This has to be one of the stupidest posts in recent/. history. The writer poses an obvious question of why can't "they" make satellite phones work and then proceeds to explain it to us, i.e. no ordinary consumer will purchase a highly-priced handset (priced to recoup some of those massive sunk satellite costs) that can phone hom from the Sahara when the average GSM/UMTS mobile phone will do just fine. It's one of the worst business cases of recent times...
What, Neiman Marcus couldn't squeeze this into their Christmas catalogue? Either missed the print run deadline or their clientele were looking for something - say- more upmarket.
Oh God No! This article is a red rag to a bull - or multitudes of bulls - as pro-Apple and anti-Apple forces line up on Slashdot to opine on their consumer whims and whines and fantasies.
Apple's cleverness is to make you the consumer believe that you are a superior being owning their products, get you to part with your cash at a higher price than any competitors, and leave you with a smug smile on your face, having done so.
That's too much of a simplification. The Icelandic banks were sent into voluntary administration under a financial regulatory body, and depositors' savings were guaranteed by the Icelandic government. A number of Scandinavian countries gave Iceland loans to back up their financial system. This was naked self-interest since it was in nobody's interest for Iceland's financial system to collapse. The Icelandic Kronor floats independently of the Euro (or any other currency) so it was able to depreciate against global currencies which in Ireland's case is not possible.
And before anybody gets too smug pointing out that Billionaire property developers caused Ireland's problems, the reality is that they could not have done it without the wholesale contribution of large parts of the Irish public chasing returns on property assets. That is the nature of a asset bubble. The cruel truth is that the public bought into the miracle of endless (?) financial growth of asset values without substance. "Pass the parcel" in other words.
Far from narcissists, I am coming to believe that those you call "paranoid" are realists. In a previous era they may have been quaint and paranoid but these days they're among the few willing to face the implications of a hard truth.
OK, step away from the PC slowly everybody. We have a "realist" loose on slashdot...
I'm sure you can use can use Monster Hi-Fi cables with suitable adapters. The quality of the electrical storage is so much better than with the cheaper alternative - 3/4 listeners recommend it...
I agree. It's the "gee whiz" sales/reporting pitch without context. I'd be interested to know the current and forecast cost of the batteries and the predicted lifetime.
I want to see the first precedent set in a UK court. How the hell would you determine "lost" income due to commercial use unless the image is explicitly sold and purchased...
No, it's you that's whistling thru his ass. Latest version of iPhone os still runs badly. (Just not as badly as first "fix".) Are you an Apple marketing exec, sales rep or one of their store Genuises?
No, they are not sysadmins - they just behave that way. Software is designed without too much consideration of in-service performance or product-line evolution and the inevitable kludge becomes further virtualization or a faster server.
Never met a software architect that went beyond upgrading the server rack or adding yet more virual machines to compensate for bad design decisions (made by the previous sw architects).
That's the academic variant of the species. There are SW Architects that actually parse theory into working platforms that have to run on actual hardware in real-time and interface to actual clients within a deadline that isn't on the other side of the decade. This is the sub-species that are otherwise known as Systems Engineers.
We'll run out of IPv4 addresses as predicted on Dec 23, 2012. The world will end - or the IT nerd portion of it anyhow...
Repent now and convert to IPv6.
Do the math on the trade-offs.You have not mentioned what your organization does, but building PCs is generally low-value grunt work. (Built a couple myself because I wanted specific capabilities not inherent in a generic PC.) There a few questions you need to ask beyond just the capital cost of sourcing PC parts.
How much is your (or your peoples' time) time worth? (There is an opportunity cost when using internal staff to build PCs.) Do you have people sitting around not doing anything else? (If you do then it's probably more cost effective to let them go - most costs are labor, not equipment.)
Out of a 1000 PCs (as quoted) how many have you made a warranty claim over the past year? You'll have to write those claims off and factor in internal repair costs if you take on responsibility for the PC hardware.
Spare PC inventory for possible failure is generally wasteful in that you carry the responsibility for capital purchasing and holding costs. Can you do a better job at predicting PC parts failure? Do you curently possess that information or can you obtain said information for your organization?
I'm sure other slashdotters can come up with more questions to ask. I understand that my phrasing sounds negative but unless you know the answers I'd say you'll end up increasing total costs (CAPEX + OPEX).
Good luck
Vista copped bad press over lack of third party vendor support - partly of Microsoft's own making. Longhorn was originally based on XP but midway through the project they switched to Server code base. (Corporate decision-making not to develop tow separate code bases.) A lot of the third party vendors didn't keep up and the release didn't meet expectations.
Having said that, I "inherited" a copy of Vista upon purchasing a new laptop mid-2008 (after everybody had a chance to iron out obvious problems), and other than a student version of business software, I had no issues with using Vista for your garden-variety home office duties, configured in a home wireless network interconnected with Windows 7, Mac OSX, Ubuntu and XP machines, and a NAS server. I have never understood the bitching and moaning that persists to this day regarding Vista. And based on the same home office usage, I didn't see much benefit from upgrading from Vista to an Windows 7 (academic copy) for the same reason: Vista works...
A good example of Prospect Theory in action (Kahneman & Tversky, for which they earned a Nobel Prize): people don't change usage of an artefact/good/service - Windows XP in this case - unless the gains of substitution from the new artefact/good/service - Windows 7 - are significantly better.
Howevere, I'm sure that Microsoft has done well enough from corporate upgrades to PC hardware.
From my personal perspective, I found that Windows XP on my 6-year-old laptop hardware was struggling and switched to Ubuntu for bread-and-butter usage, and never looked back.
One the women involved in the sexual misconduct allegation (not rape) against Assange is a member of a pro-Muslim/pro-Arab Social Democrat grouping. A left-wing pro-Arab group is a damn strange source of conspiracy if the intent is to discredit Assange. Wouldn't think such a mob would be supporting an Amercian intelligence community agenda. Sounds more like a prosaic version of "he said, she said". Maybe he does have a case to answer?! (Or not, as it plays out.)
No, Liberals in Australia are actually spineless Conservative douchebags who - like USA conservatives - are all about freedom except when it offends their social sensibilities.
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Fuck you and your crass generalisations. People with ADHD are not fucking flakes and can be very reliable.
Yes, I have personal experience.
Ouch. Do you suffer an irony deficiency also?
This has to be one of the stupidest posts in recent /. history. The writer poses an obvious question of why can't "they" make satellite phones work and then proceeds to explain it to us, i.e. no ordinary consumer will purchase a highly-priced handset (priced to recoup some of those massive sunk satellite costs) that can phone hom from the Sahara when the average GSM/UMTS mobile phone will do just fine. It's one of the worst business cases of recent times...
My mistake. I should have written "out of your depth" or "beyond your ken".
Why, are you owed some special favours from Slashdot readers?
Is it the writing style, the plotting or the concepts or all the above that's confusing?
What, Neiman Marcus couldn't squeeze this into their Christmas catalogue? Either missed the print run deadline or their clientele were looking for something - say- more upmarket.
Hey, stop that. Informative insights and calm reasoning don't belong in a fanboi war on Slashdot. Where is the CAPLOCKS shouting?
Oh God No! This article is a red rag to a bull - or multitudes of bulls - as pro-Apple and anti-Apple forces line up on Slashdot to opine on their consumer whims and whines and fantasies. Apple's cleverness is to make you the consumer believe that you are a superior being owning their products, get you to part with your cash at a higher price than any competitors, and leave you with a smug smile on your face, having done so.
That's too much of a simplification. The Icelandic banks were sent into voluntary administration under a financial regulatory body, and depositors' savings were guaranteed by the Icelandic government. A number of Scandinavian countries gave Iceland loans to back up their financial system. This was naked self-interest since it was in nobody's interest for Iceland's financial system to collapse. The Icelandic Kronor floats independently of the Euro (or any other currency) so it was able to depreciate against global currencies which in Ireland's case is not possible. And before anybody gets too smug pointing out that Billionaire property developers caused Ireland's problems, the reality is that they could not have done it without the wholesale contribution of large parts of the Irish public chasing returns on property assets. That is the nature of a asset bubble. The cruel truth is that the public bought into the miracle of endless (?) financial growth of asset values without substance. "Pass the parcel" in other words.
Far from narcissists, I am coming to believe that those you call "paranoid" are realists. In a previous era they may have been quaint and paranoid but these days they're among the few willing to face the implications of a hard truth.
OK, step away from the PC slowly everybody. We have a "realist" loose on slashdot...
I'm sure you can use can use Monster Hi-Fi cables with suitable adapters. The quality of the electrical storage is so much better than with the cheaper alternative - 3/4 listeners recommend it...
I agree. It's the "gee whiz" sales/reporting pitch without context. I'd be interested to know the current and forecast cost of the batteries and the predicted lifetime.
I want to see the first precedent set in a UK court. How the hell would you determine "lost" income due to commercial use unless the image is explicitly sold and purchased...
You missed Step Five: Repeat Step One C'mon most people on this site require explicit rather than implicit instructions...
But can it make a phone call?
No, it's you that's whistling thru his ass. Latest version of iPhone os still runs badly. (Just not as badly as first "fix".) Are you an Apple marketing exec, sales rep or one of their store Genuises?
No, they are not sysadmins - they just behave that way. Software is designed without too much consideration of in-service performance or product-line evolution and the inevitable kludge becomes further virtualization or a faster server.
Never met a software architect that went beyond upgrading the server rack or adding yet more virual machines to compensate for bad design decisions (made by the previous sw architects).
That's the academic variant of the species. There are SW Architects that actually parse theory into working platforms that have to run on actual hardware in real-time and interface to actual clients within a deadline that isn't on the other side of the decade. This is the sub-species that are otherwise known as Systems Engineers.
We'll run out of IPv4 addresses as predicted on Dec 23, 2012. The world will end - or the IT nerd portion of it anyhow... Repent now and convert to IPv6.
Do the math on the trade-offs.You have not mentioned what your organization does, but building PCs is generally low-value grunt work. (Built a couple myself because I wanted specific capabilities not inherent in a generic PC.) There a few questions you need to ask beyond just the capital cost of sourcing PC parts. How much is your (or your peoples' time) time worth? (There is an opportunity cost when using internal staff to build PCs.) Do you have people sitting around not doing anything else? (If you do then it's probably more cost effective to let them go - most costs are labor, not equipment.) Out of a 1000 PCs (as quoted) how many have you made a warranty claim over the past year? You'll have to write those claims off and factor in internal repair costs if you take on responsibility for the PC hardware. Spare PC inventory for possible failure is generally wasteful in that you carry the responsibility for capital purchasing and holding costs. Can you do a better job at predicting PC parts failure? Do you curently possess that information or can you obtain said information for your organization? I'm sure other slashdotters can come up with more questions to ask. I understand that my phrasing sounds negative but unless you know the answers I'd say you'll end up increasing total costs (CAPEX + OPEX). Good luck
Vista copped bad press over lack of third party vendor support - partly of Microsoft's own making. Longhorn was originally based on XP but midway through the project they switched to Server code base. (Corporate decision-making not to develop tow separate code bases.) A lot of the third party vendors didn't keep up and the release didn't meet expectations. Having said that, I "inherited" a copy of Vista upon purchasing a new laptop mid-2008 (after everybody had a chance to iron out obvious problems), and other than a student version of business software, I had no issues with using Vista for your garden-variety home office duties, configured in a home wireless network interconnected with Windows 7, Mac OSX, Ubuntu and XP machines, and a NAS server. I have never understood the bitching and moaning that persists to this day regarding Vista. And based on the same home office usage, I didn't see much benefit from upgrading from Vista to an Windows 7 (academic copy) for the same reason: Vista works...
A good example of Prospect Theory in action (Kahneman & Tversky, for which they earned a Nobel Prize): people don't change usage of an artefact/good/service - Windows XP in this case - unless the gains of substitution from the new artefact/good/service - Windows 7 - are significantly better. Howevere, I'm sure that Microsoft has done well enough from corporate upgrades to PC hardware. From my personal perspective, I found that Windows XP on my 6-year-old laptop hardware was struggling and switched to Ubuntu for bread-and-butter usage, and never looked back.
One the women involved in the sexual misconduct allegation (not rape) against Assange is a member of a pro-Muslim/pro-Arab Social Democrat grouping. A left-wing pro-Arab group is a damn strange source of conspiracy if the intent is to discredit Assange. Wouldn't think such a mob would be supporting an Amercian intelligence community agenda. Sounds more like a prosaic version of "he said, she said". Maybe he does have a case to answer?! (Or not, as it plays out.)
No, Liberals in Australia are actually spineless Conservative douchebags who - like USA conservatives - are all about freedom except when it offends their social sensibilities.