Because the EEE is not the answer for everything, I would much rather have my old 3.3 pound Compaq M300 than a 2 pound EEE PC 900. Sure the EEE is small and sexy, but have you tried to type on one? We have some we are deploying at work, and I compared them side by side, the older, slightly slower Compaq wins hands down. (of course the M300 was a $4,000 computer when new)
Refurbishment makes sense for higher quality notebooks. My grab and go travel notebook is a loaded out (max memory, 80 gig HD) nearly 10 year old Compaq M300, it weighs in at 3.3 pounds has a magnesium case, and quality construction. The P3-500 is fast enough to browse the web, play youtube videos, and all that other basic stuff. Best yet I only have about $300 invested in it, so if it breaks I am not out much. Sure I could spend $1500 on a similared sized high quality replacement, but do I really need all those extra wasted clock cycles. And if I did spend $1500 on it, would I treat it like this grab and go, toss it around, leave it in the open in motel rooms while I am away, etc.
Wow another bad idea in a long chain of bad ideas. Lets pick a few reasons, lets locate a datacenter in prime industrial areas, on an unstable platform, near corrosive salt water,....
It should be mentioned it set this speed record on its retirement flight after nearly 30 years of service (the original Blackbird prototype first flew in the late 1950's)
Last night while spinning the channels on tv I saw a discovery channel/PBS show regarding a library in AZ using ice as a way to timeshift their power demands away from peak power load times. This system used a grid of refrigeration coils imersed in a tank of water, at night when power demands were lower, the A/C compressors would circulate refrigerant through the water tanks, freezing the water into ice, in the day they would dump the heat into the ice letting it melt. It seems a similar strategy would work for data centers for short term banking of lower powered cooling needs.
You obviously don't live in the south, I live in Louisiana, and many, if not most state level and local offices are filled by Democrats. In our most recent election a few weeks ago, on the same ballot we elected a Republican of Indian decent as our governer, about half the offices were contests between Democrats with no republicans even on the ballot. Admitedly many of these were local level elections, like the local Sheriffs race where we had 4 candidates to choose from, all Democrat, or City Council, again in most districts the choice is which Democrat. Still national level candidates have to get a start somewhere, and here in Louisiana local and state level government is dominated by Democrats.
I once saw an incident that happend at Wal-Mart (in the mid 1990's) a customer had bought a box with what claimed to be a 2.1 gig hard drive in it, instead inside was a dead 430 meg different brand drive. Obviously someone bought the 2.1 gig, and returned their old dead drive in the box, customer service could not tell a 430 meg Maxtor from a 2.1 gig Western Digital drive. To them (particularly back then) a hard drive was a hard drive.
As an even better example of "stuff happens" last year my girlfriend bought a DVD movie from Wal-Mart, and it turned out to be an empty case. Try explaining that to customer service.
If only that were true, as it is we are learning at such a slow pace and small scale that all the engineers that "learn" from this effort will be retired by the time we try again, much like what is happening now relearning so much stuff from the Apollo program.
I think the problem is a fundmental flaw in the airlines pricing system. Anyone that has shopped for airline tickets know that the cheapest time to purchase tickets on Orbitz, etc. is about 6 weeks prior to the flight. In any other industry this sort of pricing vs. time curve would be viewed as insane. A given flight price might be $600, at 9 weeks ahead of time, down to $450 at 5-7 weeks and climbs to $800 at 4 weeks, don't even ask what it is at less than 1 week. If you shop carefully it may even drop to $380 for a day or two along the way.
I wonder how much of these pay mistakes may be directly related to the recent increase in minimum wage. It has been nearly a decade since U.S. Federal mimimum wage has increased, an eternitiy in software design. How many of these pay mistakes were for people whose pay rate is in some way tied to minimum wage ($X over minimum, etc.) I work for a small business with less than 100 employees, we use a simple comercial payroll software product, and generaly get quaterly software upgrades to deal with changing tax rates, min wage, etc. Often the update CD's will arrive only a couple of days before the end of each quarter causing a rush to install before the next pay period. Are the big players any better, and what about when IT is backlogged installing other updates.
A lot of the time it is because they have intentionaly cripled the device to not compete with a higher end product. See Cisco and their history of selling wireless routers and acess points with artificail limits on number of connections, etc.
I can see how my orignal message might be taken wrong, the point I was trying to make (while being distracted) was that you don't have to use the whole Saturn V lunch system to build an ICBM, an example of this would be detailed plans of the F-1 engine, plumbing systems, etc.. Also that LOX and kerosene is easier to produce, and handle than LOX and liquid Hydrogen, and that the F-1 engine could be mounted as a single engine stage unit, as has been proven by the Saturn IB.
First off you don't have to use the whole thing, secondly double check a couple of facts, the primary fuel for the Saturn V system was LOX and kerosene.
Even the Saturn IB is overkill for a typical ICBM, but its not too much bigger than early U.S. ICBM's. As to the fuel the prime problem with liquid fuel is keeping it flight ready for long periods of time, which is only a problem if you don't intend to use it as soon as it is flight ready.
The supply of Saturn V's did not run out, a handful of them were left to rot as museum exhibits around the country in those 7+ years while no American went to space waiting on the shuttle to be flight ready (years behind scheduled) , I can think of 3 (one at the Cape in Florida, one at JSC in Houston, one in Huntsville, AL), I think there may be more like 5.
I disagree, I feel the problem we have today comes from an excess of competition. Admitedly I live in flyover country, things may be different in the bigger cities, I live in a town of about 10,000 people , the town has 3 grocery stores, a Wal-Mart, 3 small New Car Dealerships, no movie theater, and 4 Cell phone stores (not counting Radio Shack, kiosk in Wal-Mart, convienence stores selling pre-paid phones, etc). Going to the nearest mall in a small city (100,000 people) there are 4 cell phone kiosk and 2 actual mall stores devoted to selling phones, driving around the city it seems every strip mall has at least one cell phone store. Now imagine the amount of money it costs to maintain all these stores, even for a small kiosk the cost in rent, and labor alone must exceed $50,000 per year. All of this for a product people replace once every 2-3 years on average.
That is true, but what happens with that same ATM gives you an extra $20 when you press the "fast $200" button. Does it matter if you counted the money dispensed or not? What if it shorts you and only hands out $180? Whats your time worth having to make a special trip back to the bank to return the $20, or the time you spend on hold on the phone reporting it?
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It really depends on where they are located. A bike trail through a mosquito and aligator infested swamp is pork.
Ask Hans Reiser about that one.
Remember in traditonal militias the officers were the ones that brought the cannons.
Because the EEE is not the answer for everything, I would much rather have my old 3.3 pound Compaq M300 than a 2 pound EEE PC 900. Sure the EEE is small and sexy, but have you tried to type on one? We have some we are deploying at work, and I compared them side by side, the older, slightly slower Compaq wins hands down. (of course the M300 was a $4,000 computer when new)
Refurbishment makes sense for higher quality notebooks. My grab and go travel notebook is a loaded out (max memory, 80 gig HD) nearly 10 year old Compaq M300, it weighs in at 3.3 pounds has a magnesium case, and quality construction. The P3-500 is fast enough to browse the web, play youtube videos, and all that other basic stuff. Best yet I only have about $300 invested in it, so if it breaks I am not out much. Sure I could spend $1500 on a similared sized high quality replacement, but do I really need all those extra wasted clock cycles. And if I did spend $1500 on it, would I treat it like this grab and go, toss it around, leave it in the open in motel rooms while I am away, etc.
Twice her age, try 3 or 4 times her age
Wow another bad idea in a long chain of bad ideas. Lets pick a few reasons, lets locate a datacenter in prime industrial areas, on an unstable platform, near corrosive salt water, ....
It makes a big difference as a Mercury year is 88 earth days, nearly half of that time it is our of site behind the sun.
Heat is not always a bad thing
This is a big problem to those of us with pet parrots.
It should be mentioned it set this speed record on its retirement flight after nearly 30 years of service (the original Blackbird prototype first flew in the late 1950's)
Last night while spinning the channels on tv I saw a discovery channel/PBS show regarding a library in AZ using ice as a way to timeshift their power demands away from peak power load times. This system used a grid of refrigeration coils imersed in a tank of water, at night when power demands were lower, the A/C compressors would circulate refrigerant through the water tanks, freezing the water into ice, in the day they would dump the heat into the ice letting it melt. It seems a similar strategy would work for data centers for short term banking of lower powered cooling needs.
Ike
You obviously don't live in the south, I live in Louisiana, and many, if not most state level and local offices are filled by Democrats. In our most recent election a few weeks ago, on the same ballot we elected a Republican of Indian decent as our governer, about half the offices were contests between Democrats with no republicans even on the ballot. Admitedly many of these were local level elections, like the local Sheriffs race where we had 4 candidates to choose from, all Democrat, or City Council, again in most districts the choice is which Democrat. Still national level candidates have to get a start somewhere, and here in Louisiana local and state level government is dominated by Democrats.
I once saw an incident that happend at Wal-Mart (in the mid 1990's) a customer had bought a box with what claimed to be a 2.1 gig hard drive in it, instead inside was a dead 430 meg different brand drive. Obviously someone bought the 2.1 gig, and returned their old dead drive in the box, customer service could not tell a 430 meg Maxtor from a 2.1 gig Western Digital drive. To them (particularly back then) a hard drive was a hard drive.
As an even better example of "stuff happens" last year my girlfriend bought a DVD movie from Wal-Mart, and it turned out to be an empty case. Try explaining that to customer service.
If only that were true, as it is we are learning at such a slow pace and small scale that all the engineers that "learn" from this effort will be retired by the time we try again, much like what is happening now relearning so much stuff from the Apollo program.
Ike
I think the problem is a fundmental flaw in the airlines pricing system. Anyone that has shopped for airline tickets know that the cheapest time to purchase tickets on Orbitz, etc. is about 6 weeks prior to the flight. In any other industry this sort of pricing vs. time curve would be viewed as insane. A given flight price might be $600, at 9 weeks ahead of time, down to $450 at 5-7 weeks and climbs to $800 at 4 weeks, don't even ask what it is at less than 1 week. If you shop carefully it may even drop to $380 for a day or two along the way.
Ike
I wonder how much of these pay mistakes may be directly related to the recent increase in minimum wage. It has been nearly a decade since U.S. Federal mimimum wage has increased, an eternitiy in software design. How many of these pay mistakes were for people whose pay rate is in some way tied to minimum wage ($X over minimum, etc.) I work for a small business with less than 100 employees, we use a simple comercial payroll software product, and generaly get quaterly software upgrades to deal with changing tax rates, min wage, etc. Often the update CD's will arrive only a couple of days before the end of each quarter causing a rush to install before the next pay period. Are the big players any better, and what about when IT is backlogged installing other updates.
Ike
A lot of the time it is because they have intentionaly cripled the device to not compete with a higher end product. See Cisco and their history of selling wireless routers and acess points with artificail limits on number of connections, etc.
And how many times will this modern cheaper system have to be replaced in the next 30 years?
I can see how my orignal message might be taken wrong, the point I was trying to make (while being distracted) was that you don't have to use the whole Saturn V lunch system to build an ICBM, an example of this would be detailed plans of the F-1 engine, plumbing systems, etc.. Also that LOX and kerosene is easier to produce, and handle than LOX and liquid Hydrogen, and that the F-1 engine could be mounted as a single engine stage unit, as has been proven by the Saturn IB.
First off you don't have to use the whole thing, secondly double check a couple of facts, the primary fuel for the Saturn V system was LOX and kerosene.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB
Even the Saturn IB is overkill for a typical ICBM, but its not too much bigger than early U.S. ICBM's. As to the fuel the prime problem with liquid fuel is keeping it flight ready for long periods of time, which is only a problem if you don't intend to use it as soon as it is flight ready.
The supply of Saturn V's did not run out, a handful of them were left to rot as museum exhibits around the country in those 7+ years while no American went to space waiting on the shuttle to be flight ready (years behind scheduled) , I can think of 3 (one at the Cape in Florida, one at JSC in Houston, one in Huntsville, AL), I think there may be more like 5.
I disagree, I feel the problem we have today comes from an excess of competition. Admitedly I live in flyover country, things may be different in the bigger cities, I live in a town of about 10,000 people , the town has 3 grocery stores, a Wal-Mart, 3 small New Car Dealerships, no movie theater, and 4 Cell phone stores (not counting Radio Shack, kiosk in Wal-Mart, convienence stores selling pre-paid phones, etc). Going to the nearest mall in a small city (100,000 people) there are 4 cell phone kiosk and 2 actual mall stores devoted to selling phones, driving around the city it seems every strip mall has at least one cell phone store. Now imagine the amount of money it costs to maintain all these stores, even for a small kiosk the cost in rent, and labor alone must exceed $50,000 per year. All of this for a product people replace once every 2-3 years on average.
Ike
That is true, but what happens with that same ATM gives you an extra $20 when you press the "fast $200" button. Does it matter if you counted the money dispensed or not? What if it shorts you and only hands out $180? Whats your time worth having to make a special trip back to the bank to return the $20, or the time you spend on hold on the phone reporting it?
Ike