One of the big electronics swap meets in Southern California is run by the TRW Amateur Radio Club (now Northrup Grumman). It goes back to the 60's, although that's before my time. These days it's split between radio and computer vendors. Computer equipment doesn't age well, so most of that is pretty junky unless you spot the gem you need. The ham radio equipment is even older, but it ages better.
For XP Home or Vista Basic, you'd be right. Most guesstimates are that Dell et al pay $40-50 for an OEM license. However, if you price out a business system, the upgrade price from XP Home to XP Pro is $99 (and BTW $199 for Vista Ultimate). It would be interesting to see how Dell and MS split that $99.
Dell's OEM license is still valid. AFAIK, Dell laptops ship with Windows XP install CDs that are pre-activated as long as it detects a Dell BIOS. It's called System Locked Pre-Installation (SLP). If you can't find a Dell OEM CD, there are ways to make one from a generic OEM CD.
It's not just that a US graduate degree helps foreign workers get an H1-B visa. It's that a student visa is the only way for these people to live in the US, and while they're here they have time to learn English, get accultured to America, and make connections that'll help them find employment later. Because of that, foreign students are more motivated to overlook the sacrifices of a PhD grad student's life, the long hours, low pay, and the professor getting the credit for the research. A US citizen doesn't need the visa.
TFA tries to dismiss the technical shortcomings of 802.11b/g, but I agree it's a huge part of the problem.
Some observers blame these failures on Wi-Fi's technical limits. Wi-Fi does have serious limitations, but wireless Internet technology has worked well even on large college campuses.
College campuses have it much easier for lots of reasons: existing campus LAN, existing campus IT, dense population, probably not 100% coverage (how many campuses have wifi in open spaces like parking lots and sports fields?).
Longer range wireless that need fewer access points will change the economics dramatically.
The Thinkpads do have an edge in durability, but I'm not their target market. Warranty and insurance for accidental damage is good enough for most people. If I was my money, I'd either buy low end and take my chances with the regular 1 year warranty or buy high end and get the best warranty, 3 years plus accidental damage. A $399 laptop is a perfectly fine system for non-power users. Most just need a RAM upgrade and wipe the OEM Vista.
For all the complaints about Dell tech support, their warranty service is pretty good once you run through the script and convince them it's a hardware problem.
I know $2.6B sounds expensive, but try pricing out 18 miles of freeway, or even just widening and repaving 18 miles of an existing freeway. Those roads don't just pay for themselves.
It has a top speed of 280mph in regular service with passengers.
The TGV on steel rails does 200mph in regular service, and it made a record run of over 300mph, but mechanical wear would probably be too high to go that fast in regular service.
Only if he were to booby trap my sprinkler system to spray water if I'm in building code compliance and gasoline if I'm out of building code compliance.
There are exceptions to the rule on sales tie-ins. Described here
Although tie-in sales provisions generally are not allowed, you can include such a provision in your warranty if you can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FTC that your product will not work properly without a specified item or service. If you believe that this is the case, you should contact the warranty staff of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection for information on how to apply for a waiver of the tie-in sales prohibition.
I wouldn't exactly call the FTC website a self-serving interpretation. However, the reason they give for new car warranties doesn't apply to electronics. There's a prohibition on sales tie-ins as a condition of warranty service. Cars need routine maintenance and spare parts. A car maker can't require a customer to purchase original OEM parts or maintenance from a dealer as a condition of warranty service because that would be an illegal sales tie-in.
Electronics (especially from Apple) are sealed and maintenance-free for the life of the product. The battery does wear out, but usually not before 3 years. The only way this might apply is if non-Apple accessories like cases or headphones void the warranty.
There's a huge difference between a firmware update accidentally bricking a phone due to inadequate QA and designing firmware to deliberately detect and brick a modified phone. It's a question of intent. If it's deliberate, there are definitely emails to document that and in a lawsuit will come out in discovery. Apple qualifies the statement by saying the update "will likely result" in a bricked phone. Sounds like a mobster saying, "that's a nice restaurant you have. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."
Let's use your fuzzy dice example. What happens if an unlocked iPhone has a completely unrelated hardware failure, like the touchscreen or button? Apple would say the warranty is void, but the way I understand it, you can't void a warranty unless an unauthorized modification directly contributed to the failure.
Education is generally a local and parental matter. Not much the President can do.
Normally, I'd agree with you, but No Child Left Behind is federal law, and only the President and Congress can clean it up or, preferably, get rid of it. For all the talk of Small Government, NCLB is a huge intrusion into local control of schools and it's agenda is to sabotage public education by setting up schools to fail. I suppose if the goal is Small Government through destroying public education, then it's Mission Accomplished, but at least be honest about it. Don't dress it up as helping the kids and schools.
At the time of the 1st gen Nano, the flash memory chips was a huge fraction of the parts cost. What was is it? $35 a GB? Since then flash prices have dropped like a rock while Apple either kept the old price points or dropped them modestly. 2nd gen 4GB Nano was $200 compared to $150 for a 3rd gen 4GB Nano. To Apple's credit, 4GB of flash is worth about 40 bucks retail, so the $50 difference between the 4GB and 8GB Nano is a decent price.
Now also consider that an equivalent Sandisk flash player, the 8GB e280, costs $120, and the Sansa View 8GB with video costs $150. They may be a little bulkier and the e280 is an older model, but the parts that go into them aren't much cheaper than a Nano. That $50-$80 different all comes down to design and brand cachet.
There's plenty of studies showing that talking on the phone impairs drivers more than a 0.08 BAC. If we accept the premise that drivers should be criminally liable for driving while impaired that means one of two things: a) the laws for driving while phoning are too lenient or b) the legal limit of blood alcohol content is too low.
Well those people would already have had background investigations before getting access to work on classified programs. This is a new blanket policy on ALL NASA employees.
Security patches don't need WGA. The security bulletins all have download links. The software that needs WGA are things like DirectX runtimes and free (beer) addons like Media Player 11. Also, the Microsoft Update webpage (formerly Windowsupdate) has a WGA check, although the Automatic Updates service doesn't. However, Automatic Updates probably still sends your install key when it phones home.
There's just one problem with the closed source application running in its own VM. The VM is a virtual machine not a virtual application environment. That means the closed source software has to include a kernel with scheduler, memory management and device drivers for the hypervisor's virtual devices, in other words an entire OS. If you wrote an entire OS to run in the non-Free VM, why even bother having a Linux VM?
In economics, utilities like electricity, gas, wireline phone and water are called natural monopolies. You can't have multiple providers because it's inefficient to run duplicate utility lines. You could make the case that fiber optic cables are thin enough that you can have competing providers, and some cities do have two competing cable franchises. The construction work is still disruptive and expensive even if they do have room in the rights of way for a thin fiber cable.
That's good to know. I haven't checked data reception in the sticks, but my EVDO signal is pretty reliable around town. In some areas it's 1xRTT which is a little better than dialup.
That's true, a T1 is a different kind of service than residential broadband. He may not need the extra features of a business T1, but you do get a few things for the money: static IPs, no usage caps, no restrictions on hosting servers or reselling bandwidth, an SLA which means the backbone connection is less oversubscribed. For most businesses it's overkill unless you're hosting servers.
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One of the big electronics swap meets in Southern California is run by the TRW Amateur Radio Club (now Northrup Grumman). It goes back to the 60's, although that's before my time. These days it's split between radio and computer vendors. Computer equipment doesn't age well, so most of that is pretty junky unless you spot the gem you need. The ham radio equipment is even older, but it ages better.
For XP Home or Vista Basic, you'd be right. Most guesstimates are that Dell et al pay $40-50 for an OEM license. However, if you price out a business system, the upgrade price from XP Home to XP Pro is $99 (and BTW $199 for Vista Ultimate). It would be interesting to see how Dell and MS split that $99.
Dell's OEM license is still valid. AFAIK, Dell laptops ship with Windows XP install CDs that are pre-activated as long as it detects a Dell BIOS. It's called System Locked Pre-Installation (SLP). If you can't find a Dell OEM CD, there are ways to make one from a generic OEM CD.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=587659&st=15
It's not just that a US graduate degree helps foreign workers get an H1-B visa. It's that a student visa is the only way for these people to live in the US, and while they're here they have time to learn English, get accultured to America, and make connections that'll help them find employment later. Because of that, foreign students are more motivated to overlook the sacrifices of a PhD grad student's life, the long hours, low pay, and the professor getting the credit for the research. A US citizen doesn't need the visa.
College campuses have it much easier for lots of reasons: existing campus LAN, existing campus IT, dense population, probably not 100% coverage (how many campuses have wifi in open spaces like parking lots and sports fields?).
Longer range wireless that need fewer access points will change the economics dramatically.
The Thinkpads do have an edge in durability, but I'm not their target market. Warranty and insurance for accidental damage is good enough for most people. If I was my money, I'd either buy low end and take my chances with the regular 1 year warranty or buy high end and get the best warranty, 3 years plus accidental damage. A $399 laptop is a perfectly fine system for non-power users. Most just need a RAM upgrade and wipe the OEM Vista.
For all the complaints about Dell tech support, their warranty service is pretty good once you run through the script and convince them it's a hardware problem.
I know $2.6B sounds expensive, but try pricing out 18 miles of freeway, or even just widening and repaving 18 miles of an existing freeway. Those roads don't just pay for themselves.
It has a top speed of 280mph in regular service with passengers.
The TGV on steel rails does 200mph in regular service, and it made a record run of over 300mph, but mechanical wear would probably be too high to go that fast in regular service.
Only if he were to booby trap my sprinkler system to spray water if I'm in building code compliance and gasoline if I'm out of building code compliance.
I wouldn't exactly call the FTC website a self-serving interpretation. However, the reason they give for new car warranties doesn't apply to electronics. There's a prohibition on sales tie-ins as a condition of warranty service. Cars need routine maintenance and spare parts. A car maker can't require a customer to purchase original OEM parts or maintenance from a dealer as a condition of warranty service because that would be an illegal sales tie-in.
Electronics (especially from Apple) are sealed and maintenance-free for the life of the product. The battery does wear out, but usually not before 3 years. The only way this might apply is if non-Apple accessories like cases or headphones void the warranty.
There's a huge difference between a firmware update accidentally bricking a phone due to inadequate QA and designing firmware to deliberately detect and brick a modified phone. It's a question of intent. If it's deliberate, there are definitely emails to document that and in a lawsuit will come out in discovery. Apple qualifies the statement by saying the update "will likely result" in a bricked phone. Sounds like a mobster saying, "that's a nice restaurant you have. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."
Let's use your fuzzy dice example. What happens if an unlocked iPhone has a completely unrelated hardware failure, like the touchscreen or button? Apple would say the warranty is void, but the way I understand it, you can't void a warranty unless an unauthorized modification directly contributed to the failure.
Oracle is much worse. Look at archives of the Bugtraq list around the time of their "Unbreakable" marketing campaign.
How hard would it be to copy this thing with parts out of a microwave oven anyway?
Normally, I'd agree with you, but No Child Left Behind is federal law, and only the President and Congress can clean it up or, preferably, get rid of it. For all the talk of Small Government, NCLB is a huge intrusion into local control of schools and it's agenda is to sabotage public education by setting up schools to fail. I suppose if the goal is Small Government through destroying public education, then it's Mission Accomplished, but at least be honest about it. Don't dress it up as helping the kids and schools.
At the time of the 1st gen Nano, the flash memory chips was a huge fraction of the parts cost. What was is it? $35 a GB? Since then flash prices have dropped like a rock while Apple either kept the old price points or dropped them modestly. 2nd gen 4GB Nano was $200 compared to $150 for a 3rd gen 4GB Nano. To Apple's credit, 4GB of flash is worth about 40 bucks retail, so the $50 difference between the 4GB and 8GB Nano is a decent price.
Now also consider that an equivalent Sandisk flash player, the 8GB e280, costs $120, and the Sansa View 8GB with video costs $150. They may be a little bulkier and the e280 is an older model, but the parts that go into them aren't much cheaper than a Nano. That $50-$80 different all comes down to design and brand cachet.
These missiles were AGM-129's, and in the pictures I found they're all painted a stealth flat black.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-129_ACM
There's plenty of studies showing that talking on the phone impairs drivers more than a 0.08 BAC. If we accept the premise that drivers should be criminally liable for driving while impaired that means one of two things: a) the laws for driving while phoning are too lenient or b) the legal limit of blood alcohol content is too low.
Well those people would already have had background investigations before getting access to work on classified programs. This is a new blanket policy on ALL NASA employees.
Security patches don't need WGA. The security bulletins all have download links. The software that needs WGA are things like DirectX runtimes and free (beer) addons like Media Player 11. Also, the Microsoft Update webpage (formerly Windowsupdate) has a WGA check, although the Automatic Updates service doesn't. However, Automatic Updates probably still sends your install key when it phones home.
There's just one problem with the closed source application running in its own VM. The VM is a virtual machine not a virtual application environment. That means the closed source software has to include a kernel with scheduler, memory management and device drivers for the hypervisor's virtual devices, in other words an entire OS. If you wrote an entire OS to run in the non-Free VM, why even bother having a Linux VM?
In economics, utilities like electricity, gas, wireline phone and water are called natural monopolies. You can't have multiple providers because it's inefficient to run duplicate utility lines. You could make the case that fiber optic cables are thin enough that you can have competing providers, and some cities do have two competing cable franchises. The construction work is still disruptive and expensive even if they do have room in the rights of way for a thin fiber cable.
That's good to know. I haven't checked data reception in the sticks, but my EVDO signal is pretty reliable around town. In some areas it's 1xRTT which is a little better than dialup.
That's true, a T1 is a different kind of service than residential broadband. He may not need the extra features of a business T1, but you do get a few things for the money: static IPs, no usage caps, no restrictions on hosting servers or reselling bandwidth, an SLA which means the backbone connection is less oversubscribed. For most businesses it's overkill unless you're hosting servers.