MeeGo proved nothing, blackberry OS is a better argument due to the nature of North American adoption driving world markets over the last 50 years. I would even argue the sidekick OS "Danger" was viable but the iOS took it to an already primed pump and took the revolutionary step. Android democratiized it. Going back more than about 5-8 years muddies the vision of where we were clearly going. It's like referring back to the earliest mobile computer as a laptop, it's mobile but nobody could use it in their lap or really want to.
To be completely fair Westinghouse, Edison, GE, RCA, and others from that era sued the hell out of their copiers. But that's because they built identically functioning devices. This fight is about appearance & confusion since both use off-the-shelf components. The difference is in the OS and they know it. Instead apple is hell bent on keeping the premium market to themselves for at least another few years.
Know why that's news? Because it's not normal. Regardless the nationwide pricing scheme is a failure as well if we're going to argue cellular placement on the regional level.
the issue is without a visible spectrum map showing problem areas and times this argument over caps is a blatant money grab. They're playing on people's moral superiority complex and greed to protect their scam from being found out. Very few areas actually have real congestion, it's like rush hour traffic. But in this case building more lanes (I.e. more towers) is not cost prohibitive. Especially in urban areas where tall buildings can erect small towers this is a non-issue.
Seriously, where did this 3D perception of politics take hold? It's 2D for a reason. One is either liberal or conservative to varying degrees. Putting the views into a cohesive view places one along the line somewhere. So let's make it a football field with the 50 yard line being center. Bush 43 would be at the 20-30 yard line Perry at the 15, Paul would be in the stands behind the end zone on the right. His views are corporatist just by defacto ignorance of the system. He is utterly nave to business or an idiot. His social views are just as myopic in that he would empower the states to once again discriminate at will. He is a right-winger of the highest order so let's stop trying to move up and down as it allows cognitive dissonance which is unhealthy.
The whole point of that passage was to prove that paranoia drove the world in 1984. In fact that was the whole message of the book. Winston gave up because the system was self perpetuating. This is a loosely-similar idea that would be demolished the first time some horny IT guy figured out how to turn on little susie's camera in her bedroom. The inevitable outcome is set just like the charter school laptops from about a year ago. I know slashdot is obsessed with dystopian paranoia but history has told us we're flexible but not incredibly stupid about it. Inevitably if the cameras were turned on somebody would tattle or try to use it against somebody and the whole situation would blow up.
Not a single slashdotter was alive to see the pre-general welfare clause era and most if not all were not part of an old money ivy league family so the subtle shift towards the welfare of the people since the progressive era helped nearly everybody who posts here to rise to their current level.
That being said the libtertarians who don't really understand they're right-wing players attacking from a different angle insist this is an attack on their "liberty" to buy bad drinks for themselves at a lower price. Alcohol is similarly taxed, sin taxation is nothing new. This is the first time we're looking our unhealthy eating habits in the eye and much the same arguments are coming out that tried to protect smoking. It's simply indefensible due to the nature of the beast. The only reason why tobacco still is legal is because of the healthy corporations who pay through the nose to protect its legal status. Just as Frito-Lay, cocacola, and Pepsico will now try and do.
It was a general nice round number. Most of that cost is honestly the panels themselves. You told just buy 10 for a house, you buy more like 15-25 and then you're paying 5-10K for installation which is still fairly cheap for actual roof work on the scale it's being done at.
I concur as the NES had only one true sequel to SMB1 and that was SMB3. The SNES had SMB World and then the yoshi games played similarly but aren't really effectively sequels. N64's SMB 64 had no successors as Sunshine and Galaxy played differently. The ultimate issue is the media has created narratives that we blindly follow. Nintendo is rehashing their first-party titles over and over again because since the N64 they've been the only consistent hits. With the Wii though there were several good Third-party games just not enough.
As an aside, I did see that Nintendo is introducing a stock-standard Xbox 360-like controller for the WiiU. Welcome to a three-way race with Nintendo getting the head start.
Thank you for breaking down the numbers. If anything if you can afford a $1200+ mortgage the addition of of what amounts to less than 10% increase per month should be negligible for the household. On top of that if we built up the smart grid that funneled most of the excess residential electricity into offices during the day and then used smaller power plants or battery packs using the offices downtimes (early evening, early morning, weekends) to offset some houses may see a net gain as they sell their electricity to the grid. In other words cost of entry is still by far the worst issue we face with solar panels and green energy. Until we decide on a TVA-like program we'll never be able to free ourselves from coal as such because large scale power companies enjoy the monopoly they have over generation and distribution.
Mario was in 12 games starring him in 21 years. Final fantasy did 14 over 23 years. Without getting into the days difference final fantasy is releasing more often than Mario has. Zelda and metroid are far slower. Other have released in the single digits over the same time period. Admittingly Halo is behind the cure averaging only 8-9 in that same period at the current pace. The only issue for Nintendo has been third party support and always has been because they take their image and quality fairly serious.
The wiiU rectified the lack of power issue and will ironically hobble the PS4/720 as developers will simply port the basest version to the others. So third party support will flood the system, we'll probably see a more "traditional" controller show up as well for the fps games. It's shaping up t be interesting for Nintendo.
Fundamentally streaming services like netflix and their cable/sat/Fiber counterparts are paying based on an equality model. Everybody pitches in so the price is dilluted but higher than a few shows. Any model that involves paying double or more for access to new shows is broken because in order to make sense individuals have to lay out far more to consume far less.
Sports also leave all these systems wanting. Until ESPN offers a netflix/roku/apple TV app for a monthly fee the ability to compete will be weak. Really as we get away further and further from physically draining work TV will loose more and more of it's appeal compared to the internet and other activities.
The US has higher crime rates in states that do have "reasonable" gun control laws. It's much more complicated than simply removing guns. It's a deep set cultural idea and the issues associated with them. The US is not canada or Europe. The US is the US. So drawing conclusions is nigh impossible in comparison.
The modern criminal has drug problems a majority of the time. The more complex criminal we see in media does exist but is usually just as vicious as his drug-addled counterpart. It's much like how rival gangs and drug dealers are murdering each other over a few dollars. Killing people is a "heat of the moment" issue. Morals and smarts are limited in that situation and sadly even "good" criminals do bad things.
So we can safely say that even in so-called disarmed societies where guns are cost-prohibitive to obtain (as in some EU countries) they'll obtain them. It's any advantage they can get. The best detterant for gun-related crimes is to make it an automatic life sentence and disallow the DA to drop them in order to get a plea.
Modern western governments have been totalitarian thrice in the past 100. Twice it took other western governments to undo the damage. Basically gun rights are not there to overthrow the state. If anything it is there to protect it. In a democracy guns carry far less power than the ballot box. But as a society I can say that firearms are an effective deterrant in stopping financial-influenced crime but upticks passion-influenced ones. Still overall crime has been trending downwards over the last several decades as gun rights have fluxuated so correlation with actual results are limited.
No, not really. Flat-rate pricing is based on the size of your pipe. It's their problem to build a network big enough to handle peak traffic. Really it isn't that costly by comparison. They simply do the math on X amount of servers handling Y amount of peak traffic. Add up the total cost of running everything 24/7. Now multiply it by a factor of 1.15 or really any number you choose greater than 1. Now divide that number by the base amount of installs you have in consumers homes. BOOM! You just turned a profit and ideally you'll use some of that profit year-to-year to buy new servers and expand the pipes. The current problem is that as the internet speeds up access to media has become ubiquitous. So what was essentially gravy on Comcast's/Fios'/Cox/Time Warner's profitable cable divisions has become a liability as people don't necessarily cut the line but simply shift their watching away from commercialized products and rely on torrents, youtube, hulu and an assortment of other media sites not to mention cloud storage.
The whole metered argument is obtuse and fundamentally broken because data doesn't work like that. The same applies to cellular data as spectrum is underutilized in the suburbs and over-utilized in the urban areas. So charging people X amount for Y amount of data is just as stupid. The internet is a constant flow of information, it doesn't matter how many cars travel on the highway in a given day it's the speed at which they travel that matters. They simply don't want to be a boring utility service that goes about it's business as if nothing has happened. Their leadership thinks they can wring the profit right out of us. So to finally turn around and reach my point after ranting for far too long, no, flat-rate pricing can NOT be unfair as long as they aren't losing money. Most things in society are flat-rate priced, they get by just fine.
Psst....Your argument is obsolete. Ok, I'll be honest, it's just obtuse. Trying to deem the post office "obsolete" because they deliver paper-based products to consumers as if it was their only job is silly. As several respondents have stated they deliver the majority of parcels in this country, if anything the cost of internet commerce would skyrocket if the USPS were to collapse as the only competition would be between rival private parcel services that won't fall for the Jay Gould-style pricing wars. They're currently colluding as their businesses are currently large enough to self-sustain so the removal of the USPS would simply allow them to move further up the profit ladder.
I would argue that government with the breakdown of political machines are now more reliant on corporate donations to wage ideological wars on each other rather than use their political muscle for more useful agendas like public interest spending to promote their party. Essentially the money game has shifted from building new libraries, schools, and patching roads to simply putting as much filth on the air as humanly possible. I rue the breakdown of the political machine politicians for we replaced a benevolent dictator with an ideological tyrant hell-bent on driving a stake through the heart of their enemy while feeding on the teat of their collective mother.
Anecdotal remark on cost. Shift argument towards "prioritizing." Blame poor for being poor though capitalism is a pyramid that needs a wide base of relatively poor to function. Complain about theoretical people that don't exist that do things that they disapprove of because of their socioeconomic status.
There you go, I fixed that for you...
I would agree on a fundamental level people don't know how to budget well for things that will get them ahead in life but I would also point out that psychologically and socioeconomically if they did budget for success for their children their own lives would be far less bearable. In other words they are asked to be martyr's for their children to climb a rung above them who will in turn become martyr's for their children. We're currently seeing a backslide in generational independence from baby boomers for various economic reasons that have more to do with globalization and the shift of wealth upwards than anything else. This is just another nail in the proverbial coffin for the US's vibrant identity as the wealthy are using the moderately well-off and ignorant poor to further tighten the noose. The fact that this whole argument is hinging around "prioritization" and not a natural right that should be provided for is another adherent to the social hierarchy scheme where they get to piss on the head of the next person down from them while they bask in the yellow rain from their supposed betters.
Of course the expense in solar power is installation but we've proven that for middle and lower economic class citizens cost of entry is usually the barrier for most advances. Picture the advance of the automobile. At the turn of the 20th century most people used mass transit (both public and private) by the turn of the 21st century that was relegated to the poorest of our society only, yes, I know exceptions exist but fundamentally I am speaking about the vast majority of Americans that live outside of the Big-5 cities. The cost of covering most dwellings in the US is negligible compared to the power savings they would generate if the government subsidized the initial installation. As panels would wear out unevenly cost of replacement would become manageable for the average middle-class household. Single high quality panels are sub-$1000 and in my area are hovering around $5-600. That's a manageable cost compared to the 25K+ it can run to install. Thus it is simply a question of how do we get the entry barrier low enough to make the argument feasible. New construction would be an obvious choice as tacking 25K onto the asking price of a home already north of 150K is minimal considering the immediate savings gained. But currently built homes would need the most government initiative to make it function. I picture essentially the TVA done over. Incur the debt today to increase productivity tomorrow.
Then again replying to Geekoid is pretty much feeding a troll if his past comments are anything. He's a walking encyclopedia of stupid thoughts and insults laced together to appear pseudo-intellectual.
They aren't competitive though. You keep missing the point. Intel's Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge integrated GPUs basically do video playback on laptops at a suitable level. They cannot play any sort of games made within the last 2-3 years at any level beyond the most base settings. the A-series processors by comparison can play the newest games at relatively low settings and the new Trinity based models can do it at reasonable settings. With the newest A10 laptops starting prices around $600 for 17' laptop that's quite competitive since the first Nvidia/AMD dedicated laptops that can hold a candle to them start around $800-900. The small ultrabooks are going to be harder to justify using intel when the A10 will do it all faster and just as thin. In other words AMD has a serious contender in the mobile market for gaming and cost-effectiveness.
The problem remains that Intel holds the cards on mainstream OEMs and will continue to keep the A-series processors out of the big seller's hands because mobile is becoming their bread and butter.
2002 I stopped using Microsoft. 2012 I stopped using Google.
2012 - Nobody stopped using Google except for the obnoxiously paranoid crowd of/. 2013 - Google remained the juggernaut and this weird quasi-yellow journalism piece is forgotten
Rinse and repeat.
Google is always going to get involved in products that play to their strengths. We're not likely going to see Google buy out Proctor and Gamble or jump into the Motor Vehicle field. The real difference between Microsoft and Google is that Google is trying to build a product line up that uses the information gathered to sell products, essentially financing the internet like we financed Television in the 1950s. Microsoft simply went about buying up businesses to integrate into their core product like most manufacturers. Microsoft is just more high-profile because almost all their acquisitions were consumer-level rather than supplier-level and thus hidden.
The problem I see with this sort of talk is that it snowballs because a few like-minded people stop using Google while the vast majority of the world keeps moving on without even thinking about it. I imagine Dropbox and their competitors will hold on to the early adopters who see no reason to switch but the later players will most likely use the integrated Google drive as it syncs with their android device and plays nicely with everything else Google has released.
We live in this world. Any such positive statements must be treated with skepticism.
The difference is in the validity of the arguments.
All real Scotsman argument in action. Any positive statement that seems SUSPECT must be treated with skepticism. Your argument is that anything anybody says that is positive about large corporation products is possibly a lie which is absurd on it's face. The statistical likelihood of a person being a shill (S) vs. a normal person (N) is astronomical. Reality dictates that N = True most of the time on a timeline. So if S is only true a small fraction of the time we would have to functionally accept N as a true until proven wrong, in other words your first assumption to treat it with skepticism is actually the unhealthy way to handle it and breeds continued contempt for a product that may or may not have earned it. In other words,/. breeds hate for windows even though arguably a majority of the visitors here probably use it. The vocal minority of linux lovers love linux and I support that but it isn't a sum-zero argument, both sides can be perfectly good and perfectly rotten. If anything Windows has been a rather good OS since XP and now 7. Each iteration moves the product along and while Linux can be wonderful numerous issues hold it back upto and including the lack of real corporate support. Nobody is out there vouching for Linux at Dell/HP/Whitebox manufacturers and until they do we'll see Mac's OS X-derivatives increase their market share while Linux stays at about the same.
Think of electricity as waves crashing against the beach. Amps are how tall they are, volts how many are arriving in a frame of time or frequency. Watts is a measurement that gives a volumetric answer to power usage. It's a perfectly valid way to measure since we pay based on wattage per hour.
Slashdot Mirror
MeeGo proved nothing, blackberry OS is a better argument due to the nature of North American adoption driving world markets over the last 50 years. I would even argue the sidekick OS "Danger" was viable but the iOS took it to an already primed pump and took the revolutionary step. Android democratiized it. Going back more than about 5-8 years muddies the vision of where we were clearly going. It's like referring back to the earliest mobile computer as a laptop, it's mobile but nobody could use it in their lap or really want to.
To be completely fair Westinghouse, Edison, GE, RCA, and others from that era sued the hell out of their copiers. But that's because they built identically functioning devices. This fight is about appearance & confusion since both use off-the-shelf components. The difference is in the OS and they know it. Instead apple is hell bent on keeping the premium market to themselves for at least another few years.
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal?
Know why that's news? Because it's not normal. Regardless the nationwide pricing scheme is a failure as well if we're going to argue cellular placement on the regional level.
Dear capitalism,
You've failed. Utilities should be publicly owned.
Signed,
The world at large.
the issue is without a visible spectrum map showing problem areas and times this argument over caps is a blatant money grab. They're playing on people's moral superiority complex and greed to protect their scam from being found out. Very few areas actually have real congestion, it's like rush hour traffic. But in this case building more lanes (I.e. more towers) is not cost prohibitive. Especially in urban areas where tall buildings can erect small towers this is a non-issue.
Seriously, where did this 3D perception of politics take hold? It's 2D for a reason. One is either liberal or conservative to varying degrees. Putting the views into a cohesive view places one along the line somewhere. So let's make it a football field with the 50 yard line being center. Bush 43 would be at the 20-30 yard line Perry at the 15, Paul would be in the stands behind the end zone on the right. His views are corporatist just by defacto ignorance of the system. He is utterly nave to business or an idiot. His social views are just as myopic in that he would empower the states to once again discriminate at will. He is a right-winger of the highest order so let's stop trying to move up and down as it allows cognitive dissonance which is unhealthy.
The whole point of that passage was to prove that paranoia drove the world in 1984. In fact that was the whole message of the book. Winston gave up because the system was self perpetuating. This is a loosely-similar idea that would be demolished the first time some horny IT guy figured out how to turn on little susie's camera in her bedroom. The inevitable outcome is set just like the charter school laptops from about a year ago. I know slashdot is obsessed with dystopian paranoia but history has told us we're flexible but not incredibly stupid about it. Inevitably if the cameras were turned on somebody would tattle or try to use it against somebody and the whole situation would blow up.
Not a single slashdotter was alive to see the pre-general welfare clause era and most if not all were not part of an old money ivy league family so the subtle shift towards the welfare of the people since the progressive era helped nearly everybody who posts here to rise to their current level.
That being said the libtertarians who don't really understand they're right-wing players attacking from a different angle insist this is an attack on their "liberty" to buy bad drinks for themselves at a lower price. Alcohol is similarly taxed, sin taxation is nothing new. This is the first time we're looking our unhealthy eating habits in the eye and much the same arguments are coming out that tried to protect smoking. It's simply indefensible due to the nature of the beast. The only reason why tobacco still is legal is because of the healthy corporations who pay through the nose to protect its legal status. Just as Frito-Lay, cocacola, and Pepsico will now try and do.
It was a general nice round number. Most of that cost is honestly the panels themselves. You told just buy 10 for a house, you buy more like 15-25 and then you're paying 5-10K for installation which is still fairly cheap for actual roof work on the scale it's being done at.
I concur as the NES had only one true sequel to SMB1 and that was SMB3. The SNES had SMB World and then the yoshi games played similarly but aren't really effectively sequels. N64's SMB 64 had no successors as Sunshine and Galaxy played differently. The ultimate issue is the media has created narratives that we blindly follow. Nintendo is rehashing their first-party titles over and over again because since the N64 they've been the only consistent hits. With the Wii though there were several good Third-party games just not enough.
As an aside, I did see that Nintendo is introducing a stock-standard Xbox 360-like controller for the WiiU. Welcome to a three-way race with Nintendo getting the head start.
Thank you for breaking down the numbers. If anything if you can afford a $1200+ mortgage the addition of of what amounts to less than 10% increase per month should be negligible for the household. On top of that if we built up the smart grid that funneled most of the excess residential electricity into offices during the day and then used smaller power plants or battery packs using the offices downtimes (early evening, early morning, weekends) to offset some houses may see a net gain as they sell their electricity to the grid. In other words cost of entry is still by far the worst issue we face with solar panels and green energy. Until we decide on a TVA-like program we'll never be able to free ourselves from coal as such because large scale power companies enjoy the monopoly they have over generation and distribution.
Mario was in 12 games starring him in 21 years. Final fantasy did 14 over 23 years. Without getting into the days difference final fantasy is releasing more often than Mario has. Zelda and metroid are far slower. Other have released in the single digits over the same time period. Admittingly Halo is behind the cure averaging only 8-9 in that same period at the current pace. The only issue for Nintendo has been third party support and always has been because they take their image and quality fairly serious.
The wiiU rectified the lack of power issue and will ironically hobble the PS4/720 as developers will simply port the basest version to the others. So third party support will flood the system, we'll probably see a more "traditional" controller show up as well for the fps games. It's shaping up t be interesting for Nintendo.
Fundamentally streaming services like netflix and their cable/sat/Fiber counterparts are paying based on an equality model. Everybody pitches in so the price is dilluted but higher than a few shows. Any model that involves paying double or more for access to new shows is broken because in order to make sense individuals have to lay out far more to consume far less.
Sports also leave all these systems wanting. Until ESPN offers a netflix/roku/apple TV app for a monthly fee the ability to compete will be weak. Really as we get away further and further from physically draining work TV will loose more and more of it's appeal compared to the internet and other activities.
The US has higher crime rates in states that do have "reasonable" gun control laws. It's much more complicated than simply removing guns. It's a deep set cultural idea and the issues associated with them. The US is not canada or Europe. The US is the US. So drawing conclusions is nigh impossible in comparison.
The modern criminal has drug problems a majority of the time. The more complex criminal we see in media does exist but is usually just as vicious as his drug-addled counterpart. It's much like how rival gangs and drug dealers are murdering each other over a few dollars. Killing people is a "heat of the moment" issue. Morals and smarts are limited in that situation and sadly even "good" criminals do bad things.
So we can safely say that even in so-called disarmed societies where guns are cost-prohibitive to obtain (as in some EU countries) they'll obtain them. It's any advantage they can get. The best detterant for gun-related crimes is to make it an automatic life sentence and disallow the DA to drop them in order to get a plea.
Modern western governments have been totalitarian thrice in the past 100. Twice it took other western governments to undo the damage. Basically gun rights are not there to overthrow the state. If anything it is there to protect it. In a democracy guns carry far less power than the ballot box. But as a society I can say that firearms are an effective deterrant in stopping financial-influenced crime but upticks passion-influenced ones. Still overall crime has been trending downwards over the last several decades as gun rights have fluxuated so correlation with actual results are limited.
No, not really. Flat-rate pricing is based on the size of your pipe. It's their problem to build a network big enough to handle peak traffic. Really it isn't that costly by comparison. They simply do the math on X amount of servers handling Y amount of peak traffic. Add up the total cost of running everything 24/7. Now multiply it by a factor of 1.15 or really any number you choose greater than 1. Now divide that number by the base amount of installs you have in consumers homes. BOOM! You just turned a profit and ideally you'll use some of that profit year-to-year to buy new servers and expand the pipes. The current problem is that as the internet speeds up access to media has become ubiquitous. So what was essentially gravy on Comcast's/Fios'/Cox/Time Warner's profitable cable divisions has become a liability as people don't necessarily cut the line but simply shift their watching away from commercialized products and rely on torrents, youtube, hulu and an assortment of other media sites not to mention cloud storage.
The whole metered argument is obtuse and fundamentally broken because data doesn't work like that. The same applies to cellular data as spectrum is underutilized in the suburbs and over-utilized in the urban areas. So charging people X amount for Y amount of data is just as stupid. The internet is a constant flow of information, it doesn't matter how many cars travel on the highway in a given day it's the speed at which they travel that matters. They simply don't want to be a boring utility service that goes about it's business as if nothing has happened. Their leadership thinks they can wring the profit right out of us. So to finally turn around and reach my point after ranting for far too long, no, flat-rate pricing can NOT be unfair as long as they aren't losing money. Most things in society are flat-rate priced, they get by just fine.
Psst....Your argument is obsolete. Ok, I'll be honest, it's just obtuse. Trying to deem the post office "obsolete" because they deliver paper-based products to consumers as if it was their only job is silly. As several respondents have stated they deliver the majority of parcels in this country, if anything the cost of internet commerce would skyrocket if the USPS were to collapse as the only competition would be between rival private parcel services that won't fall for the Jay Gould-style pricing wars. They're currently colluding as their businesses are currently large enough to self-sustain so the removal of the USPS would simply allow them to move further up the profit ladder.
I would argue that government with the breakdown of political machines are now more reliant on corporate donations to wage ideological wars on each other rather than use their political muscle for more useful agendas like public interest spending to promote their party. Essentially the money game has shifted from building new libraries, schools, and patching roads to simply putting as much filth on the air as humanly possible. I rue the breakdown of the political machine politicians for we replaced a benevolent dictator with an ideological tyrant hell-bent on driving a stake through the heart of their enemy while feeding on the teat of their collective mother.
Anecdotal remark on cost. Shift argument towards "prioritizing." Blame poor for being poor though capitalism is a pyramid that needs a wide base of relatively poor to function. Complain about theoretical people that don't exist that do things that they disapprove of because of their socioeconomic status.
There you go, I fixed that for you...
I would agree on a fundamental level people don't know how to budget well for things that will get them ahead in life but I would also point out that psychologically and socioeconomically if they did budget for success for their children their own lives would be far less bearable. In other words they are asked to be martyr's for their children to climb a rung above them who will in turn become martyr's for their children. We're currently seeing a backslide in generational independence from baby boomers for various economic reasons that have more to do with globalization and the shift of wealth upwards than anything else. This is just another nail in the proverbial coffin for the US's vibrant identity as the wealthy are using the moderately well-off and ignorant poor to further tighten the noose. The fact that this whole argument is hinging around "prioritization" and not a natural right that should be provided for is another adherent to the social hierarchy scheme where they get to piss on the head of the next person down from them while they bask in the yellow rain from their supposed betters.
Of course the expense in solar power is installation but we've proven that for middle and lower economic class citizens cost of entry is usually the barrier for most advances. Picture the advance of the automobile. At the turn of the 20th century most people used mass transit (both public and private) by the turn of the 21st century that was relegated to the poorest of our society only, yes, I know exceptions exist but fundamentally I am speaking about the vast majority of Americans that live outside of the Big-5 cities. The cost of covering most dwellings in the US is negligible compared to the power savings they would generate if the government subsidized the initial installation. As panels would wear out unevenly cost of replacement would become manageable for the average middle-class household. Single high quality panels are sub-$1000 and in my area are hovering around $5-600. That's a manageable cost compared to the 25K+ it can run to install. Thus it is simply a question of how do we get the entry barrier low enough to make the argument feasible. New construction would be an obvious choice as tacking 25K onto the asking price of a home already north of 150K is minimal considering the immediate savings gained. But currently built homes would need the most government initiative to make it function. I picture essentially the TVA done over. Incur the debt today to increase productivity tomorrow.
Then again replying to Geekoid is pretty much feeding a troll if his past comments are anything. He's a walking encyclopedia of stupid thoughts and insults laced together to appear pseudo-intellectual.
They aren't competitive though. You keep missing the point. Intel's Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge integrated GPUs basically do video playback on laptops at a suitable level. They cannot play any sort of games made within the last 2-3 years at any level beyond the most base settings. the A-series processors by comparison can play the newest games at relatively low settings and the new Trinity based models can do it at reasonable settings. With the newest A10 laptops starting prices around $600 for 17' laptop that's quite competitive since the first Nvidia/AMD dedicated laptops that can hold a candle to them start around $800-900. The small ultrabooks are going to be harder to justify using intel when the A10 will do it all faster and just as thin. In other words AMD has a serious contender in the mobile market for gaming and cost-effectiveness.
The problem remains that Intel holds the cards on mainstream OEMs and will continue to keep the A-series processors out of the big seller's hands because mobile is becoming their bread and butter.
2002 I stopped using Microsoft.
2012 I stopped using Google.
2012 - Nobody stopped using Google except for the obnoxiously paranoid crowd of /.
2013 - Google remained the juggernaut and this weird quasi-yellow journalism piece is forgotten
Rinse and repeat.
Google is always going to get involved in products that play to their strengths. We're not likely going to see Google buy out Proctor and Gamble or jump into the Motor Vehicle field. The real difference between Microsoft and Google is that Google is trying to build a product line up that uses the information gathered to sell products, essentially financing the internet like we financed Television in the 1950s. Microsoft simply went about buying up businesses to integrate into their core product like most manufacturers. Microsoft is just more high-profile because almost all their acquisitions were consumer-level rather than supplier-level and thus hidden.
The problem I see with this sort of talk is that it snowballs because a few like-minded people stop using Google while the vast majority of the world keeps moving on without even thinking about it. I imagine Dropbox and their competitors will hold on to the early adopters who see no reason to switch but the later players will most likely use the integrated Google drive as it syncs with their android device and plays nicely with everything else Google has released.
We live in this world. Any such positive statements must be treated with skepticism.
The difference is in the validity of the arguments.
All real Scotsman argument in action. Any positive statement that seems SUSPECT must be treated with skepticism. Your argument is that anything anybody says that is positive about large corporation products is possibly a lie which is absurd on it's face. The statistical likelihood of a person being a shill (S) vs. a normal person (N) is astronomical. Reality dictates that N = True most of the time on a timeline. So if S is only true a small fraction of the time we would have to functionally accept N as a true until proven wrong, in other words your first assumption to treat it with skepticism is actually the unhealthy way to handle it and breeds continued contempt for a product that may or may not have earned it. In other words, /. breeds hate for windows even though arguably a majority of the visitors here probably use it. The vocal minority of linux lovers love linux and I support that but it isn't a sum-zero argument, both sides can be perfectly good and perfectly rotten. If anything Windows has been a rather good OS since XP and now 7. Each iteration moves the product along and while Linux can be wonderful numerous issues hold it back upto and including the lack of real corporate support. Nobody is out there vouching for Linux at Dell/HP/Whitebox manufacturers and until they do we'll see Mac's OS X-derivatives increase their market share while Linux stays at about the same.
Think of electricity as waves crashing against the beach. Amps are how tall they are, volts how many are arriving in a frame of time or frequency. Watts is a measurement that gives a volumetric answer to power usage. It's a perfectly valid way to measure since we pay based on wattage per hour.