The parent article links to a notebook with no operating system installed. There must be no extra development cost.
True. Perhaps the manpower for taking a few select systems out of the standard install process is somewhat costly for them. In any case, I can't possibly believe they're making $150 on the commercial software they preinstall.
I would guess that the predicted-cheap-and-ubiquitous set-top-boxes will not support HD since the goal is to get older TVs to still watch this new digital stuff.
The STBs will still have to recieve and decode HD video in realtime... Otherwise they would be cut-off from a large chunk of programming currently, and no doubt much more will be HD by 2009.
Once you've got the chips to decode 1080 in realtime, a video chip that can output DVI in 1080i is barely any more expensive than a chip that only outputs 480i.
Yeah, the date is hidden, in bold, in the heading of the article. You certainly can't be expected to read that far...
won't CFL technology in turn have improved that much more by then?
How much have they improved in the past few years? Hint: Not much. The efficiency of fluorescents has been pretty much flat for the past couple decades.
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 26, @02:05PM from the walk-without-rhythm-and-you-won't-attract-the-one dept.
That's is very sad... The misunderstand of song lyrics is the minor part. It's that the lyric in question is an obvious reference to DUNE, and anyone who ever saw the movie should know it./. editors that have never seen Dune??? It's a sad sad day.
All major brand-name computers come with a ton of crapware pre-installed. Why do you think they do that? Because they get PAID to put in there. When you eliminate Windows, you also eliminate the extra revenue from pre-installed crapware.
Yes, well, the revenue from every installed copy of Norton can't possibly be hundreds of dollars. I'm sure a tiny minority of users ever actually pay, and then it's not pure profit for them. I doubt Dell is getting $20 for all the crap they install (but that's free money for them, so why not), and Microsoft certainly isn't paying them $28 to install each copy of Windows (and things like Works)...
They're probably figuring 0.05% of people will choose the Linux option, so they have to recoup their entire costs of development with those few sales. Of course, by pricing it that way, they make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I remember the advertising for the Wal-Mart Linux laptops. There was no shortage of it. But the bottom line is they didn't sell. Customers didn't want it.
I remember the advertising for the Walmart offered mail-based DVD rentals. But the bottom line is customers didn't want it.
Walmart's hardware was complete crap, no matter what operating system you put on it. They didn't just drop their Linux laptops and desktops, they dropped their entire brand of cheap desktop and laptop computers. Now they've gone back to mostly big name-brand systems (HP/eMachines/Toshiba/etc.).
Installed Linux is a great feature (especially laptops!) but it's not going to make people forget overwhelming shortcomings of the hardware, and (relative) higher prices.
Linux users, for the overwhelmingly large part, seem to me to be roll-your-own types, and fairly advanced in their understanding of stuff like this compared to their Windows (and even OSX) counterparts.
Early adopters are usually that way... If you aren't a roll-your-own type, you're not going to go through the work of installing Linux to begin with.
When more systems come pre-installed with Linux, you'll see more Linux users happy with whatever system they get, perhaps only wanting a few apps that aren't installed by default.
And as for Windows... First thing I do is turn off the god-awful new interface, animations, etc., and download 2GBs of programs, just to tweak Windows into a workable OS. If anything, Linux distros need less customizing... Mainly because they come with most apps people want, already installed.
Sometimes this happens, yes. It's a problem with capitalism, I guess - nobody's ever worked out how to prevent this (although stopping patent ever-greening would be a good place to start.)
Outlawing corporate lobbying of government (possible as well as hospitals) would be a good start. They have entire organizations to make medical decisions, bribes from the medical companies aren't necessary to inform them of the options.
Yes, the codebase for Seamonkey will be slightly behind that for Firefox. I see that as a good thing, as it weeds out most of the x.0 type bugs, and makes Seamonkey a more mature product.
Mozilla and SeaMonkey are dead to me, if for no other reason than because you can't install extensions per-user, or as a non-root user.
The thing about drug companies is that they're a necessary evil: yes, they're in it for profit, but the products that they make a profit on save lives.
But all too often, the products they make MORE money on, save FEWER lives, but they push those products anyhow, since they're only motivated by money.
I imagine the parent was suggesting corruption of one kind or another, which I don't doubt at all.
You can argue against all mandatory vaccinations if want, but you can't be selective about it. HPV is just as dangerous as, for example, polio.
That's the most fucked-up logic I've ever heard.
HPV isn't airborne, and won't be spread from school activities. It's in a decidedly different class than all the other vaccinations given.
Second, there are no mandatory vaccinations. Nobody goes around forcing adults to receive vaccines. There are only public school attendance vaccine mandates. And HPV hasn't got the slightest thing in the world to do with school attendance. You're undermining the whole system by throwing it in with the rest of the vaccinations.
And given the prevalence of HPV (see the well-cited Wikipedia article, or any other reliable source) and its obvious dangers, vaccination makes sense as public health policy.
The problem with that, is that we don't live in a country where the government makes medical decisions for the public. The FDA doesn't go from neighborhood to neighborhood, forcing adults to get vaccines that they should have.
This vaccine has NOTHING at all to do with school attendance, and mandating it both oversteps the authority of the government, and undermines the status of the school-related vaccinations in the first place.
What happens when some angry parent sues, and the court decides that because the system is pushing unrelated drugs, it is unconstitutional, and must be stopped all-together?
What happens when some state decides to mandate circumcision for school-aged children, for public health reasons?
You can't do and end-run around the law when it suits you, and you like the end result.
Basically, the purpose of the requirement is to make sure girls whose parents are too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to have an opinion either way, don't get punished later on.
With that kind of argument, I can't wait until states mandate that you must buy your children trendy clothing, get them a car when they are old enough to drive, and buy them a pack of condoms every month...
As for the vaccine, the "children" in question can opt to get it when they are old enough to make such decisions on their own (after all, their "parents are too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to have an opinion either way").
Why should we require kids to get ANY vaccinations? We should just make them all optional. What kind of dumb person would want to eradicate something that causes cancer?
You know what else would help? Requiring all children to be circumcised before allowing them to enter school... It significantly reduces the risk of HIV infection.
We should mandate circumcision, to help eradicate HIV. After all, that's what the government is there for, to force non-essential medical treatment on you, despite your wishes.
This siutation is similiar, the religious get their panties all in a knot over nothing and will often be hippocrites and fools about a subject. They simply borrow the opinion of those who evangelize to them. Often without knowing it makes appear foolish and act like hippocrites.
This vaccine has nothing at all to do with attending public school. It's not an airborne disease, and so isn't something you could possible contract at school. The idea that states are requiring it for students is overstepping their authority, and corruption, in the most blatant terms.
This is totalitarianism, pure and simple. The state now tells you what medicines you must take, and you have no choice in the matter. Worried about side-effects? Worried about taking unnecessary medication? Too bad. It's the law.
Unfortunately, equipment costs for grid-tied photovoltaic equipment is still high enough that you're ahead to invest the money it would have cost and spend the interest buying power for the life of the system you didn't install.
There are thousands of examples, but frankly, I have no idea where you get your ideas to begin with, so let's just start with one:
If you start up a solar power "plant" you have to pay for the land, and you end up selling the power to the grid at wholesale prices.
With this, you get the land (roof tops) for free, and you can probably sell a good portion of the power at nearly retail prices directly to the home-owner, rather than the much lower wholesale price.
Whether there is scamming going on or not is a completely separate issue... It's certainly possible this company could be a scam to get at that some of that state and federal subsidy cash, but it's just as possible that it's not. And frankly, if I'm not a stock-holder, and am just buying a service from them, why do I care much if it does turn out to be some type of scam? At worst, you save some money in the short term, and have to give it up after a while... At best, maybe they go under, you'll be lucky enough to get a solar panel installed on your roof, free and clear (no more monthly fees).
It's not like solar power companies have a monopoly on scams...
a malicious lack of concern for the well-being or property
The fact that an entertainment system was offline for a few seconds isn't exactly destruction of property.
With the ridiculous slant you're putting on property rights, you could have someone shot for standing on the public sidewalk in-front of your house, potentially making it more difficult for someone to pass by...
That he didn't anticipate crashing the entire system is irrelevant.
Quite the opposite. There isn't even the slightest claim of "abuse" if he hadn't crashed the system. If he just figured out a way to cheat at tetris, even your exaggerated bullshit claims wouldn't have the slightest of basis.
No, posting about it in a blog == bragging.
I see. So political blogs == bragging. News Blogs == Bragging. Katrina survivor blogs == bragging.
You don't illustrate bad construction by kicking in a flimsy door in a house you don't own.
The analog couldn't be further off the mark if you tried.
I assume you meant "avionics programmers" aren't run of the mill. I hate to burst your bubble, but for the most part that's not true. I've been a programmer in the aerospace industry for 10 years.
LEDs WILL melt when installed into some ovens. Period.
Except, of course, for the fact that they won't.
There are LEDs specifically designed to handle such high temperatures.
I note that you just didn't bother to address the oven issue, though. Way to dodge.
Yes, I was ignoring the oven issue... by going out of my way to quote that part as well, and saying "various temperatures" as opposed to "low temperatures." Good call drinkypoo.
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True. Perhaps the manpower for taking a few select systems out of the standard install process is somewhat costly for them. In any case, I can't possibly believe they're making $150 on the commercial software they preinstall.
A similar line was in the book as well.
It's fascinating to see xenophobic trolling on
The STBs will still have to recieve and decode HD video in realtime... Otherwise they would be cut-off from a large chunk of programming currently, and no doubt much more will be HD by 2009.
Once you've got the chips to decode 1080 in realtime, a video chip that can output DVI in 1080i is barely any more expensive than a chip that only outputs 480i.
Yeah, the date is hidden, in bold, in the heading of the article. You certainly can't be expected to read that far...
How much have they improved in the past few years? Hint: Not much. The efficiency of fluorescents has been pretty much flat for the past couple decades.
That's is very sad... The misunderstand of song lyrics is the minor part. It's that the lyric in question is an obvious reference to DUNE, and anyone who ever saw the movie should know it.
Yes, well, the revenue from every installed copy of Norton can't possibly be hundreds of dollars. I'm sure a tiny minority of users ever actually pay, and then it's not pure profit for them. I doubt Dell is getting $20 for all the crap they install (but that's free money for them, so why not), and Microsoft certainly isn't paying them $28 to install each copy of Windows (and things like Works)...
They're probably figuring 0.05% of people will choose the Linux option, so they have to recoup their entire costs of development with those few sales. Of course, by pricing it that way, they make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I remember the advertising for the Walmart offered mail-based DVD rentals. But the bottom line is customers didn't want it.
Walmart's hardware was complete crap, no matter what operating system you put on it. They didn't just drop their Linux laptops and desktops, they dropped their entire brand of cheap desktop and laptop computers. Now they've gone back to mostly big name-brand systems (HP/eMachines/Toshiba/etc.).
Installed Linux is a great feature (especially laptops!) but it's not going to make people forget overwhelming shortcomings of the hardware, and (relative) higher prices.
Early adopters are usually that way... If you aren't a roll-your-own type, you're not going to go through the work of installing Linux to begin with.
When more systems come pre-installed with Linux, you'll see more Linux users happy with whatever system they get, perhaps only wanting a few apps that aren't installed by default.
And as for Windows... First thing I do is turn off the god-awful new interface, animations, etc., and download 2GBs of programs, just to tweak Windows into a workable OS. If anything, Linux distros need less customizing... Mainly because they come with most apps people want, already installed.
Outlawing corporate lobbying of government (possible as well as hospitals) would be a good start. They have entire organizations to make medical decisions, bribes from the medical companies aren't necessary to inform them of the options.
Mozilla and SeaMonkey are dead to me, if for no other reason than because you can't install extensions per-user, or as a non-root user.
http://noscript.net/faq#qa3_5
That's a huge show-stopping limitation, IMHO.
But all too often, the products they make MORE money on, save FEWER lives, but they push those products anyhow, since they're only motivated by money.
I imagine the parent was suggesting corruption of one kind or another, which I don't doubt at all.
That's the most fucked-up logic I've ever heard.
HPV isn't airborne, and won't be spread from school activities. It's in a decidedly different class than all the other vaccinations given.
Second, there are no mandatory vaccinations. Nobody goes around forcing adults to receive vaccines. There are only public school attendance vaccine mandates. And HPV hasn't got the slightest thing in the world to do with school attendance. You're undermining the whole system by throwing it in with the rest of the vaccinations.
The problem with that, is that we don't live in a country where the government makes medical decisions for the public. The FDA doesn't go from neighborhood to neighborhood, forcing adults to get vaccines that they should have.
This vaccine has NOTHING at all to do with school attendance, and mandating it both oversteps the authority of the government, and undermines the status of the school-related vaccinations in the first place.
What happens when some angry parent sues, and the court decides that because the system is pushing unrelated drugs, it is unconstitutional, and must be stopped all-together?
What happens when some state decides to mandate circumcision for school-aged children, for public health reasons?
You can't do and end-run around the law when it suits you, and you like the end result.
With that kind of argument, I can't wait until states mandate that you must buy your children trendy clothing, get them a car when they are old enough to drive, and buy them a pack of condoms every month...
As for the vaccine, the "children" in question can opt to get it when they are old enough to make such decisions on their own (after all, their "parents are too stupid, ignorant, or lazy to have an opinion either way").
You know what else would help? Requiring all children to be circumcised before allowing them to enter school... It significantly reduces the risk of HIV infection.
We should mandate circumcision, to help eradicate HIV. After all, that's what the government is there for, to force non-essential medical treatment on you, despite your wishes.
And by mandating it, but still keeping it expensive, you can see public school attendance become a privilege of only those who can afford it!
This vaccine has nothing at all to do with attending public school. It's not an airborne disease, and so isn't something you could possible contract at school. The idea that states are requiring it for students is overstepping their authority, and corruption, in the most blatant terms.
This is totalitarianism, pure and simple. The state now tells you what medicines you must take, and you have no choice in the matter. Worried about side-effects? Worried about taking unnecessary medication? Too bad. It's the law.
There are thousands of examples, but frankly, I have no idea where you get your ideas to begin with, so let's just start with one:
http://california.realgoodssolar.com/economics.ht
Thousands upon thousands of people have done it, and continue to do so. The economics are well-settled at this point.
Got any more bullshit claims?
The plan is entirely feasible.
If you start up a solar power "plant" you have to pay for the land, and you end up selling the power to the grid at wholesale prices.
With this, you get the land (roof tops) for free, and you can probably sell a good portion of the power at nearly retail prices directly to the home-owner, rather than the much lower wholesale price.
Whether there is scamming going on or not is a completely separate issue... It's certainly possible this company could be a scam to get at that some of that state and federal subsidy cash, but it's just as possible that it's not. And frankly, if I'm not a stock-holder, and am just buying a service from them, why do I care much if it does turn out to be some type of scam? At worst, you save some money in the short term, and have to give it up after a while... At best, maybe they go under, you'll be lucky enough to get a solar panel installed on your roof, free and clear (no more monthly fees).
It's not like solar power companies have a monopoly on scams...
The fact that an entertainment system was offline for a few seconds isn't exactly destruction of property.
With the ridiculous slant you're putting on property rights, you could have someone shot for standing on the public sidewalk in-front of your house, potentially making it more difficult for someone to pass by...
Quite the opposite. There isn't even the slightest claim of "abuse" if he hadn't crashed the system. If he just figured out a way to cheat at tetris, even your exaggerated bullshit claims wouldn't have the slightest of basis.
I see. So political blogs == bragging. News Blogs == Bragging. Katrina survivor blogs == bragging.
The analog couldn't be further off the mark if you tried.
He was playing around with options of a tetris game. He wasn't TRYING to crash the system.
Illustrating bad programming != bragging
You've got a very very strange view of the world.
Ergo, true, ipso facto. Q.E.D.
Well done.
A sad commentary on the state of freedom in this country.
Except, of course, for the fact that they won't.
There are LEDs specifically designed to handle such high temperatures.
Yes, I was ignoring the oven issue... by going out of my way to quote that part as well, and saying "various temperatures" as opposed to "low temperatures." Good call drinkypoo.