I'm more than twice that. I've seen dozens of decade long fads come and go. I've also seen things with staying power of millenia. After a while you start to recognize the essential differences between the two.
Levi's became a fad in the 1960s. Before that only shit kickers wore blue jeans at all; and they changed them before they "went out," lest people think they were shit kickers. We called them "dungarees" back then, because you only wore them to kick shit. People who wore them also wore, are you ready for this shocking fact?
Undershirts! Without a shirt over them.
It wasn't until the late 70s that blue jeans and the "T" shirt became the standard uniform.
The question is not whether you still respect the Levi's brand, but how many pairs of Wranglers, Lees and Route 66 do you and your friends own?
Do you even know or care what brand of blue jeans your friends own?
iPod may well remain a respected brand and a leader in the market, but anyone who thinks that's going to translate into more than about a 20% market share is nuts, or young. But I repeat myself.:)
I guarantee there are $3,000 refrigerators available today designed to last more than 7 years.
As specialty items for professionals, yes, just as you can still buy a IBM M style keyboard. ..but not at Best Buy. Most people wouldn't want one in their homes. They look . ..utilitarian.
The average "consumer" who buys a $3,000 dollar fridge is exactly the sort who actually consumes refrigerators. The most fashion concious and the most likely to change it out in only five years, even though it still works (although many of the bells and whistles will have already broken).
Something that lasts longer may cost more, but that is not at all the same thing as saying that something that costs more will last longer. The things that last longest are rarely the most expensive things on the market.
The iPod is a digital music player, one brand amongst an increasing number of similar devices on the market
That's what I said.
Apple's ability to keep an edge over other manufacturers depends not on any current trend or fad but upon their ability to become a trusted name brand.
And the author of the article will not be wearing a Davey Crockett hat 10 years from now, no matter how much he thinks it is the epitome of cool at the moment.
However, believing it is the epitome of cool defines a fad. The iPod is a fad. When it ceases to be a fad other brands will become equally trusted names.
Most yuppies who play electric guitar buy a genuine Gibson Les Paul. Most serious working musicians buy an Epiphone; and the audience can't tell the difference. And of course only old people play a Les Paul.
Apple cannot keep their edge. It's only a question of how long they can keep their edge.
Because the iPod fad will fade and they'll just be another playing in the market. Levi's may still have a certain cache as a brand name in jeans, but I can't remember the last time I actually owned a pair. About twenty years ago I think.
Victorinox was not the only official manufacturer of the Swiss Army knife; they recently acquired their long-time consumer competitor Wenger. ..
I missed that.
Most Buck knives I've seen are huntsman's/fisherman's knives. ..
Yes, I've posted before that one of these should be the standard knife. Add a multi-tool if you like them, but as an addition to your knife "arsenal."
This is exactly my point: in order for Apple to keep their market lead, they need to keep their existing customers happy. . . Ultimately, I think consumers will go with whatever brand has the best reputation.
There are trusted brand names in many fields of consumer technology: the Zippo lighter, the Brunton compass, the Victorinox Swiss Army knife, the Timex watch. ..
. ..the IBM Personal Computer.
My lighter is a Colibri, my compass a Silva, my knife a Buck, my watch is actually my heart rate monitor (made by VDO and house branded) and I assemble my own computers with AMD processors and ASUS motherboards.
Times change. When they do, viable, respected competitors enter the market.
One of the last aparments I had came with a GE monitor top refrigerator. Oh, sure, the lights went dim for a second when the compressor kicked in, but it still worked.
The second to last refrigerator that I bought lasted seven years. When I asked my fridge guy what gives he told me that a seven year lifespan is actually the design parameter these days, so mine hit the average. The fridge companies found out that people tend to change them for fashion reasons . . . on average every seven years, so that's all they make them to last now.
Nevermind that an ugly working fridge still has value for college student apartments or whatever, you can't sell new fridges that way.
Repeat after me, "The less stitches, the more riches."
It is, however, to Stewart's credit that he took lessons and did a reasonably convincing job.
I don't spread myself too thinly across the Web, but C&F is one of the places I pop in to now and again. I've never had the WhOA infection; I'm one of those guys who's been playing the same Generation for 30 years . ..but Busman only lives down the road a piece from me. . .
And his play, and cost almost several fewer pennies.
. . . this project has been in the news for a LONG while now (at least it'd seem), are they any closer to actually reaching their goal?
Weeeeeeell, lessee. They're overtime, overbudget and the cost of the device has already risen %50 before release, so yeah, I'd say things are chugging along at the normal rate of progress.
. ..people don't have a fighting chance to be law abiding citizens. ..
Where on Earth did you get the idea that we want you to be law abiding citizens?
KFG
Re:-1 Flamebait: The solution to pulling out
on
The AOL Roller Coaster
·
· Score: 5, Funny
To the non tech savvy, tech savvy now means "buys gadgets."
The actual tech savvy, of course, are the people who pick the broken and discarded gadgets from the "tech savvy"'s trash and make new and interesting gadgets from their bits and pieces.
Not that I see much of a connection between Serenity and A Fistful of Dollars
I have not seen Serenity, so I cannot make any such comparison.
. . . but when you claim that one is the original base for the other. ..
And I made no such claim.
. ..you do realize that the Fistful is not an original work? It's a shot-by-shot remake of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo".
That would be the second time I saw it, yes. Fistful came to my local theater on first release; Yojimbo did not. By the time I'd seen Yojimbo I'd also read much of Kurosawa's background material, written by people like Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and . ..Hammet. He'd also obviously watched a lot of American Westerns. Since that time I've also seen Mad Max and Last Man Standing.
So I'd seen a lot of Firefly before. I'm clueless about Serenity. When the DVD hits my local libray I'll give it a look. In the meantime there are worse ways I can spend my time than to watch Yojimbo again.
I do not have a bottleneck in my system. I have a need for five gallons a day. To fill a five gallon tank. I wouldn't mind having a box that could produce a couple pounds of trail mix and half a pound of cheese a day either, and some fresh bananas would be nice, and unlimited Jamaican Blue Mountain, but I don't figure I could actually distill those from the air, especially without using electricity.
The less water I have to carry, the more trail mix I can. And really, I try to keep as much water outside of the boat as I can. It just seems like good practice. Getting it in the boat is far too easy.
I have seen the show. I have not seen Serenity. The show did not inspire me to spend money to see more of it. Isn't that where we came into this movie?
Perhaps I just do not like Whedon. I don't get the whole Buffy thing either, it's boring. How that particular collection of women can be boring is beyond me, I should be perfectly happy spending hours just watching them play Scrabble or something, but it is. My life would have been better without Alien Resurrection and other than a few bits of interesting animation the only thing Titan A.E. had going for it was Drew Barrymore's voice (and you can have the rest of Drew Barrymore. I don't want it).
Firefly was ok, at least it didn't bore me and bits of it were damned funny; and I'd spend hours watching Morena Baccarin eat a bowl of pus, but I've seen Kurosawa and Leone, so I'd basically seen it all before in a different set of dress up.
I probably would have liked Outland a lot better too if I hadn't been sitting there through the whole picture thinking, "High Noon in . ..spaaaace, spaaaace, spaaaaaaaaaaaace!"
So, I didn't feel like repeating the experience with Serenity.
If you liked it, that's cool. I'm not trying to insult your taste or anything. ..I just don't understand it.
Yes, but only as a luxury item. It rides in the icebox when I bother to have one. Trail mix doesn't need refrigeration.
There's all sorts of ways to gather water, but a pint today and 100 gallons next week isn't at all the same thing as a reliable 5 gallons a day. That would be loverly.
Your critcism addresses only issues of purity. You are thinking in terms of quantity of potable water, not water. OP addressed issues of total water in the environment, which is stable. You drink it, you immediately begin excreting it back into the atmosphere through your pores. Wash your car with it, a little while later it's back at the top of the mountain again.
Yes, there are issues with our culture using potable water to flush toilets. You won't catch me doing it on my boat. I'm perfectly aware of the difference.
Not everyone is. They actually think water gets "used up." OP seems to be one of them. It doesn't. It gets recycled more or less indefinately and water distilled from the air is; distilled water.
Noooooooo, I'm afraid that's a pretty stable requirement for a 16 to 24 foot boat. I like to float small.
After that, gravity provides electricity . ..
I didn't say no mains or batteries. I said no electricity. I can already make electricity from gravity, wind (dragging a turbine is a form of wind generation if wind is what moves the boat), solar or just plain muscle (how I load my gravity machines with potential in the first place), but all electricity fails at sea in a small boat, almost always just when your life depends on it.
Of course I can already convert fuel into fresh water, but the efficiency of it is lacking.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm 22.
:)
I'm more than twice that. I've seen dozens of decade long fads come and go. I've also seen things with staying power of millenia. After a while you start to recognize the essential differences between the two.
Levi's became a fad in the 1960s. Before that only shit kickers wore blue jeans at all; and they changed them before they "went out," lest people think they were shit kickers. We called them "dungarees" back then, because you only wore them to kick shit. People who wore them also wore, are you ready for this shocking fact?
Undershirts! Without a shirt over them.
It wasn't until the late 70s that blue jeans and the "T" shirt became the standard uniform.
The question is not whether you still respect the Levi's brand, but how many pairs of Wranglers, Lees and Route 66 do you and your friends own?
Do you even know or care what brand of blue jeans your friends own?
iPod may well remain a respected brand and a leader in the market, but anyone who thinks that's going to translate into more than about a 20% market share is nuts, or young. But I repeat myself.
KFG
I guarantee there are $3,000 refrigerators available today designed to last more than 7 years.
.but not at Best Buy. Most people wouldn't want one in their homes. They look . . .utilitarian.
As specialty items for professionals, yes, just as you can still buy a IBM M style keyboard. .
The average "consumer" who buys a $3,000 dollar fridge is exactly the sort who actually consumes refrigerators. The most fashion concious and the most likely to change it out in only five years, even though it still works (although many of the bells and whistles will have already broken).
Something that lasts longer may cost more, but that is not at all the same thing as saying that something that costs more will last longer. The things that last longest are rarely the most expensive things on the market.
KFG
The iPod is a digital music player, one brand amongst an increasing number of similar devices on the market
That's what I said.
Apple's ability to keep an edge over other manufacturers depends not on any current trend or fad but upon their ability to become a trusted name brand.
And the author of the article will not be wearing a Davey Crockett hat 10 years from now, no matter how much he thinks it is the epitome of cool at the moment.
However, believing it is the epitome of cool defines a fad. The iPod is a fad. When it ceases to be a fad other brands will become equally trusted names.
Most yuppies who play electric guitar buy a genuine Gibson Les Paul. Most serious working musicians buy an Epiphone; and the audience can't tell the difference. And of course only old people play a Les Paul.
Apple cannot keep their edge. It's only a question of how long they can keep their edge.
Because the iPod fad will fade and they'll just be another playing in the market. Levi's may still have a certain cache as a brand name in jeans, but I can't remember the last time I actually owned a pair. About twenty years ago I think.
KFG
Victorinox was not the only official manufacturer of the Swiss Army knife; they recently acquired their long-time consumer competitor Wenger. . .
.
I missed that.
Most Buck knives I've seen are huntsman's/fisherman's knives. .
Yes, I've posted before that one of these should be the standard knife. Add a multi-tool if you like them, but as an addition to your knife "arsenal."
This is exactly my point: in order for Apple to keep their market lead, they need to keep their existing customers happy. . . Ultimately, I think consumers will go with whatever brand has the best reputation.
And which car has the "best" reputation?
KFG
Who said anything about digital music players?
Those things are soon to available as a $19.95 impulse buy at every drugstore counter.
The difference between an iPod and a digital music player is an important distinction; and what the article is about.
KFG
There are trusted brand names in many fields of consumer technology: the Zippo lighter, the Brunton compass, the Victorinox Swiss Army knife, the Timex watch. . .
.the IBM Personal Computer.
. .
My lighter is a Colibri, my compass a Silva, my knife a Buck, my watch is actually my heart rate monitor (made by VDO and house branded) and I assemble my own computers with AMD processors and ASUS motherboards.
Times change. When they do, viable, respected competitors enter the market.
KFG
That doesn't mean iPod itself is a fad, just that consumers are approaching it with a "fad" mindset.
This sentence contains a tautology.
KFG
One of the last aparments I had came with a GE monitor top refrigerator. Oh, sure, the lights went dim for a second when the compressor kicked in, but it still worked.
The second to last refrigerator that I bought lasted seven years. When I asked my fridge guy what gives he told me that a seven year lifespan is actually the design parameter these days, so mine hit the average. The fridge companies found out that people tend to change them for fashion reasons . . . on average every seven years, so that's all they make them to last now.
Nevermind that an ugly working fridge still has value for college student apartments or whatever, you can't sell new fridges that way.
Repeat after me, "The less stitches, the more riches."
KFG
It is, however, to Stewart's credit that he took lessons and did a reasonably convincing job.
.but Busman only lives down the road a piece from me. . .
I don't spread myself too thinly across the Web, but C&F is one of the places I pop in to now and again. I've never had the WhOA infection; I'm one of those guys who's been playing the same Generation for 30 years . .
And his play, and cost almost several fewer pennies.
KFG
I've always wanted a 4,000,000 pennies whistle.
KFG
They really need to change the name and let "Amiga" die with whatever shred of respect that great machine once had.
I feel the same way about Bugatti, but at least VW actually delivers product instead of talk.
KFG
. . .they are not economists, and do not have a lot of political affairs experience . . .
Talk about pointing out the bleedin' obvious.
KFG
. . . this project has been in the news for a LONG while now (at least it'd seem), are they any closer to actually reaching their goal?
Weeeeeeell, lessee. They're overtime, overbudget and the cost of the device has already risen %50 before release, so yeah, I'd say things are chugging along at the normal rate of progress.
KFG
How does access to a computer help anything if poverty and social instability are rampant?
By teaching them Entreprenuership?
"Easy as taking a laptop from a baby."
KFG
. . .people don't have a fighting chance to be law abiding citizens. . .
Where on Earth did you get the idea that we want you to be law abiding citizens?
KFG
To the non tech savvy, tech savvy now means "buys gadgets."
The actual tech savvy, of course, are the people who pick the broken and discarded gadgets from the "tech savvy"'s trash and make new and interesting gadgets from their bits and pieces.
God I love early adopters.
KFG
Not that I see much of a connection between Serenity and A Fistful of Dollars
.
.you do realize that the Fistful is not an original work? It's a shot-by-shot remake of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo".
.Hammet. He'd also obviously watched a lot of American Westerns. Since that time I've also seen Mad Max and Last Man Standing.
I have not seen Serenity, so I cannot make any such comparison.
. . . but when you claim that one is the original base for the other. .
And I made no such claim.
. .
That would be the second time I saw it, yes. Fistful came to my local theater on first release; Yojimbo did not. By the time I'd seen Yojimbo I'd also read much of Kurosawa's background material, written by people like Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and . .
So I'd seen a lot of Firefly before. I'm clueless about Serenity. When the DVD hits my local libray I'll give it a look. In the meantime there are worse ways I can spend my time than to watch Yojimbo again.
KFG
I do not have a bottleneck in my system. I have a need for five gallons a day. To fill a five gallon tank. I wouldn't mind having a box that could produce a couple pounds of trail mix and half a pound of cheese a day either, and some fresh bananas would be nice, and unlimited Jamaican Blue Mountain, but I don't figure I could actually distill those from the air, especially without using electricity.
The less water I have to carry, the more trail mix I can. And really, I try to keep as much water outside of the boat as I can. It just seems like good practice. Getting it in the boat is far too easy.
KFG
I have seen the show. I have not seen Serenity. The show did not inspire me to spend money to see more of it. Isn't that where we came into this movie?
.spaaaace, spaaaace, spaaaaaaaaaaaace!"
.I just don't understand it.
Perhaps I just do not like Whedon. I don't get the whole Buffy thing either, it's boring. How that particular collection of women can be boring is beyond me, I should be perfectly happy spending hours just watching them play Scrabble or something, but it is. My life would have been better without Alien Resurrection and other than a few bits of interesting animation the only thing Titan A.E. had going for it was Drew Barrymore's voice (and you can have the rest of Drew Barrymore. I don't want it).
Firefly was ok, at least it didn't bore me and bits of it were damned funny; and I'd spend hours watching Morena Baccarin eat a bowl of pus, but I've seen Kurosawa and Leone, so I'd basically seen it all before in a different set of dress up.
I probably would have liked Outland a lot better too if I hadn't been sitting there through the whole picture thinking, "High Noon in . .
So, I didn't feel like repeating the experience with Serenity.
If you liked it, that's cool. I'm not trying to insult your taste or anything. .
KFG
That's ok, I'm not sure what the show has to do with Serenity.
KFG
Ever consider a large ice cube? :-D
Yes, but only as a luxury item. It rides in the icebox when I bother to have one. Trail mix doesn't need refrigeration.
There's all sorts of ways to gather water, but a pint today and 100 gallons next week isn't at all the same thing as a reliable 5 gallons a day. That would be loverly.
KFG
I tend to agree. I enjoyed watching it, but it's not something I'm going to go out and spend money on.
Perhaps I would think more of it if the first time I saw it it hadn't been called Fist Full of Dollars.
KFG
Your critcism addresses only issues of purity. You are thinking in terms of quantity of potable water, not water. OP addressed issues of total water in the environment, which is stable. You drink it, you immediately begin excreting it back into the atmosphere through your pores. Wash your car with it, a little while later it's back at the top of the mountain again.
Yes, there are issues with our culture using potable water to flush toilets. You won't catch me doing it on my boat. I'm perfectly aware of the difference.
Not everyone is. They actually think water gets "used up." OP seems to be one of them. It doesn't. It gets recycled more or less indefinately and water distilled from the air is; distilled water.
KFG
Drop the one foot cube part. :)
.
Noooooooo, I'm afraid that's a pretty stable requirement for a 16 to 24 foot boat. I like to float small.
After that, gravity provides electricity . .
I didn't say no mains or batteries. I said no electricity. I can already make electricity from gravity, wind (dragging a turbine is a form of wind generation if wind is what moves the boat), solar or just plain muscle (how I load my gravity machines with potential in the first place), but all electricity fails at sea in a small boat, almost always just when your life depends on it.
Of course I can already convert fuel into fresh water, but the efficiency of it is lacking.
KFG
. . .spontaneously generating several thousand gallons of water . . .
.
This device doesn't do that. It generates water progressively.
First, the weight of that much water at the top of the building might be sufficient to throw off the center of gravity for the building. .
Look at the roof of half the apartment buildings in NYC. You'll find a big ole water tank. The cistern is pretty old technology.
KFG