Exactly. I don't know how many times my spreadsheets have kicked out something that I go 'There's No Way In Hell...' and I then went back and double and triple checked and found the error. If I didn't, I would get somebody else to look it over. If the numbers still stood up I would pass it along/up the chain with a note that I didn't believe the numbers were accurate. While this may not look great to the higher ups because they love hard numbers, they would much rather have your opinion that you think something is wrong.
tl;dr - Once you are done doing the math, ask yourself if this makes sense. If it doesn't - go figure out why.
I'm running a 2002-era 1.4 GHz celeron & 512 MB of RAM with Peppermint 3 and it's still pretty slow. When I open up Chromium, Thunderbird & Pidgin at the same time I just walk away to go get a coffee. It MIGHT be done when I get back. How much RAM do you have in that thing?
Agreed. Can we start a petition to get a sequel to that?
Hmmm... I wonder if I have enough Wii points to download SMB2. If I do, it's whiskey and Birdo tonite!
Actually, I see this all the time in the public sector and have done it on countless occasions myself.
The reason Amazon is the only one which meets the specs is because the specs were chosen so only Amazon could meet them. It's how you can exclude a vendor (or vendors) you have no desire of even giving the opportunity to win the quote. This can be because of past history with the company's sales team, poor delivery, poor service, poor quality, and so on. While in a strict lower cost item sense it's bad, it is often not the case when you consider all the other factors. Extra time spent caused by poor quality or poor delivery can often cost far more than the additional money spent on a product which has very good quality and is delivered on time.
Actually, I think they have a few strengths - albeit ones not at all interesting to tech:
Yahoo Sports - Say what you will, but their coverage of almost every sport known to man is impressive. Their coverage of hockey & the CFL is fantastic and I love their soccer & college football coverage as well.
Flickr - Like it or not, it's still an amazing site to browse and utilize for photos (still the best site on the planet for porn IMHO). They also allow you to license your photos in almost any manner of copyright you wish, including creative commons.
I would care for a couple reasons if I'm at Apple:
1) Apple is at it's heart is a hardware company. If the market is flooded with low-cost tablets it will drive sales and/or price of the tablets downwards. Either way, Apple loses revenue.
2) The apps, books and the ad revenue that drive the money for Google, Amazon, B&N, Kobo et al. They could give two hoots about making money (as long as they aren't losing a ton of it) on the tablets as long as they make money on the other stuff.
I love Linux, and many many things about it.... but lets not pretend that Open Office is on par with Office. I would put it as "substantially less irritating than Google Docs, but less functional than MS Office". I use it on my laptop (being cheap and not particularly caring about an Office Suite), but it has a number of things that it fails at. Not to mention-- and yes, this is totally petty-- its remarkably unpolished and makes me feel like Im in a time-warp to the 90's when I use it. You can say "who cares", but unfortunately a lot of users, and they have expressed that to me when we have used Open Office as a stand-in when we ran out of Office licenses.
Have you tried LibreOffice lately? 3.5 does quite well in my experience with the only real issue I have is the syntax for equations in Calc being different from Excel. With respect to the GUI - I wouldn't say it's unpolished, however it does look Office 2003-ish. It needs to be updated to new workflow concepts - ribbons/tabs, etc. I know the ribbon is reviled around here but once you get used to it it's quite slick.
My thought is that they just cloned a lot of what gets done on Android. The contacts are hooked into facebook & google, as well as numerous email and other things. Once you have it set up it's quite slick.
The downside, of course, is that everyone gets a sniff of what you are *actually* doing with your computer and compiling info on the users. I have come to the conclusion that the future of the internet is that it will be dominated by information aggregators who will sell analyzed data to whomever has the money. Not actual information on individuals, but large statistics and the like.
When you scale up to the last one, the buyer gets to dictate what the price is going to be and the seller is pretty much at the mercy of the buyer.
Almost. When you get to the last one you get really the best price possible but it's not like you can get a billion processors for a penny each. There is always a limit and there is always the option to walk away. It's often hard, but if you're going to lose money on a piece of business, you're generally not going to do it unless there is something else at play.
Break Even doesn't equal sum(part) Break Even = Sum(Parts)+(Labor Rate+Benifits)/(Number of units)+(Total R&D costs)/Projected Unit sales+(Facility Costs)...
Just to nitpick (because overall your post is solid): Break even means your selling price equals your costs, which in general means selling price = material + labor + overhead. Facility costs, R&D, shipping, office staff and all of that is generally rolled into overhead.
OK, while I thought the joke was pretty funny, I'm lost on this:
19 “The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.
What does 'redeem' mean? (Yes, I'm turning in my bible card at the door)
That is probably true - I deal with a number of manufacturers from China on a daily basis and none of them are really concerned about cloning a competitor's product for us if we desire it. I just found it funny is all.
Slashdot Mirror
Sir, if I had mod point they would be yours. All of them.
Exactly. I don't know how many times my spreadsheets have kicked out something that I go 'There's No Way In Hell...' and I then went back and double and triple checked and found the error. If I didn't, I would get somebody else to look it over. If the numbers still stood up I would pass it along/up the chain with a note that I didn't believe the numbers were accurate. While this may not look great to the higher ups because they love hard numbers, they would much rather have your opinion that you think something is wrong.
tl;dr - Once you are done doing the math, ask yourself if this makes sense. If it doesn't - go figure out why.
I'm running a 2002-era 1.4 GHz celeron & 512 MB of RAM with Peppermint 3 and it's still pretty slow. When I open up Chromium, Thunderbird & Pidgin at the same time I just walk away to go get a coffee. It MIGHT be done when I get back. How much RAM do you have in that thing?
I'm monstertrimble and I approve of this idea.
Actually, I'm for that. I think a solid Android-like desktop would be darn near ideal.
That's an insanely good idea. Thanks!
Wow, seriously, I'm 34 and that is epic. I wonder if I could install something like that on my wife's droid....
Agreed. Can we start a petition to get a sequel to that? Hmmm... I wonder if I have enough Wii points to download SMB2. If I do, it's whiskey and Birdo tonite!
No kidding! And here I was thinking I got another shot at Wart. THAT would have made my monday!
Actually, I see this all the time in the public sector and have done it on countless occasions myself.
The reason Amazon is the only one which meets the specs is because the specs were chosen so only Amazon could meet them. It's how you can exclude a vendor (or vendors) you have no desire of even giving the opportunity to win the quote. This can be because of past history with the company's sales team, poor delivery, poor service, poor quality, and so on. While in a strict lower cost item sense it's bad, it is often not the case when you consider all the other factors. Extra time spent caused by poor quality or poor delivery can often cost far more than the additional money spent on a product which has very good quality and is delivered on time.
Awesome! Thanks!
I look forward to seeing it!
One further thought - any thoughts on unleashing this onto Android, iOS & Blackberry?
+1. I can see that being very beneficial. Of course, there are the hacking issues and so on, but it's a good idea.
Actually, I think they have a few strengths - albeit ones not at all interesting to tech:
Yahoo Sports - Say what you will, but their coverage of almost every sport known to man is impressive. Their coverage of hockey & the CFL is fantastic and I love their soccer & college football coverage as well.
Flickr - Like it or not, it's still an amazing site to browse and utilize for photos (still the best site on the planet for porn IMHO). They also allow you to license your photos in almost any manner of copyright you wish, including creative commons.
Really, it's not always about the tech.
Considering the market today and it's target demographic, Yes!
Tell that to Homeland Security and Facebook.
I would care for a couple reasons if I'm at Apple:
1) Apple is at it's heart is a hardware company. If the market is flooded with low-cost tablets it will drive sales and/or price of the tablets downwards. Either way, Apple loses revenue.
2) The apps, books and the ad revenue that drive the money for Google, Amazon, B&N, Kobo et al. They could give two hoots about making money (as long as they aren't losing a ton of it) on the tablets as long as they make money on the other stuff.
I love Linux, and many many things about it.... but lets not pretend that Open Office is on par with Office. I would put it as "substantially less irritating than Google Docs, but less functional than MS Office". I use it on my laptop (being cheap and not particularly caring about an Office Suite), but it has a number of things that it fails at. Not to mention-- and yes, this is totally petty-- its remarkably unpolished and makes me feel like Im in a time-warp to the 90's when I use it. You can say "who cares", but unfortunately a lot of users, and they have expressed that to me when we have used Open Office as a stand-in when we ran out of Office licenses.
Have you tried LibreOffice lately? 3.5 does quite well in my experience with the only real issue I have is the syntax for equations in Calc being different from Excel. With respect to the GUI - I wouldn't say it's unpolished, however it does look Office 2003-ish. It needs to be updated to new workflow concepts - ribbons/tabs, etc. I know the ribbon is reviled around here but once you get used to it it's quite slick.
My thought is that they just cloned a lot of what gets done on Android. The contacts are hooked into facebook & google, as well as numerous email and other things. Once you have it set up it's quite slick.
The downside, of course, is that everyone gets a sniff of what you are *actually* doing with your computer and compiling info on the users. I have come to the conclusion that the future of the internet is that it will be dominated by information aggregators who will sell analyzed data to whomever has the money. Not actual information on individuals, but large statistics and the like.
When you scale up to the last one, the buyer gets to dictate what the price is going to be and the seller is pretty much at the mercy of the buyer.
Almost. When you get to the last one you get really the best price possible but it's not like you can get a billion processors for a penny each. There is always a limit and there is always the option to walk away. It's often hard, but if you're going to lose money on a piece of business, you're generally not going to do it unless there is something else at play.
Break Even doesn't equal sum(part) Break Even = Sum(Parts)+(Labor Rate+Benifits)/(Number of units)+(Total R&D costs)/Projected Unit sales+(Facility Costs)...
Just to nitpick (because overall your post is solid): Break even means your selling price equals your costs, which in general means selling price = material + labor + overhead. Facility costs, R&D, shipping, office staff and all of that is generally rolled into overhead.
Why is this not +5, Informative?!?
OK, while I thought the joke was pretty funny, I'm lost on this:
19 “The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.
What does 'redeem' mean? (Yes, I'm turning in my bible card at the door)
That is probably true - I deal with a number of manufacturers from China on a daily basis and none of them are really concerned about cloning a competitor's product for us if we desire it. I just found it funny is all.
Wait, a CHINESE company is worried about intellectual property infringement? Did I miss the memo?