Paying $30 for 3 years of protection on a $100 appliance probably doesn't meet the cost/benefit ratio for most people. At the end of the 3 years, you'd probably would have bought a new version of the $100 item.
Paying $300 for 3 years of protection on a $3,000 device could make sense, depending on the device. Some devices don't hit the obsolecence curve as rapidly as PC's...
I think the extended warranties just recover the profits lost by businesses to smaller profit margins. For customers that want to have a product that is "backed up" by the sellers, they have to cough up the money.
I've been working with the AMD Alchemy family chips. In our particular situation, it ran faster, used less power, and was priced much lower than the XScale chips that we considered.
It is a wonderful little piece of silicon with lots of integrated peripherals, low power, and great performance. It is built around a MIPS architecture processor core.
There's a wealthy of knowledge and production capability for diesel systems. By developing a hybrid solution, you optimize the diesel engine to operate at a specific speed/output range and use the efficiency of electric motors to operate over a wide range of speeds.
Diesel hybrids have already been around for a long time powering freight trains. It's about time that car companies start using that approach!
Plus, there's fueling infrastructure. That makes it much more pallatable for potential customers.
Doing Free Space Optics isn't new. It's been done for many years now, although primarily with laser-based systems.
I work for a company that is currently developing a LED-based FSO system -- Omnilux.
The big push now in the FSO market is to find the right balance between performance and cost. Too many companies were trying too hard to push data longer distance, then faster, costs be damned.
The hissy-screechy-screech-screech that you're hearing might also be coming from the power supply. To the extent that it would carry into your audio circuit, electrical noise would easily translated to acoustic noise through your speaker/headset.
However, it's also possible that you have a marginal power supply that operates at switching frequencies that approaches human-audible frequencies; or the actual current draw changes from high-speed memory transfers within the graphic sections (board) has a human-audible frequency component to it that actually emanates from (say) the torroids in the supply.
People with very sensitive high-frequency hearing can sometimes tell the brightness of a television screen just by listening...
This could also happen from other activity -- I once had a 386 PC which, when running DOS, would emanate the tell-tale sound when it was waiting for keyboard input. It was kinda neat, actually -- I could go read other things while waiting for a program to finish its calculation -- and I didn't have to keep looking up at the screen...
Yes, that's the "consumer model" Segways that was being talked about when the news and hype first hit a couple years ago. It is the "P-series". If you see pictures/videos of Dean Kamen on a Segway, you'll notice that he's riding on a Segway with smaller wheel (the rims are "solid" looking instead of the multi-spoked "performance car" looking ones). They are about 20 lbs. lighter (69 lbs.), and are believed to be targeted for sale at around $3,000. More importantly, they are smaller -- two of these smaller "P-series" Segways are supposed to fit in the trunk of a small-to-mid-size car.
The P-series are still undergoing development testing. Supposedly, the extended community tests at Celebration, Florida, will be the first use of the P-series outside of Segway LLC.
I bought an I-series for myself (couldn't resist), but I look forward to the P-series. In fact, had the P-series been available already, I probably would have spent the extra $1000 to buy two P-series (it's a lot of fun to ride with a partnet).
Call me a fool if you want. But I'm having fun. And, it goes more places than my former coworker's jetski...
It would help if you can give us more details on how you intend to use the Internet connection. If it's mostly for hauling "bulk" data, Satellite is okay. But it's danged slow for interactive use.
At the end of the day, the floppy drive will only go away when another technology has total ubiquitous driver support, cheap availability from the corner store, and ease of transportability.
CDRW's are pretty much there, except perhaps for their large formfactor. The "business card" or mini-CDRW's would help, except the media is still not cheap enough.
Maybe we should lobby AOL to send out AOL 8.0 on mini-CDRW's -- that'll bootstrap the change!
USB drives are not as viable because they aren't cheap enough, and driver support is broken on various still-used platforms (mostly pre Win98-OSR2 PC's and older Linux and Mac OS).
Dell can bridge the gap by shipping USB floppy drives with their PC's. Hell, Apple did away with the floppy...
Basically, it's not necessarily the wall right in between you and the AP, but other potential radio reflectors that are affecting your signal. Moving the access point up, down, left, or right by a few inches could make all the difference. So move it around!
I've seen some videos of very natural, fluid, and controlled motions of Segway riders which convinced me that Segway is safe in the hands of responsible drivers. This AVI clip is an example. (I copied it from someone else's collection of Segway pictures and videos.)
IMO, a common misconception of the Segway is that the vehicle will turn into an uncontrolled launched projectile, like a skateboard in the event of an accident. While there's no denying that the Segway weight 70 lbs., it's also true that it has onboard logic which acts to immediately slow down the device. A "dead man stop", if you will.
The accelerate/decelerate function is also more directly coupled to the driver -- there's less of a reaction time to initiate braking. You just shift your weight, instead of having to drop your foot to the ground (skateboard), or lifting and wrapping your fingers around braking handle (bike), or stepping on a brake pedal (car).
A running person does not have full and continuous contact with the ground to maneuver him. Of course, he makes up for it by being able to "crab leg" a bit sideways when needed.
I caught a few minutes of the committee on C-SPAN this morning. Tauzin sure sounded like he was trying to get a reasonable understanding of how FTC's work was being done, and how it might mesh with the FCC.
What struck me was their budget for this program -- $16 Million. I dunno - is it just me, or does $16M sound like a lot of money for a relatively simple database? (Or am I mistaken about the database being simple?)
For much of the last month or so, I've been studying techniques for accurately predicting the position (and some other parameters) of the sun at any given time of day and then setting up experiments to verify the results.
(It's not exactly fun work, especially having to get up at 5 am to prepare for the 6:30 sunrise measurements.)
The wobbles you see probably can be attributed to being off by a minute or so in taking each of the multiple exposures.
The diamter of the sun is about 0.5 degrees (31.48' according to the page accompanying the image). A one minute delay in taking the shot will mean the sun has moved (for example on 5-1-2002) about.3 degrees in azimuth, and.16 degrees in elevation. It's also possible that the camera itself was slightly mispointed (nudged? wind? who knows?)
There's 41 images taken between January 12 and December 21, all supposedly at 10:28:16.
The sun would start at (149.99,22.53) (azimuth, elevation), move upward and to the left in time until June 12 where it reaches (112.84, 60.88) and then starts to move downward until June 27, where it reaches (111.64, 60.47) and starts to swing back toward the right, until November 27 (152.86, 25.75), where it'll start swinging back to the left until his last position at (151.55, 22.72).
The sun would have reached it's "lowest" point in 2002 on 12-28 at (150.59, 22.48).
I originally thought the wobble might be due to atmospheric ("optical air mass") refraction variation due to tmperature and barometric pressure, but at those elevations, those effects turn out to be negligible.
This program from NREL will let you calculate the position of the sun and some of the properties that affect its perceived position. If you don't want to compile a program on your machine, you can check out the a href="ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons">web-based "ephemeris" calculator from JPL.
Okay, I will! Anything to keep the fingers from turning into icicles! I had the 'warm riding gear' worked out except for the fingers and face. I just didn't seem to find gloves that were both warm and comfortable working the throttle and brakes.
I don't care if it is illegal, better a ticket than death.
I sorta figured out the less busy roads to reduce most of the scary patches, but never completely. The problem with sidewalk riding is that I know I'd get pulled over. I originally typed up a long winded explanation why -- but please take my word on this -- if I made a regular habit of taking the sidewalk at night on my daily commute, I'd get ticketed once or twice a month.
Look up bearings in the thomas register & fix it your self.
You know, that would just make sense, wouldn't it? I should have cracked it open and checked to see if I could find a suitable match in the McMaster catalog... I never had a service manual, though, so I was a bit trepidatious. But hell, it wasn't working... I should have just torn it apart. Oh well.
If work is the only place you go, such that you don't need your car for anything else, then you live a very boring life.
Oh, yeah, that does sound like I was getting rid of my car, didn't it? Alas, I live in Los Angeles where "everything is always 30 minutes away by car" -- I'm not about to give up my car anytime soon. Heck, I just logged 80 miles today just to have lunch with family.
I was thinking of my time in San Francisco when I made the comment -- in that city, having a car was a liability -- you drive around for 30 minutes looking for parking, and then get towed because you didn't move your car every 3 days. I should have sold off my car then, and just get car rentals whenever I needed to take a trip out of The City. For all its faults, I could manage there with Muni or take a taxi when in a hurry.
As for the present, work is 3.5 miles away. The two shopping/dining districts, the mall, Target, and about 6 different movie theatres are all located roughly in between.
And, I admit, I'm also getting the SHTi for it's "fun" value.
Ah, thanks to a member, I found that the batteries are $300 each, two batteries per transporter.
So, let's assume $5,000 for 5 years, driving about 10 miles a day * 300 days/year... I'll need a new battery set every year after the first... About $7,500 for 15,000 miles... $0.50/mile.
I live up on a slight hill about 3.5 miles from work.
For about a year, I had an older (mid-70's model) "Tomos" 2-cycle 50cc "scooter". (Similar to this, but older and needed pre-mixed fuel.)
Except during the winter when the wind on my face and hands were a bit too cold, I really preferred to take my trips to work and to the grocery store on my scooter. I liked the open-air feeling of gliding on the scooter, and also felt better about not lugging a 3000 lb. car just to carry myself. I was getting about 50 miles to a gallon of fuel + a cup of oil.
One thing that I didn't like about the scooter was having to drive on the street (along the side, like a bicycle) while cars whizzed by me at 45+ mph. On the uphill stretches going home at night, that got scary sometimes. (My uphill speed was about 15-18 mph; flats around 25; and downhill around 32 mph.)
I also didn't like having to worry about the bike's chain maintenance (needed frequent cleaning), and the fact that it was a 2-stroke polluter (today's 4-stroke mopeds should be pretty good in comparison).
When an axel bearing crunched away I couldn't find a convenient place to fix it, I gave it up.
Since then, I've been thinking about buying another, more modern moped. But I just sorta never did. I toyed with the idea of getting a real motorcycle, and got my class-M permit; but I really didn't want a bike because I would have to be IN traffic, and I prefer not to be in between two cars (or SUV's as is likely to happen around here).
When the Segway was first revealed, I thought "neat, cool gadget". But I dismissed buying it for myself.
But, I've been missing that open-air gliding feeling for some time now. The Segway would allow me to get that feeling back (though at 12 mphs, it's a bit slower than I would have liked compared to when I used to pull 20-30). And, since I can used it on sidewalks, I would feel much safer. Since the sidewalks around here (L.A. suburb) are pretty much open, I think I can safely travel at the top speed for most of my travel.
The only concern I have now is the TCO. While a "full charge" is 11 to 17 miles of range, and costs about $0.10, that translates favorably to my car which gives about 20 miles to the gallon at $1.70. But the batteries are rated only for 300-500 full-charge cycles, or about 3,000 (worst case) to 8000 (best case) miles. The power train is supposed to be a "lifetime" design needing no servicing, so I'm hoping that the supposed 5-(active use)-year lifetime of the Segway holds.
It's not clear how much a battery replacement will cost... But I'm guessing it'll be about $1,000. So that then pushes the cost up to as much as $0.55 per mile. Even if the battery is $2,000, that's favorable compared to my 3,000 lb. car.
I can already tell some of my co-workers will approve, and some of them will scoff and ridicule me. But I used to own a scooter, and I liked it. And I've pre-ordered a Segway, and I expect to like it when it arrives. (Yes, it is a small leap of faith.)
The thing that I like most about many Windows-based installers (these days) is the ability to step through the package install options and accept default values and have the package be installed in ready-to-run state.
Mind you, I don't mean that the package silently installs to a pre-determined location automatically. Rather, it steps through the "usual" configuration values, but has sensible defaults for them such that a person doesn't need to override it under normal circumstances.
It makes it easy for someone like my brother to install software without shooting himself in the foot.
Oh, admit it -- your love for your life aside, you're really hoping that the Wachowski brothers will call you to use your typewriter in the Matrix sequels!
I've been a big believer of the Chicken Brick concept... You go into the market and pick up a brick of artificial chicken meat prepackaged in a plastic container. (Think Tofu boxes.)
I don't think it's gross. Actually, since it won't be genetically engineered, but rather comes from real chicken, the meat should be fairly safe as long as the growth-fluid supply is clean and disease free. If it can be done in a sterile production line, hell, it'll make for safe chicken.
And, with chicken being in standard sized bricks, it'll be easier to transport from the manufacturing floor to the market shelf...
Slashdot Mirror
Paying $30 for 3 years of protection on a $100 appliance probably doesn't meet the cost/benefit ratio for most people. At the end of the 3 years, you'd probably would have bought a new version of the $100 item.
Paying $300 for 3 years of protection on a $3,000 device could make sense, depending on the device.
Some devices don't hit the obsolecence curve as rapidly as PC's...
I think the extended warranties just recover the profits lost by businesses to smaller profit margins. For customers that want to have a product that is "backed up" by the sellers, they have to cough up the money.
I've been working with the AMD Alchemy family chips. In our particular situation, it ran faster, used less power, and was priced much lower than the XScale chips that we considered.
It is a wonderful little piece of silicon with lots of integrated peripherals, low power, and great performance. It is built around a MIPS architecture processor core.
Linux-MIPS runs great on this chip.
Check them out.
There's a wealthy of knowledge and production capability for diesel systems. By developing a hybrid solution, you optimize the diesel engine to operate at a specific speed/output range and use the efficiency of electric motors to operate over a wide range of speeds.
Diesel hybrids have already been around for a long time powering freight trains. It's about time that car companies start using that approach!
Plus, there's fueling infrastructure. That makes it much more pallatable for potential customers.
The cost per node is aimed at under $500 (here).
The maximum link is 300 meters (here)).
Note that Omnilux does not sell dedicated point-to-point solutions. Instead, we are selling a last mile system.
Doing Free Space Optics isn't new. It's been done for many years now, although primarily with laser-based systems.
I work for a company that is currently developing a LED-based FSO system -- Omnilux.
The big push now in the FSO market is to find the right balance between performance and cost. Too many companies were trying too hard to push data longer distance, then faster, costs be damned.
The hissy-screechy-screech-screech that you're hearing might also be coming from the power supply. To the extent that it would carry into your audio circuit, electrical noise would easily translated to acoustic noise through your speaker/headset.
However, it's also possible that you have a marginal power supply that operates at switching frequencies that approaches human-audible frequencies; or the actual current draw changes from high-speed memory transfers within the graphic sections (board) has a human-audible frequency component to it that actually emanates from (say) the torroids in the supply.
People with very sensitive high-frequency hearing can sometimes tell the brightness of a television screen just by listening...
This could also happen from other activity -- I once had a 386 PC which, when running DOS, would emanate the tell-tale sound when it was waiting for keyboard input. It was kinda neat, actually -- I could go read other things while waiting for a program to finish its calculation -- and I didn't have to keep looking up at the screen...
I'm waiting for the Ford Hybrid Escape which will get about 35-40 mpg in the city. It's due out in 2004. You can read about it here.
Granted, it's not a full-size SUV. But it's still much better than 21 mpg of the conventional Escape.
Yes, that's the "consumer model" Segways that was being talked about when the news and hype first hit a couple years ago. It is the "P-series". If you see pictures/videos of Dean Kamen on a Segway, you'll notice that he's riding on a Segway with smaller wheel (the rims are "solid" looking instead of the multi-spoked "performance car" looking ones). They are about 20 lbs. lighter (69 lbs.), and are believed to be targeted for sale at around $3,000. More importantly, they are smaller -- two of these smaller "P-series" Segways are supposed to fit in the trunk of a small-to-mid-size car.
The P-series are still undergoing development testing. Supposedly, the extended community tests at Celebration, Florida, will be the first use of the P-series outside of Segway LLC.
I bought an I-series for myself (couldn't resist), but I look forward to the P-series. In fact, had the P-series been available already, I probably would have spent the extra $1000 to buy two P-series (it's a lot of fun to ride with a partnet).
Call me a fool if you want. But I'm having fun. And, it goes more places than my former coworker's jetski...
It would help if you can give us more details on how you intend to use the Internet connection. If it's mostly for hauling "bulk" data, Satellite is okay. But it's danged slow for interactive use.
http://www.cripplingdepression.com
At the end of the day, the floppy drive will only go away when another technology has total ubiquitous driver support, cheap availability from the corner store, and ease of transportability.
CDRW's are pretty much there, except perhaps for their large formfactor. The "business card" or mini-CDRW's would help, except the media is still not cheap enough.
Maybe we should lobby AOL to send out AOL 8.0 on mini-CDRW's -- that'll bootstrap the change!
USB drives are not as viable because they aren't cheap enough, and driver support is broken on various still-used platforms (mostly pre Win98-OSR2 PC's and older Linux and Mac OS).
Dell can bridge the gap by shipping USB floppy drives with their PC's. Hell, Apple did away with the floppy...
There's a terrific graph in the 802.11 Handbook (the IEEE companion guide to the 802.11 standard) which simulate the signal strength of the signal in a typical environment by using raytracing techniques.
Basically, it's not necessarily the wall right in between you and the AP, but other potential radio reflectors that are affecting your signal. Moving the access point up, down, left, or right by a few inches could make all the difference. So move it around!
I've seen some videos of very natural, fluid, and controlled motions of Segway riders which convinced me that Segway is safe in the hands of responsible drivers. This AVI clip is an example. (I copied it from someone else's collection of Segway pictures and videos.)
IMO, a common misconception of the Segway is that the vehicle will turn into an uncontrolled launched projectile, like a skateboard in the event of an accident. While there's no denying that the Segway weight 70 lbs., it's also true that it has onboard logic which acts to immediately slow down the device. A "dead man stop", if you will.
The accelerate/decelerate function is also more directly coupled to the driver -- there's less of a reaction time to initiate braking. You just shift your weight, instead of having to drop your foot to the ground (skateboard), or lifting and wrapping your fingers around braking handle (bike), or stepping on a brake pedal (car).
A running person does not have full and continuous contact with the ground to maneuver him. Of course, he makes up for it by being able to "crab leg" a bit sideways when needed.
Page sucks!
Oh, er, hmm. Sorry about that.
As part of a "branding" attempt after around WWII, California Institute of Technology refers to itself as "Caltech", not "Cal Tech".
See this Caltech Institute Archive.
I caught a few minutes of the committee on C-SPAN this morning. Tauzin sure sounded like he was trying to get a reasonable understanding of how FTC's work was being done, and how it might mesh with the FCC.
What struck me was their budget for this program -- $16 Million. I dunno - is it just me, or does $16M sound like a lot of money for a relatively simple database? (Or am I mistaken about the database being simple?)
For much of the last month or so, I've been studying techniques for accurately predicting the position (and some other parameters) of the sun at any given time of day and then setting up experiments to verify the results.
.3 degrees in azimuth, and .16 degrees in elevation. It's also possible that the camera itself was slightly mispointed (nudged? wind? who knows?)
(It's not exactly fun work, especially having to get up at 5 am to prepare for the 6:30 sunrise measurements.)
The wobbles you see probably can be attributed to being off by a minute or so in taking each of the multiple exposures.
The diamter of the sun is about 0.5 degrees (31.48' according to the page accompanying the image). A one minute delay in taking the shot will mean the sun has moved (for example on 5-1-2002) about
There's 41 images taken between January 12 and December 21, all supposedly at 10:28:16.
The sun would start at (149.99,22.53) (azimuth, elevation), move upward and to the left in time until June 12 where it reaches (112.84, 60.88) and then starts to move downward until June 27, where it reaches (111.64, 60.47) and starts to swing back toward the right, until November 27 (152.86, 25.75), where it'll start swinging back to the left until his last position at (151.55, 22.72).
The sun would have reached it's "lowest" point in 2002 on 12-28 at (150.59, 22.48).
I originally thought the wobble might be due to atmospheric ("optical air mass") refraction variation due to tmperature and barometric pressure, but at those elevations, those effects turn out to be negligible.
This program from NREL will let you calculate the position of the sun and some of the properties that affect its perceived position. If you don't want to compile a program on your machine, you can check out the a href="ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons">web-based "ephemeris" calculator from JPL.
This list of pro's and con's seem pretty fair and balanced. (At least, when taken from a pedestrian or bicyclist's point of view.)
Try neoprene wet suit gloves.
Okay, I will! Anything to keep the fingers from turning into icicles! I had the 'warm riding gear' worked out except for the fingers and face. I just didn't seem to find gloves that were both warm and comfortable working the throttle and brakes.
I don't care if it is illegal, better a ticket than death.
I sorta figured out the less busy roads to reduce most of the scary patches, but never completely. The problem with sidewalk riding is that I know I'd get pulled over. I originally typed up a long winded explanation why -- but please take my word on this -- if I made a regular habit of taking the sidewalk at night on my daily commute, I'd get ticketed once or twice a month.
Look up bearings in the thomas register & fix it your self.
You know, that would just make sense, wouldn't it? I should have cracked it open and checked to see if I could find a suitable match in the McMaster catalog... I never had a service manual, though, so I was a bit trepidatious. But hell, it wasn't working... I should have just torn it apart. Oh well.
>No insurance. No oil change. Not bad.
If work is the only place you go, such that you don't need your car for anything else, then you live a very boring life.
Oh, yeah, that does sound like I was getting rid of my car, didn't it? Alas, I live in Los Angeles where "everything is always 30 minutes away by car" -- I'm not about to give up my car anytime soon. Heck, I just logged 80 miles today just to have lunch with family.
I was thinking of my time in San Francisco when I made the comment -- in that city, having a car was a liability -- you drive around for 30 minutes looking for parking, and then get towed because you didn't move your car every 3 days. I should have sold off my car then, and just get car rentals whenever I needed to take a trip out of The City. For all its faults, I could manage there with Muni or take a taxi when in a hurry.
As for the present, work is 3.5 miles away. The two shopping/dining districts, the mall, Target, and about 6 different movie theatres are all located roughly in between.
And, I admit, I'm also getting the SHTi for it's "fun" value.
Ah, thanks to a member, I found that the batteries are $300 each, two batteries per transporter.
So, let's assume $5,000 for 5 years, driving about 10 miles a day * 300 days/year... I'll need a new battery set every year after the first... About $7,500 for 15,000 miles... $0.50/mile.
No insurance. No oil change. Not bad.
I live up on a slight hill about 3.5 miles from work.
For about a year, I had an older (mid-70's model) "Tomos" 2-cycle 50cc "scooter". (Similar to this, but older and needed pre-mixed fuel.)
Except during the winter when the wind on my face and hands were a bit too cold, I really preferred to take my trips to work and to the grocery store on my scooter. I liked the open-air feeling of gliding on the scooter, and also felt better about not lugging a 3000 lb. car just to carry myself. I was getting about 50 miles to a gallon of fuel + a cup of oil.
One thing that I didn't like about the scooter was having to drive on the street (along the side, like a bicycle) while cars whizzed by me at 45+ mph. On the uphill stretches going home at night, that got scary sometimes. (My uphill speed was about 15-18 mph; flats around 25; and downhill around 32 mph.)
I also didn't like having to worry about the bike's chain maintenance (needed frequent cleaning), and the fact that it was a 2-stroke polluter (today's 4-stroke mopeds should be pretty good in comparison).
When an axel bearing crunched away I couldn't find a convenient place to fix it, I gave it up.
Since then, I've been thinking about buying another, more modern moped. But I just sorta never did. I toyed with the idea of getting a real motorcycle, and got my class-M permit; but I really didn't want a bike because I would have to be IN traffic, and I prefer not to be in between two cars (or SUV's as is likely to happen around here).
When the Segway was first revealed, I thought "neat, cool gadget". But I dismissed buying it for myself.
But, I've been missing that open-air gliding feeling for some time now. The Segway would allow me to get that feeling back (though at 12 mphs, it's a bit slower than I would have liked compared to when I used to pull 20-30). And, since I can used it on sidewalks, I would feel much safer. Since the sidewalks around here (L.A. suburb) are pretty much open, I think I can safely travel at the top speed for most of my travel.
The only concern I have now is the TCO. While a "full charge" is 11 to 17 miles of range, and costs about $0.10, that translates favorably to my car which gives about 20 miles to the gallon at $1.70. But the batteries are rated only for 300-500 full-charge cycles, or about 3,000 (worst case) to 8000 (best case) miles. The power train is supposed to be a "lifetime" design needing no servicing, so I'm hoping that the supposed 5-(active use)-year lifetime of the Segway holds.
It's not clear how much a battery replacement will cost... But I'm guessing it'll be about $1,000. So that then pushes the cost up to as much as $0.55 per mile. Even if the battery is $2,000, that's favorable compared to my 3,000 lb. car.
I can already tell some of my co-workers will approve, and some of them will scoff and ridicule me. But I used to own a scooter, and I liked it. And I've pre-ordered a Segway, and I expect to like it when it arrives. (Yes, it is a small leap of faith.)
The thing that I like most about many Windows-based installers (these days) is the ability to step through the package install options and accept default values and have the package be installed in ready-to-run state.
Mind you, I don't mean that the package silently installs to a pre-determined location automatically. Rather, it steps through the "usual" configuration values, but has sensible defaults for them such that a person doesn't need to override it under normal circumstances.
It makes it easy for someone like my brother to install software without shooting himself in the foot.
Oh, admit it -- your love for your life aside, you're really hoping that the Wachowski brothers will call you to use your typewriter in the Matrix sequels!
I've been a big believer of the Chicken Brick concept... You go into the market and pick up a brick of artificial chicken meat prepackaged in a plastic container. (Think Tofu boxes.)
I don't think it's gross. Actually, since it won't be genetically engineered, but rather comes from real chicken, the meat should be fairly safe as long as the growth-fluid supply is clean and disease free. If it can be done in a sterile production line, hell, it'll make for safe chicken.
And, with chicken being in standard sized bricks, it'll be easier to transport from the manufacturing floor to the market shelf...
Oh, well, I stand corrected then.
I'm going by memory from when I made a battery pack out of AA batteries... The oil worked when soldering without didn't...
YMMV I guess.