It all depends on what activities *you* define as life.
Re:Yet another IT company gets to live my dream!
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Oracle Kills Virtual Iron
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· Score: 3, Informative
Here's your millions of dollars, we'll keep the hundreds of millions you could've made in the next years if you weren't so damn short-sighted.
The seller knows about this. You don't get to sell a company for $Nm by being stupid. However there are many reasons why people sell stuff and why other people buy stuff. For example:
The owners want to retire.
The owners burned out.
The owners need money, now.
The company has problems and unless sold it will close its doors soon
The owners foresee difficulties ahead (financial crisis, for example)
The owners know that they reached the end of their road, technologically speaking
The owners know that they are no good as marketeers and will never be able to increase revenue
The owners know that without a big cash infusion they can't develop new product, and they can't get that financing on any reasonable terms
The owners know that once smoke clears their company won't be worth as much (or anything)
Start building decent transport systems and make planners consider pedestrians and bikes and the number of people who need cars to get around will plummet quickly.
Buses are already mostly empty because few people ride them; the usual ridership is homeless people and maybe a few Mexicans. Why? Because buses stop on every corner, drive slowly, and if they happen to open doors at the bus stop it will take minutes before they resume. With such speed you need *hours* to cover distance that can be driven in a car within 15 minutes.
Another problem with buses is that they come rarely - say, every half hour. That still requires lots of buses and drivers, but from POV of a rider it's way too inefficient. People can't wait 20 minutes here and 15 minutes there... life is too short. In large cities subway trains can come every 30 seconds and still be packed - that is an efficient transit, both profitable to the city and fast to the rider.
Yet another problem with buses is cost. Here a single adult fare is about $2. That is enough to buy 0.6(6) gallons of gas and drive an average (30 mpg) car for 20 miles - more than an average one-way commute. I need to drive 15 miles to work, for example. If I take a bus (and if the bus is available) I would be overpaying for transit and wasting time.
Another issue is luggage. If you carry anything with you that is bulky or heavy you either need a car, or call a taxi. A laptop is probably heavy enough so that you don't want to carry it for a mile to and from the bus stop. If you have a package that you picked up or bought then you really have a problem. I frequently carry mid-sized boxes in my car since I pick up my shipments near work. I can't imagine carrying any such box, and my bag, and my laptop on a bus - I simply don't have enough hands for all that. A car solves the problem.
Yet another issue is safety. Bus stops can't be placed at your door, so you are expected to walk to and from. This traffic will attract attention of robbers, rapists and other criminals. Even standing at a bus stop, waiting, is not a safe posture. A car reduces such risk.
As you can see, mass transit is not always a good solution. To be successful it requires high density of population and well defined transit paths within the city. Most US cities lack both. In some places the low population density is required by law; in California, for example, most buildings are of low height (1-3 stories) because it is very expensive to build tall buildings that can survive earthquakes. A downtown might have a few, but that's it.
The only viable solution to the car problem is to demolish all US cities and rebuild them according to the needs of mass transit. Older european cities have right shape for the mass transit - often population is concentrated in one area and then travels to work to another area. But if you do that then mass transit becomes a natural monopoly, and we know how well those behave.
such as denser downtown shopping areas instead of megastores spread out over large areas
This does not make any sense from any point of view:
Sellers don't want to be near each other and compete with a store next door.
Sellers want to be where the customers are, and not where the map shows they ought to be.
Buyers want to have stores nearby that they can easily get to.
you either have truly horrific taste in music or you don't pay much attention to it.
The latter. I seldom listen to music, and when that happens it's usually streamed music. I can work only in complete silence. in GTA I always turn car radio off, even though I lose some of hilarity. But it just irritates me too much. I never listen to radio in my car; sound of wind, engine, and invertors is far more pleasing (and far more useful.) I think I have a CD in the car, but I can't tell you which one it is:-)
people buy games and DVDs these days instead of music because most of the music available now simply sucks
IMO the value of a $50 game is far greater than a value of a $15 60 min. audio CD or a 90 min. movie DVD. Music feels dirt cheap compared to games where every single object in a huge GTA map had been created and placed by hand, and when you can do all kinds of things and expect reasonable game response to them. I feel comfortable with paying for a game because I see what's there on the DVD and I'm amazed at complexity and labor that went into making that game. But I am minimally awed by someone singing (even if that) for three minutes - definitely not to the tune of $1 per song (or $10 per song that you like.) I understand that there is some labor in composing, rehearsing, recording and publishing the song, and I may be willing to pay $1 per CD, but not much more than that.
You can't play with your music, you can't introduce new elements (or your character) to a movie - they are static; because of that their replay value is low (especially movies.) But a game can be played several times - not just on different levels, but using different tactics, with different goals. A $50 Resistance can result in many hours of play - which is a creative activity, since you have to invent your own ways to get around or through those Chimera. But watch a movie of someone's playing, be interested for a few minutes at key scenes ("Does he quickly run into that end room in Cathedral, or just retreats within the main hall?") but be bored otherwise. Add multiplayer, and the movie can't be even compared - you can play multiplayer for weeks and each time get a different result; but the movie, of course, ends the same way each time you watch it.
the Russians probably want to check it themselves before launch since its riding with their own probe. Hate to have it fall apart at Max Q and destroy everything on board.
The probe will be integrated with the rest of the payload in Moscow, and then tested again. And then shipped to the launch site. And then tested again. Then it will be installed onto the rocket and tested again. Tests will only stop for a while when the rocket lifts off. Nobody in rocket business is insane enough to say "Well, they tested it in China 6 months ago, so we just assume that the batteries are good and all cables are hooked up right, and nobody damaged anything, so just launch as it is!"
This is what you call a "teachable moment," and the lesson to be learned is far more valuable than anything in a book.
The price paid for this lesson is excessive. I had friends in university who, gradually, slipped and got kicked out. Their lives past that point were not pretty. That "lesson" would be similar to giving a child a short lecture on swimming and then giving him an unrestricted access to a warm sea, with all its usual set of underwater dangers.
Some comments say "but when shall the child become a man?" - that is a good question. In the past this transition was done by giving the child more and more complex tasks until at some point he realizes that his job is a man's job. In a university the privilege to not attend lectures could be, for example, earned by getting good marks for some time. "If you are so good that you don't need guidance, prove it."
The vast majority of kids today are not subjected to GPS tracking, and yet they survive.
My guess is that expectations are different. A modern parent "loses track" of his child for 5 minutes and already it's seen as a major international incident, a notch or two above North Korea testing their latest nuclear bomb. The statistic fully supports your statement; children are quite capable to survive on their own (as long as they are trained to cross roads correctly!) However parents don't look at statistics, they latch onto worst cases (that are statistically impossible) and let their fear loose.
When I went to school (and it was not in this century) I just walked there and back, because the city that I lived at had schools everywhere, and no school buses were needed. This way nobody could "put" me on a wrong bus, or otherwise have any say in what I do outside of the school building. As matter of fact, my parents had no idea where I was (usually just around the neighborhood, if not at home, building random electronic stuff.) On the other hand, abductions of children (or adults, to that matter) were unheard of, and if a child wanders really far away from home he'd just talk to a police officer and everything would be OK. (Children were specifically taught, from earliest age, to seek police if they are lost, and police officers were not likely to draw a gun on you if you approach to ask something.)
If my parents had any questions about where I was, they could always ask me later. They actually asked me, now and then, to start calling them if my schedule changes, but I never did that because I knew that sooner or later I'd be unable to call for a very benign reason and then they will be all jittery.
No. However not every student can realistically gauge the complexity of the course, especially when he does not attend. Then some weeks later he comes (or reads a book) and can't understand the material. Recovery could be painful, or even impossible if the student discovers the problem a week before the exam. If the university is treating students as children it's probably because, on average, they are.
Feed = meadow grazing supplemented by locally grown grain in most climates, and hay in the winter.
Horses require a lot of pasture, and they tend to eat it down to bare earth, so you must move horses around. Horses can be economically viable only in a small rural setting where there is plenty of pastures and few horses. "Hay in the winter" needs to be stored and transported, and stables are not any smaller than a garage for a car (and you can't park the horse on your driveway or at the curb and forget about it for a week.) Horses also are relatively delicate creatures, can get diseases, can get overworked, and ultimately die; then they need to be disposed of. Sick and weak horses can not work, instead they must be cared for until they get better (or just the opposite.) It's a lot of work, far more than turning a key in a car (or pressing the POWER button in Prius.)
And you don't need much land to feed a single horse
It would be advisable to leave the city for a day and observe reality:
Horses require at least 2 acres per animal for a good exercise and forage area in good forage country. The stocking rate in southern Oklahoma probably varies from 2 to 5 acres per horse on improved pasture that is well managed.
So no, your 1/16" acre backyard won't do it (and you won't like it anyway.)
I'd say feed is far less expensive than gasoline, oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, antifreeze, and wiper fluid.
From the same source:
A well-nourished horse will consume about 2 percent of its body weight per day on a dryweight basis. Thus, a 1,000-pound horse will require approximately 20 pounds of forage or feed per day, or almost 4 tons of dry matter yearly per horse.
Today hay prices are about $150 per ton, which means you have to spend at least $600 plus transportation - say, $1,000 in total. This money would buy you today 400 gallons of gasoline, and with 30 mpg you could drive 12,000 miles on it (32 miles per day at 60 mph.) A horse would be totally wasted, if not dead, even at half the speed, and though it surely can walk that distance every day you probably have other interests in life than walking your horse:-)
Oh, by the way, your horse will want to eat and drink even if it is not working much. Your car needs gas only when you drive it.
I'd argue that horse shit is preferable to find in the streets, since horses and people share very few diseases, whereas spit on the sidewalk could carry any number of human pathogens.
Firstly, presence or absence of horses is orthogonal to the presence of spit and other human waste on streets. Secondly, horse manure is a breeding ground for insects which can and do carry diseases of all kinds. A fly can be sitting on a pile of horse manure in one moment and then on your forehead just a second later. I don't see much of health benefits from such an arrangement.
You could start asking things like "Who at your workplace would you most like to sleep with"
Names come from a limited set, so this is already a weakness. Additionally, if the attacker has access to your workplace then your secret is no longer a secret.
My personal preference is to give randomly generated answers to those questions, and write them down in case I ever need them.
There is a hotkey to do this on Windows? Please tell me what it is
It is in the NVidia display manager, that greenish icon that sits in the tray. Also it is accessible through the usual "Display" control panel applet. The hot keys are configurable, and there is plenty of actions to bind them to. I don't know if it all works on Win7, but it surely does on XP.
It's worth noting that the only FPS genre currently more common than WWII is alien invasion, I think it's pretty clear what that says about our culture's current level of xenophobia.
It's anything but clear. You need to also analyze player's reaction toward friendly, harmless, helpful but ugly monsters. And you need to do the same for cute, lovable, adorable, merciless killers of humans. Then you will know exactly why alien menace is so popular in FPS. Prior to this study I'd guess "the menace" is the key word here.
No, the government would have no way to censor writers. The grants in my scheme could be given only based on readership multiplied by the book volume. Basically you, as an author, would tell to the administrator of grants:
"I plan to write a book, probably $a words, and my current ranking in the country is $b."
Then the administrator says: "Once written and published we will pay you $c for each word, as row $b in the table 1 indicates."
The administrator would have no control over the content of your book. If it is bad it will hurt your ranking, and your next book will bring you less money.
I saw his name more than once, but I never read any of his writings, and I'm not in any hurry to correct that - his "Little Brother" work does not seem to be very interesting to me, according to the summary in Wikipedia. Old Man's War is on the other end of this spectrum.
how can we ensure that artists are encouraged to create and contribute
The society as a whole should pay authors, possibly in form of grants, and the higher your readership is the more you get. Books then become free (or just to cover printing, if you want a paper book.) This way the writers would be directly employed by the people, as long as they keep writing, the copyright is assigned to the people (work for hire) and the whole problem disappears.
If the government doesn't have money for this scheme it could stop its wars for a day or two, this will free enough cash to cover a century of such grants.
It's not that people don't like Linux, it's that they want it to work the "Windows" way.
Or they want to run Windows applications that they have. There are decent F/OSS replacements for a few Windows applications, if you can find them and if you can learn how to work them. And other Windows apps can be made to work in WINE. But is this pain worth $100 if you are buying a computer that should serve you for years? People, apparently, are more willing to pay $100 than to have compatibility issues and potentially a useless netbook if they can't figure out how to run something that they must have.
Other people mentioned that the main usage pattern for those netbooks is to browse the Web and to send/receive quick emails. But hardly anyone buys a computer with clear understanding that this is all that the computer can do. There is always a new application that the user wants - or often has to have. For example, there is some Nortel VPN software that runs as a Windows executable. It works fine, as long as you have Windows. If you don't... no VPN for you. That alone could be a deal killer, even if everything else on the netbook is just fine.
My personal prediction is that, lacking any major upheaval in technology or at Microsoft, Windows will be owning the *desktop* for a very long time, just because it got there first and gained a huge advantage. Modern builds of Windows are fairly reliable, so BSOD is no longer an issue for majority of users (except driver developers.) Linux, or something else, can overtake Windows only if some major breakthrough occurs - like sentient computers, or million-core processors. It's debatable, of course, how much Linux or Windows will be needed at that time, but that would be the point when a change is forced onto everyone. Until then most people will be using Windows just because they always used Windows.
If the owner of record reported it stole TO ALIENWARE then they would be protecting the interest of their customers.
Then Alienware is doing a poor job on that protection. One of smartest things for them to do would be to take your order, ship you the spare part, and tell cops all about your order and your address. Then the cops will have a chance to investigate.
Raising prices beyond what the consumer is willing to pay will only service to decrease sales
Yes, the sales will drop. But the costs of making fewer buckets of ice cream are also lower. So while the collected revenue will drop, the overall profit of the company (per bucket) will increase. Add to that the possibility of layoffs (since less product is needed) and your company may improve quite a bit. Many companies use recessions to get rid of "fat" - useless and inefficient employees that would be too much hassle to fire in good times.
Company overheads really don't have a lot of impact on the cost of goods.
Imagine that a new Federal Law says that there is a new 100% tax on all bread baked in the country. What do you think will happen with price tags at the food stores? Will you choose to give bread to your family only every other day?
Slashdot Mirror
I read this and almost started weeping.
It all depends on what activities *you* define as life.
Here's your millions of dollars, we'll keep the hundreds of millions you could've made in the next years if you weren't so damn short-sighted.
The seller knows about this. You don't get to sell a company for $Nm by being stupid. However there are many reasons why people sell stuff and why other people buy stuff. For example:
Start building decent transport systems and make planners consider pedestrians and bikes and the number of people who need cars to get around will plummet quickly.
Buses are already mostly empty because few people ride them; the usual ridership is homeless people and maybe a few Mexicans. Why? Because buses stop on every corner, drive slowly, and if they happen to open doors at the bus stop it will take minutes before they resume. With such speed you need *hours* to cover distance that can be driven in a car within 15 minutes.
Another problem with buses is that they come rarely - say, every half hour. That still requires lots of buses and drivers, but from POV of a rider it's way too inefficient. People can't wait 20 minutes here and 15 minutes there... life is too short. In large cities subway trains can come every 30 seconds and still be packed - that is an efficient transit, both profitable to the city and fast to the rider.
Yet another problem with buses is cost. Here a single adult fare is about $2. That is enough to buy 0.6(6) gallons of gas and drive an average (30 mpg) car for 20 miles - more than an average one-way commute. I need to drive 15 miles to work, for example. If I take a bus (and if the bus is available) I would be overpaying for transit and wasting time.
Another issue is luggage. If you carry anything with you that is bulky or heavy you either need a car, or call a taxi. A laptop is probably heavy enough so that you don't want to carry it for a mile to and from the bus stop. If you have a package that you picked up or bought then you really have a problem. I frequently carry mid-sized boxes in my car since I pick up my shipments near work. I can't imagine carrying any such box, and my bag, and my laptop on a bus - I simply don't have enough hands for all that. A car solves the problem.
Yet another issue is safety. Bus stops can't be placed at your door, so you are expected to walk to and from. This traffic will attract attention of robbers, rapists and other criminals. Even standing at a bus stop, waiting, is not a safe posture. A car reduces such risk.
As you can see, mass transit is not always a good solution. To be successful it requires high density of population and well defined transit paths within the city. Most US cities lack both. In some places the low population density is required by law; in California, for example, most buildings are of low height (1-3 stories) because it is very expensive to build tall buildings that can survive earthquakes. A downtown might have a few, but that's it.
The only viable solution to the car problem is to demolish all US cities and rebuild them according to the needs of mass transit. Older european cities have right shape for the mass transit - often population is concentrated in one area and then travels to work to another area. But if you do that then mass transit becomes a natural monopoly, and we know how well those behave.
such as denser downtown shopping areas instead of megastores spread out over large areas
This does not make any sense from any point of view:
you either have truly horrific taste in music or you don't pay much attention to it.
The latter. I seldom listen to music, and when that happens it's usually streamed music. I can work only in complete silence. in GTA I always turn car radio off, even though I lose some of hilarity. But it just irritates me too much. I never listen to radio in my car; sound of wind, engine, and invertors is far more pleasing (and far more useful.) I think I have a CD in the car, but I can't tell you which one it is :-)
people buy games and DVDs these days instead of music because most of the music available now simply sucks
IMO the value of a $50 game is far greater than a value of a $15 60 min. audio CD or a 90 min. movie DVD. Music feels dirt cheap compared to games where every single object in a huge GTA map had been created and placed by hand, and when you can do all kinds of things and expect reasonable game response to them. I feel comfortable with paying for a game because I see what's there on the DVD and I'm amazed at complexity and labor that went into making that game. But I am minimally awed by someone singing (even if that) for three minutes - definitely not to the tune of $1 per song (or $10 per song that you like.) I understand that there is some labor in composing, rehearsing, recording and publishing the song, and I may be willing to pay $1 per CD, but not much more than that.
You can't play with your music, you can't introduce new elements (or your character) to a movie - they are static; because of that their replay value is low (especially movies.) But a game can be played several times - not just on different levels, but using different tactics, with different goals. A $50 Resistance can result in many hours of play - which is a creative activity, since you have to invent your own ways to get around or through those Chimera. But watch a movie of someone's playing, be interested for a few minutes at key scenes ("Does he quickly run into that end room in Cathedral, or just retreats within the main hall?") but be bored otherwise. Add multiplayer, and the movie can't be even compared - you can play multiplayer for weeks and each time get a different result; but the movie, of course, ends the same way each time you watch it.
Anybody remember seeing this or am I in the early stages of Alzheimer [?]
If you are, it must be a unique case where the memory is not lost but gained :-)
Why isn't this stuff encrypted?
My guesses: legacy, convenience, lack of care, lack of duty.
they prefer to be called Pre-vects!
It's just a myth.
the Russians probably want to check it themselves before launch since its riding with their own probe. Hate to have it fall apart at Max Q and destroy everything on board.
The probe will be integrated with the rest of the payload in Moscow, and then tested again. And then shipped to the launch site. And then tested again. Then it will be installed onto the rocket and tested again. Tests will only stop for a while when the rocket lifts off. Nobody in rocket business is insane enough to say "Well, they tested it in China 6 months ago, so we just assume that the batteries are good and all cables are hooked up right, and nobody damaged anything, so just launch as it is!"
This is what you call a "teachable moment," and the lesson to be learned is far more valuable than anything in a book.
The price paid for this lesson is excessive. I had friends in university who, gradually, slipped and got kicked out. Their lives past that point were not pretty. That "lesson" would be similar to giving a child a short lecture on swimming and then giving him an unrestricted access to a warm sea, with all its usual set of underwater dangers.
Some comments say "but when shall the child become a man?" - that is a good question. In the past this transition was done by giving the child more and more complex tasks until at some point he realizes that his job is a man's job. In a university the privilege to not attend lectures could be, for example, earned by getting good marks for some time. "If you are so good that you don't need guidance, prove it."
The vast majority of kids today are not subjected to GPS tracking, and yet they survive.
My guess is that expectations are different. A modern parent "loses track" of his child for 5 minutes and already it's seen as a major international incident, a notch or two above North Korea testing their latest nuclear bomb. The statistic fully supports your statement; children are quite capable to survive on their own (as long as they are trained to cross roads correctly!) However parents don't look at statistics, they latch onto worst cases (that are statistically impossible) and let their fear loose.
When I went to school (and it was not in this century) I just walked there and back, because the city that I lived at had schools everywhere, and no school buses were needed. This way nobody could "put" me on a wrong bus, or otherwise have any say in what I do outside of the school building. As matter of fact, my parents had no idea where I was (usually just around the neighborhood, if not at home, building random electronic stuff.) On the other hand, abductions of children (or adults, to that matter) were unheard of, and if a child wanders really far away from home he'd just talk to a police officer and everything would be OK. (Children were specifically taught, from earliest age, to seek police if they are lost, and police officers were not likely to draw a gun on you if you approach to ask something.)
If my parents had any questions about where I was, they could always ask me later. They actually asked me, now and then, to start calling them if my schedule changes, but I never did that because I knew that sooner or later I'd be unable to call for a very benign reason and then they will be all jittery.
Attendance is no measure of academic ability.
No. However not every student can realistically gauge the complexity of the course, especially when he does not attend. Then some weeks later he comes (or reads a book) and can't understand the material. Recovery could be painful, or even impossible if the student discovers the problem a week before the exam. If the university is treating students as children it's probably because, on average, they are.
Feed = meadow grazing supplemented by locally grown grain in most climates, and hay in the winter.
Horses require a lot of pasture, and they tend to eat it down to bare earth, so you must move horses around. Horses can be economically viable only in a small rural setting where there is plenty of pastures and few horses. "Hay in the winter" needs to be stored and transported, and stables are not any smaller than a garage for a car (and you can't park the horse on your driveway or at the curb and forget about it for a week.) Horses also are relatively delicate creatures, can get diseases, can get overworked, and ultimately die; then they need to be disposed of. Sick and weak horses can not work, instead they must be cared for until they get better (or just the opposite.) It's a lot of work, far more than turning a key in a car (or pressing the POWER button in Prius.)
And you don't need much land to feed a single horse
It would be advisable to leave the city for a day and observe reality:
So no, your 1/16" acre backyard won't do it (and you won't like it anyway.)
I'd say feed is far less expensive than gasoline, oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, antifreeze, and wiper fluid.
From the same source:
Today hay prices are about $150 per ton, which means you have to spend at least $600 plus transportation - say, $1,000 in total. This money would buy you today 400 gallons of gasoline, and with 30 mpg you could drive 12,000 miles on it (32 miles per day at 60 mph.) A horse would be totally wasted, if not dead, even at half the speed, and though it surely can walk that distance every day you probably have other interests in life than walking your horse :-)
Oh, by the way, your horse will want to eat and drink even if it is not working much. Your car needs gas only when you drive it.
I'd argue that horse shit is preferable to find in the streets, since horses and people share very few diseases, whereas spit on the sidewalk could carry any number of human pathogens.
Firstly, presence or absence of horses is orthogonal to the presence of spit and other human waste on streets. Secondly, horse manure is a breeding ground for insects which can and do carry diseases of all kinds. A fly can be sitting on a pile of horse manure in one moment and then on your forehead just a second later. I don't see much of health benefits from such an arrangement.
You could start asking things like "Who at your workplace would you most like to sleep with"
Names come from a limited set, so this is already a weakness. Additionally, if the attacker has access to your workplace then your secret is no longer a secret.
My personal preference is to give randomly generated answers to those questions, and write them down in case I ever need them.
There is a hotkey to do this on Windows? Please tell me what it is
It is in the NVidia display manager, that greenish icon that sits in the tray. Also it is accessible through the usual "Display" control panel applet. The hot keys are configurable, and there is plenty of actions to bind them to. I don't know if it all works on Win7, but it surely does on XP.
It's worth noting that the only FPS genre currently more common than WWII is alien invasion, I think it's pretty clear what that says about our culture's current level of xenophobia.
It's anything but clear. You need to also analyze player's reaction toward friendly, harmless, helpful but ugly monsters. And you need to do the same for cute, lovable, adorable, merciless killers of humans. Then you will know exactly why alien menace is so popular in FPS. Prior to this study I'd guess "the menace" is the key word here.
No, the government would have no way to censor writers. The grants in my scheme could be given only based on readership multiplied by the book volume. Basically you, as an author, would tell to the administrator of grants:
"I plan to write a book, probably $a words, and my current ranking in the country is $b."
Then the administrator says: "Once written and published we will pay you $c for each word, as row $b in the table 1 indicates."
The administrator would have no control over the content of your book. If it is bad it will hurt your ranking, and your next book will bring you less money.
Is there any SF reader who doesn't know his name?
I saw his name more than once, but I never read any of his writings, and I'm not in any hurry to correct that - his "Little Brother" work does not seem to be very interesting to me, according to the summary in Wikipedia. Old Man's War is on the other end of this spectrum.
how can we ensure that artists are encouraged to create and contribute
The society as a whole should pay authors, possibly in form of grants, and the higher your readership is the more you get. Books then become free (or just to cover printing, if you want a paper book.) This way the writers would be directly employed by the people, as long as they keep writing, the copyright is assigned to the people (work for hire) and the whole problem disappears.
If the government doesn't have money for this scheme it could stop its wars for a day or two, this will free enough cash to cover a century of such grants.
It's not that people don't like Linux, it's that they want it to work the "Windows" way.
Or they want to run Windows applications that they have. There are decent F/OSS replacements for a few Windows applications, if you can find them and if you can learn how to work them. And other Windows apps can be made to work in WINE. But is this pain worth $100 if you are buying a computer that should serve you for years? People, apparently, are more willing to pay $100 than to have compatibility issues and potentially a useless netbook if they can't figure out how to run something that they must have.
Other people mentioned that the main usage pattern for those netbooks is to browse the Web and to send/receive quick emails. But hardly anyone buys a computer with clear understanding that this is all that the computer can do. There is always a new application that the user wants - or often has to have. For example, there is some Nortel VPN software that runs as a Windows executable. It works fine, as long as you have Windows. If you don't ... no VPN for you. That alone could be a deal killer, even if everything else on the netbook is just fine.
My personal prediction is that, lacking any major upheaval in technology or at Microsoft, Windows will be owning the *desktop* for a very long time, just because it got there first and gained a huge advantage. Modern builds of Windows are fairly reliable, so BSOD is no longer an issue for majority of users (except driver developers.) Linux, or something else, can overtake Windows only if some major breakthrough occurs - like sentient computers, or million-core processors. It's debatable, of course, how much Linux or Windows will be needed at that time, but that would be the point when a change is forced onto everyone. Until then most people will be using Windows just because they always used Windows.
If the owner of record reported it stole TO ALIENWARE then they would be protecting the interest of their customers.
Then Alienware is doing a poor job on that protection. One of smartest things for them to do would be to take your order, ship you the spare part, and tell cops all about your order and your address. Then the cops will have a chance to investigate.
Their whole existence in life is to maximize their profits, to do otherwise is not in the interest of their share holders.
Then it is in their interest to cure you from many maladies, not to let you die from the first one. Dead people don't need doctors.
the government can afford to create MORE JOBS. Does this sound like a bad idea?
And given time the government will be the only employer in the country. Just like USSR.
Raising prices beyond what the consumer is willing to pay will only service to decrease sales
Yes, the sales will drop. But the costs of making fewer buckets of ice cream are also lower. So while the collected revenue will drop, the overall profit of the company (per bucket) will increase. Add to that the possibility of layoffs (since less product is needed) and your company may improve quite a bit. Many companies use recessions to get rid of "fat" - useless and inefficient employees that would be too much hassle to fire in good times.
Company overheads really don't have a lot of impact on the cost of goods.
Imagine that a new Federal Law says that there is a new 100% tax on all bread baked in the country. What do you think will happen with price tags at the food stores? Will you choose to give bread to your family only every other day?