You don't seem to know the RFID market very well, or you'd know the stall-out is due to other issues...
It surw is, which is why this guy is stalled -- but this is his risky endeavor.
Some consultant...how about 'all of the above', since today, everyone is a 'geek', and the concept of a stand-alone figure has been laid aside years past.
If you believe that, you're missing some big opportunities.
BTW, you forgot to mention that being able to type with more than one finger means being able to post long-winded, er I mean, salient, comments, that dimwits tend to find impressive. As for holiday, business hours etc., your critic failed to recall that posters can chime in from other countries...duh.
Heh. I'm typing on my PDA very quickly (type-assist predictive). I'm in a restaurant now, waiting for my food. I just took a pic for my blog I'll post in an hour. Checking e-mail, replying to posta, all on the go. I call it a productive use of downtime.
Actually, if you fear the dollar devaluing you should be taking out loans- as much as you can.
If I wanted to take advantage, yes. I don't want to, I just want stability, safety and fairness.
)Short term- money to spend at the movies or the market. This is still cash, I can't walk into 7-11 and give them gold. Basicly cash on hand.
I found 25 restaurants, 8ish grocers and numerous consumer goods stores within 45 minutes of me who redeem gold annd silver for their goods. I'm sitting in a restaurant now that does (pic on my blog in an hour!) Greeks, Jews and Hindus run many businesses (i'm half-Hindu, Wife's a Jew, business partner is Greek heh). Many of these redeemers give me 50% discounts for hard metal purchases.
I keep about US$2000 in US dollars on hand for liquidity sake, though.
Long term- this is investments, so the money grows.
Right, the businesses I run or help start. I've watched 3 fail in 16 years (out of 30). Average return is 30% plus equity.
Medium term- a larger cash supply for emergencies, big ticket items, and monthly payments. Again, it needs to be cash, or easily convertible.
Gold IS easily convertible! I helped a good friend jump to my gold system 4 years ago. When he bought property this year he converted 200 ounces of gold into ~US$84,000 in less than 1 day. When I closed my BankOne account 3 years ago, it took 3 days and helluva lotta forms.
You won't accept it, but through all my world travels, I have never been in a city anywhere that didn't buy gold for close to the spot value -- ever. In one town I do business in (~5000 residents) there are 3 different places that accept it.
My currency is in gold and silver. This is the equivalent of what people using checking and savings accounts for. I also have some gold and silver for my retirement. My "investment" money -- what you'd use a stock market for -- is invested in my businesses. Lately I've had some extra money, so I've been looking at local businesses that I can help start and stay on as a partner. I don't understand the stock market -- putting money into businesses and getting no dividend, and only making money when I sell the stock to some other sucker. When I help someone start a local business, I can expect 20-50% profits annually on my money!
I did buy real estate, until the Fed went crazy inflating the money supply (easy credit flooded into the stock and housing markets, causing the prices to skyrocket artificially). I cashed out of all my over-inflated real estate, bought trailer homes (and soon trailer parks) and put the rest of my money into businesses and gold. I've cashed out of the dollar market (and the markets most inflated because of currency inflation) almost entirely.
Gold does help me, but it isn't magic. I feel very stable, will never get a loan or any debt ever again, and am not worried about my future. I do not believe that most readers of this site are as comfortable, even though many of them may have more money (on the books) than I do.
Gold has no value except as a store of wealth for those who use it, as a much-needy industrial metal, and as a store of wealth for every central bank in the world.
If the dollar hyperinflates, we WOULD switch to other fiat currencies, surely. I'll still use gold as my wealth store (it is not an investment for me, merely a version of your bank). I buy everything with gold and silver (I keep my wealth stored as a hard metal, and when I need something I have avenues for converting it to the fiat currency of choice merely for a business transaction). My money has been very stable over the years, even disregarding the value of gold going up against the dollar. I'm starting to track gold ratios against consumer fuel, utility costs and other "real life" costs and I'm surprised at how solid the metal has been over the past 3 years versus those prices.
Would we ever switch to a gold standard? I hope not -- gold is still artificially cheap and I'm happy to keep buying it. Hell, I love the fact that everyone eats the US dollars up -- it helps me save for the future at a discount.
Yet I post with my real name and my real history. I guess this is why I am a fan of an open market moderation system for past relationships (business and otherwise). Not that it really matters on slashdot.
I've admitted to being a business owner in only 3 markets: IT, aggressive sporting retail and (possibly) gold advice. Never more. How hard is it to see that most of the topics that come up on slashdot have to do with one of these three markets of mine? If something comes up dealing with IT (on slashdot? never) I'll make a comment or reply to a comment. If something comes up regarding dotcom retail, I'll comment from a brick and mortar perspective. If something comes up regarding financial stakes, I'll make a comment about it if I have something insightful to say.
My history is out on the web -- my home address, my business address, even my cell phone number. You can call me a liar, but I welcome -- with open arms -- anyone who visits Chicago to look me up and get a beer. I've met some great people on slashdot, I've even gain a customer or two out of the site. Why is it wrong for me to comment, the mods take care of my posts which are flamebait or trolls (and yes, I have had a few of those recently when I let emotion get the best of me).
I agree with you 100%. You'd also be surprised as to how many experts READ slashdot to gain some insight into what the market wants or needs. Two of my customers design System-on-a-chip devices, and I know they read up on Slashdot often to see what bugs the geeks the most.
Just because it isn't expert advice, doesn't mean that it isn't good advice that I can u se in my future. When you're in the IT business it is VERY important to also have your ear open to what others are saying. That being said, I think I am one of the few people who will admit that slashdot helps me make a profit with my productive time.
Re:My God, where do you find the time?
on
Ambient Findability
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm in the car right now, on a 3 hour drive to another state. The person driving me is jamming to the radio, so I'm on my laptop, banging away on some research and reading the 6 or 7 forums I tend to read daily. Most of my posts on slashdot are performed either in the car, waiting on the tarmac, or sitting in an office waiting for a meeting to take place:)
Actually, go read the link I provided at http://www.mises.org/money.asp it explains the need for NO currency standard. Money can exist in a non-regulated free market system and would likely lead to not only more wealth for the poor, but more stable wealth for everyone.
I prefer gold as my standard because it has generally held its value over time -- thousands of years actually. The only time gold really spiked and fell was when we saw large manipulations or large discovering. Over time, though, the population growth tends to offset any gold discoveries (which historically are rare). Today gold is valued at over US$500 per ounce but it costs less than US$70 per ounce to extract from a mine -- that's how weak gold discoveries are in regards to the amount of gold in existence.
Gold is not the only store of wealth, it is just harder to manipulate. I blog about the gold manipulations (I used to have a gold bug newsletter up to about 6 months ago and am trying to rebuild my gold readers in blog form) and it is really interesting to see how nothing is sacred, but at least gold is stable.
When you read about fiat currency and the manipulations that happen in that market, you'll definitely want to look at non-US dollar backed investments. I'm the least doomy-and-gloomy of all gold bugs, I think, but I definitely see a call for some caution, especially if all your money is in US currency. Our armies might be the most powerful, but the day will come when they won't have the financing needed to keep them protecting our dollar.
Which market is most important to us?
on
Ambient Findability
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This book and the review uses way too many catch phrases: findability, intertwingularity, Folksonomies, metadata, smartphone, backlinks. Talk about overload.
Nonetheless, as the Internet becomes more available in even the lives of the poorest (in the US at least), will the need for libraries and physical stores of information even be needed? I've been "connected" wirelessly to the web now for over 3 years, and last month I upgraded my wireless connection to T-Mobile's EDGE network (150kbps downloads practically everywhere I go).
With Google's ability to aggregate not just information but opinions, reviews and similar items/services into one easy-to-access page, there are many services we won't really need around. This weekend I saw the demo of the GPS+XM traffic-nav solution in helping me avoid traffic jams ahead and find quicker ways for me to get to my destination. WIth that device I won't need news radio at all (I already receive weather updates to my wireless PDA). A few weeks ago I met with a company that is working on RFID check-out lanes for a grocery store (fill up your cart, walk out) and it seems that they're less than 6 months away from being "ready" -- they're just waiting for manufacturers to include the RFID tags needed to get the system working.
I'm ordering this book -- I had thought about writing something similar a few years ago. In one of my jobs as an IT consultant, I find myself providing more services regarding these new technologies, especially to CEOs and top level managers. It is an easy sell especially when you look at the time saved for people making the top tier incomes. The great part about the movement for cheaper goods is that we see all these products trickle down to even the lower class worker.
The last few paragraphs of the review are enlightening: TIm O'Reilly doesn't try to fill convention halls with the lowest common denominator. This is intriguing to me because I've always had a difficulty in figuring out which market I should attack the hardest: The rare (and wealthy) CEO wannabe-geek who wants to have all the toys first, even if it doesn't help him become more productive? The common CEO who sees that technology can help him become more productive, but he can't pay as much as the guy with the desire to have everything the earliest? The common user, who will eventually come to use technology when it is either forced on them, or when they finally get around to see the value that the technology brings to every-man? I'm not jealous of O'Reilly's ability to pack conventions with the top level geeks, but it is interesting that he even has a market. How many of his readers actually understand what he's saying though, and how correct has he been in previous years?
Lastly, how many geeks here have an intense amount of new technology knowledge, but find themselves unable to sell that knowledge for an income? Is the super-geek becoming more common, or less common? I find a lot of geeks just out of college aren't truly information whores, they're just ex-jocks with a tiny bit of tech know how.
Actually, I gain a LOT of knowledge from the questions I ask -- and the debates I sometimes have started. In the last few days I've tried a LOT harder not to flamebait (as is evident in my recent posts). My life revolves around information. I think many of the geeks here can agree with that.
I don't care about karma, I wish I could just turn it off entirely and be done with it. I do have questions, though, and I don't think its so wrong to ask them. My PDA is always connected, and when a new slashdot article comes up, (being a subscriber) I always get notice of it before non-subscribers. It also gives me a chance to write up my thoughts and get a post in so I can go back to my work. After a little while I hit the comments page again and look at what other people are saying (and to see if my questions were answered).
If you don't like my posts, just Foe me and do a -5 on all foes, and I'll disappear. Until then, I don't see why I have any less value to the topics at hand, especially if I help answer other people's questions, or help other people form new questions about a topic.
Actually, I loaded Q2 on my PDA and wasn't that impressed. QVGA at 4" for video is fine, but for gaming I really think higher resolution gives you a lot more access to ultrafine aiming, especially at far distances. Of course, this is all basically useless on a small form factor console anyway. Some games just need big screens and fast processors. The comment I made about Mattel's Utopia is valid as I believe the resolution was around 200x100 (or less) and we played the game for hundreds of hours over the years.
Yeah, I must be a conspiracy of 15 posters with the intent to control slashdot and purge the world of truth, right?
Or maybe I am who I say I am, and have been lucky enough to be able to read and post in between my daily projects from my wireless EDGE networked PDA? Hmm... As for first posting, when you're a PDA user and a slashdot subscriber, you do get a little bit of a lead on getting your first thoughts out. That is what moderation is for -- if my post isn't valid, it gets moderated to -1 quickly. Ever see the GNAA first posts?
Come visit me in Chicago sometime and hang out, I'll be happy to show you around.
So you're saying that 600 billion dollars in print in circulation is all we need to query, and it is only those figures that affect consumer price inflation?
I'm not sure I agree.
First, the M3 is by far the easiest way for the Fed to inflate the currency base "secretly" without there being a huge effect in the U.S. retail economy initially. Most of the money will be offshore dollars, eurodollars and institutional money funds -- these initially have zero effect on price inflation but as the money is converted for other means, they can and will have an effect.
The M1/M0 supply is not enough to see what government is doing to our money. If you need a better explanation, Rothbard's book is now available freely online. Go check out http://www.mises.org/money.aspx for more info on how government is destroying our wealth "secretly" and how removing the M3 figures is an even bigger crime against freedom.
In the long run, other central banks in the world that hold our currency are the ones who keep our currency in check. If they disagree with US dollar stability, we'll find ourselves in a hyperinflating economy -- the kind that us gold bugs would love to see.
I'm sure this is a slashvertisement, but this is a very cool device. I hope that they can profit where other gaming manufacturers don't: from the hardware itself. Not placing a financial income take in future sales of games is sort of odd, but it makes sense that someone has to try it. Doing so in an OSS sort of way is REALLY bizarre from a competitiveness perspective.
I'll buy one or a dozen of them just as a show of faith. Many of my friends with kids could use an introduction into the great games of my time -- if only someone would make Mattel's Utopia, then I'd be happy.
A few questions that I didn't see on the site:
1. Is it Mac compatible? I assume it is just a basic Mass Storage device on the USB chain. 2. Does anyone have a link to the actual technical specs? I can't find anything on that site about the tech specs, other than the ARM processors. 3. How bright is the screen and how do they get 10 hours out of 2 AA batteries? 4. What is the estimated profit margin per unit? Is the price enough to keep them solvent AND address tech support concerns? 5. Is 320x240 enough? I'm an Action Quake 2 addict, but not sure I can play on 320x240. 6. Can they hire a grammar and spell checker?:) It keeps trying to install the Korean fonts, so I guess they might have an excuse. Bad Engrish is acceptable in some situations. (Do not click this link if you need to be silent in a cubicle, FWIW.) 7. Does anyone want to go in with me to pick up about 100 of these so we can save shipping and make a few bucks on our friends?
I'm pretty happy with the HP iPAQ I received for Christmas, but I'd love to screw around with this thing. Great, another freaking device I'll need a pocket for. I still can't see how they'll be able to fix bad units and support their customers merely on profit from the console sale, but if its built properly and an open source support community props up around it, anything's possible.
I'm no Randroid or Randrian by any means. While I can appreciate her fiction, I believe she was too direct in her push for Objectivism, of which I am not a believer.
For me, happiness IS a personal profit. I tend not to do anything that doesn't make me feel good -- including working. If my work doesn't make me feel good, I'll decommission that business or that contract and move on.
The same is true with gift giving: I feel good when someone gets something that they can use. This Christmas I tried to give gifts that allowed the recipient to use them with me on occasion, which increases my happiness in the future: again a personal profit.
Is it callous to think this way? I sure hope not. As my life becomes more stable (ie, financial stability), I find myself wanting to spend more time with friends, family and fans. My last "vacation" was to go visit some of my regular readers in Las Vegas, and I had a ball, even though I didn't profit financially. Maybe if more people realized that life can be about yourself and not forcing others to do anything they don't want to do, we'd live in a better world.
This is true -- and why I've moved entirely to a personal gold standard for currency.
In the past 15 years, they had numerous ways to spend -- direct taxes, indirect taxes, fake social security lockboxes and the worst -- currency inflation. Now that China, Russia and the Middle East are losing faith in the US dollar, they won't be able to inflate as much, right? Wrong. In March 2006, our government has decided to stop reporting the M3 Money Supply figures -- the figures that tell the world how much counterfeit money the central bank prints.
And they think this will make the dollar more stable?
I agree with you. I blogged about it today, before I submitted the article to slashdot. I'd love to see a bigger experiment from the FCC on privatizing and anarchizing (sp?) airwaves to see how it works.
You'll likely see some responses here from people on how their neighbor's microwave screws with their WiFi, but I run and maintain 25 WiFi networks for friends and family and we don't have a problem with a single network. I even offer my WiFi connection free to all my neighbors and they don't even call with tech support questions.
But then why is the founder making a request for more money? I'm assuming they forsee the day when their costs are way more than their income. In that case, will the current model hold up?
Slashdot Mirror
I bought a $1000 gift card for $500 a few days ago. Tried to find some advice on a DSLR from a geek, no one had a worthy article!
Bought a D50, and am blown away with it. Far better than any digicam I've had, and half what I was willing to pay.
Highly recommended.
Yeah I'm sure that works really well at the gas station.
You'd be surprised. Both my local (Indian-owned) gas stations do -- at a 9% discount, too.
Restaurants, grocers, consumer goods -- I've found dozens near me and around the country that accept bullion. Most offer a nice discount, too.
Copper's gotten expensive lately. My biggest IT customer is an electrical contractor getting slayed by copper pricing.
Copper also corrodes, gold doesn't.
Gold is malleable, moreso than copper.
You don't seem to know the RFID market very well, or you'd know the stall-out is due to other issues...
It surw is, which is why this guy is stalled -- but this is his risky endeavor.
Some consultant...how about 'all of the above', since today, everyone is a 'geek', and the concept of a stand-alone figure has been laid aside years past.
If you believe that, you're missing some big opportunities.
BTW, you forgot to mention that being able to type with more than one finger means being able to post long-winded, er I mean, salient, comments, that dimwits tend to find impressive. As for holiday, business hours etc., your critic failed to recall that posters can chime in from other countries...duh.
Heh. I'm typing on my PDA very quickly (type-assist predictive). I'm in a restaurant now, waiting for my food. I just took a pic for my blog I'll post in an hour. Checking e-mail, replying to posta, all on the go. I call it a productive use of downtime.
Actually, if you fear the dollar devaluing you should be taking out loans- as much as you can.
If I wanted to take advantage, yes. I don't want to, I just want stability, safety and fairness.
)Short term- money to spend at the movies or the market. This is still cash, I can't walk into 7-11 and give them gold. Basicly cash on hand.
I found 25 restaurants, 8ish grocers and numerous consumer goods stores within 45 minutes of me who redeem gold annd silver for their goods. I'm sitting in a restaurant now that does (pic on my blog in an hour!) Greeks, Jews and Hindus run many businesses (i'm half-Hindu, Wife's a Jew, business partner is Greek heh). Many of these redeemers give me 50% discounts for hard metal purchases.
I keep about US$2000 in US dollars on hand for liquidity sake, though.
Long term- this is investments, so the money grows.
Right, the businesses I run or help start. I've watched 3 fail in 16 years (out of 30). Average return is 30% plus equity.
Medium term- a larger cash supply for emergencies, big ticket items, and monthly payments. Again, it needs to be cash, or easily convertible.
Gold IS easily convertible! I helped a good friend jump to my gold system 4 years ago. When he bought property this year he converted 200 ounces of gold into ~US$84,000 in less than 1 day. When I closed my BankOne account 3 years ago, it took 3 days and helluva lotta forms.
In short, it still just makes no sense.
If I'm wrong, what do I lose?
If you're wrong, what do you lose?
You won't accept it, but through all my world travels, I have never been in a city anywhere that didn't buy gold for close to the spot value -- ever. In one town I do business in (~5000 residents) there are 3 different places that accept it.
My currency is in gold and silver. This is the equivalent of what people using checking and savings accounts for. I also have some gold and silver for my retirement. My "investment" money -- what you'd use a stock market for -- is invested in my businesses. Lately I've had some extra money, so I've been looking at local businesses that I can help start and stay on as a partner. I don't understand the stock market -- putting money into businesses and getting no dividend, and only making money when I sell the stock to some other sucker. When I help someone start a local business, I can expect 20-50% profits annually on my money!
I did buy real estate, until the Fed went crazy inflating the money supply (easy credit flooded into the stock and housing markets, causing the prices to skyrocket artificially). I cashed out of all my over-inflated real estate, bought trailer homes (and soon trailer parks) and put the rest of my money into businesses and gold. I've cashed out of the dollar market (and the markets most inflated because of currency inflation) almost entirely.
Gold does help me, but it isn't magic. I feel very stable, will never get a loan or any debt ever again, and am not worried about my future. I do not believe that most readers of this site are as comfortable, even though many of them may have more money (on the books) than I do.
Gold has no value except as a store of wealth for those who use it, as a much-needy industrial metal, and as a store of wealth for every central bank in the world.
If the dollar hyperinflates, we WOULD switch to other fiat currencies, surely. I'll still use gold as my wealth store (it is not an investment for me, merely a version of your bank). I buy everything with gold and silver (I keep my wealth stored as a hard metal, and when I need something I have avenues for converting it to the fiat currency of choice merely for a business transaction). My money has been very stable over the years, even disregarding the value of gold going up against the dollar. I'm starting to track gold ratios against consumer fuel, utility costs and other "real life" costs and I'm surprised at how solid the metal has been over the past 3 years versus those prices.
Would we ever switch to a gold standard? I hope not -- gold is still artificially cheap and I'm happy to keep buying it. Hell, I love the fact that everyone eats the US dollars up -- it helps me save for the future at a discount.
Yet I post with my real name and my real history. I guess this is why I am a fan of an open market moderation system for past relationships (business and otherwise). Not that it really matters on slashdot.
I've admitted to being a business owner in only 3 markets: IT, aggressive sporting retail and (possibly) gold advice. Never more. How hard is it to see that most of the topics that come up on slashdot have to do with one of these three markets of mine? If something comes up dealing with IT (on slashdot? never) I'll make a comment or reply to a comment. If something comes up regarding dotcom retail, I'll comment from a brick and mortar perspective. If something comes up regarding financial stakes, I'll make a comment about it if I have something insightful to say.
My history is out on the web -- my home address, my business address, even my cell phone number. You can call me a liar, but I welcome -- with open arms -- anyone who visits Chicago to look me up and get a beer. I've met some great people on slashdot, I've even gain a customer or two out of the site. Why is it wrong for me to comment, the mods take care of my posts which are flamebait or trolls (and yes, I have had a few of those recently when I let emotion get the best of me).
I agree with you 100%. You'd also be surprised as to how many experts READ slashdot to gain some insight into what the market wants or needs. Two of my customers design System-on-a-chip devices, and I know they read up on Slashdot often to see what bugs the geeks the most.
Just because it isn't expert advice, doesn't mean that it isn't good advice that I can u se in my future. When you're in the IT business it is VERY important to also have your ear open to what others are saying. That being said, I think I am one of the few people who will admit that slashdot helps me make a profit with my productive time.
I'm in the car right now, on a 3 hour drive to another state. The person driving me is jamming to the radio, so I'm on my laptop, banging away on some research and reading the 6 or 7 forums I tend to read daily. Most of my posts on slashdot are performed either in the car, waiting on the tarmac, or sitting in an office waiting for a meeting to take place :)
Actually, go read the link I provided at http://www.mises.org/money.asp it explains the need for NO currency standard. Money can exist in a non-regulated free market system and would likely lead to not only more wealth for the poor, but more stable wealth for everyone.
I prefer gold as my standard because it has generally held its value over time -- thousands of years actually. The only time gold really spiked and fell was when we saw large manipulations or large discovering. Over time, though, the population growth tends to offset any gold discoveries (which historically are rare). Today gold is valued at over US$500 per ounce but it costs less than US$70 per ounce to extract from a mine -- that's how weak gold discoveries are in regards to the amount of gold in existence.
Gold is not the only store of wealth, it is just harder to manipulate. I blog about the gold manipulations (I used to have a gold bug newsletter up to about 6 months ago and am trying to rebuild my gold readers in blog form) and it is really interesting to see how nothing is sacred, but at least gold is stable.
When you read about fiat currency and the manipulations that happen in that market, you'll definitely want to look at non-US dollar backed investments. I'm the least doomy-and-gloomy of all gold bugs, I think, but I definitely see a call for some caution, especially if all your money is in US currency. Our armies might be the most powerful, but the day will come when they won't have the financing needed to keep them protecting our dollar.
This book and the review uses way too many catch phrases: findability, intertwingularity, Folksonomies, metadata, smartphone, backlinks. Talk about overload.
Nonetheless, as the Internet becomes more available in even the lives of the poorest (in the US at least), will the need for libraries and physical stores of information even be needed? I've been "connected" wirelessly to the web now for over 3 years, and last month I upgraded my wireless connection to T-Mobile's EDGE network (150kbps downloads practically everywhere I go).
With Google's ability to aggregate not just information but opinions, reviews and similar items/services into one easy-to-access page, there are many services we won't really need around. This weekend I saw the demo of the GPS+XM traffic-nav solution in helping me avoid traffic jams ahead and find quicker ways for me to get to my destination. WIth that device I won't need news radio at all (I already receive weather updates to my wireless PDA). A few weeks ago I met with a company that is working on RFID check-out lanes for a grocery store (fill up your cart, walk out) and it seems that they're less than 6 months away from being "ready" -- they're just waiting for manufacturers to include the RFID tags needed to get the system working.
I'm ordering this book -- I had thought about writing something similar a few years ago. In one of my jobs as an IT consultant, I find myself providing more services regarding these new technologies, especially to CEOs and top level managers. It is an easy sell especially when you look at the time saved for people making the top tier incomes. The great part about the movement for cheaper goods is that we see all these products trickle down to even the lower class worker.
The last few paragraphs of the review are enlightening: TIm O'Reilly doesn't try to fill convention halls with the lowest common denominator. This is intriguing to me because I've always had a difficulty in figuring out which market I should attack the hardest: The rare (and wealthy) CEO wannabe-geek who wants to have all the toys first, even if it doesn't help him become more productive? The common CEO who sees that technology can help him become more productive, but he can't pay as much as the guy with the desire to have everything the earliest? The common user, who will eventually come to use technology when it is either forced on them, or when they finally get around to see the value that the technology brings to every-man? I'm not jealous of O'Reilly's ability to pack conventions with the top level geeks, but it is interesting that he even has a market. How many of his readers actually understand what he's saying though, and how correct has he been in previous years?
Lastly, how many geeks here have an intense amount of new technology knowledge, but find themselves unable to sell that knowledge for an income? Is the super-geek becoming more common, or less common? I find a lot of geeks just out of college aren't truly information whores, they're just ex-jocks with a tiny bit of tech know how.
Actually, I gain a LOT of knowledge from the questions I ask -- and the debates I sometimes have started. In the last few days I've tried a LOT harder not to flamebait (as is evident in my recent posts). My life revolves around information. I think many of the geeks here can agree with that.
I don't care about karma, I wish I could just turn it off entirely and be done with it. I do have questions, though, and I don't think its so wrong to ask them. My PDA is always connected, and when a new slashdot article comes up, (being a subscriber) I always get notice of it before non-subscribers. It also gives me a chance to write up my thoughts and get a post in so I can go back to my work. After a little while I hit the comments page again and look at what other people are saying (and to see if my questions were answered).
If you don't like my posts, just Foe me and do a -5 on all foes, and I'll disappear. Until then, I don't see why I have any less value to the topics at hand, especially if I help answer other people's questions, or help other people form new questions about a topic.
Actually, I loaded Q2 on my PDA and wasn't that impressed. QVGA at 4" for video is fine, but for gaming I really think higher resolution gives you a lot more access to ultrafine aiming, especially at far distances. Of course, this is all basically useless on a small form factor console anyway. Some games just need big screens and fast processors. The comment I made about Mattel's Utopia is valid as I believe the resolution was around 200x100 (or less) and we played the game for hundreds of hours over the years.
Holy crap no mouse. Yeah, forget that :)
I can see how they manage to sell them for sub-US$200 now.
Yeah, I must be a conspiracy of 15 posters with the intent to control slashdot and purge the world of truth, right?
Or maybe I am who I say I am, and have been lucky enough to be able to read and post in between my daily projects from my wireless EDGE networked PDA? Hmm... As for first posting, when you're a PDA user and a slashdot subscriber, you do get a little bit of a lead on getting your first thoughts out. That is what moderation is for -- if my post isn't valid, it gets moderated to -1 quickly. Ever see the GNAA first posts?
Come visit me in Chicago sometime and hang out, I'll be happy to show you around.
Doh, forgot to hit preview and test the link: http://www.mises.org/money.asp
So you're saying that 600 billion dollars in print in circulation is all we need to query, and it is only those figures that affect consumer price inflation?
I'm not sure I agree.
First, the M3 is by far the easiest way for the Fed to inflate the currency base "secretly" without there being a huge effect in the U.S. retail economy initially. Most of the money will be offshore dollars, eurodollars and institutional money funds -- these initially have zero effect on price inflation but as the money is converted for other means, they can and will have an effect.
The M1/M0 supply is not enough to see what government is doing to our money. If you need a better explanation, Rothbard's book is now available freely online. Go check out http://www.mises.org/money.aspx for more info on how government is destroying our wealth "secretly" and how removing the M3 figures is an even bigger crime against freedom.
In the long run, other central banks in the world that hold our currency are the ones who keep our currency in check. If they disagree with US dollar stability, we'll find ourselves in a hyperinflating economy -- the kind that us gold bugs would love to see.
I'm sure this is a slashvertisement, but this is a very cool device. I hope that they can profit where other gaming manufacturers don't: from the hardware itself. Not placing a financial income take in future sales of games is sort of odd, but it makes sense that someone has to try it. Doing so in an OSS sort of way is REALLY bizarre from a competitiveness perspective.
:) It keeps trying to install the Korean fonts, so I guess they might have an excuse. Bad Engrish is acceptable in some situations. (Do not click this link if you need to be silent in a cubicle, FWIW.)
I'll buy one or a dozen of them just as a show of faith. Many of my friends with kids could use an introduction into the great games of my time -- if only someone would make Mattel's Utopia, then I'd be happy.
A few questions that I didn't see on the site:
1. Is it Mac compatible? I assume it is just a basic Mass Storage device on the USB chain.
2. Does anyone have a link to the actual technical specs? I can't find anything on that site about the tech specs, other than the ARM processors.
3. How bright is the screen and how do they get 10 hours out of 2 AA batteries?
4. What is the estimated profit margin per unit? Is the price enough to keep them solvent AND address tech support concerns?
5. Is 320x240 enough? I'm an Action Quake 2 addict, but not sure I can play on 320x240.
6. Can they hire a grammar and spell checker?
7. Does anyone want to go in with me to pick up about 100 of these so we can save shipping and make a few bucks on our friends?
I'm pretty happy with the HP iPAQ I received for Christmas, but I'd love to screw around with this thing. Great, another freaking device I'll need a pocket for. I still can't see how they'll be able to fix bad units and support their customers merely on profit from the console sale, but if its built properly and an open source support community props up around it, anything's possible.
Doh. Go figure, I submit TFA and I didn't even read it correctly :)
I'm no Randroid or Randrian by any means. While I can appreciate her fiction, I believe she was too direct in her push for Objectivism, of which I am not a believer.
For me, happiness IS a personal profit. I tend not to do anything that doesn't make me feel good -- including working. If my work doesn't make me feel good, I'll decommission that business or that contract and move on.
The same is true with gift giving: I feel good when someone gets something that they can use. This Christmas I tried to give gifts that allowed the recipient to use them with me on occasion, which increases my happiness in the future: again a personal profit.
Is it callous to think this way? I sure hope not. As my life becomes more stable (ie, financial stability), I find myself wanting to spend more time with friends, family and fans. My last "vacation" was to go visit some of my regular readers in Las Vegas, and I had a ball, even though I didn't profit financially. Maybe if more people realized that life can be about yourself and not forcing others to do anything they don't want to do, we'd live in a better world.
This is true -- and why I've moved entirely to a personal gold standard for currency.
In the past 15 years, they had numerous ways to spend -- direct taxes, indirect taxes, fake social security lockboxes and the worst -- currency inflation. Now that China, Russia and the Middle East are losing faith in the US dollar, they won't be able to inflate as much, right? Wrong. In March 2006, our government has decided to stop reporting the M3 Money Supply figures -- the figures that tell the world how much counterfeit money the central bank prints.
And they think this will make the dollar more stable?
I agree with you. I blogged about it today, before I submitted the article to slashdot. I'd love to see a bigger experiment from the FCC on privatizing and anarchizing (sp?) airwaves to see how it works.
You'll likely see some responses here from people on how their neighbor's microwave screws with their WiFi, but I run and maintain 25 WiFi networks for friends and family and we don't have a problem with a single network. I even offer my WiFi connection free to all my neighbors and they don't even call with tech support questions.
The current model works beautifully.
That's what I thought!
But then why is the founder making a request for more money? I'm assuming they forsee the day when their costs are way more than their income. In that case, will the current model hold up?
I believe TFA says about US$2 billion, with some of it already sold. They also talk about selling more radio stations off, as well.