Just for a frame of reference (All prices quoted from Price watch):
Intel Pentium III CPU at 733mhz $82
Nvida nForce 420-D (Could not locate price chip only comes on integrated motherboards cheapest integrated motherboard is A-bit NV7M) $87
64 meg DDR Ram (No 32 or 64meg chips available price for a single DDR PC1600) $18
Seagate U 20gb Hard disk (20gb Platter only one side is used resulting in 10gb) $64
Standard 10x DVD-ROM (X-Box uses Thompson drive specially made and has a max speed of only 8x) $45
USB Based Game Controller (Microsoft Sidewinder) $12
Total $308
This isn't exact and I had to substitute hardware and of course these prices are not volume prices. But consider that this list does not include the casing, and cables and the AMD Hyper bus on the motherboard. I don't think there is anyway even with volume discount MS is making any money off these boxes. The way prices are dropping however they should be making money on them in about 12-24 months. Maybe less.
The early days of the net are different on who you ask. If you mean technically, you could go all the way back to ARC Net. For most of the population though the Internet didn't begin to really enter the mainstream (media, massive people signing on, etc.) Till about the height of the tech boom (around 1998). So if you ask most people (Not techies) they would consider the last few years "the early days".
Its all about perspective
Sub OffTopic() I've just received this e-mail saying that I can make $5 for everyone I forward this to. Woot! I'm paying off my car today!
Well in the way of junk mail and ads in your bills, yes they are a pain, but you are a free man and you can throw them away.
I do agree on the adverts before movies though, personally I like the previews but why am I paying 8.75 for a movie and have to watch ads before it. BR
Once again though you think its bad here, I went to a theater while in London and you have about 10 -15mins worth of advertisements and then 2-3 really short previews (you don't get the extended versions) then another 2 - 3 ads then the movie. Of course you still have to show up when all that crap starts if you want a good seat.
I agree, I do believe that the advertisers are taking things too far. I do also think that advertising is a necessary evil for many stations. Though I do wonder, and perhaps someone knows, how do HBO, SkinaMax and other manage to be profitable and provide programming at the same time. I imagine because we pay extra for those as premium channels the cable providers pass that on to the these companies.
Perhaps with the advent of digital people can have 2 cable options:
1. Cheaper package you get commercials.
2. A premium package you pay more per month for but you don't get the ad.
Of course your still paying for that advertising in the products you buy, even if you don't get them.
And the $200 payed in Britain is something everyone with a TV pays even if you don't have cable and even if you don't watch the BBC.
Yes, we do pay for it in terms of having to watch commercials. What I mean is if there were no commercials we would have to shoulder the full cost of producing television programming, which if you think it costs a lot now.
I can't even imagine how much it would cost without advertising. The cost of advertising is figured into product costs, true, but how many people actually can say they never watch TV? The % of people who never or rarely watch is so small that it negligible.
If you were to take advertising away we would pay for the TV but I have a feeling that product costs would not get any lower.
It's a cylicic(sp) system that feed off of itself. If you want the cost to go away then everyone needs to give up television.
I don't like Ads anymore than you do, but I can't think of a better system. If you can, reply.
Actually they already have banner ads on TV. Ever watch TNN? Yeah they arent very annoying right now and tend to give usefull information pertaining to the content of the show you are watching, but how long will that last?
Well I don't know about everyone else on slashdot, but Id like to see some of the guys in my office just TRY and log-in to my workstation. (the net-admins would not be pleased to find out I removed all thier backdoors;-)
One of the most common problems many anti-bacterial agents cause is dry skin, which in the worst cases can cause open sores which can the be infected by bacteria one would normally be immune to had they not been such clean freaks.
There is another option that is a great choice for a small business.
Many companies like Dell, Compaq and Gateway provide leasing programs. You pay monthly per computer (normally 50-80 bucks a month), and after 2 years you have the option to buy the PC or to trade up to the newest thing and continue paying 50-80 bucks a month.
This is a great option for a small business that need the newest equipment but lacks the capital to keep the machines current. Plus because you are leasing all your support comes right along with it.
Once your company is large enough to afford it you can opt out of the leasing program and buy new equipment.
Just be sure to be a good negotiator with your sales guy, remember he WANTS your business and you can ALAWAYS go somewhere else BEFORE a contract is signed.
I don't have Adobe eBook reader but I do have the Microsoft version.
Oddly enough there is no mention about how I use the content in my Microsoft eBook reader. As a matter of fact I can even copy and paste text and images from the public domain eBooks (like Alice).
So... you swipe a card, punch in a destination, and suddenly they have a very neat record of where you've gone using public transportation. Nice.
Aside from that, it's an interesting idea;
True that there may privacy issues with this as it stands however look at where it is being set up. The UK, currently I live in London and you can buy rail tickets with cash or credit from a convient machine. I normally use credit (as do many people) becasue its a pain to carry all those coins (they all give change in £2 and £1 coins). So they already know where you are going and know where yove been.
In the UK it hardly matters anyway with so many cameras in operation over here I could most likely walk to Wales and never be out of site of a camera.
Believe it or not back in the day when Yahoo! was king this is exactly how they operated. They had tons of people submitting links and then a Yahoo! staffer would review the content of the page place the link in the correct category and add meta-data to thier database.
When Yahoo! was the only game in town it seemed to contain all the internet. Then along came the crawlers which were not as accurate but a whole lot faster than 1000 monkeys at 1000 terminals. For while however Yahoo was still more accurate at finding what you wished. Then scripting got better, someone came up with a better algorithm and out comes the likes of Lycos and AltaVista.
Yahoo! still has staffers review sites. When you do a Yahoo search it is normally split into 2 parts (1) the Yahoo! search results (human checked and entered) and (2) whoever their crawler of the month is (used to be AltaVista now is Google).
There are many problems with a human reviewed system though. The main one being that you could never have enough staff to keep up with the growth of the internet and still have a profitable business. Also once you enter a link you can't forget about it you have to have a process in which you go back and re-check old links to assure the categorization and the actual link are correct. Now that you have some of your staff reviewing old links you have an even harder time keeping up with the new stuff. Thus why some Yahoo! links haven't been changed in about 5 years.
For more information on the logistics of this kind of thing I suggest you look at some of the commercial products out there that do this. There is a whole industry that deals with this and not just for the Internet. Some of them are:
If you watch AlienII you will see that they adapted the camera harness to fit a big heavy prop gun that 2 of the soliders carried. I remember reading somwhere (most likely an old issue of PopSci) that the US military actully liked the idea so much that they started developing it for military use. How far the development got is anyones guess.
Supplying IE to competing platforms may be a way to lower the perception of MS as a monolopy but also take into account thier current stragety in the way of.NET services.
It seems to me that MS is really moving into a position to sell the.NET services. Whats important here is not neccassiarily (SP) the platform of which.NET is running but the fact that the platform can run.NET.
By providing IE for the MAC you can now provide.NET to all MAC users as well as PC users. So even if they didnt make money off the customer for the OS they may (of course it is up to the customer to use.NET) purchase.NET services and provide revenue in that aspect.
This is also one of MSs biggest reasons for the X-Box. Its not simpily a gaming platform with a DVD player. Its a ploy to get a PC running IE into millions of homes. Some of which may not even have a PC. The X-Box can run IE and most likey has a lot of software intergration points to.NET.
In this way MS will be able to provide internet service and.Net to all x-box users. Think not only did you buy little Timmy a game system but now for a mere 21.99 a month you can have internet access and all the goodies that come along with it and you dont even need a PC.
Ok my thread of thought has gone way off. Must be hunger..time for lunch!!
Re:Globalism is not the problem: Government is
on
Defining Globalism
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I would suggest reading a book called "Snow Crash" by Neal Stenphenson (sp). The world depitected there is one of the possible outcomes of goverment stepping out of the trade and allowing corps to do what they want.
Slashdot Mirror
Just for a frame of reference (All prices quoted from Price watch):
Intel Pentium III CPU at 733mhz $82
Nvida nForce 420-D (Could not locate price chip only comes on integrated motherboards cheapest integrated motherboard is A-bit NV7M) $87
64 meg DDR Ram (No 32 or 64meg chips available price for a single DDR PC1600) $18
Seagate U 20gb Hard disk (20gb Platter only one side is used resulting in 10gb) $64
Standard 10x DVD-ROM (X-Box uses Thompson drive specially made and has a max speed of only 8x) $45
USB Based Game Controller (Microsoft Sidewinder) $12
Total $308
This isn't exact and I had to substitute hardware and of course these prices are not volume prices. But consider that this list does not include the casing, and cables and the AMD Hyper bus on the motherboard. I don't think there is anyway even with volume discount MS is making any money off these boxes. The way prices are dropping however they should be making money on them in about 12-24 months. Maybe less.
Care to explain how it might affect the moons orbit?
Yes the pull of the moon has an affect on the oceans, however I have yet to see anything published that says that the innverse is true.
Well BMW seems to have the anwser to that with this little known release.
It supposed to be as fast as the normal 750 with the same range too. However the only hyrdogen gas station is in Germany at the moment.
The early days of the net are different on who you ask. If you mean technically, you could go all the way back to ARC Net. For most of the population though the Internet didn't begin to really enter the mainstream (media, massive people signing on, etc.) Till about the height of the tech boom (around 1998). So if you ask most people (Not techies) they would consider the last few years "the early days".
Its all about perspective
Sub OffTopic()
I've just received this e-mail saying that I can make $5 for everyone I forward this to. Woot! I'm paying off my car today!
Mind if I use this in my sig?
End Sub
you don't need rubber gloves and Vaseline to do a full search on a rack of server either
IANAL
There are rules for submitting evidence. I'm not sure of exactly what the rules are but they are established to keep the trial fair (supposedly).
Any lawyer types care to explain the rules of evidence allowance?
Thanks for the input, good to have some info in the discussion instead of just conjecture.
Well in the way of junk mail and ads in your bills, yes they are a pain, but you are a free man and you can throw them away.
I do agree on the adverts before movies though, personally I like the previews but why am I paying 8.75 for a movie and have to watch ads before it.
BR Once again though you think its bad here, I went to a theater while in London and you have about 10 -15mins worth of advertisements and then 2-3 really short previews (you don't get the extended versions) then another 2 - 3 ads then the movie. Of course you still have to show up when all that crap starts if you want a good seat.
I agree, I do believe that the advertisers are taking things too far. I do also think that advertising is a necessary evil for many stations. Though I do wonder, and perhaps someone knows, how do HBO, SkinaMax and other manage to be profitable and provide programming at the same time. I imagine because we pay extra for those as premium channels the cable providers pass that on to the these companies.
Perhaps with the advent of digital people can have 2 cable options:
1. Cheaper package you get commercials.
2. A premium package you pay more per month for but you don't get the ad.
Of course your still paying for that advertising in the products you buy, even if you don't get them.
And the $200 payed in Britain is something everyone with a TV pays even if you don't have cable and even if you don't watch the BBC.
Yes, we do pay for it in terms of having to watch commercials. What I mean is if there were no commercials we would have to shoulder the full cost of producing television programming, which if you think it costs a lot now.
I can't even imagine how much it would cost without advertising. The cost of advertising is figured into product costs, true, but how many people actually can say they never watch TV? The % of people who never or rarely watch is so small that it negligible.
If you were to take advertising away we would pay for the TV but I have a feeling that product costs would not get any lower.
It's a cylicic(sp) system that feed off of itself. If you want the cost to go away then everyone needs to give up television.
I don't like Ads anymore than you do, but I can't think of a better system. If you can, reply.
. I presume we'll see banner ads on TV's someday
Actually they already have banner ads on TV. Ever watch TNN? Yeah they arent very annoying right now and tend to give usefull information pertaining to the content of the show you are watching, but how long will that last?
Yeah but in the UK you pay a yearly fee for a BBC with no Ads (about 150 pounds per year or a little over $200).
You still have to watch them on Carlton and ITV4 because they are not sponsored by the TV tax.
If the consumer had to shoulder the full cost of television then your typical cable package would cost so much only the wealthiest would have it.
Well I don't know about everyone else on slashdot, but Id like to see some of the guys in my office just TRY and log-in to my workstation. (the net-admins would not be pleased to find out I removed all thier backdoors ;-)
Ahh, the old chicken and egg conflict.
You might ask then are they worried about germs because they are sick all the time
or
are they sick because sometime in their past they were pre-conditioned to be worried about germs all the time (IE Obsessive compulsive mothers)?
One of the most common problems many anti-bacterial agents cause is dry skin, which in the worst cases can cause open sores which can the be infected by bacteria one would normally be immune to had they not been such clean freaks.
All depends on who you ask, the latest popular theroy suggests that particles are strings.
There is another option that is a great choice for a small business.
Many companies like Dell, Compaq and Gateway provide leasing programs. You pay monthly per computer (normally 50-80 bucks a month), and after 2 years you have the option to buy the PC or to trade up to the newest thing and continue paying 50-80 bucks a month.
This is a great option for a small business that need the newest equipment but lacks the capital to keep the machines current. Plus because you are leasing all your support comes right along with it.
Once your company is large enough to afford it you can opt out of the leasing program and buy new equipment.
Just be sure to be a good negotiator with your sales guy, remember he WANTS your business and you can ALAWAYS go somewhere else BEFORE a contract is signed.
Yeah and they say they made the agreements simpiler. Basically they now have it set up so that it almost impossible to get a new pc without windows.
I don't have Adobe eBook reader but I do have the Microsoft version.
Oddly enough there is no mention about how I use the content in my Microsoft eBook reader. As a matter of fact I can even copy and paste text and images from the public domain eBooks (like Alice).
So... you swipe a card, punch in a destination, and suddenly they have a very neat record of where you've gone using public transportation. Nice.
Aside from that, it's an interesting idea;
True that there may privacy issues with this as it stands however look at where it is being set up. The UK, currently I live in London and you can buy rail tickets with cash or credit from a convient machine. I normally use credit (as do many people) becasue its a pain to carry all those coins (they all give change in £2 and £1 coins). So they already know where you are going and know where yove been.
In the UK it hardly matters anyway with so many cameras in operation over here I could most likely walk to Wales and never be out of site of a camera.
As a matter of fact there has been on-going efforts in this arena. There are also some published documents on the issue.
For more information you can also check here.
Believe it or not back in the day when Yahoo! was king this is exactly how they operated. They had tons of people submitting links and then a Yahoo! staffer would review the content of the page place the link in the correct category and add meta-data to thier database.
When Yahoo! was the only game in town it seemed to contain all the internet. Then along came the crawlers which were not as accurate but a whole lot faster than 1000 monkeys at 1000 terminals. For while however Yahoo was still more accurate at finding what you wished. Then scripting got better, someone came up with a better algorithm and out comes the likes of Lycos and AltaVista.
Yahoo! still has staffers review sites. When you do a Yahoo search it is normally split into 2 parts (1) the Yahoo! search results (human checked and entered) and (2) whoever their crawler of the month is (used to be AltaVista now is Google).
There are many problems with a human reviewed system though. The main one being that you could never have enough staff to keep up with the growth of the internet and still have a profitable business. Also once you enter a link you can't forget about it you have to have a process in which you go back and re-check old links to assure the categorization and the actual link are correct. Now that you have some of your staff reviewing old links you have an even harder time keeping up with the new stuff. Thus why some Yahoo! links haven't been changed in about 5 years.
For more information on the logistics of this kind of thing I suggest you look at some of the commercial products out there that do this. There is a whole industry that deals with this and not just for the Internet. Some of them are:
Content Managment Systems:
Plumtree
Interwoven
Viginette
LiveLink
If you watch AlienII you will see that they adapted the camera harness to fit a big heavy prop gun that 2 of the soliders carried. I remember reading somwhere (most likely an old issue of PopSci) that the US military actully liked the idea so much that they started developing it for military use. How far the development got is anyones guess.
Supplying IE to competing platforms may be a way to lower the perception of MS as a monolopy but also take into account thier current stragety in the way of .NET services.
.NET services. Whats important here is not neccassiarily (SP) the platform of which .NET is running but the fact that the platform can run .NET.
.NET to all MAC users as well as PC users. So even if they didnt make money off the customer for the OS they may (of course it is up to the customer to use .NET) purchase .NET services and provide revenue in that aspect.
.NET.
.Net to all x-box users. Think not only did you buy little Timmy a game system but now for a mere 21.99 a month you can have internet access and all the goodies that come along with it and you dont even need a PC.
It seems to me that MS is really moving into a position to sell the
By providing IE for the MAC you can now provide
This is also one of MSs biggest reasons for the X-Box. Its not simpily a gaming platform with a DVD player. Its a ploy to get a PC running IE into millions of homes. Some of which may not even have a PC. The X-Box can run IE and most likey has a lot of software intergration points to
In this way MS will be able to provide internet service and
Ok my thread of thought has gone way off. Must be hunger..time for lunch!!
I would suggest reading a book called "Snow Crash" by Neal Stenphenson (sp). The world depitected there is one of the possible outcomes of goverment stepping out of the trade and allowing corps to do what they want.