Which part of "don't go cheap" did you not understand?
If he's setting up a game house, he's not going to go with anything even close to your specs... because he has to offer something better than what most people will have, including most gamers.
That means a P4 3 GHz, a Radeon 9700 Pro, a gig of memory (which you forgot to price at all - that PC isn't going to do much with no memory), and XP (which you also forgot to price).
These prices are from pricewatch.com so they're not random numbers I made up
You may as well have. Nobody that has a clue buys stuff from the lowest priced vendor on Pricewatch. All you'll get is shitty vendors selling shitty equipment. Go someplace like Newegg, Monarch, or Mwave (or a local shop) and single source everything. You'll pay a bit more, but you'll get equipment that's not been RMA'd three times already, you'll have a company that actually takes returns, ships on a timely basis, and essentially doesn't jack around.
I'd agree on not buying Dells (gack), and the various other bits, but it still isn't as cheap as you suggest if you want top of the line rigs.
As far as selling games -- yes, he can sell them... but he needs to get an in with a distributor, otherwise he has to buy them at retail to sell them at above retail. Ditto for the computer equipment (although buying from someplace like Newegg and then selling at retail will give you a decent cushion by itself).
I would guess that all of the games get patched. Unlike databases, games are not compatible between versions
Uh... wrong on both counts.
I have my UT2k3 patched to the current level, but I can still play on original, unpatched servers -- although I doubt any client running the original code can connect to a patched server. The UT2k3 team seems to be better about this than id Software and Q3, where if you don't have the same patch level as the server, well, too damn bad.
Databases often require the same -- in Oracle there is a COMPATABILITY parameter in the init files. You can set it to various versions to ensure compatability to an old version of the client or ODBC drivers. Set it to a higher version though, and the old clients won't connect.
The Two Towers. We see a great flick. Self-important Hollywood sees Elves and Dwarves beating up on Orcs, so we can fucking forget it
I think you can forget it, but not because of "elves and dwarves beating up on orcs" -- forget it because FOTR won last year, and the Academy is unlikely to award the top prize to a sequel.
Of the rest, I've only seen The Hours, and while it was interesting I don't see it as a Best Picture.
Bummer the Echostar thing didn't fly. I think that honestly would have been good for consumers. It was the rural customers without cable alternative that were the primary snag
Oddly, those are the customers who are most avidly bitching about the blockage of the merger -- if they had been allowed to merge then the resulting company would have enough bandwidth to add pretty much every local in the US -- thus serving the rural customers better (since right now only the top markets get locals). Most rural customers don't even have the right to receive the national feeds because their local OTA signal is good enough (and, honestly, it probably is... but most people don't want to deal with antennas and the muxing necessary to do it right).
Personally, I'm happy to see that they didn't merge, because I do believe we need competition in the sat. broadcast arena, particularly against the cable companies. Of course, I also don't want to see either News Corp or SBC buy DirecTV, since both have a very bad reputation for customer service and decent business tactics. I'm pretty certain that either one would run it into the ground.
money is an issue (which it is for me) then I'm going through the time to research Price Watch
Hope you also research the companies as well. Otherwise you may be very unhappy with what you actually end up with.
My personal suggestion is to forget about Pricewatch and just buy from Newegg, or an equally highly rated vendor (I've also used MWave and Monarch Computers recently with good results - Monarch is local for me though). No, I have absolutely no interest in these companies, just good experiences. Newegg is the best of the three though - I've bought, returned, and RMA'd, all with absolutely zero issues.
As for a gaming PC - if you're not going to build it yourself, I wouldn't go Alienware unless you have money to burn. They're deeply overpriced for nothing special. Your best bet is to either go with an online vendor that sells entire systems (like Monarch) or to go to a local computer store and buy from there. The local angle always has the advantage of someone that you can lean on if you have problems or questions, and they're also very dependant on referrals for business, so they don't want to piss you off.
And, yes, they can get funky cases like Alienware has too.
And you've figured out the key point - the gaming style for consoles is not the same as for the PC. They are distinct and different and one does not preclude the other, nor does one replace the other.
Oh, and for the record, I have a 21" monitor. So on at least one point you're wrong:)
And hooking up a PC to a HDTV isn't all that difficult either.
but why go through this cost and hassle when you can get a pop-it-in-it-plays system for $200 and no labor?
Ok, so show me the console game that can compete with UT2k3 at 1280x1024 with anti-aliasing and all effects turned on.
Funny that... the console doesn't have the horsepower. I'm sure you'll fair better with Doom3.
Ok, so which console has Moo3 coming out for it? Oh. None. What about Warcraft 3? Huh... funny that. How's about Neverwinter Nights? Er...
Ok, well you do have online access on consoles now... a decade late, but hey, who's counting? So now I can play all those custom mods and maps with my fri... what? You can't do custom content? What the hell?
Well at least I'll be able to play all the games I want on my console, and not worry about incompat... what the hell do you mean there are three different systems out? And they're each $200? Do you have any idea what kind of PC I can build for $600 nowadays?
Screw this console crap. I'll stick with the PC. After all, my last system lasted nearly 3 years before I had to upgrade. Plus I can surf the web, do my taxes, and everything else.
Why doesn't anyone seem to understand the frustration of many that it takes so much time and money to ready a Shuttle launch?
Oh, I think most of the clued-in posters here understand that and agree with it.
And agree with the rest of your points too.
But we also have to look at the current status quo, and the grandparent is correct in that having another shuttle continuously ready is not a viable solution.
Let's build a new orbiter that's better (in terms of cost/time to ready, cost to launch, and capbilities) than the current fleet, and lets have more of them. But until then, let's also continue with what's left of the current fleet lest we lose manned flight for a decade.
We do need to find out what went wrong, and try and prevent it from happening again, but there's only so much we can do with what we have now. I think you acknowledge that.
Re:Because they didn't plan for it
on
Latest Columbia News
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The nominal maximum crew size is seven. The middeck can be reconfigured by adding three rescue seats in place of the modular stowage and sleeping provisions. The seating capacity will then accommodate the rescue flight crew of three and a maximum rescued crew of seven.
Make sure one other shuttle is always ready to go within a week like Atlantis was
Atlantis wasn't ready to go. It could be pressed into service, but only by eliminating all pre-launch testing. You know, the testing that routinely finds problems in the months prior to launch that have to be fixed and occasionally cause launch delays?
You want a shuttle ready to go everytime? Ok. You just doubled the cost for every launch. Because keeping a shuttle ready is a huge expense. The environment, even inside a building, is not friendly to the components and continual inspection is necessary for some areas... like the tiles.
It seems like a simple thing to rig up some camera or whatever to look around the corners.
It's not a simple thing. They've been trying to design one for ISS and it's problematic. And that's a vehicle that's not designed for reentry.
As long as you have water, and you can recirculate that pretty low tech, if they don't do that already.
Oddly enough, Columbia would have been in good shape here... They were actually testing systems to recycle water from waste. See here.
I expect something like this to be in place before the shuttles are taken in use again
I don't. Doing so at this stage would kill manned space flight. It's akin to eliminating seafaring exploring from Europe in the 1400s - 1600s because too many people died in the process, and so we won't do any more exploration until the infrastructure is in place to keep them safe. Except that until the exploration has been done it's impossible to put the infrastructure in place.
I'm not saying that a rescue couldn't have occurred - in fact I posited ways it could have been done (based off statements from NASA no less), but also stated the issues that would have been encountered. Nor am I saying that a rescue shouldn't be attempted in a future case.
But, realistically, we don't have the infrastructure yet. If we want to be able to prevent this kind of disaster in the future, then we have to do more missions, build more flight systems (hopefully more cost effective to run than the shuttle fleet), and put more permanent installations into space. But all of this is decades down the road... and trying to fix it the other way around is a nearly certain way to kill manned spaceflight all together.
Because it takes anywhere from a week to a couple months to get a shuttle ready for flight.
As it happens, Atlantis was on the pad already, but it still would've taken nearly a week to launch with minimal crew (pilot and engineer). Columbia had enough food and water to last half a week... although with rationing they may have been able to extend that sufficiently.
Even so, what do you do then? There's no way to "dock" two shuttles and Columbia didn't have jetpack suits onboard, and I don't believe everyone was rated for EVA. You can make a "jump" from one ship to another, but that's trickier than it sounds... fortunately if you do it right and have the supplies on board then only one person has to do it - you can tether the ships together, as long as their orbits are precisely matched and close enough together. The precisely matched bit is the hard part really - it's going to take several hours to transport crew from one shuttle to the other.
It'd probably be an effort on the level of Apollo 13.
Afterwards you have a shuttle in a slowly degrading orbit that's going to do an uncontrolled burn up in the atmosphere -- although perhaps you can set a navigation program to activate after the crew is saved to ensure splashdown in a safe area (like the Pacific ocean). Dunno. Of course, this would have been better than what did occur.
me more for the hardware (and the software built into the unit), if that's what it costs to make it. (The price will come down in time, just like it does with everything else electronic).
The problem with that business model is that the price for the initial hardware and software is so stratospheric that it'll die in its infancy. The price won't come down, because it won't be around long enough to do so.
As far as the subscription goes - if you don't like the Gillette model, there's an option out. Buy lifetime. Then you get all the razor blades for free, at least until the razor itself breaks. Even at the new price of $300 (effective March 3 or 4), it's a deal.
And while everyone keeps complaining about the TiVo guide data being overpriced, it's really quite a bit more than guide data. You're also paying for continual software updates (yes, I know, that's another annoyance for some people) and new features. I bought my first TiVo nearly 3 years ago and have gone from v1.2 of the software to v3.0. The added features have been significant - wishlists, season pass sorting, additional recording features, program quality improvements, unofficial broadband support, UI improvements, etc. It looks like it may be the end of the line on significant software upgrades for Series1 hardware though, and that does annoy me. We will see.
The problem with allowing alternate subscription services is that you've now cut TiVo out of the money entirely. They don't produce the hardware, and you're not giving them any revenue from the service... you say "well, charge enough for the hardware", but that's not the business they're in. And if they charged enough, up front, for the hardware to cover a profit then the TiVos would probably be in the $2k range. And as much as I love my TiVo, it's not worth that much to me.
Tivo hasn't gone under, but for example on DirecTV it's no longer called Tivo, it's just part of your DirecTV service
Slightly wrong...
It's now called "DirecTV with TiVo". Billing is done through DTV, not TiVo, and guide updates are provided by DTV as well (which means program guide data can be different for DTiVos as compared to standalones).
DirecTV is still using the TiVo service, and paying TiVo a cut of the money.
TiVo isn't selling the consoles at all. They license out the hardware to companies to produce, and it's up to the companies to make a profit, which is doable. In the past TiVo had to pay the companies to produce the systems, which is a practice they're getting out of. The hardware isn't that expensive to make anymore.
there aren't enough TiVo users to convince media companies to pay big bucks for the spots
Hrm, I'd say 500,000 active subscribers is a pretty decent captive audience. And, better yet, it's advertising that you can get exact numbers for the number of eyeballs -- at least in terms of households. TiVo knows when you watch the ads.
But, you're right... not enough advertisers. I guess that's why I nearly always have something recorded from TiVo. Currently it's Daredevil trailers. Next will be Matrix, Hulk, and other Time Warner movies (I don't recall the entire list). There may be some other stuff in between if time allows, I have no idea.
The population of TiVo users has to grow
You're right, and it is. From their last 10-Q:
Our subscriber base increased 82% over the third quarter of fiscal year 2002, from 280,000 to 510,000 subscribers due to increased consumer demand.
You can buy a USB->serial converter for about $15 online. For $30 you can get one that has two serial ports, a parallel port, a couple more USB ports (yes, it's an unpowered hub too), and maybe a PS/2 port or two.
You're right... serial isn't going to die anytime soon, but serial ports on PCs may go bye-bye in a few years. Abit has been selling "legacy free" MBs for a year or so now... of course, they're not stupid and have MBs with all the old ports on 'em too.
They're reasonably new, but not that new... all it is is some flash memory with a USB dongle. No moving parts, highly reliable, and good for a few thousand write cycles (yeah, they claim 100,000+, but lets be real).
Newer OS's don't even require drivers either, since they're viewed as USB drives.
Hell, even at faster speeds, just the start/finish CD process makes it a real PITA
Somewhat longer than a floppy, sure, but it's not that bad. And you can dump huge files on it. Burning a 700 MB CD in a modern drive takes Plus, you have to close down apps to make sure the burn process works... bah
Honestly... look into the new drives. They don't have underruns anymore, and you don't have to shut down your apps. And they're bloody cheap - $50 will buy you a 52x/40x/40x CD-RW with software.
Most device drivers can still fit onto one floppy disk, and thus the comparitive cost of CD vs floppy media would make it stupid to burn 1M of data onto a 650M CD
Agreed. It's much cheaper to press the CD.
You realize, don't you, that you can't press a floppy, right? You have to actually encode the data into it, which means actually inserting the floppy into a drive, writing to it, and removing it. Even done by machine this takes more time than pressing a CD. CD pressing costs are around $.20 in volume, and it doesn't matter if you have 1 byte or 700 MB on the disk - it's the same amount of time (although obviously defect rates can go up with more data).
Besides, if I'm supplying a driver, then nowadays I'll probably do things like supply the documentation electronically as well. And a viewer for the doc unless it's HTML or text.
Rescue disks can be put on CD nearly as easily as on floppy - and you can put more stuff on the disk for disaster recovery.
And yes, it's only $10 for the floppy hardware. But cut that out, along with the labor in attaching it and testing it, and you may save $15-30 total. When you're selling a $500 PC, upping your profit by 3-6% isn't a bad proposition.
The big problem I have with floppies (really the only since I hardly ever use them) is the way they essentially tie up a computer. They bring your system to a grinding halt while they are accessing.
That's an artifact of your OS.
Back in the early 90's OS/2 had no problems multitasking floopy I/O - I recall formating a few hundred floppies while doing other stuff, with absolutely no degredation in performance of other tasks.
I've only formatted a floppy once under XP, so I don't recall how it handled it. Win9x did not handle it well though, which is an artifact of still being built off of DOS.
I don't believe Linux or other Unix-based systems have issues multitasking the floppy.
Can some one tell DELL and hardware houses, that the customer right? We need equipment to meet customer needs not some point head pencil pusher.
You didn't read the article, did ya?
You can still order a floppy drive on a Dell Dimension, but it's a special order and an additional cost.
Frankly, I rather agree with Dell... the floppy is nearly useless. And yes, I still use mine at home upon occasion, but it's a damn rare occasion.
All the cases where people are whining about still needing one are easily circumventable using CD's, USB devices, or networking. The number of computers that don't have one or more of the above is rapidly diminishing. There will always be special needs, but, guess what? They're special, and will be treated as such.
More or less correct, due to the railroad being developed most heavily in England first, and then exported elsewhere. Note that Russian/Soviet rail gauge is different from pretty much the rest of the world, which caused supply and troop movement issues for the Nazis in WW2.
For more information I recommend the snopes page, which sorta debunks the pseudo-UL of railroad track widths being passed down from the Roman Empire.
As best I can tell it isn't an actual government regulation (although I wouldn't be surprised if it became one ex post facto), but was an industry standardization.
Heck, Frankenstein, the grand daddy of Luddite-style thinking, isn't anti-technology, even if Mary Shelly thought that it was
Frankenstein is a love story more than anything... sure, a twisted one, but it's about the monster and his desire to have something/one to love. The frustration of that desire leads to violence... which is a pretty common theme in humanity.
Yeah, I have read it. The movies are almost all drastically different from the original book. As you say, it's not really anti-technology. As with most good SF, the science is just a conveyance for the story, and not the story itself.
Change out of your camp tee-shirt, get on the bus, and come back to reality.
Uh... right. Nobody wants an OS that does most of what an average home user wants out of the box without any issues.
What was that about anti-aliased fonts? Thought so. Groupware solutions? Hrm.... what's available rather sucks. And lookee at all the games! That install right out of the package! Uh huh.
Noone waited in line for Dos 5.0
Yeah they did. It was a massive improvement over DOS 3.3 and 4.0. Sure, the lines were smaller, and even geekier, but they existed.
Because big dumb corporations dislike change, and like ideas like "standardization". "If we put the same software on every PC, our support team only has to learn one package! We save money!"
Funny. Small, smart companies do this too. Because having to support fewer configurations DOES save money when something breaks. If you've ever had to support anyone, try supporting a dozen different programs that do (essentially) the same thing. Of course, they probably won't use the same file format by default. Have fun.
Hell, I spent part of today rewriting an internal web page on what Windows based CVS tool to use. There's less than 10 people that need this tool in our company, but WinCVS sucks so badly that we don't want it installed on any more machines. For what little version control is needed on Windows (docs mostly - all our source is on Unix), neither myself nor the other C++ coder wants to deal with supporting two programs. Of course, it doesn't hurt that TortoiseCVS is far, far better than WinCVS.
If something unexpected happens, next to none of the users can deal with it sensibly
In general this is very true... but it's a helluva lot easier to support one application than it is to support two, or three, or half a dozen.
it is high time that Microsoft started realistically stating how much of a threat Open Source is
Gee. Good thing they put it in their SEC filings nearly three years ago (hint - search for Linux).
As egad98 said, this is just some newbie reading their first SEC filing and going batshit over it. There's nothing of note here, except to evangelical fanatics who don't understand SEC filings.
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Which part of "don't go cheap" did you not understand?
If he's setting up a game house, he's not going to go with anything even close to your specs... because he has to offer something better than what most people will have, including most gamers.
That means a P4 3 GHz, a Radeon 9700 Pro, a gig of memory (which you forgot to price at all - that PC isn't going to do much with no memory), and XP (which you also forgot to price).
These prices are from pricewatch.com so they're not random numbers I made up
You may as well have. Nobody that has a clue buys stuff from the lowest priced vendor on Pricewatch. All you'll get is shitty vendors selling shitty equipment. Go someplace like Newegg, Monarch, or Mwave (or a local shop) and single source everything. You'll pay a bit more, but you'll get equipment that's not been RMA'd three times already, you'll have a company that actually takes returns, ships on a timely basis, and essentially doesn't jack around.
I'd agree on not buying Dells (gack), and the various other bits, but it still isn't as cheap as you suggest if you want top of the line rigs.
As far as selling games -- yes, he can sell them... but he needs to get an in with a distributor, otherwise he has to buy them at retail to sell them at above retail. Ditto for the computer equipment (although buying from someplace like Newegg and then selling at retail will give you a decent cushion by itself).
I would guess that all of the games get patched. Unlike databases, games are not compatible between versions
Uh... wrong on both counts.
I have my UT2k3 patched to the current level, but I can still play on original, unpatched servers -- although I doubt any client running the original code can connect to a patched server. The UT2k3 team seems to be better about this than id Software and Q3, where if you don't have the same patch level as the server, well, too damn bad.
Databases often require the same -- in Oracle there is a COMPATABILITY parameter in the init files. You can set it to various versions to ensure compatability to an old version of the client or ODBC drivers. Set it to a higher version though, and the old clients won't connect.
It's the flashback scenes before he's turned into Angelus (or shortly thereafter). He allegedly hails from Ireland.
The Two Towers. We see a great flick. Self-important Hollywood sees Elves and Dwarves beating up on Orcs, so we can fucking forget it
I think you can forget it, but not because of "elves and dwarves beating up on orcs" -- forget it because FOTR won last year, and the Academy is unlikely to award the top prize to a sequel.
Of the rest, I've only seen The Hours, and while it was interesting I don't see it as a Best Picture.
I've never heard acting and Irish accents that poor! Ever!
Ah... apparantly you're not a Buffy or Angel fan.
To hear Angel use his bad Irish accent is... well... let's just say I wish it was forgetable.
Bummer the Echostar thing didn't fly. I think that honestly would have been good for consumers. It was the rural customers without cable alternative that were the primary snag
Oddly, those are the customers who are most avidly bitching about the blockage of the merger -- if they had been allowed to merge then the resulting company would have enough bandwidth to add pretty much every local in the US -- thus serving the rural customers better (since right now only the top markets get locals). Most rural customers don't even have the right to receive the national feeds because their local OTA signal is good enough (and, honestly, it probably is... but most people don't want to deal with antennas and the muxing necessary to do it right).
Personally, I'm happy to see that they didn't merge, because I do believe we need competition in the sat. broadcast arena, particularly against the cable companies. Of course, I also don't want to see either News Corp or SBC buy DirecTV, since both have a very bad reputation for customer service and decent business tactics. I'm pretty certain that either one would run it into the ground.
money is an issue (which it is for me) then I'm going through the time to research Price Watch
Hope you also research the companies as well. Otherwise you may be very unhappy with what you actually end up with.
My personal suggestion is to forget about Pricewatch and just buy from Newegg, or an equally highly rated vendor (I've also used MWave and Monarch Computers recently with good results - Monarch is local for me though). No, I have absolutely no interest in these companies, just good experiences. Newegg is the best of the three though - I've bought, returned, and RMA'd, all with absolutely zero issues.
As for a gaming PC - if you're not going to build it yourself, I wouldn't go Alienware unless you have money to burn. They're deeply overpriced for nothing special. Your best bet is to either go with an online vendor that sells entire systems (like Monarch) or to go to a local computer store and buy from there. The local angle always has the advantage of someone that you can lean on if you have problems or questions, and they're also very dependant on referrals for business, so they don't want to piss you off.
And, yes, they can get funky cases like Alienware has too.
And you've figured out the key point - the gaming style for consoles is not the same as for the PC. They are distinct and different and one does not preclude the other, nor does one replace the other.
:)
Oh, and for the record, I have a 21" monitor. So on at least one point you're wrong
And hooking up a PC to a HDTV isn't all that difficult either.
but why go through this cost and hassle when you can get a pop-it-in-it-plays system for $200 and no labor?
Ok, so show me the console game that can compete with UT2k3 at 1280x1024 with anti-aliasing and all effects turned on.
Funny that... the console doesn't have the horsepower. I'm sure you'll fair better with Doom3.
Ok, so which console has Moo3 coming out for it? Oh. None. What about Warcraft 3? Huh... funny that. How's about Neverwinter Nights? Er...
Ok, well you do have online access on consoles now... a decade late, but hey, who's counting? So now I can play all those custom mods and maps with my fri... what? You can't do custom content? What the hell?
Well at least I'll be able to play all the games I want on my console, and not worry about incompat... what the hell do you mean there are three different systems out? And they're each $200? Do you have any idea what kind of PC I can build for $600 nowadays?
Screw this console crap. I'll stick with the PC. After all, my last system lasted nearly 3 years before I had to upgrade. Plus I can surf the web, do my taxes, and everything else.
Why doesn't anyone seem to understand the frustration of many that it takes so much time and money to ready a Shuttle launch?
Oh, I think most of the clued-in posters here understand that and agree with it.
And agree with the rest of your points too.
But we also have to look at the current status quo, and the grandparent is correct in that having another shuttle continuously ready is not a viable solution.
Let's build a new orbiter that's better (in terms of cost/time to ready, cost to launch, and capbilities) than the current fleet, and lets have more of them. But until then, let's also continue with what's left of the current fleet lest we lose manned flight for a decade.
We do need to find out what went wrong, and try and prevent it from happening again, but there's only so much we can do with what we have now. I think you acknowledge that.
They did plan for it.
From Nasa's Human Space Flight pages:
The nominal maximum crew size is seven. The middeck can be reconfigured by adding three rescue seats in place of the modular stowage and sleeping provisions. The seating capacity will then accommodate the rescue flight crew of three and a maximum rescued crew of seven.
Make sure one other shuttle is always ready to go within a week like Atlantis was
Atlantis wasn't ready to go. It could be pressed into service, but only by eliminating all pre-launch testing. You know, the testing that routinely finds problems in the months prior to launch that have to be fixed and occasionally cause launch delays?
You want a shuttle ready to go everytime? Ok. You just doubled the cost for every launch. Because keeping a shuttle ready is a huge expense. The environment, even inside a building, is not friendly to the components and continual inspection is necessary for some areas... like the tiles.
It seems like a simple thing to rig up some camera or whatever to look around the corners.
It's not a simple thing. They've been trying to design one for ISS and it's problematic. And that's a vehicle that's not designed for reentry.
As long as you have water, and you can recirculate that pretty low tech, if they don't do that already.
Oddly enough, Columbia would have been in good shape here... They were actually testing systems to recycle water from waste. See here.
I expect something like this to be in place before the shuttles are taken in use again
I don't. Doing so at this stage would kill manned space flight. It's akin to eliminating seafaring exploring from Europe in the 1400s - 1600s because too many people died in the process, and so we won't do any more exploration until the infrastructure is in place to keep them safe. Except that until the exploration has been done it's impossible to put the infrastructure in place.
I'm not saying that a rescue couldn't have occurred - in fact I posited ways it could have been done (based off statements from NASA no less), but also stated the issues that would have been encountered. Nor am I saying that a rescue shouldn't be attempted in a future case.
But, realistically, we don't have the infrastructure yet. If we want to be able to prevent this kind of disaster in the future, then we have to do more missions, build more flight systems (hopefully more cost effective to run than the shuttle fleet), and put more permanent installations into space. But all of this is decades down the road... and trying to fix it the other way around is a nearly certain way to kill manned spaceflight all together.
Because it takes anywhere from a week to a couple months to get a shuttle ready for flight.
As it happens, Atlantis was on the pad already, but it still would've taken nearly a week to launch with minimal crew (pilot and engineer). Columbia had enough food and water to last half a week... although with rationing they may have been able to extend that sufficiently.
Even so, what do you do then? There's no way to "dock" two shuttles and Columbia didn't have jetpack suits onboard, and I don't believe everyone was rated for EVA. You can make a "jump" from one ship to another, but that's trickier than it sounds... fortunately if you do it right and have the supplies on board then only one person has to do it - you can tether the ships together, as long as their orbits are precisely matched and close enough together. The precisely matched bit is the hard part really - it's going to take several hours to transport crew from one shuttle to the other.
It'd probably be an effort on the level of Apollo 13.
Afterwards you have a shuttle in a slowly degrading orbit that's going to do an uncontrolled burn up in the atmosphere -- although perhaps you can set a navigation program to activate after the crew is saved to ensure splashdown in a safe area (like the Pacific ocean). Dunno. Of course, this would have been better than what did occur.
me more for the hardware (and the software built into the unit), if that's what it costs to make it. (The price will come down in time, just like it does with everything else electronic).
The problem with that business model is that the price for the initial hardware and software is so stratospheric that it'll die in its infancy. The price won't come down, because it won't be around long enough to do so.
As far as the subscription goes - if you don't like the Gillette model, there's an option out. Buy lifetime. Then you get all the razor blades for free, at least until the razor itself breaks. Even at the new price of $300 (effective March 3 or 4), it's a deal.
And while everyone keeps complaining about the TiVo guide data being overpriced, it's really quite a bit more than guide data. You're also paying for continual software updates (yes, I know, that's another annoyance for some people) and new features. I bought my first TiVo nearly 3 years ago and have gone from v1.2 of the software to v3.0. The added features have been significant - wishlists, season pass sorting, additional recording features, program quality improvements, unofficial broadband support, UI improvements, etc. It looks like it may be the end of the line on significant software upgrades for Series1 hardware though, and that does annoy me. We will see.
The problem with allowing alternate subscription services is that you've now cut TiVo out of the money entirely. They don't produce the hardware, and you're not giving them any revenue from the service... you say "well, charge enough for the hardware", but that's not the business they're in. And if they charged enough, up front, for the hardware to cover a profit then the TiVos would probably be in the $2k range. And as much as I love my TiVo, it's not worth that much to me.
Tivo hasn't gone under, but for example on DirecTV it's no longer called Tivo, it's just part of your DirecTV service
Slightly wrong...
It's now called "DirecTV with TiVo". Billing is done through DTV, not TiVo, and guide updates are provided by DTV as well (which means program guide data can be different for DTiVos as compared to standalones).
DirecTV is still using the TiVo service, and paying TiVo a cut of the money.
They're selling the consoles at or below cost
TiVo isn't selling the consoles at all. They license out the hardware to companies to produce, and it's up to the companies to make a profit, which is doable. In the past TiVo had to pay the companies to produce the systems, which is a practice they're getting out of. The hardware isn't that expensive to make anymore.
there aren't enough TiVo users to convince media companies to pay big bucks for the spots
Hrm, I'd say 500,000 active subscribers is a pretty decent captive audience. And, better yet, it's advertising that you can get exact numbers for the number of eyeballs -- at least in terms of households. TiVo knows when you watch the ads.
But, you're right... not enough advertisers. I guess that's why I nearly always have something recorded from TiVo. Currently it's Daredevil trailers. Next will be Matrix, Hulk, and other Time Warner movies (I don't recall the entire list). There may be some other stuff in between if time allows, I have no idea.
The population of TiVo users has to grow
You're right, and it is. From their last 10-Q:
Our subscriber base increased 82% over the third quarter of fiscal year 2002, from 280,000 to 510,000 subscribers due to increased consumer demand.
You can buy a USB->serial converter for about $15 online. For $30 you can get one that has two serial ports, a parallel port, a couple more USB ports (yes, it's an unpowered hub too), and maybe a PS/2 port or two.
You're right... serial isn't going to die anytime soon, but serial ports on PCs may go bye-bye in a few years. Abit has been selling "legacy free" MBs for a year or so now... of course, they're not stupid and have MBs with all the old ports on 'em too.
I've never heard of these "USB Pen" things
They're reasonably new, but not that new... all it is is some flash memory with a USB dongle. No moving parts, highly reliable, and good for a few thousand write cycles (yeah, they claim 100,000+, but lets be real).
Newer OS's don't even require drivers either, since they're viewed as USB drives.
Hell, even at faster speeds, just the start/finish CD process makes it a real PITA
Somewhat longer than a floppy, sure, but it's not that bad. And you can dump huge files on it. Burning a 700 MB CD in a modern drive takes Plus, you have to close down apps to make sure the burn process works... bah
Honestly... look into the new drives. They don't have underruns anymore, and you don't have to shut down your apps. And they're bloody cheap - $50 will buy you a 52x/40x/40x CD-RW with software.
Most device drivers can still fit onto one floppy disk, and thus the comparitive cost of CD vs floppy media would make it stupid to burn 1M of data onto a 650M CD
Agreed. It's much cheaper to press the CD.
You realize, don't you, that you can't press a floppy, right? You have to actually encode the data into it, which means actually inserting the floppy into a drive, writing to it, and removing it. Even done by machine this takes more time than pressing a CD. CD pressing costs are around $.20 in volume, and it doesn't matter if you have 1 byte or 700 MB on the disk - it's the same amount of time (although obviously defect rates can go up with more data).
Besides, if I'm supplying a driver, then nowadays I'll probably do things like supply the documentation electronically as well. And a viewer for the doc unless it's HTML or text.
Rescue disks can be put on CD nearly as easily as on floppy - and you can put more stuff on the disk for disaster recovery.
And yes, it's only $10 for the floppy hardware. But cut that out, along with the labor in attaching it and testing it, and you may save $15-30 total. When you're selling a $500 PC, upping your profit by 3-6% isn't a bad proposition.
The big problem I have with floppies (really the only since I hardly ever use them) is the way they essentially tie up a computer. They bring your system to a grinding halt while they are accessing.
That's an artifact of your OS.
Back in the early 90's OS/2 had no problems multitasking floopy I/O - I recall formating a few hundred floppies while doing other stuff, with absolutely no degredation in performance of other tasks.
I've only formatted a floppy once under XP, so I don't recall how it handled it. Win9x did not handle it well though, which is an artifact of still being built off of DOS.
I don't believe Linux or other Unix-based systems have issues multitasking the floppy.
Can some one tell DELL and hardware houses, that the customer right? We need equipment to meet customer needs not some point head pencil pusher.
You didn't read the article, did ya?
You can still order a floppy drive on a Dell Dimension, but it's a special order and an additional cost.
Frankly, I rather agree with Dell... the floppy is nearly useless. And yes, I still use mine at home upon occasion, but it's a damn rare occasion.
All the cases where people are whining about still needing one are easily circumventable using CD's, USB devices, or networking. The number of computers that don't have one or more of the above is rapidly diminishing. There will always be special needs, but, guess what? They're special, and will be treated as such.
More or less correct, due to the railroad being developed most heavily in England first, and then exported elsewhere. Note that Russian/Soviet rail gauge is different from pretty much the rest of the world, which caused supply and troop movement issues for the Nazis in WW2.
For more information I recommend the snopes page, which sorta debunks the pseudo-UL of railroad track widths being passed down from the Roman Empire.
As best I can tell it isn't an actual government regulation (although I wouldn't be surprised if it became one ex post facto), but was an industry standardization.
Hey now, that's not a fair description.
Some of us are overweight married geeks.
Heck, Frankenstein, the grand daddy of Luddite-style thinking, isn't anti-technology, even if Mary Shelly thought that it was
:)
Frankenstein is a love story more than anything... sure, a twisted one, but it's about the monster and his desire to have something/one to love. The frustration of that desire leads to violence... which is a pretty common theme in humanity.
Yeah, I have read it. The movies are almost all drastically different from the original book. As you say, it's not really anti-technology. As with most good SF, the science is just a conveyance for the story, and not the story itself.
Change out of your camp tee-shirt, get on the bus, and come back to reality.
ROFL. Couldn't have said it better myself
Noone wants windows
Uh... right. Nobody wants an OS that does most of what an average home user wants out of the box without any issues.
What was that about anti-aliased fonts? Thought so. Groupware solutions? Hrm.... what's available rather sucks. And lookee at all the games! That install right out of the package! Uh huh.
Noone waited in line for Dos 5.0
Yeah they did. It was a massive improvement over DOS 3.3 and 4.0. Sure, the lines were smaller, and even geekier, but they existed.
Because big dumb corporations dislike change, and like ideas like "standardization".
"If we put the same software on every PC, our support team only has to learn one package! We save money!"
Funny. Small, smart companies do this too. Because having to support fewer configurations DOES save money when something breaks. If you've ever had to support anyone, try supporting a dozen different programs that do (essentially) the same thing. Of course, they probably won't use the same file format by default. Have fun.
Hell, I spent part of today rewriting an internal web page on what Windows based CVS tool to use. There's less than 10 people that need this tool in our company, but WinCVS sucks so badly that we don't want it installed on any more machines. For what little version control is needed on Windows (docs mostly - all our source is on Unix), neither myself nor the other C++ coder wants to deal with supporting two programs. Of course, it doesn't hurt that TortoiseCVS is far, far better than WinCVS.
If something unexpected happens, next to none of the users can deal with it sensibly
In general this is very true... but it's a helluva lot easier to support one application than it is to support two, or three, or half a dozen.
it is high time that Microsoft started realistically stating how much of a threat Open Source is
Gee. Good thing they put it in their SEC filings nearly three years ago (hint - search for Linux).
As egad98 said, this is just some newbie reading their first SEC filing and going batshit over it. There's nothing of note here, except to evangelical fanatics who don't understand SEC filings.