really came back from the dead, and not just prolong their survival.
Microsoft, is very diverse, Windows, Office, XBox, Business solutions... This allows for major flops like Vista without killing the company.
Nintendo is risky. The Wii U (while I have one and I actually really like it (There aren't too many platform designed for multi-player for non-hard core gamers)) has failed to impress the masses. Its game market has been stuck around the following. Mario, Zelda, Pokemon. With Cart and Smash bros, getting updated, but in essence the same games, third party game makers are often just making cheap ripoffs of games that they make for XBOX and PS which have better specs, however do not take advantage of Wii unique input methods.. The DS is getting eaten alive by smart phones. I can see Nintendo going out in 10 years.
In 10 years I can see mobile apps going away and moving back towards Web/Remote based application where the power of the device will be towards rendering the data, however the logic will be remote. So you really wouldn't care if you had Android, or iOS just like now you don't worry if you have Windows or Linux or OpenBSD to view Slashdot.
My hope in the next 10 years is the death of the Desktop and a rebirth of the workstation.
Windows and OS X right now are Desktop OS's while they do Workstation work, their interface isn't perfectly suited for it. Most Linux distributions interfaces are either server based or desktop friendly. The hybrid of Desktop and Mobile (The direction Everyone seems to be going) hopefully will go away.
I would like to see the Window methodology go away and move towards resizable frames, that will take advantage of todays larger monitors. (When Windowed OS's came out most displays were 12") Today Workstations have 20" screens. We have a lot of real estate that we are using for white space, However windowing has created a messy desk approach to work. It is now possible to real time resize the data on the display and give options for a faster interface.
I am less concerned about the browser engine. But how well it follows the W3C Specs!
If Trident does X,Y,Z faster than WebKits X,Y,Z but WebKit is faster at P, Q, R. Then we can choose the best browser for our needs... However they ALL NEED TO RENDER THE WEB PAGE THE SAME WAY!
You sound like an MD.
Often the choice of the EMR isn't a rational choice, they put more thought into getting a new car then their EMR, even though it may cost more.
Mistakes.
1. Wrong Size. You have a small practice and you get the system meant for a large hospital. Because you figure you deserve the best. It would be like everyone buying a Mac Truck for their daily car needs, just because they may need that in the future. There are a lot of small EMR systems that are fast and easy to use, but doesn't cover everything under the sun.
2. Unwilling to change your workflow. I have seen too many doctors use their EMR systems and populate information at the end of the day. While they were meant to be used on a Laptop or tablet in Real Time. Once you get the software most people can navigate rather quickly.
3. Fixed Price in your head. They start shopping with a fixed price in their head... Often buying not on features but the one closest to the price.
4. Lack of imagination. Once you get the data digital, there is so much more you can do with the data. Statistical Analysis on effectiveness of procedures. Being able to request and get back results electronically, getting alerts from the hospital. etc....