The actual hardware Sony is offering is worth only so much to a consumer due to the availability of alternatives.
The real money for the company is in the IP. If they can keep the devices selling with the features the box actually offers rather than the simple presence of chips and things, then they can sustain the price of the unit.
Sony does not want anything they make to become a commodity.
Who the hell is going to decide what the nation's policy should be? Engineers? I'm not disputing that they're intellegent and capable of getting things done.
But they don't have a mind for policy and no one chose them to choose it.
There have to be politicians to do this and the only thing you can do is pick different ones.
And somehow they'd have to figure out what to do about flights into and out of Arizona, a no-DST state. If that same passenger needs to fly to New York to catch that London flight, that Phoenix flight would have to be adjusted also.
If that flight is adjusted, all the other folks flying to New York would have to adjust their schedules, potentially delaying or cancelling business meetings in the nation's fasted growing city.
Sure, you can adjust airline schedules, but some people are going to feel an effect.
While it would make individual farming harder, agribusiness entities like ADM would have to change their employee's schedules. This would make working for them less desirable, which in turn would raise wages, all other things equal.
On the other hand, if ADM had enough control over their workers -- by merit of their employee's lack of control over their own situations -- then they could make the employees just take the situation and deal with their new schedules.
An article from Colorado's legislature suggests that the primary complaint from farmers is that "most agricultural activities are based on daylight hours as opposed to clock hours, and crops and livestock maintain their schedules regardless of the time reflected on the clock."
Because the farmers and their families would still have to work with their product during certain margins of the day to accomdate the plants, they would have to readjust their schedules to do non-farm things like shop for food, meet with a bank, etc.
In the case of agribusiness, they would have to readjust the schedules of their employees.
From this article, it appears as though there are differing discriptions of the event, with some describing the man as shot by plain-clothes officers and another describing the man as pursued and shot by a mixture of plain-clothes and uniformed.
If these drives allow companies to do business more efficiently, consumers may realize a benefit if these cost savings enable competition to lower prices.
There is a marked strengthening in competition -- weakening in price -- in the financial services industry, especially in trading where fidelity and prudential want priority trades for a penny a share or less.
The money spent to lower these prices isn't going to come out of the human resources end, because how are you going to execute increasing trading volume with appropriate speed? Where is it going to come from, buying cheaper chairs?
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that IT budgets on Wall Street will suffer as a result of competition within the industry.
If they can keep the same statistical level of reliability by running a pair of Dell Deminsions running Linux and at a lower cost, would you pass the company on your search for investment managers?
What if they charged you 6 bucks a trade instead of 7?
If Linux enables you do do this, to save money by taking advantage of the current weak computer prices while maintaining a quality setup, why the heck not?
Some might suggest that Windows' dominating success in the consumer market flies in the face of the ideal of excellence via consumer.
However, such an analogy does not apply to Linux. Windows' major shortcoming has always been -- though it has been almost irrelevant, for consumers, with the advent of XP -- its instability, a problem that most admit is not a character of Linux.
Unfortunately, there is some truth, though, to what Steve Balmer says regarding the true cost of Linux. That's not to say that Linux is simply inadequate period; it may, however, be unsuitable to some situations.
Enrollment in science/engineering programs among US students is dropping. While our society becomes more and more DEPENDENT on science and technology, the percentage of the populace who actually UNDERSTAND how things like computers, genetic engineering and space travel actually WORK is probably at an all-time low.
Never has a majority of the United States had an engineering/science degree, yet the nation always had high support for its space program.
Since when do university degrees NECESSARILY equate with scientific literacy?
Don't know where you go to school, but where I go to school one has to take a minimum of two semesters of lab-based science. Physics tends to be one of the fullest courses in this class.
Joe Sixpack cares more about crashing in front of his TV than in what makes the damn thing work, and the same goes for his kids and their video games....
At what point in history has Joe Sixpack ever had an engineering degree? Never. Bottom line: this lack of support doesn't come from a lack of scientific training.
However, your assertion that the lack of public support in the space program is due to scientific illteracy is outlandish. Our society is the most educated it has ever been, with more per-capita University degrees than previous.
The lack of current support has more to do with a general lack of optimism for the future and specific lack of trust of NASA.
More important than the risk to the astronaut's lives is the political risk to NASA. If the nation sees another highly public NASA mission miss its target to the extent that lives are lost, the agency may lose even the support is has now.
Throughout 40 years of manned space flight, there were no fatalaties. Also during this time was the highest public support of manned space flight. Correlation?
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The actual hardware Sony is offering is worth only so much to a consumer due to the availability of alternatives.
The real money for the company is in the IP. If they can keep the devices selling with the features the box actually offers rather than the simple presence of chips and things, then they can sustain the price of the unit.
Sony does not want anything they make to become a commodity.
Sure it's not impossible, but it's impossible for a cost.
I wish the politicians could stay out of it
Who the hell is going to decide what the nation's policy should be? Engineers? I'm not disputing that they're intellegent and capable of getting things done.
But they don't have a mind for policy and no one chose them to choose it.
There have to be politicians to do this and the only thing you can do is pick different ones.
I agree. There have been so many shuttle missions that ended successfully and there must have been debris falling every single time.
Don't got no mod points, but that's a chuckler.
And somehow they'd have to figure out what to do about flights into and out of Arizona, a no-DST state. If that same passenger needs to fly to New York to catch that London flight, that Phoenix flight would have to be adjusted also.
If that flight is adjusted, all the other folks flying to New York would have to adjust their schedules, potentially delaying or cancelling business meetings in the nation's fasted growing city.
Sure, you can adjust airline schedules, but some people are going to feel an effect.
And that's easy...
While it would make individual farming harder, agribusiness entities like ADM would have to change their employee's schedules. This would make working for them less desirable, which in turn would raise wages, all other things equal.
On the other hand, if ADM had enough control over their workers -- by merit of their employee's lack of control over their own situations -- then they could make the employees just take the situation and deal with their new schedules.
An article from Colorado's legislature suggests that the primary complaint from farmers is that "most agricultural activities are based on daylight hours as opposed to clock hours, and crops and livestock maintain their schedules regardless of the time reflected on the clock."
Because the farmers and their families would still have to work with their product during certain margins of the day to accomdate the plants, they would have to readjust their schedules to do non-farm things like shop for food, meet with a bank, etc.
In the case of agribusiness, they would have to readjust the schedules of their employees.
A flight is scheduled to leave New York and arrive in London. A passenger has to connect to another flight to Berlin.
With this new scheme, that passenger who might have had a 1 hour gap between arriving in London and leaving for Berlin now has a no time gap.
From this article, it appears as though there are differing discriptions of the event, with some describing the man as shot by plain-clothes officers and another describing the man as pursued and shot by a mixture of plain-clothes and uniformed.
I would rather risk killing someone comitting a crime -- running from the police -- than potentially allowing the death of dozens of other.
If these drives allow companies to do business more efficiently, consumers may realize a benefit if these cost savings enable competition to lower prices.
There is a marked strengthening in competition -- weakening in price -- in the financial services industry, especially in trading where fidelity and prudential want priority trades for a penny a share or less.
The money spent to lower these prices isn't going to come out of the human resources end, because how are you going to execute increasing trading volume with appropriate speed? Where is it going to come from, buying cheaper chairs?
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that IT budgets on Wall Street will suffer as a result of competition within the industry.
If they can keep the same statistical level of reliability by running a pair of Dell Deminsions running Linux and at a lower cost, would you pass the company on your search for investment managers?
What if they charged you 6 bucks a trade instead of 7?
If Linux enables you do do this, to save money by taking advantage of the current weak computer prices while maintaining a quality setup, why the heck not?
I bet that the poster's idea is that one can run mission critical financial software on commodity hardware with Linux.
Some might suggest that Windows' dominating success in the consumer market flies in the face of the ideal of excellence via consumer.
However, such an analogy does not apply to Linux. Windows' major shortcoming has always been -- though it has been almost irrelevant, for consumers, with the advent of XP -- its instability, a problem that most admit is not a character of Linux.
Unfortunately, there is some truth, though, to what Steve Balmer says regarding the true cost of Linux. That's not to say that Linux is simply inadequate period; it may, however, be unsuitable to some situations.
Enrollment in science/engineering programs among US students is dropping. While our society becomes more and more DEPENDENT on science and technology, the percentage of the populace who actually UNDERSTAND how things like computers, genetic engineering and space travel actually WORK is probably at an all-time low.
Never has a majority of the United States had an engineering/science degree, yet the nation always had high support for its space program.
Since when do university degrees NECESSARILY equate with scientific literacy?
Don't know where you go to school, but where I go to school one has to take a minimum of two semesters of lab-based science. Physics tends to be one of the fullest courses in this class.
Joe Sixpack cares more about crashing in front of his TV than in what makes the damn thing work, and the same goes for his kids and their video games....
At what point in history has Joe Sixpack ever had an engineering degree? Never. Bottom line: this lack of support doesn't come from a lack of scientific training.
I was incorrect in my 40-year claim.
However, your assertion that the lack of public support in the space program is due to scientific illteracy is outlandish. Our society is the most educated it has ever been, with more per-capita University degrees than previous.
The lack of current support has more to do with a general lack of optimism for the future and specific lack of trust of NASA.
The shuttle were reshaped into a cow ala Austin Powers.
More important than the risk to the astronaut's lives is the political risk to NASA. If the nation sees another highly public NASA mission miss its target to the extent that lives are lost, the agency may lose even the support is has now.
Throughout 40 years of manned space flight, there were no fatalaties. Also during this time was the highest public support of manned space flight. Correlation?
Looks like Boing Boing is just a news site. What's wrong with the poster opening up this item to discussion?
Your comment suggests that government should be all things to all people.
If the court hadn't convened, what would have happened?
1. He just has to pay the ticket.
2. He is just let go, free to live his life however he wants.
Point number 1 is unfair for obvious reasons.
Point number 2 disregards the possibility that the poster is guilty.
An officer *might* catch a real criminal on a traffic stop
If the officer is in court, he is assured to catch zero criminals.
Still, my primary focus was on how this was good for society. I only gave you a passing recognition -- a tip of the hat, if you will.