Your post is probably the only intelligent thing I'll read on/. today. I wish those with an "exit strategy" would elaborate the plan to include the part about what happens after we pack up and leave. I don't think the plan we have now will work, but then I don't think anything else I've heard will work, either.
I'm not sure where you got your numbers, but they aren't even close.
nVidia did just over $3B (with a "B") of revenue last year with a net profit margin of 14.6%. This is public information, easily accessible.
Assuming this card costs $250, nVidia makes about $36 of profit per card. Those who understand profit margin calculations know that I just made an error, but I'm just trying to illustrate a point using approximations, and in this case my approximation works against me, so no harm.
Going a step further, let's just assume that nVidia expects this card to comprise of only, say 5% of their total revenue. I'm pulling that 5% from the same place you got your numbers, by the way. I made it up, but I think if anything it's on the low side. This kind of technology takes a lot of R&D, and you don't make big R&D investments into products that only contribute 5% to your revenue stream.
They would need to sell over 4,000,000 units to meet their profit projections.
But wait, there's more! That's based on last year's numbers. Their investors expect their profits to increase, not remain flat. So unless they are pulling more margin out of this product than their average, or unless they expect to sell a shitload more than 4M units, they made a stupid investment.
Hard-core PC gamers won't even bother buying one of these cards. They'll buy two and run them in SLI.
Lastly, addressing the source of these posts, everyone has varying levels of disposable income which they use for various things. Some like to go to movies, some like to restore old cars, some like to watch figure skating on television. Whatever. Judging what someone else spends on how they waste their time is pointless. Claiming that $250 is too expensive makes a rather large assumption that their income and entertainment values are roughly the same as yours. Claiming that spending money on a gaming card means that you are neglecting your family also makes a very large assumption about individual character.
Remember that actual standards are in many cases based on proprietary standards, and those that aren't can take an very long time to complete and become adopted, because they sometimes lack financial backing and motivation. Bleeding-edge technology will often use proprietary standards at first, with an actual standard emerging with time and popularity. It's also cheaper and faster to introduce features into a proprietary standard instead of pushing widget X through a committee (where your competitors all get to see and comment on it, too).
Some standards die an early death because they take so damn long and are too full of compromises (yes, ATM, I'm talking about you).
Even some things we think of as "standards" really aren't. SIP, for example, isn't so much a standard as it is a collection of RFCs with suggested methods for implementing features.
Wireless was around long before 802.11, VLAN trunking was around long before 802.1q, power over ethernet was around long before 802.1af, etc. In each case there are proprietary solutions that are technically superior to the standards. This is one method for manufacturers to compete for market share.
Perhaps the best example is IPSEC, which was developed by the auto industry and used for B2B between companies for many years before a standard was available. It was a total pain in the ass to do interoperability, but you could make it work between different vendors (usually), and you weren't locked into a single manufacturer (if you did your homework). It sucked at first, but it was still better and more cost effective than the alternative.
So it's really a case of balancing the desire to consume emerging technology and remain competitive versus the desire to have an ironclad guarantee of interoperability.
Lastly, new shit is often complex and often doesn't work well. That applies to everything, not just IT.
Not replying directly to the parent, but it's as good place to interject my thoughts as any. After all, isn't/. a place where everyone is interested in what I say? No?:P
Republican, Democrat, I really don't care. I think it's very simplistic to say that one party is the party of "Good" and the other party is the party of "Evil". They're all Evil, self-serving pricks. Choose your issues, pick your party and vote your candidate, but don't be self-righteous about it.
In proof that the two parties are as Evil (or Good, if you prefer) as each other, I present the following:
Name this President.
He used racial profiling to effectively suspend habeas corpus for, arbitrarily relocate, and in some cases imprison and seize the personal property of many, including both US and non-US citizens. He engaged the US into one of the most costly wars we've ever fought. The war we are currently engaged in is statistically insignificant in comparison. One of the major justifications we use today for this war involve human rights violations. He used our tax dollars, money that we needed at home for social programs, to instead build infrastructure for our defeated enemies. He was so incredibly popular that Congress enacted legislation to limit future Presidents to only two terms in office. He is perceived today as one of the greatest Presidents in US history.
It should be obvious by now that I'm talking about Franklin D. Roosevelt, who happened to be a Democrat. I'm not saying that the Democratic party is defined by the Evil committed by him and his administration, nor is it defined by the Good they also did. Neither should the Republican party be defined by today's administration and events.
Amazon is simply big and slow enough to be able to afford to do a ship-and-return or a block-that-order action when the customer screws up. It was also well-funded enough that it could operate at a loss for something like three years from startup and not die outright. Actually, Amazon is smart enough to wait an hour after you click the button to actually close and put the order into the system, giving the user plenty of time to correct things, change shipping options, remove items, etc. It's a good idea, it's useful to the customer, and it probably should never have been patented.
Let's see how Brasil gets along without Cisco. I imagine they'll get along just fine, what with Juniper, Huawai, Nortel, NEC, Avaya, Alcatel, etc. all providing competitive technology to Cisco's. Cisco has a very, very long list of competitors, all of whom would dance in the streets to pick up even 5% of their market share.
It's more likely that the execs in Brazil thought they understood the tax laws enough that they found a loophole, when in fact they did not. Seriously, does anyone believe that they thought they could forget to pay taxes on $500M of shit and no one would notice? Cisco will pay the negotiated fine, deal with damage control as best they can, and try to get back to business as usual. Try not to get too wrapped up in conspiracy theories.
By pure chance and not through any kind of plan, a few of my friends and myself wound up marrying women born outside the US who immigrated here later (PRC, Poland, Peru and Italy). Three of the four are working professionals with advanced degrees, not mail order brides or anything like that. All of us, men and women both, agree that American women have a sense of entitlement that doesn't seem to exist with women not from the US (Shanghainese women specifically excluded). Obviously this is not a scientific poll by any means, but we had a long discussion over beers and it came down to the current generation of American women, in general, not only desire but expect and demand that their own happiness must be the priority in any relationship.
Just my opinion, I'm sure there are many exceptions to the sweeping generalization I just stated, on both sides of the world, and feel free to mod down as off topic. But I, for one, am glad I'm not having to date American women any more.
Interesting point, but the message is that, in the US, those games could exist, although they would be in very poor taste. The Constitution protects both popular and unpopular speech. If some asshole wants to go off and talk about how wonderful slavery is, or shout on about some crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theory, it's legally protected speech.
However, not all speech is protected, like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when there isn't one. It's sometimes very hard to draw the line, so that's when the US Supreme Court gets involved and interprets the intent of the Constitution.
Calling something "unconstitutional" is usually a surefire way to get something turned over or thrown out (depending on what you want) quickly. Demonstrably, getting a case in front of the US Supreme Court and winning is neither surefire nor quick. In terms of US law, the Constitution is the ultimate legal authority, although it can be amended by our government. It's implied that you may not like the legal system, but then again you might not understand it well, either.
In the US, the Constitution is the ultimate legal authority. The US Supreme Court is often perceived to be the ultimate legal authority because their job is to interpret what the Constitution says and apply it to circumstances. It takes quite a bit of effort to amend the Constitution, so it's hard for asshole politicians to screw it up (although this has happened), and it's equally hard for good politicians, if there is such a thing, to fix problems with it (although this has happened, too).
There's truth in your comment that you only hear from the bad customers and not from the good ones. Satisfied customers have had their expectations met. It's just as true that the majority of people will just quietly take their business elsewhere than even let a company know it had a bad experience. I've been guilty of this many times, but lately I've been better about making an effort to let a company know when I'm not happy, so that they have a chance to keep my business. After all, how can they address my problem if they don't even know there is one? Smart companies proactively ask their customers how they are doing.
Good companies will listen to complaints and try to resolve the situation to everyone's mutual satisfaction.
Bad companies are afraid of complaints because they lack the capacity to address them and they fear other potential customers will hear them. More so now with the popularity of the internet.
Who would you rather do business with, someone who occasionally makes mistakes but tries to make it right, or someone who tries to sue you when you complain?
Lastly, you can absolutely successfully sue someone for defamation, slander, libel and copyright infringement on the internet. Anonymity is a very thin shield for the majority of users. Of course, the definitions of those things may not be what they are thought to be. Simply stating an opinion doesn't qualify.
It's an interesting argument, but it seems to me that it could only work if the GLP copyrighted material was compiled to binary and then modified. Unless you were somehow able to create a derivative work completely in binary, you would have to modify the source, and the GPL requires that modifications to the source be distributed under GPL.
If you have a look at RFC 1631 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1631.txt), NAT wasn't designed for security either. Not arguing a point here, just thought it was interesting to see a parallel.
Yes, just keep repeating to yourself that all the artists that get downloaded fully support your selfless holy war against the injustice of the industry they voluntarily joined. If you say it often enough, you even begin to believe that the artists would rather get nothing for their work in order to support your "principals".
I do agree that the music industry business model is a doomed antique. But I don't try to claim that the process of the demise is morally just in order to feel good about stealing. Music isn't bread or water, it's a luxury item. Don't want to support the RIAA? How about forgoing their product? Then you can proclaim your morality and I won't tell you how full of shit you are.
If you believe that abstract concepts like giving your work away for free and making others happy are more important the realities of selling your work for money to pay the rent, let that start with you.
Mod parent up!
It doesn't really piss me off that some people pirate copyright material. I'd be a hypocrite if it did. It pisses me off that some people try to wrap it into some kind of moral armor by which what they are doing is the right thing to do, instead of just admitting that they'd rather steal than pay if the chance of getting caught is effectively nil and it's just too inconvenient to pay. The bullshit justifications are endless:
"The artists are getting screwed, so I steal to support their righteous cause." Well, the artists are the ones signing the contracts. If I were an artist I'd probably want to get more, too, but I fail to see how it will help to rip me off for what little I did get. The parent post did a much better job than me with this one.
"The product is overpriced and I can't afford it, so I steal it instead. It's company XYZ's fault for trying to charge me such a ridiculous price in the first place." There are things we need and then there are things we want. You can sometimes find moral justification for stealing something you need, but never for what you just want.
"The RIAA sues grandmothers and little girls, which makes them evil, so I steal to get back at them." I just can't make the connection between them being evil making it ok for me to be evil, too.
"DRM prevents me from purchasing legitimately for my XYZ device that doesn't support it, so I am forced to steal instead." DRM doesn't prevent you from purchasing legitimately. It might prevent you from purchasing conveniently, though. It's not as easy to buy a CD/DVD and rip the content onto your portable device, but you can do it if you really want to. Please note that I am not talking about DMCA here, I have no moral problem ignoring the conflict in law between fair use and DMCA restrictions.
But these messages can't be just here on slashdot where the unwashed ignoramuses dare not tread. These messages must be in magazines, on television, and on bulletin boards.
I'm not sure how often you read/., but it's readily apparent that, in fact, the unwashed ignoramuses do visit here, and frequently. Maybe not the ones you were talking about in your post, but we got 'em.
Many of the posts on this topic can be summed up as "only stupid people think Windows is better than Linux, therefor most people are stupid breeders". A more accurate statement might be "only stupid people think that most people care what OS they use". I know I don't. It's just a tool to get a job done. For some jobs, Linux works better. For others, Windows is a better choice. Smart people aren't comparing whether Ubuntu/OSX/Windows is the best OS, they are just using whatever gets the job done for them with the least amount of hassle.
Since Windows came with their system when they bought it, does just about everything they want it to do, and for the most part they don't have to put up with elitist assholes when they seek help with a dumb question, it's an easy choice to make.
As a CAcert member, I would love for them to be included as a root certificate in all the major browsers, including Firefox. But I understand and agree with the reasons it hasn't happened yet. It's a step above self-signed certificates, but their system does have drawbacks that you should research and understand. I do not consider CAcert sufficient for monetary transactions at this time. They have not yet documented their compliance to accepted security policies and standards. They are working on it, though.
CAcert is not GPL, they were reluctant to release their source code, and it is reasonable and prudent to require more than to just be a free CA to get your root certificate included in a major web browser.
There are many relatively small farms in Hawaii that will sell to you direct, and I've had some great coffee this way. Most of them will ship it any way you like it, unroasted, roasted whole bean or, for the truly lazy "good enuf" crown, roasted medium grind.
I made two changes that resulted in much, much better coffee:
1. Switched from the blade-type grinder to a decent burr grinder. The blades give you a grind where half is too fine and the other half is too coarse. Burr grinders cost a lot more but will give you a very consistent grind. This made a big difference to me in flavor.
2. I got a decent drip machine. The one I had before wasn't getting the water hot enough and the coffee I got from it was too weak. The new one wasn't all that expensive but produced much better coffee with a smaller amount of grounds.
Anyway, it's all subjective. I know people that worship Starbucks because that's how coffee should taste to them. I know others that think Starbucks burns everything they roast.
And yes, American coffee generally tastes like crap when compared to what you can get just about anywhere in western Europe. Except the UK, where they could learn a thing or two from Circle K.
I realize I'm beating a dead horse here, but the engine isn't detecting the octane of the fuel. Rather, it's detecting that detonation is happening and attempts to adjust the timing to compensate. I'd be very surprised if the car got better mileage under these conditions, and the performance will certainly suck. The point I wanted to make is that using higher octane fuel than the compression of your engine is designed for _will not result in an improvement of either mileage or performance_.
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Your post is probably the only intelligent thing I'll read on /. today. I wish those with an "exit strategy" would elaborate the plan to include the part about what happens after we pack up and leave. I don't think the plan we have now will work, but then I don't think anything else I've heard will work, either.
The revenue and profit margin numbers were pulled from their public SEC filings. The rest are rough calculations, but they are not SWAGs.
I'm not sure where you got your numbers, but they aren't even close.
nVidia did just over $3B (with a "B") of revenue last year with a net profit margin of 14.6%. This is public information, easily accessible.
Assuming this card costs $250, nVidia makes about $36 of profit per card. Those who understand profit margin calculations know that I just made an error, but I'm just trying to illustrate a point using approximations, and in this case my approximation works against me, so no harm.
Going a step further, let's just assume that nVidia expects this card to comprise of only, say 5% of their total revenue. I'm pulling that 5% from the same place you got your numbers, by the way. I made it up, but I think if anything it's on the low side. This kind of technology takes a lot of R&D, and you don't make big R&D investments into products that only contribute 5% to your revenue stream.
They would need to sell over 4,000,000 units to meet their profit projections.
But wait, there's more! That's based on last year's numbers. Their investors expect their profits to increase, not remain flat. So unless they are pulling more margin out of this product than their average, or unless they expect to sell a shitload more than 4M units, they made a stupid investment.
Hard-core PC gamers won't even bother buying one of these cards. They'll buy two and run them in SLI.
Lastly, addressing the source of these posts, everyone has varying levels of disposable income which they use for various things. Some like to go to movies, some like to restore old cars, some like to watch figure skating on television. Whatever. Judging what someone else spends on how they waste their time is pointless. Claiming that $250 is too expensive makes a rather large assumption that their income and entertainment values are roughly the same as yours. Claiming that spending money on a gaming card means that you are neglecting your family also makes a very large assumption about individual character.
Remember that actual standards are in many cases based on proprietary standards, and those that aren't can take an very long time to complete and become adopted, because they sometimes lack financial backing and motivation. Bleeding-edge technology will often use proprietary standards at first, with an actual standard emerging with time and popularity. It's also cheaper and faster to introduce features into a proprietary standard instead of pushing widget X through a committee (where your competitors all get to see and comment on it, too).
Some standards die an early death because they take so damn long and are too full of compromises (yes, ATM, I'm talking about you).
Even some things we think of as "standards" really aren't. SIP, for example, isn't so much a standard as it is a collection of RFCs with suggested methods for implementing features.
Wireless was around long before 802.11, VLAN trunking was around long before 802.1q, power over ethernet was around long before 802.1af, etc. In each case there are proprietary solutions that are technically superior to the standards. This is one method for manufacturers to compete for market share.
Perhaps the best example is IPSEC, which was developed by the auto industry and used for B2B between companies for many years before a standard was available. It was a total pain in the ass to do interoperability, but you could make it work between different vendors (usually), and you weren't locked into a single manufacturer (if you did your homework). It sucked at first, but it was still better and more cost effective than the alternative.
So it's really a case of balancing the desire to consume emerging technology and remain competitive versus the desire to have an ironclad guarantee of interoperability.
Lastly, new shit is often complex and often doesn't work well. That applies to everything, not just IT.
Not replying directly to the parent, but it's as good place to interject my thoughts as any. After all, isn't /. a place where everyone is interested in what I say? No? :P
Republican, Democrat, I really don't care. I think it's very simplistic to say that one party is the party of "Good" and the other party is the party of "Evil". They're all Evil, self-serving pricks. Choose your issues, pick your party and vote your candidate, but don't be self-righteous about it.
In proof that the two parties are as Evil (or Good, if you prefer) as each other, I present the following:
Name this President.
He used racial profiling to effectively suspend habeas corpus for, arbitrarily relocate, and in some cases imprison and seize the personal property of many, including both US and non-US citizens.
He engaged the US into one of the most costly wars we've ever fought. The war we are currently engaged in is statistically insignificant in comparison.
One of the major justifications we use today for this war involve human rights violations.
He used our tax dollars, money that we needed at home for social programs, to instead build infrastructure for our defeated enemies.
He was so incredibly popular that Congress enacted legislation to limit future Presidents to only two terms in office.
He is perceived today as one of the greatest Presidents in US history.
It should be obvious by now that I'm talking about Franklin D. Roosevelt, who happened to be a Democrat. I'm not saying that the Democratic party is defined by the Evil committed by him and his administration, nor is it defined by the Good they also did. Neither should the Republican party be defined by today's administration and events.
I put it side by side with Lucida Console in PuTTY with ClearType selected for both, and definitely prefer Lucida Console. Maybe I'm just used to it.
It's more likely that the execs in Brazil thought they understood the tax laws enough that they found a loophole, when in fact they did not. Seriously, does anyone believe that they thought they could forget to pay taxes on $500M of shit and no one would notice? Cisco will pay the negotiated fine, deal with damage control as best they can, and try to get back to business as usual. Try not to get too wrapped up in conspiracy theories.
By pure chance and not through any kind of plan, a few of my friends and myself wound up marrying women born outside the US who immigrated here later (PRC, Poland, Peru and Italy). Three of the four are working professionals with advanced degrees, not mail order brides or anything like that. All of us, men and women both, agree that American women have a sense of entitlement that doesn't seem to exist with women not from the US (Shanghainese women specifically excluded). Obviously this is not a scientific poll by any means, but we had a long discussion over beers and it came down to the current generation of American women, in general, not only desire but expect and demand that their own happiness must be the priority in any relationship.
Just my opinion, I'm sure there are many exceptions to the sweeping generalization I just stated, on both sides of the world, and feel free to mod down as off topic. But I, for one, am glad I'm not having to date American women any more.
Interesting point, but the message is that, in the US, those games could exist, although they would be in very poor taste. The Constitution protects both popular and unpopular speech. If some asshole wants to go off and talk about how wonderful slavery is, or shout on about some crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theory, it's legally protected speech.
However, not all speech is protected, like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when there isn't one. It's sometimes very hard to draw the line, so that's when the US Supreme Court gets involved and interprets the intent of the Constitution.
In the US, the Constitution is the ultimate legal authority. The US Supreme Court is often perceived to be the ultimate legal authority because their job is to interpret what the Constitution says and apply it to circumstances. It takes quite a bit of effort to amend the Constitution, so it's hard for asshole politicians to screw it up (although this has happened), and it's equally hard for good politicians, if there is such a thing, to fix problems with it (although this has happened, too).
Wow. A grammar nazi slap fight. Awesome.
Moderators, this post is as relevant to the article as all the ones to which I'm replying. Please mod down along with the rest of them.
Bloggers have proved false the theory that a million monkeys with typewriters will eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare.
From what I can tell from RTFA, the speech in question was not a parody.
Interesting rant.
There's truth in your comment that you only hear from the bad customers and not from the good ones. Satisfied customers have had their expectations met. It's just as true that the majority of people will just quietly take their business elsewhere than even let a company know it had a bad experience. I've been guilty of this many times, but lately I've been better about making an effort to let a company know when I'm not happy, so that they have a chance to keep my business. After all, how can they address my problem if they don't even know there is one? Smart companies proactively ask their customers how they are doing.
Good companies will listen to complaints and try to resolve the situation to everyone's mutual satisfaction.
Bad companies are afraid of complaints because they lack the capacity to address them and they fear other potential customers will hear them. More so now with the popularity of the internet.
Who would you rather do business with, someone who occasionally makes mistakes but tries to make it right, or someone who tries to sue you when you complain?
Lastly, you can absolutely successfully sue someone for defamation, slander, libel and copyright infringement on the internet. Anonymity is a very thin shield for the majority of users. Of course, the definitions of those things may not be what they are thought to be. Simply stating an opinion doesn't qualify.
It's an interesting argument, but it seems to me that it could only work if the GLP copyrighted material was compiled to binary and then modified. Unless you were somehow able to create a derivative work completely in binary, you would have to modify the source, and the GPL requires that modifications to the source be distributed under GPL.
If you have a look at RFC 1631 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1631.txt), NAT wasn't designed for security either. Not arguing a point here, just thought it was interesting to see a parallel.
Yes, just keep repeating to yourself that all the artists that get downloaded fully support your selfless holy war against the injustice of the industry they voluntarily joined. If you say it often enough, you even begin to believe that the artists would rather get nothing for their work in order to support your "principals".
I do agree that the music industry business model is a doomed antique. But I don't try to claim that the process of the demise is morally just in order to feel good about stealing. Music isn't bread or water, it's a luxury item. Don't want to support the RIAA? How about forgoing their product? Then you can proclaim your morality and I won't tell you how full of shit you are.
Mod parent up!
It doesn't really piss me off that some people pirate copyright material. I'd be a hypocrite if it did. It pisses me off that some people try to wrap it into some kind of moral armor by which what they are doing is the right thing to do, instead of just admitting that they'd rather steal than pay if the chance of getting caught is effectively nil and it's just too inconvenient to pay. The bullshit justifications are endless:
"The artists are getting screwed, so I steal to support their righteous cause."
Well, the artists are the ones signing the contracts. If I were an artist I'd probably want to get more, too, but I fail to see how it will help to rip me off for what little I did get. The parent post did a much better job than me with this one.
"The product is overpriced and I can't afford it, so I steal it instead. It's company XYZ's fault for trying to charge me such a ridiculous price in the first place."
There are things we need and then there are things we want. You can sometimes find moral justification for stealing something you need, but never for what you just want.
"The RIAA sues grandmothers and little girls, which makes them evil, so I steal to get back at them."
I just can't make the connection between them being evil making it ok for me to be evil, too.
"DRM prevents me from purchasing legitimately for my XYZ device that doesn't support it, so I am forced to steal instead."
DRM doesn't prevent you from purchasing legitimately. It might prevent you from purchasing conveniently, though. It's not as easy to buy a CD/DVD and rip the content onto your portable device, but you can do it if you really want to. Please note that I am not talking about DMCA here, I have no moral problem ignoring the conflict in law between fair use and DMCA restrictions.
I'm not sure how often you read
Many of the posts on this topic can be summed up as "only stupid people think Windows is better than Linux, therefor most people are stupid breeders". A more accurate statement might be "only stupid people think that most people care what OS they use". I know I don't. It's just a tool to get a job done. For some jobs, Linux works better. For others, Windows is a better choice. Smart people aren't comparing whether Ubuntu/OSX/Windows is the best OS, they are just using whatever gets the job done for them with the least amount of hassle.
Since Windows came with their system when they bought it, does just about everything they want it to do, and for the most part they don't have to put up with elitist assholes when they seek help with a dumb question, it's an easy choice to make.
As a CAcert member, I would love for them to be included as a root certificate in all the major browsers, including Firefox. But I understand and agree with the reasons it hasn't happened yet. It's a step above self-signed certificates, but their system does have drawbacks that you should research and understand. I do not consider CAcert sufficient for monetary transactions at this time. They have not yet documented their compliance to accepted security policies and standards. They are working on it, though.
8 5c7c27aa2c5f493507295453295a15e0132dbc9):
CAcert is not GPL, they were reluctant to release their source code, and it is reasonable and prudent to require more than to just be a free CA to get your root certificate included in a major web browser.
Also, you are blaming the wrong party at this point. From CAcert's own WiKi ( http://wiki.cacert.org/wiki/InclusionStatus#head-
"Mozilla has established a fair and firm policy which CAcert should be able to meet. Then they threw the ball back to CAcert."
Don't get me wrong. I _like_ CAcert. I _use_ CAcert. I just don't think my grandmother should implicitly trust them, yet.
There are many relatively small farms in Hawaii that will sell to you direct, and I've had some great coffee this way. Most of them will ship it any way you like it, unroasted, roasted whole bean or, for the truly lazy "good enuf" crown, roasted medium grind.
I made two changes that resulted in much, much better coffee:
1. Switched from the blade-type grinder to a decent burr grinder. The blades give you a grind where half is too fine and the other half is too coarse. Burr grinders cost a lot more but will give you a very consistent grind. This made a big difference to me in flavor.
2. I got a decent drip machine. The one I had before wasn't getting the water hot enough and the coffee I got from it was too weak. The new one wasn't all that expensive but produced much better coffee with a smaller amount of grounds.
Anyway, it's all subjective. I know people that worship Starbucks because that's how coffee should taste to them. I know others that think Starbucks burns everything they roast.
And yes, American coffee generally tastes like crap when compared to what you can get just about anywhere in western Europe. Except the UK, where they could learn a thing or two from Circle K.
I realize I'm beating a dead horse here, but the engine isn't detecting the octane of the fuel. Rather, it's detecting that detonation is happening and attempts to adjust the timing to compensate. I'd be very surprised if the car got better mileage under these conditions, and the performance will certainly suck. The point I wanted to make is that using higher octane fuel than the compression of your engine is designed for _will not result in an improvement of either mileage or performance_.