Atom based netbooks, even for the lowest spec models, in a highly competitive free market optimization process, have essentially failed to crack the $200 mark.
I don't think thats necessarily a "We can't make them for less than $200" but rather a "Everyone is going to think our laptops are crap if they are less than $200" idea.
That is faulty reasoning. The question we should be asking is how many concealed carry accidents have there been where someone other then the gun owner got hurt? Very few. Just because not everyone is going to use concealed carry or be willing to shoot a man, that doesn't mean that you should take it out. By the same logic because we don't have everyone voting for third parties why not take them off the election ballot? Free governments should allow anything that isn't directly harmful to someone other then the user or indirectly massively harming the non-user. Concealed Carry is clearly something that isn't harmful to bystanders provided the owner of the gun has demonstrated a level of competence with it, not a major criminal and is mentally stable, something that (USA) current concealed carry laws provide for.
Banning (sane) things that can be used as weapons by the law-abiding public is simply a breach of people's natural rights.
The only purpose of a gun in a UK city is to shoot another human being
Well, here in the US, there are several sports where you use guns. Skeet, Trap, and competitive target practice (not sure if thats whats its called but I know it exists) that it would be logical to have a gun in a home in a city without the intent of shooting someone.
That doesn't mean we should allow people to carry guns around with them however,
Whenever a country seeks to control law-abiding citizens with guns, the next thing you know the country is trying to harm its own citizens. How much different would WWII be if Nazi Germany did not have gun control? I imagine someone would have shot Hitler, the Jews could have defended themselves and in part prevented the Holocaust, etc.
Even in the most "safe" of places such as a church, you never know when a madman is going to come in and shoot people (like what recently happened in the USA), if someone in the church had a concealed carry permit, they could have saved the paster and countless other lives.
Effectively, letting any law abiding citizen carry a gun where it is reasonable, gives a lot more protection to the general public because not only of the deterrent but also because one person could save a whole lot of people.
It isn't? I'm sure that all these trillions of dollars that is going to the stimulus package is more than all the money counterfeited in the last ~40 years.
, you could give each ActiveX app its own perfectly compatible virtual copy of XP+IE8 to run on, and just parse the result into IE9 format
Sure, but what about the initial download + updates. Already in America not everyone can get high speed internet, even a 700 MB ISO file takes a while to download on many DSL connections so how are you going to download this Gigabyte+ browser compatibility package? It takes up about 1/4ths of a DVD so even including it on Windows 8 install media isn't going to really fly unless there is some rapid migration to Blu-Ray which I just don't see hapening.
Ok, first though, these are ordinary workers. They aren't blackhats, they don't want to screw up their system, and if they know how to do that, they most likely work in the IT department.
Don't treat your employees like criminals, if they break enough things all the time, fire them for incompetence, but there is no need to totally lock down everything.
Yes but considering this is enterprise, we can assume that people either A) Know what they are doing B) Know not to mess with things they don't know what they do or C) Have a nice IT staff that can fix some of the mistakes they make.
Even if the iPhone was the most popular phone on the planet, that doesn't mean it has a monopoly. For example, if the iPhone say, has about 5% marketshare of all phones (which, I doubt they do), there are still 95% of phones that aren't iPhones that might not have the individual sales to make up to 5% but when put together easily overwhelm the iPhone in terms of sales and use.
There are a few bottlenecks. For one, cell phone internet just plain sucks. Even 3G is rather slow, add this with the fact that iPod Touches don't have always-on internet (having to rely on Wi-Fi), the lack of certain API functions (I don't believe you can use the accelerometer, and if you can, it certainly isn't great), and the fact you are at the mercy of Safari which, compared to the core OS, gets updated quite frequently without and guarantees that the tricks you are using will be supported in the next version.
You break their contract, maybe they start going through your photos, call logs and other private information...
Well, this is AT&T we are talking about who illegally assisted the NSA with warrant-less wiretaps... So I imagine that they don't care how your contract status is, they might be doing it right now, all in the name of fighting "terrorists".
Um, because the iPhone is simply not that popular. I'm sure there are more closed phones out there that are more popular than the iPhone (a lot of Samsung phones come to mind...)
Well, arguably Ebay is the most popular auction site. The iPhone is by far not the most popular phone. I think I have seen more Samsung Propels in use then iPhones. Sure, most everyone wants an iPhone and it is rather popular for its limitations (one carrier, expensive plan, etc), but compare the iPhone's marketshare in phones to Ebay's in online auctions and you will see that Ebay is very, very, popular, the iPhone... Not so much.
Actually, as I do none of the above, no data would have been lost. And while it is true about the updates, as I use Ubuntu there is a new version every 6 months, meaning that at most I have to install about 5 months worth of updates which isn't so bad considering my HDs don't fail every 6 months.
While it is true that no on-screen keyboard can ever match a physical keyboard in ease of use, I know of a lot of people who are quite fast and accurate at typing on their iPhones, I'm not a big fan of them either, but when you get used to them you can type decently
I have found there is little use for full drive backups for a few reasons. A) All of my music is transfered to my iPod so already there is double redundancy B) All my pictures are also on various memory cards C) I use Linux so restoring all my OS minus the data that is already backed up is trivial D) A home directory backup is all that is ever necessary. And so yes, all that other stuff does fit within 4 gigs of space, perhaps I just don't have a lot of files, but also most of the people who I have done computer work for have similarly few files.
...I tried using that... it was, painful, to say the least. The iPod touch does a much better job of browsing and can be found for about the price of the browser + DS.
Why should I, as a UK TV licence payer, fund programs for other people to watch?
Because it doesn't cost any more. If the entire world population were to turn on the BBC (and assuming these were physical TVs and not electronic so you can't add in the small cost of bandwidth) they could all receive it. Is it unfair? Yes, but I am of the opinion (note that I am not a UK citizen nor do I live in even a European nation), that if something doesn't require more money to keep it going, then why really charge for it or prevent others from using it? For example, for a road toll, by driving across it you create wear on the road that will eventually have to be paid to fix using the toll money. On the other hand, when I receive TV transmissions, it doesn't require any extra fees to keep it running.
the new breakthrough shows that firms continue to invest in a technology with a surprisingly long life."
Hm, you mean that people are surprised that people would continue to invest in a technology that is the only standard* advanced optical disk? With memory capabilities that are good enough for most people (high def movies aside, DVDs have enough storage for just about everything) and the fact that any successors still are too expensive for most people? Wow, so surprising!
*Yes, Blu-Ray is as much of a standard as DVD is, but most computers do not have Blu-Ray and even most newer computers leave off Blu-Ray drives as do all Macs.
No, I'm not in favor of state run anything (no state-funded roads, education, etc), but if the majority of people believe it is the government's job then I'd rather get a return on my tax dollars then shipping them off to nowhere where I will never see the results.
CC went out of business because they were not able to maintain their relevancy. Now there are free customers and space in town for someone to try out some new business concepts in the electronics market.
That isn't going to happen for a while. Currently we have an economy in which no one is willing to take risks or to spend money, banks aren't lending money, people aren't spending money, investors aren't investing, few people are going to start a new business. Secondly, the existing electronic retailers that are doing Ok in this economy (Best Buy, Walmart, etc) can easily expand to consume these free customers. Thirdly, the internet has largely replaced all non-established brick and mortar stores, making starting a new one even more un-appealing.
As for the "Money" bit, you do realized this is a fully government funded organization don't you?
Yes, but if I was a Norwegian citizen and they asked me to vote on something that would slightly raise taxes to pay for upgrades, new shows, etc, I might actually vote for it because the government in this case is actually using taxpayer money responsibly.
Look, I'm sorry but the BBC is just plain broken. They use region locking, complain about having to use cross-platform standards (because we all know there are no more than 6,000 Linux users in the entire UK right?), and all the while the citizens of the UK seem to think it is fine and dandy for their government to be taking their tax dollars and making shows that aren't in the public domain.
The BBC basically shows how NOT to run a state-run TV channel.
Because if I want to download a TV show from this Norwegian channel, the first place I would look after knowing that they have good torrents is the website for this Norwegian channel, not TPB. They've finally realized that if they have decent torrents and don't try to control every tiny thing, they will gain lots of respect, viewers, and money.
We wage so-called wars on organized crime, gangs, and prostitution rings. We have always worked hard to break up criminal operations. Drug users are not some special group that deserve exception.
Governments make the crime, criminals commit it. Legalize drugs and they are no longer criminals. Problem solved.
Just because you have a grip on your addiction doesn't mean a crackhead who is stealing spark plugs and DVD players has the same willpower you do.
Assuming that the person was addicted to drugs, how is it different then someone stealing spark plugs and DVD players to fill a "legal" addiction such as gambling, alcohol and cigarettes? Is stealing wrong, yes, but would these people have to steal to get their addiction if these drugs were regulated in the same way alcohol and cigarettes are regulated rather then all-out banned?
It may not have destroyed your life, but making drugs legal/free/cheap/easier to get will be hell for so many others. In my town we just lost four teenagers in an car accident; they had been smoking salvia (which is legal) beforehand. If we are already struggling with the effects of "legal highs", how much worse will it get when we throw in currently illegal drugs into the mix?
But similarly, if they had been drinking the results would have been the same, but look at what prohibition did, it simply made ordinary people into criminals and let unscrupulous people get rich. People need to know what these drugs can do, yes, but they need a way to look at it without the tinted lenses of "This is brought to you by the counsel for the elimination of drugs", this is like trying to teach abstinence only, its a good idea, but not everyone is going to follow it, and when they don't, bad things happen.
I agree with you, ideally we should not have drugs. Fact: Drugs exist. Fact: Drugs can be easily bought even with all of our regulations on it Fact: Because of the prohibition of drugs, the money that comes from drugs goes to lawbreakers, these lawbreakers then use the money to fund more crime. Fact: Drugs can ruin lives, marriages, and relationships, but so can a lot of legal things, alcohol, gambling, and consumerism
People will always get drugs, they have since the dawn of time, the war on drugs though makes sure that the people who get drugs end up handing money to the wrong people, those that will use the money not to benefit themselves and others but rather use the money for violence. These people who get rich, usually end up screwing those who buy from them by poisoning the drugs they sell, the free market solution (take them to court and sue them for everything they own), doesn't work because what they were doing was illegal, so no one wins.
*Disclaimer, I do not use drugs, yes, I have seen the affects of what drugs do, and seen the affects of what legal things do (gambling, drinking, smoking, etc) too
There are a few reasons, A) what about internet radio? It would be nice to stream internet radio and, surf the web at the same time B) IM. Ok, sure, you might not want people IMing you all the time, but there are a few times where I would just want to put my phone in my pocket and wait for an IM rather then keep it out wasting even more battery life with the screen on C) content downloading, for example, Tap Tap Revenge 2 has downloadable songs, it would be really nice if I could simply let them all download in the background.
Sure, I might not want every app to run in the background all the time, but there are certainly times where it would be a killer feature.
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Atom based netbooks, even for the lowest spec models, in a highly competitive free market optimization process, have essentially failed to crack the $200 mark.
I don't think thats necessarily a "We can't make them for less than $200" but rather a "Everyone is going to think our laptops are crap if they are less than $200" idea.
That is faulty reasoning. The question we should be asking is how many concealed carry accidents have there been where someone other then the gun owner got hurt? Very few. Just because not everyone is going to use concealed carry or be willing to shoot a man, that doesn't mean that you should take it out. By the same logic because we don't have everyone voting for third parties why not take them off the election ballot? Free governments should allow anything that isn't directly harmful to someone other then the user or indirectly massively harming the non-user. Concealed Carry is clearly something that isn't harmful to bystanders provided the owner of the gun has demonstrated a level of competence with it, not a major criminal and is mentally stable, something that (USA) current concealed carry laws provide for.
Banning (sane) things that can be used as weapons by the law-abiding public is simply a breach of people's natural rights.
The only purpose of a gun in a UK city is to shoot another human being
Well, here in the US, there are several sports where you use guns. Skeet, Trap, and competitive target practice (not sure if thats whats its called but I know it exists) that it would be logical to have a gun in a home in a city without the intent of shooting someone.
That doesn't mean we should allow people to carry guns around with them however,
Whenever a country seeks to control law-abiding citizens with guns, the next thing you know the country is trying to harm its own citizens. How much different would WWII be if Nazi Germany did not have gun control? I imagine someone would have shot Hitler, the Jews could have defended themselves and in part prevented the Holocaust, etc.
Even in the most "safe" of places such as a church, you never know when a madman is going to come in and shoot people (like what recently happened in the USA), if someone in the church had a concealed carry permit, they could have saved the paster and countless other lives.
Effectively, letting any law abiding citizen carry a gun where it is reasonable, gives a lot more protection to the general public because not only of the deterrent but also because one person could save a whole lot of people.
It isn't? I'm sure that all these trillions of dollars that is going to the stimulus package is more than all the money counterfeited in the last ~40 years.
, you could give each ActiveX app its own perfectly compatible virtual copy of XP+IE8 to run on, and just parse the result into IE9 format
Sure, but what about the initial download + updates. Already in America not everyone can get high speed internet, even a 700 MB ISO file takes a while to download on many DSL connections so how are you going to download this Gigabyte+ browser compatibility package? It takes up about 1/4ths of a DVD so even including it on Windows 8 install media isn't going to really fly unless there is some rapid migration to Blu-Ray which I just don't see hapening.
Ok, first though, these are ordinary workers. They aren't blackhats, they don't want to screw up their system, and if they know how to do that, they most likely work in the IT department.
Don't treat your employees like criminals, if they break enough things all the time, fire them for incompetence, but there is no need to totally lock down everything.
Yes but considering this is enterprise, we can assume that people either A) Know what they are doing B) Know not to mess with things they don't know what they do or C) Have a nice IT staff that can fix some of the mistakes they make.
Even if the iPhone was the most popular phone on the planet, that doesn't mean it has a monopoly. For example, if the iPhone say, has about 5% marketshare of all phones (which, I doubt they do), there are still 95% of phones that aren't iPhones that might not have the individual sales to make up to 5% but when put together easily overwhelm the iPhone in terms of sales and use.
There are a few bottlenecks. For one, cell phone internet just plain sucks. Even 3G is rather slow, add this with the fact that iPod Touches don't have always-on internet (having to rely on Wi-Fi), the lack of certain API functions (I don't believe you can use the accelerometer, and if you can, it certainly isn't great), and the fact you are at the mercy of Safari which, compared to the core OS, gets updated quite frequently without and guarantees that the tricks you are using will be supported in the next version.
You break their contract, maybe they start going through your photos, call logs and other private information...
Well, this is AT&T we are talking about who illegally assisted the NSA with warrant-less wiretaps... So I imagine that they don't care how your contract status is, they might be doing it right now, all in the name of fighting "terrorists".
Um, because the iPhone is simply not that popular. I'm sure there are more closed phones out there that are more popular than the iPhone (a lot of Samsung phones come to mind...)
Well, arguably Ebay is the most popular auction site. The iPhone is by far not the most popular phone. I think I have seen more Samsung Propels in use then iPhones. Sure, most everyone wants an iPhone and it is rather popular for its limitations (one carrier, expensive plan, etc), but compare the iPhone's marketshare in phones to Ebay's in online auctions and you will see that Ebay is very, very, popular, the iPhone... Not so much.
Actually, as I do none of the above, no data would have been lost. And while it is true about the updates, as I use Ubuntu there is a new version every 6 months, meaning that at most I have to install about 5 months worth of updates which isn't so bad considering my HDs don't fail every 6 months.
While it is true that no on-screen keyboard can ever match a physical keyboard in ease of use, I know of a lot of people who are quite fast and accurate at typing on their iPhones, I'm not a big fan of them either, but when you get used to them you can type decently
I have found there is little use for full drive backups for a few reasons. A) All of my music is transfered to my iPod so already there is double redundancy B) All my pictures are also on various memory cards C) I use Linux so restoring all my OS minus the data that is already backed up is trivial D) A home directory backup is all that is ever necessary. And so yes, all that other stuff does fit within 4 gigs of space, perhaps I just don't have a lot of files, but also most of the people who I have done computer work for have similarly few files.
...I tried using that... it was, painful, to say the least. The iPod touch does a much better job of browsing and can be found for about the price of the browser + DS.
Why should I, as a UK TV licence payer, fund programs for other people to watch?
Because it doesn't cost any more. If the entire world population were to turn on the BBC (and assuming these were physical TVs and not electronic so you can't add in the small cost of bandwidth) they could all receive it. Is it unfair? Yes, but I am of the opinion (note that I am not a UK citizen nor do I live in even a European nation), that if something doesn't require more money to keep it going, then why really charge for it or prevent others from using it? For example, for a road toll, by driving across it you create wear on the road that will eventually have to be paid to fix using the toll money. On the other hand, when I receive TV transmissions, it doesn't require any extra fees to keep it running.
the new breakthrough shows that firms continue to invest in a technology with a surprisingly long life."
Hm, you mean that people are surprised that people would continue to invest in a technology that is the only standard* advanced optical disk? With memory capabilities that are good enough for most people (high def movies aside, DVDs have enough storage for just about everything) and the fact that any successors still are too expensive for most people? Wow, so surprising!
*Yes, Blu-Ray is as much of a standard as DVD is, but most computers do not have Blu-Ray and even most newer computers leave off Blu-Ray drives as do all Macs.
No, I'm not in favor of state run anything (no state-funded roads, education, etc), but if the majority of people believe it is the government's job then I'd rather get a return on my tax dollars then shipping them off to nowhere where I will never see the results.
CC went out of business because they were not able to maintain their relevancy. Now there are free customers and space in town for someone to try out some new business concepts in the electronics market.
That isn't going to happen for a while. Currently we have an economy in which no one is willing to take risks or to spend money, banks aren't lending money, people aren't spending money, investors aren't investing, few people are going to start a new business. Secondly, the existing electronic retailers that are doing Ok in this economy (Best Buy, Walmart, etc) can easily expand to consume these free customers. Thirdly, the internet has largely replaced all non-established brick and mortar stores, making starting a new one even more un-appealing.
As for the "Money" bit, you do realized this is a fully government funded organization don't you?
Yes, but if I was a Norwegian citizen and they asked me to vote on something that would slightly raise taxes to pay for upgrades, new shows, etc, I might actually vote for it because the government in this case is actually using taxpayer money responsibly.
Look, I'm sorry but the BBC is just plain broken. They use region locking, complain about having to use cross-platform standards (because we all know there are no more than 6,000 Linux users in the entire UK right?), and all the while the citizens of the UK seem to think it is fine and dandy for their government to be taking their tax dollars and making shows that aren't in the public domain.
The BBC basically shows how NOT to run a state-run TV channel.
Because if I want to download a TV show from this Norwegian channel, the first place I would look after knowing that they have good torrents is the website for this Norwegian channel, not TPB. They've finally realized that if they have decent torrents and don't try to control every tiny thing, they will gain lots of respect, viewers, and money.
We wage so-called wars on organized crime, gangs, and prostitution rings. We have always worked hard to break up criminal operations. Drug users are not some special group that deserve exception.
Governments make the crime, criminals commit it. Legalize drugs and they are no longer criminals. Problem solved.
Just because you have a grip on your addiction doesn't mean a crackhead who is stealing spark plugs and DVD players has the same willpower you do.
Assuming that the person was addicted to drugs, how is it different then someone stealing spark plugs and DVD players to fill a "legal" addiction such as gambling, alcohol and cigarettes? Is stealing wrong, yes, but would these people have to steal to get their addiction if these drugs were regulated in the same way alcohol and cigarettes are regulated rather then all-out banned?
It may not have destroyed your life, but making drugs legal/free/cheap/easier to get will be hell for so many others. In my town we just lost four teenagers in an car accident; they had been smoking salvia (which is legal) beforehand. If we are already struggling with the effects of "legal highs", how much worse will it get when we throw in currently illegal drugs into the mix?
But similarly, if they had been drinking the results would have been the same, but look at what prohibition did, it simply made ordinary people into criminals and let unscrupulous people get rich. People need to know what these drugs can do, yes, but they need a way to look at it without the tinted lenses of "This is brought to you by the counsel for the elimination of drugs", this is like trying to teach abstinence only, its a good idea, but not everyone is going to follow it, and when they don't, bad things happen.
I agree with you, ideally we should not have drugs. Fact: Drugs exist. Fact: Drugs can be easily bought even with all of our regulations on it Fact: Because of the prohibition of drugs, the money that comes from drugs goes to lawbreakers, these lawbreakers then use the money to fund more crime. Fact: Drugs can ruin lives, marriages, and relationships, but so can a lot of legal things, alcohol, gambling, and consumerism
People will always get drugs, they have since the dawn of time, the war on drugs though makes sure that the people who get drugs end up handing money to the wrong people, those that will use the money not to benefit themselves and others but rather use the money for violence. These people who get rich, usually end up screwing those who buy from them by poisoning the drugs they sell, the free market solution (take them to court and sue them for everything they own), doesn't work because what they were doing was illegal, so no one wins.
*Disclaimer, I do not use drugs, yes, I have seen the affects of what drugs do, and seen the affects of what legal things do (gambling, drinking, smoking, etc) too
There are a few reasons, A) what about internet radio? It would be nice to stream internet radio and, surf the web at the same time B) IM. Ok, sure, you might not want people IMing you all the time, but there are a few times where I would just want to put my phone in my pocket and wait for an IM rather then keep it out wasting even more battery life with the screen on C) content downloading, for example, Tap Tap Revenge 2 has downloadable songs, it would be really nice if I could simply let them all download in the background.
Sure, I might not want every app to run in the background all the time, but there are certainly times where it would be a killer feature.