One recurring theme is where you cross the line between quantum and classical behavior. How many Fe atoms to you need before it behaves like the Iron we all are familiar with.
This appears to be another case. At some point of glomming neutrons together you get a neutron star, though that's still an odd beast. Where do you cross the line between Tetra/Penta/Hexa-neutrons and a teeny-tiny neutron star? (I suspect this one's easy to figure, in terms balancing gravity against residual strong and weak forces, but I don't know how to do it.)
This was a big concern when the Large Hadron Collider was about to go into action. Some feared that the energies would be high enough to create mini black holes, which would promptly fall out of the chamber and begin eating the Earth. Eventually someone realized that higher energy collisions from cosmic rays take place above the Earth every day, and we haven't gotten eaten, yet.
In other words, whatever we can do is already being done in that great laboratory in the sky. Literally in the sky - a few hundred miles over our heads.
But aren't Windows and Office both monopoly products?
I realize that it shouldn't matter, and it becomes an issue of monopoly maintenance rather than monopoly extension. But it may leave weasel-room. (Hopefully only enough weasel-room to fit in a clue-by-four aimed at their collective head.)
And why do I have this ugly feeling that publishers get a 95% cut out of the artists' 25%, too.
Maybe I'm all wet on this, but it's perception, and I'll bet it's not limited to me. In the computing and software industry, we unfortunately know how perception is sometimes more importatnt that reality, though we also lament it.
Most likely that dark fiber will be therE, but will it be ready to be lit? What are the failmodes of fiber? Even if the fiber is glass, what about the cladding?
Is this stuff going to rot, get moldy, or in some other way become non-functional over the long run? In every place where dark fiber is buried, is there light fiber as well? If a buried bundle is completely dark, how do we know it hasn't been interrupted by Joe Weekend Backhoe, who knows he hit *something*, but also knows that no neighbors have complained?
Maybe the dark fiber can be lit in another century. I'd like to know lifetime factors before putting any money down on it.
went through the testing and all of that mess. Some thought ADHD, some thought Auspergers, and we even had one diagnosis that, "He's just a quirky kid." Actually, we stuck with that last diagnosis. One of our good friends is a psychologist, and he referred to the psychologist who made the Auspergers diagnosis as the technical term, "boob."
Our net:
He's a quirky kid. He's needed lots of patience and work. Luckily my job as an engineer afforded my wife the opportunity to stay at home with the kids. She put in a ton of work with him in the early years at school. He's a teenager, good hearted, and still needs perhaps more intervention than many, (He would forget his head if it wasn't bolted on.) but works and tries hard.
Sometimes we despair of "getting him all he needs to know" before he goes off to college, but he continues to show progress. With him it's odd, because the progress comes in bursts. We're glad he had a full-time parent, and we're glad we didn't medicate.
According to the table, the pion and rho mesons both seem to be built out of an up and an anti-down. Both have a charge of +1, but the masses and spins are different.
To answer my own question, a quick google shows: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase /particl es/meson2.html
The quick answer - The rho meson is an excited pion.
After a quick look, the hyperphysics web site looks quite interesting. This is the starter link: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hphys. html
Not to mention the subset, "sex with your mother who happens to be young through the magic of time travel, rejuvenation, or some other uber-technology."
Don't know if you know you're adapting...
on
End In Sight For Alpha
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
The guy was on his way to Woodstock, when he fell asleep for a decade... (The old Rip Van Winkle story)
Jimmy Hendrix DEAD!!! Oh, Nooooooo!!!
Janice Joplin DEAD!!! Oh, Nooooooo!!!
Jim Morrison DEAD!!! Oh, Nooooooo!!!
Jim Croce DEAD!!! Uh...
Who's Jim Croce?
Credit to the "National Lampoon Half-a-Radio Hour"
While there are most likely no practical aspects (see note) to finding extraterrestrial intelligence, the psychological possibilities range from none to downright stunning. First and foremost would be the effects on religion, wiping away any vestige of a trace of Galileo's persecution, but probably kicking up a new fuss. Not to mention that religion is used as an excuse for a great number of today's world's ills. (Notice I said 'excuse', not 'cause.') Second might well be a push to 'measure up' to the other example of intelligence.
Note: As for practical aspects, what if we found they were broadcasting information. Trojan Horse stories like Cosmos and Species abound. Stories have also keyed on the problems of being handed technology rather than discovering it.
would be that life isn't rare. Therefore, we don't have to treat the Earth carefully, because our situation isn't unique. Clear-cut those rainforests, slash-and-burn agriculture is best; pollution controls - we don't need no steenking pollution controls; biodiversity is for weenies.
Oops, *how* far away did you say these other planets are?:-):-):-) (because sometimes sarcasm/humor goes unrecognized)
Won't argue with you a bit, I was reporting on what I've read.
Take a look at what's underlying the whole copyright debate, and you'll see that the real end product is scarcity, itself. It's ironic, in that originally the publishers' role was to make media less scarce. In the process of spreading knowledge and arts, they became choke-points. As technology threatens to make their distribution role obsolete, they seek to strengthen their choke-point role. In other words, their product is scarcity. If it's not scarce, it doesn't make money.
If/when nanotech ever gives us replication technology, expect to see the same kind of response out of the classical manufacturing sector.
Perhaps in our fight against copyright abuse, we should also be examining scarcity, itself. When scarcity truly exists, it appears to create an economy. Is 'created scarcity' a 20th century invention, or what is its historical role? I guess England created a manufacturing scarcity in the Colonies to give themselves a market for manufactured goods, kind of the essence of "The Company Store".
and fit the set-top function inside. The tv has become enough of a tower-of-boxes. Let's see if we can take one off the top. Standardization like this is the first step.
Remember the old days when quadraphonic was coming, but nobody new exactly how? Marantz had the plug-in on the bottom of their receiver where, whenever the dominant quad decoding scheme emerged, you'd be able to buy and plug it in.
Oops, quadrasonics didn't fly. But I still wish cable boxen could be a plug-in nested inside my TV or VCR. Signal and remote control interfaces, etc.
Again, science fiction can show some of the range available to us in the future.
Obviously "The Diamond Age" has been pointed out as one possible future. Rather an odd one, as it has both dystopic and Utopia features to it. Usually literature focuses more on one or the other.
Joe Haldeman brought out another possibility in "The Forever Peace" where he invoked similar capabilities to The Diamond Age, but with a completely different model of control. In The Diamond Age, nanotech construction was available to anyone at a market price. In The Forever Peace, the US government managed to convince everyone that nanotech was inherently dangerous, and ran a small number of NanoForges on a very limited basis. At least public use was very limited.
Greg Bear's use of nanotech in Queen of Angels, Slant, and Moving Mars is somewhere between, but probably closer to Haldeman than Stephenson.
I also just finished A Deepness In the Sky by Verner Vinge, which skirted nanotech, and brings up an interesting contrast.
Briefly, nanotech in science fiction takes on two forms, replicators and itsy-bitsy machines. The Diamond Age had both models. Greg Bear used mostly replication in Queen of Angels and Slant, with itsy-bitsy machines in Moving Mars. Haldeman focused on replication.
Obviously replication becomes an interesting issue framing today's copyright debates. Itsy-bitsy machines are interesting in the context of today's security/privacy debates, since the most basic use seems to be surveillance.
Replication was also touched on much earlier, in a story (name forgotten) where aliens give us a replicator. Of course first you replicate the replicator, then watch the economy break down as goods become free. Some even wonder if giving us the replicator was a prelude to an invasion because of the economic effects. Then someone hits on the idea of Originals, and the economy is saved! Copyright triumphs, effectively.
Fortunately we're a long way from any of these concerns. In the meantime, I hope for some moderately itsy-bitsy machines, most notably the pill camera as I approach 50.
No, IIRC that one was a Susan Calvin story which took place on the HyperBase asteroid.
Most of the robot short stories were contained in two collections, "I, Robot and other stories" and "The Rest of the Robots."
Another IIRC, "I, Robot" was another short story murder mystery, though I remember nothing about the plot. There was a Twilight Zone "I, Robot" episode that was a murder mystery and may have been an adaptation. Leonard Nimoy starred as the attorney.
I used to be a bit of a whiz at JCL, and still view it kind of nostalgically.
JCL was kind of like a rocket launch. Work on it until you think it's ready, then send it off to JES. If you thought a catastrophe (DISP=(MOD,DELETE)) was on the way you might be able to cancel the job in time, like the self-destruct ordinance.
With a script, there's always that wish to watch operation and hit the attention key, and of course maybe you can tweak the script while a step is running, etc. It just isn't as 'background' as JCL was.
It's not that we hate NASA/love space, or anything like that. It's that we'd rather plan the future than execute the present. We'd rather plan to make fuel cell-powered SUVs ten years down the road than actually begin making hybrids now. The ISS is in it's ugly, ugly execution phase, much less fun than planning. Every execution phase is like that.
Also to be truthful, I prefer seeing them without cosmetics. Cosmetics get in the way... of the truth.
Besides, forget a second space station, I'd just like to see a hab and a rescue vehicle so we could put more than a sub-minimum crew up there. The space station has been politically engineered into a no-win configuration.
Perhaps this is a necessary Evil, perhaps it's a poison pill. The jury is still out on Wine and its various ilk, but for OS/2 it was clearly a poison pill.
What's needed is a way to walk the knife-edge down the middle. Perhaps a *good* WINE is just what we don't want. Perhaps a WINE that can be tweaked to do just a few critical things really is living on that knife edge.
Maybe WinOS2 was just too good at running Win3.1 apps, or at least the perception was too good.
As long as WINE isn't perceived as good enough, it will be viewed as only a crutch. WinOS2 was perceived as 'good enough' to neglect a native version, even if enough market was anticipated.
It also remains to be seen how MacDX will be perceived. Hopefully only as a crutch, and a reason to then consider OpenGL and SDL as better solutions.
"Ideas and Opinions" by A Einstein
on
Einstein Unveiled
·
· Score: 2
I'll have to delive a quick plug for this book, sitting on my shelf at home. Last read it over a decade ago. I've pretty much forgotten, so I guess it's time for a reread. At the very least, I've kept it rather than given it to a library book sale.
A few bucks for Slashdot here. A few bucks for Linux Today there. A few more bucks for Ars Technica. Still more bucks for RealWorldTech.
Actually, I don't subscribe to any of those. I read them, and I feel somewhat guilty about not subscribing, but I see a problem here. There are too many people holding out a hand for a little bit of my money.
Currently I support two PBS stations and public radio. I also have one magazine subscription, Linux Journal, and a few more magazines come to my house.
In the current situation, web subscriptions would like to exceed my dead tree subscriptions, and I can't even carry them to the bathroom.
Maybe the subscription model is better than popups, but it's still Not There Yet. If I knew the answer I'd be rich, but maybe it looks like a single higher-priced 'web subscription wallet' that lets me get those services, pay one fee, and not feel like I'm getting nickeled and dimed all over the place.
We're talking: (at my "normal" mailorder supplier, whom I've come to trust)
AOpen GeForce3 Ti200 for $89 ATI Radeon 8500LE (white box) for $79 ATI Radeon 9000 (OEM) for $72
All else equal, my preferred choice would be the 8500LE, because I think I'd be better off with the features than the clock speed. But I'm concerned about both ATI cards, because neither is a retail. I've heard that FireGL drivers look for some sort of "GenuineATI" signature before loading, and they might flunk. OTOH, there are the open source drivers that should work at least for the 8500LE, if not for either.
The nVidia option is the most expensive, and at the moment I'm trying to shave pennies, especially since I figure I'll be replacing in one or two years.
Amazing that over a decade ago I paid $215 for a Video7 FastWrite. Come to think of it, I don't think any of that generation of card makers is around, any more.
with either new hardware + new Windows software or just new Linux software on the old hardware.
If that's the choice, go with Windows + new hardware, and warn the client that the bill will rise as you finish the migration. The Linux option has been painted into a no-win situation because software-only can't solve a hardware problem. This is reminiscent of the old OS/2 days, when it was roundly criticized for not running well in 4MB, and then they'd go off and buy 16MB to run Windows.
If you're serious about offering choices, prototype a Linux solution on one machine, so you can show the UI. A Windows prototype shouldn't be necessary, since everyone assumes it can be done. (I won't justify that assumption, but it's common.) Then put together a bill for both options with the full migration.
This will be a new machine, so my old G400 stays in the current desktop. For that matter, the 40G is coming out the current desktop to go into the new machine, as is the Win98SE license. The desktop will go Linux-only on 8.5G, and the new machine will be dual-boot on 40G. I only hope Win98SE can use the new hardware. This machine will get lots of hardware shuffling over the next few years, so XP is out. I'd also rather not spend any more money on Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
One recurring theme is where you cross the line between quantum and classical behavior. How many Fe atoms to you need before it behaves like the Iron we all are familiar with.
This appears to be another case. At some point of glomming neutrons together you get a neutron star, though that's still an odd beast. Where do you cross the line between Tetra/Penta/Hexa-neutrons and a teeny-tiny neutron star? (I suspect this one's easy to figure, in terms balancing gravity against residual strong and weak forces, but I don't know how to do it.)
This was a big concern when the Large Hadron Collider was about to go into action. Some feared that the energies would be high enough to create mini black holes, which would promptly fall out of the chamber and begin eating the Earth. Eventually someone realized that higher energy collisions from cosmic rays take place above the Earth every day, and we haven't gotten eaten, yet.
In other words, whatever we can do is already being done in that great laboratory in the sky. Literally in the sky - a few hundred miles over our heads.
But aren't Windows and Office both monopoly products?
I realize that it shouldn't matter, and it becomes an issue of monopoly maintenance rather than monopoly extension. But it may leave weasel-room. (Hopefully only enough weasel-room to fit in a clue-by-four aimed at their collective head.)
Oh, IANAL.
And why do I have this ugly feeling that publishers get a 95% cut out of the artists' 25%, too.
Maybe I'm all wet on this, but it's perception, and I'll bet it's not limited to me. In the computing and software industry, we unfortunately know how perception is sometimes more importatnt that reality, though we also lament it.
Most likely that dark fiber will be therE, but will it be ready to be lit? What are the failmodes of fiber? Even if the fiber is glass, what about the cladding?
Is this stuff going to rot, get moldy, or in some other way become non-functional over the long run? In every place where dark fiber is buried, is there light fiber as well? If a buried bundle is completely dark, how do we know it hasn't been interrupted by Joe Weekend Backhoe, who knows he hit *something*, but also knows that no neighbors have complained?
Maybe the dark fiber can be lit in another century. I'd like to know lifetime factors before putting any money down on it.
went through the testing and all of that mess. Some thought ADHD, some thought Auspergers, and we even had one diagnosis that, "He's just a quirky kid." Actually, we stuck with that last diagnosis. One of our good friends is a psychologist, and he referred to the psychologist who made the Auspergers diagnosis as the technical term, "boob."
Our net:
He's a quirky kid. He's needed lots of patience and work. Luckily my job as an engineer afforded my wife the opportunity to stay at home with the kids. She put in a ton of work with him in the early years at school. He's a teenager, good hearted, and still needs perhaps more intervention than many, (He would forget his head if it wasn't bolted on.) but works and tries hard.
Sometimes we despair of "getting him all he needs to know" before he goes off to college, but he continues to show progress. With him it's odd, because the progress comes in bursts. We're glad he had a full-time parent, and we're glad we didn't medicate.
and we can all sh*t a brick.
According to the table, the pion and rho mesons both seem to be built out of an up and an anti-down. Both have a charge of +1, but the masses and spins are different.
e /particl es/meson2.html
. html
To answer my own question, a quick google shows:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbas
The quick answer - The rho meson is an excited pion.
After a quick look, the hyperphysics web site looks quite interesting. This is the starter link:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hphys
Not to mention the subset, "sex with your mother who happens to be young through the magic of time travel, rejuvenation, or some other uber-technology."
The guy was on his way to Woodstock, when he fell asleep for a decade... (The old Rip Van Winkle story)
Jimmy Hendrix DEAD!!! Oh, Nooooooo!!!
Janice Joplin DEAD!!! Oh, Nooooooo!!!
Jim Morrison DEAD!!! Oh, Nooooooo!!!
Jim Croce DEAD!!! Uh...
Who's Jim Croce?
Credit to the "National Lampoon Half-a-Radio Hour"
Maybe, maybe not.
While there are most likely no practical aspects (see note) to finding extraterrestrial intelligence, the psychological possibilities range from none to downright stunning. First and foremost would be the effects on religion, wiping away any vestige of a trace of Galileo's persecution, but probably kicking up a new fuss. Not to mention that religion is used as an excuse for a great number of today's world's ills. (Notice I said 'excuse', not 'cause.') Second might well be a push to 'measure up' to the other example of intelligence.
Note: As for practical aspects, what if we found they were broadcasting information. Trojan Horse stories like Cosmos and Species abound. Stories have also keyed on the problems of being handed technology rather than discovering it.
would be that life isn't rare. Therefore, we don't have to treat the Earth carefully, because our situation isn't unique. Clear-cut those rainforests, slash-and-burn agriculture is best; pollution controls - we don't need no steenking pollution controls; biodiversity is for weenies.
:-) :-) :-) (because sometimes sarcasm/humor goes unrecognized)
Oops, *how* far away did you say these other planets are?
Won't argue with you a bit, I was reporting on what I've read.
Take a look at what's underlying the whole copyright debate, and you'll see that the real end product is scarcity, itself. It's ironic, in that originally the publishers' role was to make media less scarce. In the process of spreading knowledge and arts, they became choke-points. As technology threatens to make their distribution role obsolete, they seek to strengthen their choke-point role. In other words, their product is scarcity. If it's not scarce, it doesn't make money.
If/when nanotech ever gives us replication technology, expect to see the same kind of response out of the classical manufacturing sector.
Perhaps in our fight against copyright abuse, we should also be examining scarcity, itself. When scarcity truly exists, it appears to create an economy. Is 'created scarcity' a 20th century invention, or what is its historical role? I guess England created a manufacturing scarcity in the Colonies to give themselves a market for manufactured goods, kind of the essence of "The Company Store".
and fit the set-top function inside. The tv has become enough of a tower-of-boxes. Let's see if we can take one off the top. Standardization like this is the first step.
Remember the old days when quadraphonic was coming, but nobody new exactly how? Marantz had the plug-in on the bottom of their receiver where, whenever the dominant quad decoding scheme emerged, you'd be able to buy and plug it in.
Oops, quadrasonics didn't fly. But I still wish cable boxen could be a plug-in nested inside my TV or VCR. Signal and remote control interfaces, etc.
Again, science fiction can show some of the range available to us in the future.
Obviously "The Diamond Age" has been pointed out as one possible future. Rather an odd one, as it has both dystopic and Utopia features to it. Usually literature focuses more on one or the other.
Joe Haldeman brought out another possibility in "The Forever Peace" where he invoked similar capabilities to The Diamond Age, but with a completely different model of control. In The Diamond Age, nanotech construction was available to anyone at a market price. In The Forever Peace, the US government managed to convince everyone that nanotech was inherently dangerous, and ran a small number of NanoForges on a very limited basis. At least public use was very limited.
Greg Bear's use of nanotech in Queen of Angels, Slant, and Moving Mars is somewhere between, but probably closer to Haldeman than Stephenson.
I also just finished A Deepness In the Sky by Verner Vinge, which skirted nanotech, and brings up an interesting contrast.
Briefly, nanotech in science fiction takes on two forms, replicators and itsy-bitsy machines. The Diamond Age had both models. Greg Bear used mostly replication in Queen of Angels and Slant, with itsy-bitsy machines in Moving Mars. Haldeman focused on replication.
Obviously replication becomes an interesting issue framing today's copyright debates. Itsy-bitsy machines are interesting in the context of today's security/privacy debates, since the most basic use seems to be surveillance.
Replication was also touched on much earlier, in a story (name forgotten) where aliens give us a replicator. Of course first you replicate the replicator, then watch the economy break down as goods become free. Some even wonder if giving us the replicator was a prelude to an invasion because of the economic effects. Then someone hits on the idea of Originals, and the economy is saved! Copyright triumphs, effectively.
Fortunately we're a long way from any of these concerns. In the meantime, I hope for some moderately itsy-bitsy machines, most notably the pill camera as I approach 50.
No, IIRC that one was a Susan Calvin story which took place on the HyperBase asteroid.
Most of the robot short stories were contained in two collections, "I, Robot and other stories" and "The Rest of the Robots."
Another IIRC, "I, Robot" was another short story murder mystery, though I remember nothing about the plot. There was a Twilight Zone "I, Robot" episode that was a murder mystery and may have been an adaptation. Leonard Nimoy starred as the attorney.
Scary, but true.
I used to be a bit of a whiz at JCL, and still view it kind of nostalgically.
JCL was kind of like a rocket launch. Work on it until you think it's ready, then send it off to JES. If you thought a catastrophe (DISP=(MOD,DELETE)) was on the way you might be able to cancel the job in time, like the self-destruct ordinance.
With a script, there's always that wish to watch operation and hit the attention key, and of course maybe you can tweak the script while a step is running, etc. It just isn't as 'background' as JCL was.
It's not that we hate NASA/love space, or anything like that. It's that we'd rather plan the future than execute the present. We'd rather plan to make fuel cell-powered SUVs ten years down the road than actually begin making hybrids now. The ISS is in it's ugly, ugly execution phase, much less fun than planning. Every execution phase is like that.
Also to be truthful, I prefer seeing them without cosmetics. Cosmetics get in the way... of the truth.
Besides, forget a second space station, I'd just like to see a hab and a rescue vehicle so we could put more than a sub-minimum crew up there. The space station has been politically engineered into a no-win configuration.
Perhaps this is a necessary Evil, perhaps it's a poison pill. The jury is still out on Wine and its various ilk, but for OS/2 it was clearly a poison pill.
What's needed is a way to walk the knife-edge down the middle. Perhaps a *good* WINE is just what we don't want. Perhaps a WINE that can be tweaked to do just a few critical things really is living on that knife edge.
Maybe WinOS2 was just too good at running Win3.1 apps, or at least the perception was too good.
As long as WINE isn't perceived as good enough, it will be viewed as only a crutch. WinOS2 was perceived as 'good enough' to neglect a native version, even if enough market was anticipated.
It also remains to be seen how MacDX will be perceived. Hopefully only as a crutch, and a reason to then consider OpenGL and SDL as better solutions.
I'll have to delive a quick plug for this book, sitting on my shelf at home. Last read it over a decade ago. I've pretty much forgotten, so I guess it's time for a reread. At the very least, I've kept it rather than given it to a library book sale.
This idea won't fly in the long run.
A few bucks for Slashdot here.
A few bucks for Linux Today there.
A few more bucks for Ars Technica.
Still more bucks for RealWorldTech.
Actually, I don't subscribe to any of those. I read them, and I feel somewhat guilty about not subscribing, but I see a problem here. There are too many people holding out a hand for a little bit of my money.
Currently I support two PBS stations and public radio. I also have one magazine subscription, Linux Journal, and a few more magazines come to my house.
In the current situation, web subscriptions would like to exceed my dead tree subscriptions, and I can't even carry them to the bathroom.
Maybe the subscription model is better than popups, but it's still Not There Yet. If I knew the answer I'd be rich, but maybe it looks like a single higher-priced 'web subscription wallet' that lets me get those services, pay one fee, and not feel like I'm getting nickeled and dimed all over the place.
We're talking:
(at my "normal" mailorder supplier, whom I've come to trust)
AOpen GeForce3 Ti200 for $89
ATI Radeon 8500LE (white box) for $79
ATI Radeon 9000 (OEM) for $72
All else equal, my preferred choice would be the 8500LE, because I think I'd be better off with the features than the clock speed. But I'm concerned about both ATI cards, because neither is a retail. I've heard that FireGL drivers look for some sort of "GenuineATI" signature before loading, and they might flunk. OTOH, there are the open source drivers that should work at least for the 8500LE, if not for either.
The nVidia option is the most expensive, and at the moment I'm trying to shave pennies, especially since I figure I'll be replacing in one or two years.
Amazing that over a decade ago I paid $215 for a Video7 FastWrite. Come to think of it, I don't think any of that generation of card makers is around, any more.
with either new hardware + new Windows software or just new Linux software on the old hardware.
If that's the choice, go with Windows + new hardware, and warn the client that the bill will rise as you finish the migration. The Linux option has been painted into a no-win situation because software-only can't solve a hardware problem. This is reminiscent of the old OS/2 days, when it was roundly criticized for not running well in 4MB, and then they'd go off and buy 16MB to run Windows.
If you're serious about offering choices, prototype a Linux solution on one machine, so you can show the UI. A Windows prototype shouldn't be necessary, since everyone assumes it can be done. (I won't justify that assumption, but it's common.) Then put together a bill for both options with the full migration.
Then let the customer decide, and pay.
This will be a new machine, so my old G400 stays in the current desktop. For that matter, the 40G is coming out the current desktop to go into the new machine, as is the Win98SE license. The desktop will go Linux-only on 8.5G, and the new machine will be dual-boot on 40G. I only hope Win98SE can use the new hardware. This machine will get lots of hardware shuffling over the next few years, so XP is out. I'd also rather not spend any more money on Windows.