You are right in that this price index won't work. But, the crucial difference is *not* whether they are consumed immediately or not. But rather, Big Macs are produced largely using local labour and materials, and so their price reflects the local prices levels of rents, labour, and misc. materials in the country. IPods on the other hand are produced in China or somewhere, and shipped all over the world. As such, IPod prices only reflects Apple's estimate of the demand for IPods vs the competitors that they have in that country.
I wouuldn't have believed it, but I think we've slashdotted google. I'm getting no response on http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:UpTSilLJE -MJ: www.ignalum.com/
I've been using hard drive drawers for the past 6 years, and I put a housing into every computer I build. They're great for backup, and for moving large files around. I don't know why more people don't use them. I've found them to be indispensible. Some advice if you decide to go that way:
1) Stick with UDMA33, don't try to go faster, the drawers aren't reliable at faster speeds. If you attach the drawer housing with the older 40-wire ATA cables, most motherboards will slow the speed down to UDMA33. If not, you can set the speed in BIOS.
2) Don't leave the hard drive drawer plugged into the computer all the time. They tend to crap up if the computer is jogged too hard. Also, they get real dusty.
3) You'll probably want to set your main harddrive to Primary master, and CD-ROM to Secondary master, which means that the harddrive drawer will need to be a slave. Set the jumper on all your hard drives to 'cable select', and make sure that your cables are plugged in the right way (the connector on the end is master, and the one in the middle is slave). This will save you having to move those little jumpers around when you swap the drives in and out of the drawers (which you'll do more often than you'd expect).
Five of these GTR Model A668 cases fit on a 2 1/2' wide shelf:
http://www.gtr.com.hk/new-subpage/product/case_m ain/tiny/sub-page/a668/a668.htm They have pretty good airflow, and hold two 6cm fans at the back. They cost about US$30 each here in Hong Kong. I don't know if you can get them in the US. But, any micro-ATX case less than 5 1/2" wide x 14" high, should work fine if it has good airflow.
I recently had to set up a mini-cluster for my department. We looked into rack mounts, but finally decided to go with micro-ATX PCs housed in a standard bookshelf. The main reason for our decision was that 1U servers are very expensive, hot, and noisy. 2U cases are better, and you can use off-the-shelf components, but 2U offers no space savings over micro-ATX.
We found micro-ATX motherboards with dual DDR and gigabit ethernet built-in. Micro-ATX cases are cheap, and you can get solid 300 watt power supplies for them. Additionally, we can if needed fit in 3 standard PCI cards.
So, we decided to get 15 micro-ATX PCs, and house them in 3 shelves of a standard 2 1/2' (w) x 6 1/2' (h) bookshelf. The PCs sit backwards so all the ports face out. There's still space for another 10 PC's in the bookshelf. Compare this with only 20 2U cases in a standard rack.
My recommendation, go with micro-ATX PCs, unless you really need an ATX sized motherboard. It'll be easier to deal with and will save you a bunch of money over rack mounts.
You're forgetting that many users in corporate environments don't have a choice, they can only use the 'approved' mail client.
This virus is going to cause havoc. Not only does it not require users to open an attachment, MSWindows computers with all the latest patches applied are still vulnerable to it, as "a patched computer is still vulnerable if someone tries to save the message"
The above tasks are all easily accomplished with a decent distribution, like SuSE, by an even moderately competent systems administrator.
Sorry, but I would have to disagree. I used to be a sysadmin myself, and so I've met several of what passes for 'moderately competant' sysadmins. After years of administering Windows machines, most them still don't know how to hack an ini file.
I'll bet money that the average Windows sysadmin will not be able to get SUSE to perform these 6 tasks. And if they can't do it, Windows will continue to dominate on the corporate desktop (at least in small & mdeium sized companies).
The following needs to happen before any Linux distribution can be accepted by the masses.
I can sit down with 3 networked computers with printers attached. Two with windows pre-installed and sharing turned on, and another fresh out of the box. Without having to read through a HOWTO file on the internet, I should be able to:
1. Install Linux on the new machine.
2. Install Linux on one of the old windows machines, while preserving the data on it.
3. Get the network to work and see shared hard drives on any machine from any other machine.
4. Read and Write to shared hard drives, and set up passwords and security if I want to.
5. Be able to print to any printer from any machine.
6. Access the internet though dialup and DSL.
I tried various Linux distributions over the last 5 years, and sadly, none of them come close to meeting all six requirements. These are pretty basic requirements that users will regularly have. If Xandros or Lindows or someone can set up a lab and work on it until their distribuition can handle them, they should dominate the market.
If you were right, countries that opened themselves to trade and the world economy would have found their economies stagnating. Yet, when you look around the world, this is obviously not true.
Consider South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia. All had high economic growth after they opened up to world trade. Consider the case of India itself. It had a stagnant economy when it was closed off from the world, now with an open door policy, its economy is booming.
Countries that trade grow, countries that close themselves off die. If you don't believe me, just visit North Korea some day...
how come Indians aren't eager to outsource all the jobs back to the US?
It's not Indians, but rather CEO's in the US who decide on outsourcing. Outsourcing to India is essentially the same as buying Indian software, and it's always the buyer who decides what to buy, and who to buy from.
OTOH, Indians are eager to buy all sorts of US goods. Just ask Coca-Cola, MacDonalds and Starbucks.
Or more pertinently, Intel, Motorola, Seagate, etc...
How many Economists does it take to change a light bulb? Exactly how much are you willing to pay to have the light bulb changed?
How many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb? None, the light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.
How many Economic Theorists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to screw in the bulb and another to hold all other conditions constant.
How many Free-market Economists does it take to change a light bulb? None, they sit in the dark and wait for the invisible hand.
How many Neo-classical Economists does it take to change a light bulb? None. Obviously, if people wanted a bright room, someone would have changed the light bulb already.
Here in Hong Kong, the cost of mobile phone service dropped by more than half after the government mandated phone number portability. Before, the service providers behaved like mini monopolies. After number portability, service plans became a commodity and customers changed to the lowest cost provider. This caused fierce competition and price cuts among all the service providers.
Currently I'm paying US$15 per month for 500 minutes, and that includes services like SMS, caller ID, and call forwarding.
Samuel R. Delaney's "Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand" is surely one of the best science fiction novels of all time. And his bibliography show him to be one of the most profound and innovative writers of our time.
The same thing that makes any novel great is what makes a great science fiction novel. Just my cents worth.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right in that this price index won't work. But, the crucial difference is *not* whether they are consumed immediately or not. But rather, Big Macs are produced largely using local labour and materials, and so their price reflects the local prices levels of rents, labour, and misc. materials in the country. IPods on the other hand are produced in China or somewhere, and shipped all over the world. As such, IPod prices only reflects Apple's estimate of the demand for IPods vs the competitors that they have in that country.
For those who want pictures:
t m e aa/CarterCopter-27-eaa.jpg V 2_64.jpg
http://www.x-plane.org/home/mf70/Current&Future.h
http://eaa.aviationuniversity.com/multimedia/img/
http://www.davidpride.com/AirVenture2002/images/A
I wouuldn't have believed it, but I think we've slashdotted google.E -MJ: www.ignalum.com/
I'm getting no response on
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:UpTSilLJ
There are no answers in the article at all. Just the usual questions about how Google's publicized statistics don't add up.
I've been using hard drive drawers for the past 6 years, and I put a housing into every computer I build. They're great for backup, and for moving large files around. I don't know why more people don't use them. I've found them to be indispensible. Some advice if you decide to go that way:
1) Stick with UDMA33, don't try to go faster, the drawers aren't reliable at faster speeds. If you attach the drawer housing with the older 40-wire ATA cables, most motherboards will slow the speed down to UDMA33. If not, you can set the speed in BIOS.
2) Don't leave the hard drive drawer plugged into the computer all the time. They tend to crap up if the computer is jogged too hard. Also, they get real dusty.
3) You'll probably want to set your main harddrive to Primary master, and CD-ROM to Secondary master, which means that the harddrive drawer will need to be a slave. Set the jumper on all your hard drives to 'cable select', and make sure that your cables are plugged in the right way (the connector on the end is master, and the one in the middle is slave). This will save you having to move those little jumpers around when you swap the drives in and out of the drawers (which you'll do more often than you'd expect).
Five of these GTR Model A668 cases fit on a 2 1/2' wide shelf:m ain/tiny/sub-page/a668/a668.htm
http://www.gtr.com.hk/new-subpage/product/case_
They have pretty good airflow, and hold two 6cm fans at the back. They cost about US$30 each here in Hong Kong. I don't know if you can get them in the US. But, any micro-ATX case less than 5 1/2" wide x 14" high, should work fine if it has good airflow.
I recently had to set up a mini-cluster for my department. We looked into rack mounts, but finally decided to go with micro-ATX PCs housed in a standard bookshelf. The main reason for our decision was that 1U servers are very expensive, hot, and noisy. 2U cases are better, and you can use off-the-shelf components, but 2U offers no space savings over micro-ATX.
We found micro-ATX motherboards with dual DDR and gigabit ethernet built-in. Micro-ATX cases are cheap, and you can get solid 300 watt power supplies for them. Additionally, we can if needed fit in 3 standard PCI cards.
So, we decided to get 15 micro-ATX PCs, and house them in 3 shelves of a standard 2 1/2' (w) x 6 1/2' (h) bookshelf. The PCs sit backwards so all the ports face out. There's still space for another 10 PC's in the bookshelf. Compare this with only 20 2U cases in a standard rack.
My recommendation, go with micro-ATX PCs, unless you really need an ATX sized motherboard. It'll be easier to deal with and will save you a bunch of money over rack mounts.
Remember the people on acid supposedly jumping out of windows in the '60s?
It does happen. I had a close friend from college who jumped off the roof of a 4 storey building after tripping for a week.
He landed feet first, and so survived. But it took him a year to walk again.
Don't use Outlook/OE.
You're forgetting that many users in corporate environments don't have a choice, they can only use the 'approved' mail client.
This virus is going to cause havoc. Not only does it not require users to open an attachment, MSWindows computers with all the latest patches applied are still vulnerable to it, as "a patched computer is still vulnerable if someone tries to save the message"
The above tasks are all easily accomplished with a decent distribution, like SuSE, by an even moderately competent systems administrator.
Sorry, but I would have to disagree. I used to be a sysadmin myself, and so I've met several of what passes for 'moderately competant' sysadmins. After years of administering Windows machines, most them still don't know how to hack an ini file.
I'll bet money that the average Windows sysadmin will not be able to get SUSE to perform these 6 tasks. And if they can't do it, Windows will continue to dominate on the corporate desktop (at least in small & mdeium sized companies).
The following needs to happen before any Linux distribution can be accepted by the masses.
I can sit down with 3 networked computers with printers attached. Two with windows pre-installed and sharing turned on, and another fresh out of the box. Without having to read through a HOWTO file on the internet, I should be able to:
1. Install Linux on the new machine.
2. Install Linux on one of the old windows machines, while preserving the data on it.
3. Get the network to work and see shared hard drives on any machine from any other machine.
4. Read and Write to shared hard drives, and set up passwords and security if I want to.
5. Be able to print to any printer from any machine.
6. Access the internet though dialup and DSL.
I tried various Linux distributions over the last 5 years, and sadly, none of them come close to meeting all six requirements. These are pretty basic requirements that users will regularly have. If Xandros or Lindows or someone can set up a lab and work on it until their distribuition can handle them, they should dominate the market.
If you were right, countries that opened themselves to trade and the world economy would have found their economies stagnating. Yet, when you look around the world, this is obviously not true.
...
Consider South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia. All had high economic growth after they opened up to world trade. Consider the case of India itself. It had a stagnant economy when it was closed off from the world, now with an open door policy, its economy is booming.
Countries that trade grow, countries that close themselves off die. If you don't believe me, just visit North Korea some day
how come Indians aren't eager to outsource all the jobs back to the US?
...
It's not Indians, but rather CEO's in the US who decide on outsourcing. Outsourcing to India is essentially the same as buying Indian software, and it's always the buyer who decides what to buy, and who to buy from.
OTOH, Indians are eager to buy all sorts of US goods. Just ask Coca-Cola, MacDonalds and Starbucks.
Or more pertinently, Intel, Motorola, Seagate, etc
keep in mind most of the people I know aren't even getting the average.
That's especially sad since here at Lake Woebegone, all the children are above average.
How many Economists does it take to change a light bulb?
Exactly how much are you willing to pay to have the light bulb changed?
How many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb?
None, the light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution.
How many Economic Theorists does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to screw in the bulb and another to hold all other conditions constant.
How many Free-market Economists does it take to change a light bulb?
None, they sit in the dark and wait for the invisible hand.
How many Neo-classical Economists does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Obviously, if people wanted a bright room, someone would have changed the light bulb already.
Here in Hong Kong, the cost of mobile phone service dropped by more than half after the government mandated phone number portability. Before, the service providers behaved like mini monopolies. After number portability, service plans became a commodity and customers changed to the lowest cost provider. This caused fierce competition and price cuts among all the service providers.
Currently I'm paying US$15 per month for 500 minutes, and that includes services like SMS, caller ID, and call forwarding.
Samuel R. Delaney's "Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand" is surely one of the best science fiction novels of all time. And his bibliography show him to be one of the most profound and innovative writers of our time.
The same thing that makes any novel great is what makes a great science fiction novel. Just my cents worth.