> I won't believe Microsoft's going down the tubes until I actually see Microsoft down the tubes.
Oh I agree they should not be 'misunderestimated'. But this is a totally new threat. Netscape was a company and could be killed. Microsoft 'choked off their air supply' and they died. But note what happened next:
"Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.
from The Book of Mozilla, 11:9 (10th Edition)"
Netscape didn't just take their source tree with them into the long sleep of death. They cast it out into a lonely world where it suffered for years, but now it is back and kicking butt. And without much of a corporate structure to attack.
Now it gets worse again. The world is changing, and in ways Microsoft is finding it hard to follow. All of the other efforts at Microsoft lose money, supported by the gushers of cash Windows and Office produce. They grew to believe that 'every non-mac PC would pay tribute to Microsoft forever and every corporate PC will license Office.' And they might continue to do so. But the price of a PC is falling to such new low prices they simply cannot support the current pricing for Windows. So they must soon make a decision. Lower the price and maintain the universal aspect of Windows or maintain the cash cow by focusing on the more profitable end of the PC range. Both probably aren't an option any more and the question is whether either can be maintained for long without the other. There just aren't enough PCs sold to make the stockholders happy with a $25 license fee. And there probably won't long be enough expensive PCs sold to keep the profits flowing with $100 licenses either.
So the only good option they have is to quickly get the other divisions to stop being places to bury the obscene profits from Windows and Office and get them profitable as new revenue flows to replace the ones about to go in to decline. So the big question is: Can an XBox sold at a profit compete?
> Your reasoning sounds like the excuse of a lazy developer. Why can't applications be written in such > a way that they can be shut down quickly and reliably without user intervention?
Nope. If a user space app can override a shutdown the app isn't broken. The Operating System is broken. Period, full stop.
Exception for special purpose software that is given system level permission. No, you can't shutdown. Screw the UPS battery, screw everything! I'm not done sending critical commands to the space probe yet so if it is physically possible this machine is staying UP. That sort of thing. Otherwise when the OS asks you to stop you either politely stop or the OS doesn't ask next time.
Ok, most of what they produce is crap. It has always been thus, Sturgeon's Law and all that. That isn't the problem.
No, my problem is more basic. Assuming I found some new music I liked, how am I supposed to buy it? Buying a CD is a crap shoot. Since the CD format didn't include DRM they just hose the quality to try and stop you from extracting a digital copy. Bleh! Or you can buy a digital copy..... good luck finding FLAC or any other uncompressed format. Apparently the unadulterated CD of the 1980's and 1990's were the pinnacle of audio quality and it is all down hill from here?
Offer me FLAC (or another uncompressed format that I can find a converter for) with at least 44.1kHz, 2 channels and I'll consider buying. If you really want my money how about an improvement over twenty year old tech, perhaps 48Khz, 20 or 24 bit samples and multi channel. Uncompressed is important because I stuff compressed music into things, recompression is bad. As tech improves the compressed versions will change in codec and quality. Rebuying every few years is not something I plan to start.
Not in dispute. That it it currently useless as a mainstream energy source and will remain impractical also isn't in dispute. Efficiency would have to go up a LOT and ability to run without costly maintainance to make bio powered fuel cells practical for anything but niche applications.
> Nowhere does it contain any green energy hype of the sort you are debunking.
No I didn't actually click through to the story but assuming the quoted part on/. is from the article I really didn't have to. Safe to say this tech WON'T see deployment in the 3rd world in the twenty year horizon I mentioned as anything but a non-commercial research project. It won't be powering mobile electronics inside that time horizon and won't ever power a vehicle sold at a profit.
We get at least one of these stories a week on/. A story about some wonderful new potential source of "Free" Green Energy. Of course none are anywhere near production and nobody sane even talks about them producing energy at costs per KWK anywhere near current technology. But as long as new miracle tech can be waved in front of folks the need to face up to our current reality can be postponed by wishful thinking.
Reality:
1. No "Alternate" Energy source is believed to be capable of producing a sizable fraction of our current energy needs at competitive rates in the next twenty years. Wind and solar are only popular in areas with massive government subsidy because they aren't cost effective on their own. And any attempt to scale either to carry large percentages of the grid will only make those issues clear and reveal more problems. Hydrogen is itself 'clean' but none of the sources are easy to tap in a clean way with one politically unacceptable (Nuke power) exception. Biofuels create egoboo for greens in small quantities but lead to famine when scaled up.
2. To obtain oil we are sending a large share of our wealth to people who are using it to destroy our civilization. This is a very bad idea.
3. The greens might have a point with the whole AGW thing. And even if their math and models are all wet it is likely we are having SOME effect somewhere with all this drilling, extracting and burning of fossil fuels.
4. Fusion has been thirty years off for the last forty years.
We really need to have a hard look at those realities, stop dreaming of a painless solution and start looking at options that might actually be able to help in the next twenty years.
> As a Linux user I don't understand why I'd pay someone to hit next 4 times and partitioning a drive which a 5 year > old could do. Even when I talked to Dell they only offered to install the "Big" Linux names.
Just try it kid. I double dog dare you. The preloads ARE worth it. Just bought three HP Minis and looked at just wiping their over customized Linux off and putting Ubuntu Netbook Remix on. No fracking way, the wired port didn't work, two battery applets would appear at random, the internal speaker didn't work (headphones did), the microphone was useless, etc. Instead I nuked harbour-launcher and reverted gnome-panel back to the stock UNR version and otheriwse kept HP's custom version. Just hit ALT-F2, say "gksudo synaptic" and Bobs yer uncle!
OEM Preloads are indeed a wonderful new thing and one we should encourage by BUYING them. So get out there and buy one and insist on a preload. Even if you do eventually nuke it and reload you should have a careful look at the preload to learn how they did it. Look for those module options, xorg.conf tweaks and such. These Minis are fully functional out of the box, exactly like a Windows preload, something I have NEVER seen in a laptop before right out of the box.
> Did you ever try to get a refund on those copies of Windows you didn't want or use? > Did you try to sell them? Or are you just complaining?
Way to miss the point of this whole topic dude. [Whoosh!]
The whole point is somebody actually found a way to get the money back on a product they didn't want but were forced to buy anyway. And no you can't sell them. The sticker isn't physically removable without destroying it and it isn't legal (at least it isn't EULA legal, certainly it is morally right and probably actually legal) to sell an OEM license once it has been 'paired' with a piece of hardware.
However, don't get too big a woody folks, especially on netbooks. Word around the campfire is Microsoft is down to about $15 per license these days trying to stay competitive with the penguin. Gonna be real fun watching how they push Win7 out in the teeth of the fierce price competition they will face.... from XP.
> Instead of a ~$65 refund, I bet you could peel the sticker off and sell the COA to someone for $100.
Only if the supply of idiots in your area is a lot higher than most. Newegg will sell you an OEM WinXP SP3 with a working CD along with that sticker for $89.99. Last time we bought one (to run in Peachtree inside VMWare and be moral if not exactly EULA legal) we didn't even have to buy the traditional $.99 CD audio cable to qualify.
> With.NET getting more popular, maybe now (or at least the near future) this will be less of an issue?
I'm old enough to remember when people said these silly things about Java. No it won't help much. As someone else in this topic has already noted most non-trivial.net apps use native.dlls to make up for the performance problem with.net. Just like Java did. Then there is the problem that while Microsoft has spent oddles optimizing the compiler and virtual machine to perform fairly well on x86 it is doubtful much effort will be expended on ARM. Again Java is the reference model except Sun did make Sparc a first class Java platform along with x86.
But finally there is the bigger question, just how many application domains are even suitable for.net? Anyone expecting games (not counting little cellphone suitable stuff) to EVER be released as managed code will grow old and die waiting. Tier one applications will also be unlikely to forego the performance advantages of native code. Adobe won't be releasing Creative Suite on.net. And don't expect Microsoft to eat their own dogfood anytime soon with IE or Office.
And since I'm posting a followup anyway I forgot one other point in my assertion that few 3rd party ISVs would bother with ARM. Windows is mostly a platform for commercial applications and shareware. This means they expect to have people actually pay money for applications, usually a pretty nice price. What market segment is ARM netbooks targeting? $300 will likely be the high water mark this Xmas, never to be seen again as by Xmas '10 the ever lowering price tags will have moved down again. How many copies of Creative Suite would Adobe expect to sell? Even Intuit would probably be dubious as to how many units of Quickbooks they would move to such price sensitive customers.
Note, I believe the ARM advantage is more than price but doubt the market will realize that anytime soon and produce my dream machine. I want a replacement for my Thinkpad X31. Something with a 12" widescreen with at least 1280x720 resolution, 2 GB ram, 32 or 64GB of SSD and with the ARM enough staying power to run all day (12+ hours at least) while still being lighter than the X31.
Windows on ARM would be as pointless as every other port Microsoft has tried and eventually killed off. And for the same reason, lack of applications.
Microsoft itself has never bothered porting any of their consumer apps such as Office. Remember DEC having to use FX!32 to get Office running via emulation at a fraction of native speed... leading customers to fail to see the advantage of the Alpha. Now we are to expect the hundreds of large and small shops making the Windows apps people associate with "Windows" to all port to a platform where there are no suitable developer workstations available and Windows development tools lack much in the way of cross compiler support.
Compare to Linux on ARM where pretty much the entire Debian/Ubuntu collection is up and running and Adobe has ported the one key closed piece, Flash Player.
> Price is no problem if you can subsidize windows 7's price until are the users are hooked.
Oh yes there is a problem. Microsoft is already hurting because of the hit their current giveaway of XP is causing to their bottom line. The only reason they got away with it was by being able to shine the analysts on with lots of sunshine and bunnies and dreams of the the bazillions Windows 7 was going to rake in come the fall. If they end up giving THAT away to hold market share investors are going to start asking questions. Remember that Windows and Office are the only major sources of revenue for Microsoft. If future Windows revenue is placed in doubt there will likely be a revolt from the shareholders. Remember when Red Hat said their mission wasn't to become as large as Microsoft, but rather to make Microsoft as large as Red Hat? It just might be coming to pass soon, and they will meet somewhat closer to where RH is now I suspect in a couple more years.
> just force OEMs and retailers not to sell netbooks with other OSes
Well two problems with that. One is OEMs can insist on continuing to sell XP. Microsoft may find that giving XP away at firesale pricing has created a dependency they may find it hard to wean OEMs off of. Especially with the ARM bogeyman coming. If ARM chops a hundred off and Linux vs. Win 7 does another, who wants to fight a $200 price gap? And anyway, the 'force em all to sell 100% Windows' line has already proven impossible to maintain. When Dell and HP are pushing penguins (and making money) it is probably too late for that tactic.
Then there is the bigger problem. As netbooks get cheaper they are bringing in consumer electronics outfits who aren't otherwise "PC makers" beholden to Microsoft's goodwill. And it is only a matter of time before retailers who don't care what Microsoft thinks about them will be selling lots of them. Just how much can Microsoft threaten Target? Computers in general are on the verge of becoming consumer electronics with all that implies, netbooks are probably making that transition right now.
All this astroturfed media about how great Win7 is and how it is going to kick butt on netbooks. Funny.
They always forget the one critical problem. Price. The only way XP clawed market share away from the penguin was by Microsoft basically giving it away. They aren't planning on giving 7 away so there is going to be a five tiered price structure on netbooks and that is about three too many.
1. ARM Netbooks/smartbooks will be the hot new low cost item this Xmas. They will be at or below where ASUS introduced the EEE PC 700. And just maybe they hit the $200 price point ASUS originally aimed for and missed. Does anyone think WinCE will be the big winner in this market? Ok, maybe they can horn their way in by Xmas '11 but the rumormill hasn't been talking WinCE it has been Android and a little Ubuntu with most trying to roll their own.
2. x86 based machines running Linux. Go look at the HP Mini Mi 110 if you want to see how low x86 hardware can get without the Microsoft tax. I have seen em as low as $249 but they have crept up a bit lately.
3. x86 hardware with an XP preload. Seem to run at least $30 more than a penguin and usually $40-50 more.
4. x86 hardware with Windows 7 starter edition. Hasn't shipped yet but we can assume it will cost at least as much as XP. Odds are it will be mostly useful as a platform to harvest the customer's credit card to upgrade to a more complete edition.
5. x86 hardware preloaded with Windows 7 Home. Either Microsoft gives up on the idea of profits or this puppy boosts the sticker a full $100 over a penguin preload. x86 netbooks have already crept up a hundred or so in average selling price and now Microsoft expects customers to pony up another portrait of Franklin? In this economy? Hello? Anyone remember why the netbook revolution got started in the first place? Wasn't price as big a factor as the form factor?
Ok, so how will the marketplace solve the 'too many SKU problem'? Starter will probably get ditched as a customer relations nightmare. Linux on x86 will probably finish its vanishing act from retail although a few online sellers might continue if the sales are there. That gets from five to three. So it will depend on how many customers think Win7 is worth a premium likely to exceed $50 over XP. If most pay XP dies, if not....
> If a juror even mentions jury nullification, they'll be off the bench in no time flat.
There isn't much a corrupt judge can do to stop the defendant from doing it. Lawyers can be threatened with everything up to and including disbarment and even jail. But the defendant in this case is facing certain ruin, what can a Judge do that is worse than that? And once the jury is locked in to deliberate there isn't much of a way to control what they do from that point on.
Jury nullification is dangerous, yes. And the **AA's even have a certain rightness to their cause. But multi-million dollar verdicts for sharing files vs the slap on the wrist the justice system hands out for serious violent crimes is silly. So if there were ever a time to go for nullification this is probably it.
The **AAs have gone for the nuke option so the defense should as well. Toss the lawyers (they would risk disbarment) and go for a Jury Nullification. At this point there isn't much to lose, play the trial out by the book from here and the conclusion is predetermined. But if the defense goes for a nullification there is a very non-zero chance of pulling it off. Or getting a mistrial declared.
> Percent farmland to convert to biofuel: 10,555 sq. mi. / 1,440,774 sq. mi. = 0.73%
> Value of 20,000 gallons of biofuel at $50/barrel: 20,000 gallons = 476 barrels * $50/barrel = $23,000
And you don't see the problem here? If it sounds too good to be true, it is almost never true.
Really. Just trying to get a few percent of our fuel from biofuels is causing food shortages around the world and suddenly somebody is saying we could produce enough to convert the US to 100% biofuel on less than 1% of our farmland AND make the lucky few farmers who do it wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice?
Uh huh. I'll be killing to get in line for this IPO. This is gonna be bigger than Netscape! Of course it just might be, the supply of suckers being what it is.
> Don't believe the hype, especially when it's physically impossible.
Oh stop being so down on these guys. They are just trying to do the right thing, which is to ensure suckers don't keep their money. And Green is THE buzzword right now to part venture capitalists from sacks of cash, and if they won't fall for it the Government certainly will.
Every week or two Slashdot has one of these Green Energy Miracle stories. Because so many people want so hard to believe in Green Energy scammers will keep giving them what they want, something to believe. Doesn't have to be true, just like any other religion it just has to make the believer feel good enough to be happy to part with the cash.
Reality check. Been waiting decades for my flying car, but it ain't ever coming. Even if the tech could be solved the legal problems can't. Been waiting for fusion power about the same time. And it is still thirty years away. Same for 'green energy.' We know how to do it but it ever coming either because the only method that makes economic sense is politically incorrect.
> And as long as there is big money seeking to prove otherwise, yes there will be sceptics.
Interesting how you imply money on the sceptic side is bad. Ever stopped to consider how much money is on BOTH sides? And should be there because we are discussing things that will totally reorder our economy and eventually our entire way of life.
Consider the incentives to be pro warming. First off you won't be held up to ridicule by all 'right thinking people' including pretty much everyone you interact on a daily basis in the academic world. Second grant money is easy to find if you are studying 'climate change' from the 'correct' perspective. On the other hand all that government gravy will be gone for life should you make a public statement against the state religion and your very career will be at an end should you attempt to publish a result that doesn't promote the agenda. Now examine how much corporate money is now flowing to the warming side. Look at the mega corps planning to cash in on carbon trading, carbon offsets, green energy subsidies, etc. All those guys are pushing cash into research, lobbying and PR to ensure their gravy trains come into the station.
1. Sugar. It still isn't ready for primetime. Building a whole new UI proved a lot harder than designing a laptop for the 3rd world. But worse, Sugar LOOKED like a toy instead of a computer. Basically it was a PR failure even had it been ready to deploy in time.
2. x86. Unless the whole goal was teasing Microsoft into cheap licenses by waving the Penguin flag there was no reason to put an x86 into it. The power problem would have been so much simpler with ARM and the Sugar stack would have ran equally well on it.
3. Failure to understand the customers. The customers were never going to be the children. Neither was it going to be the educators who would have to relearn pretty much everthing to adopt them. The customers were third world kleptocrats.
4. Failure to clearly convey the whole new educational method XO implied and to get any buyin on it. Yes we on/. got it but most MSM reporting on it failed to get it even in the US.
> And who made the roads those cars will run on? The free market?
Roads are Constitutional at least. I'd argue for less of a Federal role though, but I argue for less Federal Government period. But generally roads are going to require eminent domain to get built so getting the government totally out is impractical. Remember, even us Libertarians (the sane ones anyway) realize Government is an evil we won;t get totally rid of anytime soon. We haven't even developed a philosophical basis for a 100% elimination of government. Much like we hope for a unified field theory for physics we believe the ideal world would lack governments but haven't figured out the details on how that would work.
> So why not shape it in a way that encourages sustainable behaviour?
It is (in theory...) a Free country. Argue for it. What I object to the the deception. Don't spout bullpoop about creating "Green Collar Jobs" to replace the ones lost like it would be zero sum at worst and implying a net positive economic effect. Come out and argue for an "Age of Less" to save the environment and if you can convince a majority of voters that is a worthy goal then OK.
> You can twist anything around when you present only one side of an argument.
Actually I'm not twisting anything. I can't help it if you lack the sensory organs or mental ability to LISTEN to Greens. That is all you have to do, LISTEN to them when they think they are talking to others of their kind. They are on the record with the artifical scarcity thing. They are on the record with their desires to eliminate most of H. Sapiens, because we are 'overpopulated.' Their vision is of a drastically reduced human population living a much changed lifestyle more 'in tune' with nature. No suburbs, much smaller cities with a reduced energy lifestyle enforced by law.
> I'd like to see some supporting facts behind this argument. As people get more > wealthy others become poorer and have less to spend.
Spoken like a product of government schools who has totally drunk the Kool-Aid. No. Wealth is not a zero sum game. One person doesn't become wealthy at the expense of another. Success pulls others UP. Wealth, unlike matter and energy CAN be both created and destroyed as well as transferred. When someone has a new idea the sum total of wealth on the planet increases since someone else doesn't suddenly lose one. As that idea is put into productive use others are benefitted by it. The person who makes the new product benefits. The retailer benefits. And the end consumer benefits, otherwise they wouldn't have spent their dollars on the product.
As supporting facts I present Western Civilization. No other political or philosophical system has come close to creating the wealth and rise in the standard of living for EVERYONE seen in the last couple of centuries. Where else now or in history have the POOR worried about obesity as their #1 health problem?
> Creating more wealth isn't going to fix the economy. Wealthy people stay > wealthy because they don't squander their money.
Clueless. Let me guess, college educated?
What else but creating enough wealth to cancel out the losses from the housing bubble will end the recession? Wealthy people don't stick stacks of bills in Mason jars in their back yards. They are wealthy because they know how to put capital to WORK. The government should be making that easier, not harder. Cut taxes and regulation and let the economy create new wealth. Then tax it, hell we do have a Welfare State to run and two Wars to fight.
> Until the nuclear reactors are built, then those builders are out of jobs again
That is the nature of construction jobs. They last until the project is finished. Then you find a new project to work on. And yes we we went whole hog nuke the coal miner are screwed. But that is a dangerous job anyway. Capitalism is about creative destruction, not promising people jobs for life. People who are willing to pay the price for liberty and prosperity and realize it sometimes means being the one innovated out of a job and learning a new skill. Some people can't deal with living in a uncertain world and cry out for someone they can trade their liberty to for security. And wannabe despots like Obama are always ready to take that offer.
> a requirement that the source code should be released for copyright to be valid.
The solution is simple. Binaries are an accidental byproduct of the current technology so don't build the law around them. Solve the real problem.
Copyright is supposed to be a benefit to the public by granting a limited monopoly to encourage the production of new things which eventually go into the public domain. Current copyright law combined with current commercial software release methods do neither. The time limit is such that any program in the public domain will be useful only to archaeologists running emulators and without the source they won't learn much at any rate.
Yes cut the time limit for software, that is the first part.
Then clarify Copyright Law to require the benefit to the public. Only the Source Code, written by humans, is a creative work worthy of copyright so the complete buildable source plus all control scripts, etc must be submitted when registering the copyright. The binaries will only be copyrighted as 'derived works' of that original work.
Software makers would howl about revealing their secret methods. My reply is Copyright isn't supposed to protect secrets, the idea is to REVEAL knowledge in exchange for the limited monopoly. Same for patents.
I believe that would solve RMS's problems with the proposed five year copyright term.
> Windmills convert wind into electricity. The result...less wind on the far side.
True, but the amount of energy in the wind is really big and the amount we are likely to ever take out is small. So I'm not too worried.
> Solar panels take the heat energy out of the sunlight and convert it to electricity. I'd think that would cause the ground to > heat up less, but that's probably insignificant compared to the direct change of 'being in the shade' for all the flora and fauna > under the solar panels.
Yes a solar panel removes heat from the area of the panel. But the electricity it creates must be used and it will end up as heat there. As for the shade effects, yes we will make a few patches of desert cooler to offset the urban heat islands where the energy is being sent. The desert critters will be fine unless we pave the whole fracking thing with collectors. Some new habitats will be created, thus some change in the environment but change is the only constant in nature, the critters will adapt. But there will be no net effect on global temp.
> Energy on the planet doesn't just SIT there doing nothing. (cept Oil...nobody uses Oil but us.:) )
True enough. Anything we do changes the environment in some way, exactly like every other creature does simply by living. We are part of nature too. The idea of 'green' energy is a myth because of that. This notion is something Greens disagree with that but f**k em.
Exactly. This is yet another high cost attempt to tap a low energy content source. But then that IS the idea behind 'Green Energy'; to make energy expensive enough to force people to do without. Or more bluntly, to create artificial scarcity for the purpose of reshaping society in ways Greens think wiser than the choices people acting in a free market would make.
Economic growth, i.e. getting out of this recession (and soon to be depression if we keep digging this hole) is going to require MORE productivity, more energy and more wealth creation. I oppose more oil on national security grounds, others oppose it on environmental ones. So lets compromise and BUILD THE CRAP OUT OF NUKE PLANTS. Redirect a big chunk of the 'porkulus' money into it. Besides the primary goal it would actually create a lot of good paying jobs; in other words, stimulus. Make electricity cheap enough and the market will find a way to put it into cars at prices that people will willingly pay instead of being forced into it.
Just what do they mean by a model of the brain? I really don't think they mean anything that would actually think.
Especially if you believe the few numbers given. If it takes a laptop's computing power to completely model a single neuron then there won't be enough computing power on the planet in ten years to model an entire human brain. There aren't even enough IPv4 addresses for that. We would be talking a cluster that needs IPv6 to talk between it's nodes.
And that wouldn't account for the computing needed to simulate the I/O signals to make a simulated brain able to do anything useful.
> Maybe as a country, we have just lost our 'will' to do things?
Partly. But it is also rational. Remember why we did it in the first place. We had to beat the 'Godless Commies' to the moon so we were willing to spend whatever it took and men with balls of steel were willing to climb into rushed spacecraft. And we won a major engagement of the Cold War with only three casualties. When the historians finally settle on things it is likely that Kennedy's Apollo and Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative will be remembered as major contributors (the other two major ones being Reagan's "Focus of Evil" and "Tear Down this Wall" speeches) to the failure of the Soviet Union so it was worth the investment. After we planted the flag the game changed. The stated goal was to land on the moon and return, we had never set a goal of building a moonbase or anything more permanent. It was no longer worth spending such a large percentage of the US Federal budget, the need to take such risk dropped, etc.
I have long said we went to the moon fifty years before we were ready and because of that we will probably lose another fifty years before returning. Because after the moon landings none of the things we should have been doing to work our way to the moon the 'right' way were/are inspiring enough to sustain the political support needed to do them as big government NASA style jobs. So we will now have to wait until the tech gets developed enough that private industry can do it as part of profitable ventures. And we are seeing the first signs of that finally getting going. But it will be at least fifty years before any of the private ventures can work their way back to the moon.
And there IS profit to be made 'out there' so go we will. Private companies are already making real coin in the launching business. NASA is trying to outsource suppling the ISS, mostly because they wish they were rid of the white elephant but whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
> I won't believe Microsoft's going down the tubes until I actually see Microsoft down the tubes.
Oh I agree they should not be 'misunderestimated'. But this is a totally new threat. Netscape was a company and could be killed. Microsoft 'choked off their air supply' and they died. But note what happened next:
"Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers
grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the
fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own
image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their
children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.
from The Book of Mozilla, 11:9
(10th Edition)"
Netscape didn't just take their source tree with them into the long sleep of death. They cast it out into a lonely world where it suffered for years, but now it is back and kicking butt. And without much of a corporate structure to attack.
Now it gets worse again. The world is changing, and in ways Microsoft is finding it hard to follow. All of the other efforts at Microsoft lose money, supported by the gushers of cash Windows and Office produce. They grew to believe that 'every non-mac PC would pay tribute to Microsoft forever and every corporate PC will license Office.' And they might continue to do so. But the price of a PC is falling to such new low prices they simply cannot support the current pricing for Windows. So they must soon make a decision. Lower the price and maintain the universal aspect of Windows or maintain the cash cow by focusing on the more profitable end of the PC range. Both probably aren't an option any more and the question is whether either can be maintained for long without the other. There just aren't enough PCs sold to make the stockholders happy with a $25 license fee. And there probably won't long be enough expensive PCs sold to keep the profits flowing with $100 licenses either.
So the only good option they have is to quickly get the other divisions to stop being places to bury the obscene profits from Windows and Office and get them profitable as new revenue flows to replace the ones about to go in to decline. So the big question is: Can an XBox sold at a profit compete?
> Your reasoning sounds like the excuse of a lazy developer. Why can't applications be written in such
> a way that they can be shut down quickly and reliably without user intervention?
Nope. If a user space app can override a shutdown the app isn't broken. The Operating System is broken. Period, full stop.
Exception for special purpose software that is given system level permission. No, you can't shutdown. Screw the UPS battery, screw everything! I'm not done sending critical commands to the space probe yet so if it is physically possible this machine is staying UP. That sort of thing. Otherwise when the OS asks you to stop you either politely stop or the OS doesn't ask next time.
Ok, most of what they produce is crap. It has always been thus, Sturgeon's Law and all that. That isn't the problem.
No, my problem is more basic. Assuming I found some new music I liked, how am I supposed to buy it? Buying a CD is a crap shoot. Since the CD format didn't include DRM they just hose the quality to try and stop you from extracting a digital copy. Bleh! Or you can buy a digital copy..... good luck finding FLAC or any other uncompressed format. Apparently the unadulterated CD of the 1980's and 1990's were the pinnacle of audio quality and it is all down hill from here?
Offer me FLAC (or another uncompressed format that I can find a converter for) with at least 44.1kHz, 2 channels and I'll consider buying. If you really want my money how about an improvement over twenty year old tech, perhaps 48Khz, 20 or 24 bit samples and multi channel. Uncompressed is important because I stuff compressed music into things, recompression is bad. As tech improves the compressed versions will change in codec and quality. Rebuying every few years is not something I plan to start.
> This is a scientific advance.
Not in dispute. That it it currently useless as a mainstream energy source and will remain impractical also isn't in dispute. Efficiency would have to go up a LOT and ability to run without costly maintainance to make bio powered fuel cells practical for anything but niche applications.
> Nowhere does it contain any green energy hype of the sort you are debunking.
No I didn't actually click through to the story but assuming the quoted part on /. is from the article I really didn't have to. Safe to say this tech WON'T see deployment in the 3rd world in the twenty year horizon I mentioned as anything but a non-commercial research project. It won't be powering mobile electronics inside that time horizon and won't ever power a vehicle sold at a profit.
We get at least one of these stories a week on /. A story about some wonderful new potential source of "Free" Green Energy. Of course none are anywhere near production and nobody sane even talks about them producing energy at costs per KWK anywhere near current technology. But as long as new miracle tech can be waved in front of folks the need to face up to our current reality can be postponed by wishful thinking.
Reality:
1. No "Alternate" Energy source is believed to be capable of producing a sizable fraction of our current energy needs at competitive rates in the next twenty years. Wind and solar are only popular in areas with massive government subsidy because they aren't cost effective on their own. And any attempt to scale either to carry large percentages of the grid will only make those issues clear and reveal more problems. Hydrogen is itself 'clean' but none of the sources are easy to tap in a clean way with one politically unacceptable (Nuke power) exception. Biofuels create egoboo for greens in small quantities but lead to famine when scaled up.
2. To obtain oil we are sending a large share of our wealth to people who are using it to destroy our civilization. This is a very bad idea.
3. The greens might have a point with the whole AGW thing. And even if their math and models are all wet it is likely we are having SOME effect somewhere with all this drilling, extracting and burning of fossil fuels.
4. Fusion has been thirty years off for the last forty years.
We really need to have a hard look at those realities, stop dreaming of a painless solution and start looking at options that might actually be able to help in the next twenty years.
> As a Linux user I don't understand why I'd pay someone to hit next 4 times and partitioning a drive which a 5 year
> old could do. Even when I talked to Dell they only offered to install the "Big" Linux names.
Just try it kid. I double dog dare you. The preloads ARE worth it. Just bought three HP Minis and looked at just wiping their over customized Linux off and putting Ubuntu Netbook Remix on. No fracking way, the wired port didn't work, two battery applets would appear at random, the internal speaker didn't work (headphones did), the microphone was useless, etc. Instead I nuked harbour-launcher and reverted gnome-panel back to the stock UNR version and otheriwse kept HP's custom version. Just hit ALT-F2, say "gksudo synaptic" and Bobs yer uncle!
OEM Preloads are indeed a wonderful new thing and one we should encourage by BUYING them. So get out there and buy one and insist on a preload. Even if you do eventually nuke it and reload you should have a careful look at the preload to learn how they did it. Look for those module options, xorg.conf tweaks and such. These Minis are fully functional out of the box, exactly like a Windows preload, something I have NEVER seen in a laptop before right out of the box.
> Did you ever try to get a refund on those copies of Windows you didn't want or use?
> Did you try to sell them? Or are you just complaining?
Way to miss the point of this whole topic dude. [Whoosh!]
The whole point is somebody actually found a way to get the money back on a product they didn't want but were forced to buy anyway. And no you can't sell them. The sticker isn't physically removable without destroying it and it isn't legal (at least it isn't EULA legal, certainly it is morally right and probably actually legal) to sell an OEM license once it has been 'paired' with a piece of hardware.
However, don't get too big a woody folks, especially on netbooks. Word around the campfire is Microsoft is down to about $15 per license these days trying to stay competitive with the penguin. Gonna be real fun watching how they push Win7 out in the teeth of the fierce price competition they will face.... from XP.
> Instead of a ~$65 refund, I bet you could peel the sticker off and sell the COA to someone for $100.
Only if the supply of idiots in your area is a lot higher than most. Newegg will sell you an OEM WinXP SP3 with a working CD along with that sticker for $89.99. Last time we bought one (to run in Peachtree inside VMWare and be moral if not exactly EULA legal) we didn't even have to buy the traditional $.99 CD audio cable to qualify.
> With .NET getting more popular, maybe now (or at least the near future) this will be less of an issue?
I'm old enough to remember when people said these silly things about Java. No it won't help much. As someone else in this topic has already noted most non-trivial .net apps use native .dlls to make up for the performance problem with .net. Just like Java did. Then there is the problem that while Microsoft has spent oddles optimizing the compiler and virtual machine to perform fairly well on x86 it is doubtful much effort will be expended on ARM. Again Java is the reference model except Sun did make Sparc a first class Java platform along with x86.
But finally there is the bigger question, just how many application domains are even suitable for .net? Anyone expecting games (not counting little cellphone suitable stuff) to EVER be released as managed code will grow old and die waiting. Tier one applications will also be unlikely to forego the performance advantages of native code. Adobe won't be releasing Creative Suite on .net. And don't expect Microsoft to eat their own dogfood anytime soon with IE or Office.
And since I'm posting a followup anyway I forgot one other point in my assertion that few 3rd party ISVs would bother with ARM. Windows is mostly a platform for commercial applications and shareware. This means they expect to have people actually pay money for applications, usually a pretty nice price. What market segment is ARM netbooks targeting? $300 will likely be the high water mark this Xmas, never to be seen again as by Xmas '10 the ever lowering price tags will have moved down again. How many copies of Creative Suite would Adobe expect to sell? Even Intuit would probably be dubious as to how many units of Quickbooks they would move to such price sensitive customers.
Note, I believe the ARM advantage is more than price but doubt the market will realize that anytime soon and produce my dream machine. I want a replacement for my Thinkpad X31. Something with a 12" widescreen with at least 1280x720 resolution, 2 GB ram, 32 or 64GB of SSD and with the ARM enough staying power to run all day (12+ hours at least) while still being lighter than the X31.
Windows on ARM would be as pointless as every other port Microsoft has tried and eventually killed off. And for the same reason, lack of applications.
Microsoft itself has never bothered porting any of their consumer apps such as Office. Remember DEC having to use FX!32 to get Office running via emulation at a fraction of native speed... leading customers to fail to see the advantage of the Alpha. Now we are to expect the hundreds of large and small shops making the Windows apps people associate with "Windows" to all port to a platform where there are no suitable developer workstations available and Windows development tools lack much in the way of cross compiler support.
Compare to Linux on ARM where pretty much the entire Debian/Ubuntu collection is up and running and Adobe has ported the one key closed piece, Flash Player.
> Price is no problem if you can subsidize windows 7's price until are the users are hooked.
Oh yes there is a problem. Microsoft is already hurting because of the hit their current giveaway of XP is causing to their bottom line. The only reason they got away with it was by being able to shine the analysts on with lots of sunshine and bunnies and dreams of the the bazillions Windows 7 was going to rake in come the fall. If they end up giving THAT away to hold market share investors are going to start asking questions. Remember that Windows and Office are the only major sources of revenue for Microsoft. If future Windows revenue is placed in doubt there will likely be a revolt from the shareholders. Remember when Red Hat said their mission wasn't to become as large as Microsoft, but rather to make Microsoft as large as Red Hat? It just might be coming to pass soon, and they will meet somewhat closer to where RH is now I suspect in a couple more years.
> just force OEMs and retailers not to sell netbooks with other OSes
Well two problems with that. One is OEMs can insist on continuing to sell XP. Microsoft may find that giving XP away at firesale pricing has created a dependency they may find it hard to wean OEMs off of. Especially with the ARM bogeyman coming. If ARM chops a hundred off and Linux vs. Win 7 does another, who wants to fight a $200 price gap? And anyway, the 'force em all to sell 100% Windows' line has already proven impossible to maintain. When Dell and HP are pushing penguins (and making money) it is probably too late for that tactic.
Then there is the bigger problem. As netbooks get cheaper they are bringing in consumer electronics outfits who aren't otherwise "PC makers" beholden to Microsoft's goodwill. And it is only a matter of time before retailers who don't care what Microsoft thinks about them will be selling lots of them. Just how much can Microsoft threaten Target? Computers in general are on the verge of becoming consumer electronics with all that implies, netbooks are probably making that transition right now.
All this astroturfed media about how great Win7 is and how it is going to kick butt on netbooks. Funny.
They always forget the one critical problem. Price. The only way XP clawed market share away from the penguin was by Microsoft basically giving it away. They aren't planning on giving 7 away so there is going to be a five tiered price structure on netbooks and that is about three too many.
1. ARM Netbooks/smartbooks will be the hot new low cost item this Xmas. They will be at or below where ASUS introduced the EEE PC 700. And just maybe they hit the $200 price point ASUS originally aimed for and missed. Does anyone think WinCE will be the big winner in this market? Ok, maybe they can horn their way in by Xmas '11 but the rumormill hasn't been talking WinCE it has been Android and a little Ubuntu with most trying to roll their own.
2. x86 based machines running Linux. Go look at the HP Mini Mi 110 if you want to see how low x86 hardware can get without the Microsoft tax. I have seen em as low as $249 but they have crept up a bit lately.
3. x86 hardware with an XP preload. Seem to run at least $30 more than a penguin and usually $40-50 more.
4. x86 hardware with Windows 7 starter edition. Hasn't shipped yet but we can assume it will cost at least as much as XP. Odds are it will be mostly useful as a platform to harvest the customer's credit card to upgrade to a more complete edition.
5. x86 hardware preloaded with Windows 7 Home. Either Microsoft gives up on the idea of profits or this puppy boosts the sticker a full $100 over a penguin preload. x86 netbooks have already crept up a hundred or so in average selling price and now Microsoft expects customers to pony up another portrait of Franklin? In this economy? Hello? Anyone remember why the netbook revolution got started in the first place? Wasn't price as big a factor as the form factor?
Ok, so how will the marketplace solve the 'too many SKU problem'? Starter will probably get ditched as a customer relations nightmare. Linux on x86 will probably finish its vanishing act from retail although a few online sellers might continue if the sales are there. That gets from five to three. So it will depend on how many customers think Win7 is worth a premium likely to exceed $50 over XP. If most pay XP dies, if not....
> If a juror even mentions jury nullification, they'll be off the bench in no time flat.
There isn't much a corrupt judge can do to stop the defendant from doing it. Lawyers can be threatened with everything up to and including disbarment and even jail. But the defendant in this case is facing certain ruin, what can a Judge do that is worse than that? And once the jury is locked in to deliberate there isn't much of a way to control what they do from that point on.
Jury nullification is dangerous, yes. And the **AA's even have a certain rightness to their cause. But multi-million dollar verdicts for sharing files vs the slap on the wrist the justice system hands out for serious violent crimes is silly. So if there were ever a time to go for nullification this is probably it.
The **AAs have gone for the nuke option so the defense should as well. Toss the lawyers (they would risk disbarment) and go for a Jury Nullification. At this point there isn't much to lose, play the trial out by the book from here and the conclusion is predetermined. But if the defense goes for a nullification there is a very non-zero chance of pulling it off. Or getting a mistrial declared.
> Percent farmland to convert to biofuel: 10,555 sq. mi. / 1,440,774 sq. mi. = 0.73%
> Value of 20,000 gallons of biofuel at $50/barrel: 20,000 gallons = 476 barrels * $50/barrel = $23,000
And you don't see the problem here? If it sounds too good to be true, it is almost never true.
Really. Just trying to get a few percent of our fuel from biofuels is causing food shortages around the world and suddenly somebody is saying we could produce enough to convert the US to 100% biofuel on less than 1% of our farmland AND make the lucky few farmers who do it wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice?
Uh huh. I'll be killing to get in line for this IPO. This is gonna be bigger than Netscape! Of course it just might be, the supply of suckers being what it is.
> Don't believe the hype, especially when it's physically impossible.
Oh stop being so down on these guys. They are just trying to do the right thing, which is to ensure suckers don't keep their money. And Green is THE buzzword right now to part venture capitalists from sacks of cash, and if they won't fall for it the Government certainly will.
Every week or two Slashdot has one of these Green Energy Miracle stories. Because so many people want so hard to believe in Green Energy scammers will keep giving them what they want, something to believe. Doesn't have to be true, just like any other religion it just has to make the believer feel good enough to be happy to part with the cash.
Reality check. Been waiting decades for my flying car, but it ain't ever coming. Even if the tech could be solved the legal problems can't. Been waiting for fusion power about the same time. And it is still thirty years away. Same for 'green energy.' We know how to do it but it ever coming either because the only method that makes economic sense is politically incorrect.
> And as long as there is big money seeking to prove otherwise, yes there will be sceptics.
Interesting how you imply money on the sceptic side is bad. Ever stopped to consider how much money is on BOTH sides? And should be there because we are discussing things that will totally reorder our economy and eventually our entire way of life.
Consider the incentives to be pro warming. First off you won't be held up to ridicule by all 'right thinking people' including pretty much everyone you interact on a daily basis in the academic world. Second grant money is easy to find if you are studying 'climate change' from the 'correct' perspective. On the other hand all that government gravy will be gone for life should you make a public statement against the state religion and your very career will be at an end should you attempt to publish a result that doesn't promote the agenda. Now examine how much corporate money is now flowing to the warming side. Look at the mega corps planning to cash in on carbon trading, carbon offsets, green energy subsidies, etc. All those guys are pushing cash into research, lobbying and PR to ensure their gravy trains come into the station.
A lot of things came together to kill XO.
1. Sugar. It still isn't ready for primetime. Building a whole new UI proved a lot harder than designing a laptop for the 3rd world. But worse, Sugar LOOKED like a toy instead of a computer. Basically it was a PR failure even had it been ready to deploy in time.
2. x86. Unless the whole goal was teasing Microsoft into cheap licenses by waving the Penguin flag there was no reason to put an x86 into it. The power problem would have been so much simpler with ARM and the Sugar stack would have ran equally well on it.
3. Failure to understand the customers. The customers were never going to be the children. Neither was it going to be the educators who would have to relearn pretty much everthing to adopt them. The customers were third world kleptocrats.
4. Failure to clearly convey the whole new educational method XO implied and to get any buyin on it. Yes we on /. got it but most MSM reporting on it failed to get it even in the US.
> And who made the roads those cars will run on? The free market?
Roads are Constitutional at least. I'd argue for less of a Federal role though, but I argue for less Federal Government period. But generally roads are going to require eminent domain to get built so getting the government totally out is impractical. Remember, even us Libertarians (the sane ones anyway) realize Government is an evil we won;t get totally rid of anytime soon. We haven't even developed a philosophical basis for a 100% elimination of government. Much like we hope for a unified field theory for physics we believe the ideal world would lack governments but haven't figured out the details on how that would work.
> So why not shape it in a way that encourages sustainable behaviour?
It is (in theory...) a Free country. Argue for it. What I object to the the deception. Don't spout bullpoop about creating "Green Collar Jobs" to replace the ones lost like it would be zero sum at worst and implying a net positive economic effect. Come out and argue for an "Age of Less" to save the environment and if you can convince a majority of voters that is a worthy goal then OK.
> You can twist anything around when you present only one side of an argument.
Actually I'm not twisting anything. I can't help it if you lack the sensory organs or mental ability to LISTEN to Greens. That is all you have to do, LISTEN to them when they think they are talking to others of their kind. They are on the record with the artifical scarcity thing. They are on the record with their desires to eliminate most of H. Sapiens, because we are 'overpopulated.' Their vision is of a drastically reduced human population living a much changed lifestyle more 'in tune' with nature. No suburbs, much smaller cities with a reduced energy lifestyle enforced by law.
> I'd like to see some supporting facts behind this argument. As people get more
> wealthy others become poorer and have less to spend.
Spoken like a product of government schools who has totally drunk the Kool-Aid. No. Wealth is not a zero sum game. One person doesn't become wealthy at the expense of another. Success pulls others UP. Wealth, unlike matter and energy CAN be both created and destroyed as well as transferred. When someone has a new idea the sum total of wealth on the planet increases since someone else doesn't suddenly lose one. As that idea is put into productive use others are benefitted by it. The person who makes the new product benefits. The retailer benefits. And the end consumer benefits, otherwise they wouldn't have spent their dollars on the product.
As supporting facts I present Western Civilization. No other political or philosophical system has come close to creating the wealth and rise in the standard of living for EVERYONE seen in the last couple of centuries. Where else now or in history have the POOR worried about obesity as their #1 health problem?
> Creating more wealth isn't going to fix the economy. Wealthy people stay
> wealthy because they don't squander their money.
Clueless. Let me guess, college educated?
What else but creating enough wealth to cancel out the losses from the housing bubble will end the recession? Wealthy people don't stick stacks of bills in Mason jars in their back yards. They are wealthy because they know how to put capital to WORK. The government should be making that easier, not harder. Cut taxes and regulation and let the economy create new wealth. Then tax it, hell we do have a Welfare State to run and two Wars to fight.
> Until the nuclear reactors are built, then those builders are out of jobs again
That is the nature of construction jobs. They last until the project is finished. Then you find a new project to work on. And yes we we went whole hog nuke the coal miner are screwed. But that is a dangerous job anyway. Capitalism is about creative destruction, not promising people jobs for life. People who are willing to pay the price for liberty and prosperity and realize it sometimes means being the one innovated out of a job and learning a new skill. Some people can't deal with living in a uncertain world and cry out for someone they can trade their liberty to for security. And wannabe despots like Obama are always ready to take that offer.
> a requirement that the source code should be released for copyright to be valid.
The solution is simple. Binaries are an accidental byproduct of the current technology so don't build the law around them. Solve the real problem.
Copyright is supposed to be a benefit to the public by granting a limited monopoly to encourage the production of new things which eventually go into the public domain. Current copyright law combined with current commercial software release methods do neither. The time limit is such that any program in the public domain will be useful only to archaeologists running emulators and without the source they won't learn much at any rate.
Yes cut the time limit for software, that is the first part.
Then clarify Copyright Law to require the benefit to the public. Only the Source Code, written by humans, is a creative work worthy of copyright so the complete buildable source plus all control scripts, etc must be submitted when registering the copyright. The binaries will only be copyrighted as 'derived works' of that original work.
Software makers would howl about revealing their secret methods. My reply is Copyright isn't supposed to protect secrets, the idea is to REVEAL knowledge in exchange for the limited monopoly. Same for patents.
I believe that would solve RMS's problems with the proposed five year copyright term.
> Windmills convert wind into electricity. The result...less wind on the far side.
True, but the amount of energy in the wind is really big and the amount we are likely to ever take out is small. So I'm not too worried.
> Solar panels take the heat energy out of the sunlight and convert it to electricity. I'd think that would cause the ground to
> heat up less, but that's probably insignificant compared to the direct change of 'being in the shade' for all the flora and fauna
> under the solar panels.
Yes a solar panel removes heat from the area of the panel. But the electricity it creates must be used and it will end up as heat there. As for the shade effects, yes we will make a few patches of desert cooler to offset the urban heat islands where the energy is being sent. The desert critters will be fine unless we pave the whole fracking thing with collectors. Some new habitats will be created, thus some change in the environment but change is the only constant in nature, the critters will adapt. But there will be no net effect on global temp.
> Energy on the planet doesn't just SIT there doing nothing. (cept Oil...nobody uses Oil but us. :) )
True enough. Anything we do changes the environment in some way, exactly like every other creature does simply by living. We are part of nature too. The idea of 'green' energy is a myth because of that. This notion is something Greens disagree with that but f**k em.
> As affordable as Solar in a decade?
Exactly. This is yet another high cost attempt to tap a low energy content source. But then that IS the idea behind 'Green Energy'; to make energy expensive enough to force people to do without. Or more bluntly, to create artificial scarcity for the purpose of reshaping society in ways Greens think wiser than the choices people acting in a free market would make.
Economic growth, i.e. getting out of this recession (and soon to be depression if we keep digging this hole) is going to require MORE productivity, more energy and more wealth creation. I oppose more oil on national security grounds, others oppose it on environmental ones. So lets compromise and BUILD THE CRAP OUT OF NUKE PLANTS. Redirect a big chunk of the 'porkulus' money into it. Besides the primary goal it would actually create a lot of good paying jobs; in other words, stimulus. Make electricity cheap enough and the market will find a way to put it into cars at prices that people will willingly pay instead of being forced into it.
Just what do they mean by a model of the brain? I really don't think they mean anything that would actually think.
Especially if you believe the few numbers given. If it takes a laptop's computing power to completely model a single neuron then there won't be enough computing power on the planet in ten years to model an entire human brain. There aren't even enough IPv4 addresses for that. We would be talking a cluster that needs IPv6 to talk between it's nodes.
And that wouldn't account for the computing needed to simulate the I/O signals to make a simulated brain able to do anything useful.
> Maybe as a country, we have just lost our 'will' to do things?
Partly. But it is also rational. Remember why we did it in the first place. We had to beat the 'Godless Commies' to the moon so we were willing to spend whatever it took and men with balls of steel were willing to climb into rushed spacecraft. And we won a major engagement of the Cold War with only three casualties. When the historians finally settle on things it is likely that Kennedy's Apollo and Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative will be remembered as major contributors (the other two major ones being Reagan's "Focus of Evil" and "Tear Down this Wall" speeches) to the failure of the Soviet Union so it was worth the investment. After we planted the flag the game changed. The stated goal was to land on the moon and return, we had never set a goal of building a moonbase or anything more permanent. It was no longer worth spending such a large percentage of the US Federal budget, the need to take such risk dropped, etc.
I have long said we went to the moon fifty years before we were ready and because of that we will probably lose another fifty years before returning. Because after the moon landings none of the things we should have been doing to work our way to the moon the 'right' way were/are inspiring enough to sustain the political support needed to do them as big government NASA style jobs. So we will now have to wait until the tech gets developed enough that private industry can do it as part of profitable ventures. And we are seeing the first signs of that finally getting going. But it will be at least fifty years before any of the private ventures can work their way back to the moon.
And there IS profit to be made 'out there' so go we will. Private companies are already making real coin in the launching business. NASA is trying to outsource suppling the ISS, mostly because they wish they were rid of the white elephant but whatever.