Realistically, if this were to happen it wouldn't take THAT long to rebuild our technology. Sure, it'd take time, and it'd take money... but don't doubt that we are SO dependent on our technology today that we would definitely rebuild.
On the bright side, employment for technology people with a creative bent (creating solutions with minimal technology) will find great and very lucrative careers. Short term pain, long term gain.
LOL... and if it gives you any idea about the flexibility all this buys us, the number of VM's rose from 168 to 169 in the time it took me to write this little tirade:)
You don't have to pay a few grand per server for VMware.
You can get ESXi for free, and if you're concerned about the cost of the management infrastructure you can buy third-party management tools on an ad-hoc basis that provide much of the functionality of VI3. That way you can get in for a lot less money.
Now, having said that if you get beyond 2 physical servers, and want to get into the whole "vmotion" capability stuff then you need VI3 and shared storage. Then, of course your costs DO increase exponentially.
However, if you're in the position to buy good shared storage (like a SAN... iSCSI being the low entry cost point these days) and suitable hardware, you're not going to balk at licensing costs.
Look at where I work. We're a Windows shop but we have VI3 across the board. We have 11 physical servers running dual quad core CPU's across three locations (datacenters). As of this morning we have 168 virtual machines and enough "slack" in our infrastructure that we could lose 4 of the physical machines and still only then be hurting for headroom. Add to that this entire farm is managed by one person (me, though the actual guest machines are mostly administered by others) and you can probably tell that we get great economies of scale.
Oh, and more to your point about licensing for VMware. Well, we can offset that; we buy a Windows Datacenter license per host, which allows us to have an unlimited number of guests on each host (check the licensing... this is valid!). In this way we have paid a little more for a Datacenter license than we would for an Enterprise license, but we have more than made up that licensing cost AND the licensing cost of VMware by savings in hardware cost, electricity, management cost, space and a bunch of other numbers that you really have to run in a production environment to get a feel for.
Can you imagine the cost of 168 physical servers, all cranking all day long... all with maintenance costs, power costs, cooling costs and hardware replacement issues? Not to mention the cost per license for Windows (160 of these machines are Windows Server, a mix of Standard and Enterprise)? We did the cost/benefit analysis and chose VMware.
We're also NOT one of the truly huge companies out there... we definitely are in the medium business range. I agree your point about small businesses, but more often than not they're going to use whatever their consulting company tells them to. Most small businesses, even with on-site admins rely on one or two vendors for their support, hardware, engineering and so forth. Whatever their vendor says to use, they're probably going to pay for.
For my needs, I found QEMU to be limited, XEN to be a pain in the rear to work with and KVM to be just too complex. I don't fear complexity; I've been a UNIX guy for years as well as a Windows guy (and Gentoo at home, of course;) ) but when it comes to just getting the job done, VMware has it down. If I need a new host I just rack the hardware, install ESX and add it to my VirtualCenter management. Once there, it's pretty much hands off unless I need to patch the infrastructure. Right there, the tools are built-in, too; UpdateManager is a really powerful tool for managing a system like this.
I can guarantee you that since this is a roadable aircraft and not a flying car, it will be subject to the same inspection and maintenance requirements as a light aircraft.
Reality is, this thing is going to be expensive to own, but no more so than an average light aircraft *and* a car (since as you point out you'll have the same wear and tear as a car with a very rigorous maintenance schedule).
There's a good reason light aircraft fly for 20 years or more; they need to be in order to maintain an airworthiness certificate. This vehicle will be no different.
That depends a lot on the person, though. I got my license in 48 hours.
Me, I'd actually consider one of these things; it actually meets most of my concerns with buying a plane... the only barrier to me right now is cost. However, with a bit more business, who knows?:)
This isn't limited just to Mercedes... Subaru has Drive! magazine, and BMW has BMW Magazine (which is a paid subscription, but often included with a new car). These are just the two I know of because I still get Drive! in the mail occasionally despite the fact I haven't owned a Subaru in a while...
All car manufacturers "spam" their purchasers... particularly in the more premium marques. Personally, I don't mind it at all... the magazines make good light fluff reading material when I can't be bothered with a book (or don't have time), and at their worst they light my fireplace just as well as anything else...;)
Yes, I'd drive a Subaru again if they produced something I wanted. As it is, I'm probably a Bimmer customer for life at this point because the car is just so perfect for my driving style, and the current generation of 3 series is not radically different in driving feel from the last (the E90 as opposed to the E46 I own at the moment).
Like you, my experience with my Bimmer has been nothing short of stellar, despite a head gasket failure about a year ago... but that happens. As it stands, I just turned over 100,000 miles and need to replace my shift bushings... but other than that the car is as tight as the day I bought it. Can't complain about that at all.
Oh, and on-topic... I can't for the life of me imagine why this Lexus idea is a good one. It's just such an horrible idea... if I was even interested in the marque, this would definitely steer me well clear of a Lexus dealer when I am shopping for my new car. Pity... I was actually thinking about test driving an IS until I read this...
Just the same as Linux, you can install Port, or Gentoo for OSX and you can access a huge library of totally free software within OSX. I have both installed on my Macbook Pro because they're really handy to have around.
Similarly, as you said you can find tools that are free as well, and I use a lot of great free software on my Mac, particularly those you mention. While it's true that it does seem to be more troublesome at first to find free software for Mac, more often than not a little more digging will find it and find it far better quality than most of the stuff released for free for Windows:)
You're not alone. I read one, thought it was great, really inventive. Quite amusing etc. Then I read a second and found it was the first one with a slightly different plot.
Then you need to try a few more. I agree that a lot of his books, particularly the early ones are quite "samey"... and I find that in particular the Rincewind / Wizard books are a bit repetitious, but you need to find other series of his and try them to give the guy a fair shake.
Even though most of his books are billed as "Discworld" books, there are in fact a number of sub-series within the overall series that are extremely different, and just provide other viewpoints on this rich and wonderful world he's created. My personal favourites happen to be the Guards books (starting with Guards! Guards!) and the History Monks books, but other friends of mine enjoy the Witches series more. There are also a few stand-alone novels that are excellent, of which I really enjoy Small Gods. Some people consider Mort a standalone, but it's really the first of the "Death Series". There are plenty of crossover stories as well that take elements that span two or more of the series, but in all honesty if all you've read are the Wizards books then you're reading what I feel are the weakest of the series.
His stand-alone non-Discworld books are also excellent... my first copy of Good Omens pretty much fell apart is was read and re-read so many times, and though that was a collaboration with Neil Gaiman it's obviously his humour that shines in that book.
Yes, I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett, and I'm glad to see his works being recognized, I stopped reading him for a few years because life got in the way (and lack of time)... now I'm catching up thanks to Audible.com, an iPod and the stereo in my car... now on Monstrous Regiment, another excellent stand-alone book:)
I live in St. Louis, so I feel I can probably speak to this a bit (especially the Metrolink section).
There are two major hurdles to mass transit in the US, the first being that US cities across most of the country are really sub optimal for this kind of infrastructure.
Look at London; highly centralized and a mass transit system that in many cases pre-dates the widespread adoption of the automobile. The same's true of New York, but you go into the center of the US and things are extremely different. Cities like St. Louis are highly decentralized. I can honestly say that living here there's no real concept of going "downtown". Business districts are scattered all over the metro area, and the suburbs are forever stretching further and further West (the Mississippi stops most of the growth to the East and in some instances North of the city).
The advantage of this sort of decentralization is that for most things, a lot of people have to travel 5 miles or less to get everything they need, except perhaps work in one of the industrial or office districts around town. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, and she perhaps puts 6000 miles a year on her Volvo. Now, this sounds ideal for public transport... but then you have to take into account the fact that this decentralized structure means you have to have multiple decentralized depots all over the place. There's no real way to do this without incurring significant cost.
The Metrolink is a nice idea, but is a bit of a joke. It does a decent enough job of connecting Lambert Airport (the main airport hub in STL) to St. Louis downtown, as I pointed out much of the business is in other areas such as Clayton, Town and Country and Fenton. The Metrolink only services ONE of these areas of town, presently and despite the recent expansions of the Metrolink itself, there's still almost no coverage of these major business districts. The feeling seems to be "If we build it, the business will follow", which unfortunately seems to be quite wrong, particularly since many of the businesses had moved out to the more distant parts of the county long before Metrolink came along.
Just because the efficiency of Metrolink is called into queestion, doesn't mean the entire concept of mass transit is in error. The problem is that in order for mass transit to work, cities (particularly in the Central US) need to be more willing to adapt themselves to a more centralized model rather than decentralized. This is quite unlikely though, which I feel is unfortunately quite short sighted. That's of course the second major hurdle; the fact that the American mindset would need to change in order to facilitate mass transit.
I myself would happily use Metrolink, but it's not going to work for me. It doesn't go out into St. Charles County where I live, nor does it run to Town and Country where I work. The most efficient route for me to get to work right now is a roughly 14 mile drive... and even that's only been shortened from 18 miles in the last 6 weeks due to road construction projects that finally got completed.
Understand though that my opinion is a little different from most simply because I have experience good mass transit; I lived in London for many years and loved the tube. Don't get me wrong, it had (and has) it's problems, but I was fitter for my mile each way walk to the tube station each day from my house... and my half mile walk from the tube station to the office. I was also healthier in general I think thanks to the fact that I managed to habitually sleep on the underground, waking up consistently within a few stops of the one I needed for work. Those extra naps each day helped immensely. I do miss that somewhat, but my life is here now. However, who knows what the future may bring.
Just to reiterate what you've already said; the best "American" car I think I ever owned was a 1993 Ford Escort sedan with a 5-speed. I finally sold it with 190,000 miles on the clock, still on the original transmission and engine. It got me 35mpg consistently, and needed nothing more than oil changes, tires and so on that I did myself. Sure, toward the end of its life I had problems with some other stuff (like paint and trim peeling off quite badly, and air conditioning that didn't work for the last three years I had it), but damned if it didn't just keep running.
Of course, it was a Mazda, not a Ford product. It was a rebadged Protege. Other than that I had a Pontiac Grand Am (ate its transmission right over 100,000 miles), a Ford Probe (electrical gremlins galore)... and don't get me started on the Pontiac Sunfire. The only American car I ever owned that I actually liked was a 2000 Grand Prix GTP, but I didn't own it long enough for it to have problems (personal financial issues).
On imports I've owned Subarus that needed nothing more than routine maintenance, a Volvo that has also been in the shop for nothing more than routine maintenance, and currently driving a 2001 BMW 330i that DID blow a head gasket earlier this year but beyond that has been extremely dependable and is about to turn 100,000 miles (probably next week). Now, I do all the routine maintenance myself on these cars, so I don't know how much difference that makes... but it always amazes me how different the reliability and dependability are on imports as opposed to domestic vehicles.
Besides, one thing that's not covered in the article is that hardware has an exponentially higher residual maintenance cost.
In order to maintain production, many companies these days insist that hardware be in-warranty and thus able to be replaced at a moment's notice. There comes a point as well at which the amount that the hardware will cost on an ongoing basis far exceeds the cost of a single programmer to write a decent app that doesn't need it.
I have recently saved my company the equivalent of my salary, doubled for the next two years purely in the cost of maintenance contracts for around 150 servers. Granted, this was using virtualization rather than programming to combat the problem, but in this case it made sense. The concept is still the same regardless.
If you think otherwise, tell me: how would you do capacity planning for a new website with an unknown growth curve?
Easily. You test your application thoroughly before you start, putting as many torture tests on it as you can. Sure, you start with cheap and simple dev systems, and using them appropriately with the right monitoring you identify your bottlenecks (you'll usually find I/O or Database to be your bottlenecks in most instances)
Once you've identified those problems, plan your production systems accordingly. If I/O is the problem, provide a method whereby your I/O can be optimized and usually the answer on how to grow that will present itself as part of that process.
For example I recently worked on a very similar example where we had an application that was VERY I/O intensive we were trying to deploy. I got involved in the project late (typical Corporate BS; they decided to involve the systems analyst after they'd already passed their original go-live date... go figure). Anyway, I immediately saw their I/O bottleneck and was able to make some educated guesses as to how to combat this; i.e. work with the app folks to move stuff around appropriately so that I/O could be split up easily across multiple paths, and using the right filesystem format for the job. Since the application created and deleted a large number of files that were reasonably large in size, I spec'ed out that we have the filesystem (unfortunately NTFS... the app was.net based) formatted with a 32K block size, alignment of 64 on a proper multi-path controller to our HP EVA. I also made use of junction points so that we had multiple LUNs presented that made up the "F:" drive (the working drive for the application), and made sure our MPIO drivers supported active load balancing.
The programmers had originally spec'ed out a farm of systems to run the application properly... just getting involved from a capacity planning perspective because the upper management nixed the expense meant that their originally spec'ed 10 server farm dropped to two... and we could in fact drop to one except that we wanted some fault tolerance:)
Now, we don't know what the growth curve of this site/app are going to be. Simple fact is that since it was built intelligently, it's easy to expand I/O bandwidth now; hell, we can add new LUNs with new paths to the drives... or we can even add another multi-path controller if I/O becomes an issue. In our case, growth of our app does not necessarily need hardware thrown at it... it only took me three days of work with the programmers to do all this analysis and give them a proof of concept.
Funnily enough, I had a similar conversation with her a few years ago... and she gave me a pretty similar answer. Though I did point out I enjoyed EFC even through the third season, a combination of episodic stories and a TV schedule that kept throwing it all over the map really destroyed my ability to enjoy the show as much as I would've liked. She agreed with me that the networks didn't take the show seriously at all, and it was only her name that really got the show to continue as long as it did.
The same's actually true of Andromeda; it started out pretty damned well and I felt it had great potential. It was ruined though when they moved away from the great story arcs and more toward episodic TV... I turned off that one almost immediately when that happened.
I do have to say though that when I met and talked to her (for quite some time, actually), I have to say that she was a great woman with a fantastic personality that sparkled... and a wonderful sense of humour. She seemed to be laughing at something almost constantly... talking to her was addictive and she actually (I think) would've enjoyed the torrent of bad jokes here on Slashdot.
God speed, Majel... the world will mourn your passing at least as much as it did Gene's.
Who in Europe continued maintainning libraries and preserving knowledge through this period? The church, and monasteries in particular.
Really, no-one... but even the traditionalist view of the Golden Age of Islam says that much of the ancient knowledge was preserved by the Arab world rather than the Christian world. As we (as the defacto Christian civilization) burned out libraries and destroyed our history to build cathedrals, the Islamic world at the very least maintained that ancient knowledge that we later "rediscovered"
Now, there's a more revisionist view that says that much of the science we take as Christian was built upon the foundations built during the Islamic Golden Age. Much of the mathematics and ideas that we have do seem to have a precursor in ancient Muslim writings, but this is all just theory (and not mine, I just read up on this stuff 'cos it's interesting to me).
I will reserve judgment on where I think the Islamic world stands today on science, as the loudest voices in the Muslim world are also the most fanatical. Just as not all Christians are George W Bush, so not all Muslims can be judged against their most visible (in the media) "representatives".
I think what you mean is the fact that he MADE great games isn't really in question. That was a long time ago, in a different market with different expectations.
Like many, he's gone from being the visionary and programmer to being the CEO of yet another company that's doing the same as the rest. His company no longer produces compelling games (in my opinion, anyway) which is why I don't buy them. No, I don't buy them used, either... I buy games that I know have a significant and replayable single-player campaign (I still fire up Independence War 2 on occasion). The multi-player options are nice and all, but they're an occasional thing for me. I still play Halo occasionally with friends, but what keeps it on my hard drive is occasionally I like to fire up and play the campaign again.
I think if you take Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace as one single movie, they work really well.
I was lucky; I actually made a point with my friends of sitting and watching Casino on the afternoon of the day we went to see Quantum. Taken as a single narrative broken into two "acts" it actually works extremely well... but I can see where people would be disappointed in Quantum as a standalone movie... because it isn't.
Most movies you get three distinct "acts"... Casino's third act fell a little flat for me but only on watching Quantum did I realize that the entirety of the latter movie was that third act; the third act of Casino was an interstitial (as was the really flat first act of Quantum!)
Honestly, I think that Daniel Craig is a better screen Bond than any of the others I have ever seen. I read the Fleming books when I was really young (I grew up with Moore as Bond) and was easily able to see the differences between the source material and the movies. Daniel Craig plays Bond as an arrogant ass... exactly as he was in the books... though not nearly as self-assured as Moore-Bond.
Having said that, I think my favorite Moore-Bond movie was "A View to a Kill", but that's not because it's a Bond movie but it's a really fun movie in and of itself.
Hugely off-topic... but I've lived in a lot of cities in my life including London, New York and Belfast... I now reside in St. Louis and find it no better and no worse than any of the others I've listed.
Basically, when you live in a modern city, there are parts of it you go into and parts you don't. As long as you figure out which parts are which pretty quickly you're going to (generally) be OK.
Up until recently, I had an apartment just off Kingshighway at Manchester... just to the East of Kingshighway. I knew well enough that I could happily walk to the West as far as I felt like going, but a block or so to the East and I'd be running rather than walking. I could relate similar experiences in every other city I've ever lived in.
Actually, I rely on both... having had one relatively minor road-rash once in my life and found that it hurts like an SOB having your leg brillo-padded in the hospital to get the grit out.
I wear a full-face helmet, gloves, a jacket and riding overpants... oh, and boots. ATGATT. I know from experience that the padding in good quality gear will protect you from the relatively minor impact you suffer when low-siding a bike... or even rolling off the hood of a car that just pulled out in front of you. I also know from all too good experience that said gear is unbeatable for its abrasion resistance. Had I worn the pants as well as the jacket, I would've not had the road rash! Don't kid yourself... jeans don't work so well when being worn down by asphalt.
I don't feel I look like a motocross or crotch rocket rider. I ride a sport touring bike (Kawasaki Concours 14) and feel I look like a sport-touring rider in my Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket and Tourmaster Venture pants. OK... yes... a minor slashvertisement... but although I haven't put either of these to the test, yet they provide fantastic all-season protection from the elements and have wonderful armor throughout.
Heh... and you think the average cager actually checks his mirrors before opening his door? Or check blind spots before changing lanes?
Doesn't happen... at least not in my experience. I realize that you're right... but as insinuated many times before; a person is smart... people are stupid.
It's a calculated risk... you know, like you do every day when you pull out into traffic in ANY vehicle. Just because you're in a car, doesn't mean you're not at risk from precisely the same things.
I live in a state where lane splitting is illegal, more's the pity... but it's rarely a requirement here. When I was in England a few years ago on a motorbike though, it was definitely a great way to get through often standstill traffic, quite legal... and generally relatively safe.
First, there are certain guidelines that you need to understand as a rider. If you understand these guidelines then it's really quite safe to split lanes. Number one... 15mph approximately above the prevailing speed of traffic, and only when said traffic is going more than 30mph below the posted speed limit. Second, it is usually safer to lane split if there is more than one bike doing it at a time... people see more than one bike easier than just one. Third, it's actually safer to split on a bike that's noisy as drivers usually hear said bike coming.
I followed these guidelines and was quite safe, even when traveling through 2 miles of traffic that was "parked" on the M6 because of an accident. There were three bikes in that "convoy" as well as myself and we all were following the 15mph guideline.
Now, if you ignore these guidelines, that's your own body that's on the line. I can't tell any riders how to ride their bikes... only how I ride mine.
I'll have to say that I think Opera rocks on Windows Mobile devices. Unfortunately, the only problem I hit frequently is a lack of memory when loading desktop web pages.
That's a flaw of my device, not of Opera... but still, it's annoying:)
I plan to tackle this just as soon as AT&T gets their finger out and releases the Fuze...:D
And I think you missed part of my point; the point is that alternate data entry methods ARE available and they ARE practical. They're just not yet mainstream because the technology is still catching up. I am a bleeding edge kind of person, but do you realize how cool my management think I am when I can hit a button on my KVM at my desk and type up something on my phone with a real keyboard, mouse and monitor hooked through my Redfly? And this while the phone is still in my pocket...
And storage? You may be right, but maybe not. I see plenty of people drooling over 32GB of flash storage in their Macbook Air or IBM Thinkpad... and my phone has 4GB in it at any one time (multiple SDHC cards) and I've not wanted for storage despite using this thing a lot. Oh, and last I checked the iPhone has 16GB, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a 32GB one hits the shelves.
You've also apparently missed the memo about cloud computing... it's already here and has been for years... just people don't really realize it. I can fire up my phone everywhere except in serious BFN on my Redfly, fire up the Citrix client and work on whatever data I want to work on. If I lose my connection, NBD... I just reconnect and the document's still there (at least for the next 6 hours until my connection times out;) ). If I need to fix a server at work and don't have my laptop on me, I can turn on the WiFi and fire up an RDP client to fix it... or PocketPutty (depending on the server).
I've literally gotten to the point where I don't need a laptop, 90% of the time. I still carry it because it IS nice to have a full-size portable device with me in the event I want a big screen, keyboard and (bluetooth) mouse at a remote location... but those days are becoming fewer and further between because the two devices I carry all the time (Redfly and phone) provide me all the functionality I *need* without bogging me down with stuff I don't.
No, you're right that the specs don't sell to anyone but geeks... but specs make the functionality work better. The iPhone wouldn't be nearly the seller it is without a very powerful CPU and a decent amount of RAM to run the operating system because it would run like crap. Even three years ago, the interface probably would've been impossible or at least extremely difficult.
Similarly, the specs didn't sell my cube-neighbour his Touch Diamond... but the specs sure as hell made that TouchFlo 3D interface possible and even usable.
I didn't miss the point... I am very aware of the point. Bear in mind as I said in my comments earlier that I am thinking far in advance of today. I'm already living in that world... I've been an early adopter all my life... but I don't believe for a second that I will be alone here for long. Hell, my friend with the Touch Diamond is buying a Redfly after payday (tomorrow) after seeing mine... and he doesn't care about specs either. He just likes the functional abilities it gives him in addition to the device he already carries around.
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Realistically, if this were to happen it wouldn't take THAT long to rebuild our technology. Sure, it'd take time, and it'd take money... but don't doubt that we are SO dependent on our technology today that we would definitely rebuild.
On the bright side, employment for technology people with a creative bent (creating solutions with minimal technology) will find great and very lucrative careers. Short term pain, long term gain.
Me, I welcome the coming apocalypse ;)
LOL... and if it gives you any idea about the flexibility all this buys us, the number of VM's rose from 168 to 169 in the time it took me to write this little tirade :)
You don't have to pay a few grand per server for VMware.
You can get ESXi for free, and if you're concerned about the cost of the management infrastructure you can buy third-party management tools on an ad-hoc basis that provide much of the functionality of VI3. That way you can get in for a lot less money.
Now, having said that if you get beyond 2 physical servers, and want to get into the whole "vmotion" capability stuff then you need VI3 and shared storage. Then, of course your costs DO increase exponentially.
However, if you're in the position to buy good shared storage (like a SAN... iSCSI being the low entry cost point these days) and suitable hardware, you're not going to balk at licensing costs.
Look at where I work. We're a Windows shop but we have VI3 across the board. We have 11 physical servers running dual quad core CPU's across three locations (datacenters). As of this morning we have 168 virtual machines and enough "slack" in our infrastructure that we could lose 4 of the physical machines and still only then be hurting for headroom. Add to that this entire farm is managed by one person (me, though the actual guest machines are mostly administered by others) and you can probably tell that we get great economies of scale.
Oh, and more to your point about licensing for VMware. Well, we can offset that; we buy a Windows Datacenter license per host, which allows us to have an unlimited number of guests on each host (check the licensing... this is valid!). In this way we have paid a little more for a Datacenter license than we would for an Enterprise license, but we have more than made up that licensing cost AND the licensing cost of VMware by savings in hardware cost, electricity, management cost, space and a bunch of other numbers that you really have to run in a production environment to get a feel for.
Can you imagine the cost of 168 physical servers, all cranking all day long... all with maintenance costs, power costs, cooling costs and hardware replacement issues? Not to mention the cost per license for Windows (160 of these machines are Windows Server, a mix of Standard and Enterprise)? We did the cost/benefit analysis and chose VMware.
We're also NOT one of the truly huge companies out there... we definitely are in the medium business range. I agree your point about small businesses, but more often than not they're going to use whatever their consulting company tells them to. Most small businesses, even with on-site admins rely on one or two vendors for their support, hardware, engineering and so forth. Whatever their vendor says to use, they're probably going to pay for.
For my needs, I found QEMU to be limited, XEN to be a pain in the rear to work with and KVM to be just too complex. I don't fear complexity; I've been a UNIX guy for years as well as a Windows guy (and Gentoo at home, of course ;) ) but when it comes to just getting the job done, VMware has it down. If I need a new host I just rack the hardware, install ESX and add it to my VirtualCenter management. Once there, it's pretty much hands off unless I need to patch the infrastructure. Right there, the tools are built-in, too; UpdateManager is a really powerful tool for managing a system like this.
I can guarantee you that since this is a roadable aircraft and not a flying car, it will be subject to the same inspection and maintenance requirements as a light aircraft.
Reality is, this thing is going to be expensive to own, but no more so than an average light aircraft *and* a car (since as you point out you'll have the same wear and tear as a car with a very rigorous maintenance schedule).
There's a good reason light aircraft fly for 20 years or more; they need to be in order to maintain an airworthiness certificate. This vehicle will be no different.
That depends a lot on the person, though. I got my license in 48 hours.
Me, I'd actually consider one of these things; it actually meets most of my concerns with buying a plane... the only barrier to me right now is cost. However, with a bit more business, who knows? :)
...the marketing department having recently decided to increase the volume because a large segment of their target demographic is hard of hearing?
Nah... that'd be the Cadillac buyers...
This isn't limited just to Mercedes... Subaru has Drive! magazine, and BMW has BMW Magazine (which is a paid subscription, but often included with a new car). These are just the two I know of because I still get Drive! in the mail occasionally despite the fact I haven't owned a Subaru in a while...
All car manufacturers "spam" their purchasers... particularly in the more premium marques. Personally, I don't mind it at all... the magazines make good light fluff reading material when I can't be bothered with a book (or don't have time), and at their worst they light my fireplace just as well as anything else... ;)
Yes, I'd drive a Subaru again if they produced something I wanted. As it is, I'm probably a Bimmer customer for life at this point because the car is just so perfect for my driving style, and the current generation of 3 series is not radically different in driving feel from the last (the E90 as opposed to the E46 I own at the moment).
Like you, my experience with my Bimmer has been nothing short of stellar, despite a head gasket failure about a year ago... but that happens. As it stands, I just turned over 100,000 miles and need to replace my shift bushings... but other than that the car is as tight as the day I bought it. Can't complain about that at all.
Oh, and on-topic... I can't for the life of me imagine why this Lexus idea is a good one. It's just such an horrible idea... if I was even interested in the marque, this would definitely steer me well clear of a Lexus dealer when I am shopping for my new car. Pity... I was actually thinking about test driving an IS until I read this...
Just the same as Linux, you can install Port, or Gentoo for OSX and you can access a huge library of totally free software within OSX. I have both installed on my Macbook Pro because they're really handy to have around.
Similarly, as you said you can find tools that are free as well, and I use a lot of great free software on my Mac, particularly those you mention. While it's true that it does seem to be more troublesome at first to find free software for Mac, more often than not a little more digging will find it and find it far better quality than most of the stuff released for free for Windows :)
Well, if you're at all interested in email, it's the same as my user name at the same domain where my homepage is hosted :)
And you're welcome. :)
You're not alone. I read one, thought it was great, really inventive. Quite amusing etc. Then I read a second and found it was the first one with a slightly different plot.
Then you need to try a few more. I agree that a lot of his books, particularly the early ones are quite "samey"... and I find that in particular the Rincewind / Wizard books are a bit repetitious, but you need to find other series of his and try them to give the guy a fair shake.
Even though most of his books are billed as "Discworld" books, there are in fact a number of sub-series within the overall series that are extremely different, and just provide other viewpoints on this rich and wonderful world he's created. My personal favourites happen to be the Guards books (starting with Guards! Guards!) and the History Monks books, but other friends of mine enjoy the Witches series more. There are also a few stand-alone novels that are excellent, of which I really enjoy Small Gods. Some people consider Mort a standalone, but it's really the first of the "Death Series". There are plenty of crossover stories as well that take elements that span two or more of the series, but in all honesty if all you've read are the Wizards books then you're reading what I feel are the weakest of the series.
His stand-alone non-Discworld books are also excellent... my first copy of Good Omens pretty much fell apart is was read and re-read so many times, and though that was a collaboration with Neil Gaiman it's obviously his humour that shines in that book.
Yes, I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett, and I'm glad to see his works being recognized, I stopped reading him for a few years because life got in the way (and lack of time)... now I'm catching up thanks to Audible.com, an iPod and the stereo in my car... now on Monstrous Regiment, another excellent stand-alone book :)
I live in St. Louis, so I feel I can probably speak to this a bit (especially the Metrolink section).
There are two major hurdles to mass transit in the US, the first being that US cities across most of the country are really sub optimal for this kind of infrastructure.
Look at London; highly centralized and a mass transit system that in many cases pre-dates the widespread adoption of the automobile. The same's true of New York, but you go into the center of the US and things are extremely different. Cities like St. Louis are highly decentralized. I can honestly say that living here there's no real concept of going "downtown". Business districts are scattered all over the metro area, and the suburbs are forever stretching further and further West (the Mississippi stops most of the growth to the East and in some instances North of the city).
The advantage of this sort of decentralization is that for most things, a lot of people have to travel 5 miles or less to get everything they need, except perhaps work in one of the industrial or office districts around town. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, and she perhaps puts 6000 miles a year on her Volvo. Now, this sounds ideal for public transport... but then you have to take into account the fact that this decentralized structure means you have to have multiple decentralized depots all over the place. There's no real way to do this without incurring significant cost.
The Metrolink is a nice idea, but is a bit of a joke. It does a decent enough job of connecting Lambert Airport (the main airport hub in STL) to St. Louis downtown, as I pointed out much of the business is in other areas such as Clayton, Town and Country and Fenton. The Metrolink only services ONE of these areas of town, presently and despite the recent expansions of the Metrolink itself, there's still almost no coverage of these major business districts. The feeling seems to be "If we build it, the business will follow", which unfortunately seems to be quite wrong, particularly since many of the businesses had moved out to the more distant parts of the county long before Metrolink came along.
Just because the efficiency of Metrolink is called into queestion, doesn't mean the entire concept of mass transit is in error. The problem is that in order for mass transit to work, cities (particularly in the Central US) need to be more willing to adapt themselves to a more centralized model rather than decentralized. This is quite unlikely though, which I feel is unfortunately quite short sighted. That's of course the second major hurdle; the fact that the American mindset would need to change in order to facilitate mass transit.
I myself would happily use Metrolink, but it's not going to work for me. It doesn't go out into St. Charles County where I live, nor does it run to Town and Country where I work. The most efficient route for me to get to work right now is a roughly 14 mile drive... and even that's only been shortened from 18 miles in the last 6 weeks due to road construction projects that finally got completed.
Understand though that my opinion is a little different from most simply because I have experience good mass transit; I lived in London for many years and loved the tube. Don't get me wrong, it had (and has) it's problems, but I was fitter for my mile each way walk to the tube station each day from my house... and my half mile walk from the tube station to the office. I was also healthier in general I think thanks to the fact that I managed to habitually sleep on the underground, waking up consistently within a few stops of the one I needed for work. Those extra naps each day helped immensely. I do miss that somewhat, but my life is here now. However, who knows what the future may bring.
Just to reiterate what you've already said; the best "American" car I think I ever owned was a 1993 Ford Escort sedan with a 5-speed. I finally sold it with 190,000 miles on the clock, still on the original transmission and engine. It got me 35mpg consistently, and needed nothing more than oil changes, tires and so on that I did myself. Sure, toward the end of its life I had problems with some other stuff (like paint and trim peeling off quite badly, and air conditioning that didn't work for the last three years I had it), but damned if it didn't just keep running.
Of course, it was a Mazda, not a Ford product. It was a rebadged Protege. Other than that I had a Pontiac Grand Am (ate its transmission right over 100,000 miles), a Ford Probe (electrical gremlins galore)... and don't get me started on the Pontiac Sunfire. The only American car I ever owned that I actually liked was a 2000 Grand Prix GTP, but I didn't own it long enough for it to have problems (personal financial issues).
On imports I've owned Subarus that needed nothing more than routine maintenance, a Volvo that has also been in the shop for nothing more than routine maintenance, and currently driving a 2001 BMW 330i that DID blow a head gasket earlier this year but beyond that has been extremely dependable and is about to turn 100,000 miles (probably next week). Now, I do all the routine maintenance myself on these cars, so I don't know how much difference that makes... but it always amazes me how different the reliability and dependability are on imports as opposed to domestic vehicles.
Besides, one thing that's not covered in the article is that hardware has an exponentially higher residual maintenance cost.
In order to maintain production, many companies these days insist that hardware be in-warranty and thus able to be replaced at a moment's notice. There comes a point as well at which the amount that the hardware will cost on an ongoing basis far exceeds the cost of a single programmer to write a decent app that doesn't need it.
I have recently saved my company the equivalent of my salary, doubled for the next two years purely in the cost of maintenance contracts for around 150 servers. Granted, this was using virtualization rather than programming to combat the problem, but in this case it made sense. The concept is still the same regardless.
If you think otherwise, tell me: how would you do capacity planning for a new website with an unknown growth curve?
Easily. You test your application thoroughly before you start, putting as many torture tests on it as you can. Sure, you start with cheap and simple dev systems, and using them appropriately with the right monitoring you identify your bottlenecks (you'll usually find I/O or Database to be your bottlenecks in most instances)
Once you've identified those problems, plan your production systems accordingly. If I/O is the problem, provide a method whereby your I/O can be optimized and usually the answer on how to grow that will present itself as part of that process.
For example I recently worked on a very similar example where we had an application that was VERY I/O intensive we were trying to deploy. I got involved in the project late (typical Corporate BS; they decided to involve the systems analyst after they'd already passed their original go-live date... go figure). Anyway, I immediately saw their I/O bottleneck and was able to make some educated guesses as to how to combat this; i.e. work with the app folks to move stuff around appropriately so that I/O could be split up easily across multiple paths, and using the right filesystem format for the job. Since the application created and deleted a large number of files that were reasonably large in size, I spec'ed out that we have the filesystem (unfortunately NTFS... the app was .net based) formatted with a 32K block size, alignment of 64 on a proper multi-path controller to our HP EVA. I also made use of junction points so that we had multiple LUNs presented that made up the "F:" drive (the working drive for the application), and made sure our MPIO drivers supported active load balancing.
The programmers had originally spec'ed out a farm of systems to run the application properly... just getting involved from a capacity planning perspective because the upper management nixed the expense meant that their originally spec'ed 10 server farm dropped to two... and we could in fact drop to one except that we wanted some fault tolerance :)
Now, we don't know what the growth curve of this site/app are going to be. Simple fact is that since it was built intelligently, it's easy to expand I/O bandwidth now; hell, we can add new LUNs with new paths to the drives... or we can even add another multi-path controller if I/O becomes an issue. In our case, growth of our app does not necessarily need hardware thrown at it... it only took me three days of work with the programmers to do all this analysis and give them a proof of concept.
Funnily enough, I had a similar conversation with her a few years ago... and she gave me a pretty similar answer. Though I did point out I enjoyed EFC even through the third season, a combination of episodic stories and a TV schedule that kept throwing it all over the map really destroyed my ability to enjoy the show as much as I would've liked. She agreed with me that the networks didn't take the show seriously at all, and it was only her name that really got the show to continue as long as it did.
The same's actually true of Andromeda; it started out pretty damned well and I felt it had great potential. It was ruined though when they moved away from the great story arcs and more toward episodic TV... I turned off that one almost immediately when that happened.
I do have to say though that when I met and talked to her (for quite some time, actually), I have to say that she was a great woman with a fantastic personality that sparkled... and a wonderful sense of humour. She seemed to be laughing at something almost constantly... talking to her was addictive and she actually (I think) would've enjoyed the torrent of bad jokes here on Slashdot.
God speed, Majel... the world will mourn your passing at least as much as it did Gene's.
Who in Europe continued maintainning libraries and preserving knowledge through this period? The church, and monasteries in particular.
Really, no-one... but even the traditionalist view of the Golden Age of Islam says that much of the ancient knowledge was preserved by the Arab world rather than the Christian world. As we (as the defacto Christian civilization) burned out libraries and destroyed our history to build cathedrals, the Islamic world at the very least maintained that ancient knowledge that we later "rediscovered"
Now, there's a more revisionist view that says that much of the science we take as Christian was built upon the foundations built during the Islamic Golden Age. Much of the mathematics and ideas that we have do seem to have a precursor in ancient Muslim writings, but this is all just theory (and not mine, I just read up on this stuff 'cos it's interesting to me).
I will reserve judgment on where I think the Islamic world stands today on science, as the loudest voices in the Muslim world are also the most fanatical. Just as not all Christians are George W Bush, so not all Muslims can be judged against their most visible (in the media) "representatives".
I think what you mean is the fact that he MADE great games isn't really in question. That was a long time ago, in a different market with different expectations.
Like many, he's gone from being the visionary and programmer to being the CEO of yet another company that's doing the same as the rest. His company no longer produces compelling games (in my opinion, anyway) which is why I don't buy them. No, I don't buy them used, either... I buy games that I know have a significant and replayable single-player campaign (I still fire up Independence War 2 on occasion). The multi-player options are nice and all, but they're an occasional thing for me. I still play Halo occasionally with friends, but what keeps it on my hard drive is occasionally I like to fire up and play the campaign again.
I think if you take Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace as one single movie, they work really well.
I was lucky; I actually made a point with my friends of sitting and watching Casino on the afternoon of the day we went to see Quantum. Taken as a single narrative broken into two "acts" it actually works extremely well... but I can see where people would be disappointed in Quantum as a standalone movie... because it isn't.
Most movies you get three distinct "acts"... Casino's third act fell a little flat for me but only on watching Quantum did I realize that the entirety of the latter movie was that third act; the third act of Casino was an interstitial (as was the really flat first act of Quantum!)
Honestly, I think that Daniel Craig is a better screen Bond than any of the others I have ever seen. I read the Fleming books when I was really young (I grew up with Moore as Bond) and was easily able to see the differences between the source material and the movies. Daniel Craig plays Bond as an arrogant ass... exactly as he was in the books... though not nearly as self-assured as Moore-Bond.
Having said that, I think my favorite Moore-Bond movie was "A View to a Kill", but that's not because it's a Bond movie but it's a really fun movie in and of itself.
Hugely off-topic... but I've lived in a lot of cities in my life including London, New York and Belfast... I now reside in St. Louis and find it no better and no worse than any of the others I've listed.
Basically, when you live in a modern city, there are parts of it you go into and parts you don't. As long as you figure out which parts are which pretty quickly you're going to (generally) be OK.
Up until recently, I had an apartment just off Kingshighway at Manchester... just to the East of Kingshighway. I knew well enough that I could happily walk to the West as far as I felt like going, but a block or so to the East and I'd be running rather than walking. I could relate similar experiences in every other city I've ever lived in.
Jokes aside, at least with OS X performance is the only issue that has to be fixed...
You haven't used Finder much, have you?
Actually, I rely on both... having had one relatively minor road-rash once in my life and found that it hurts like an SOB having your leg brillo-padded in the hospital to get the grit out.
I wear a full-face helmet, gloves, a jacket and riding overpants... oh, and boots. ATGATT. I know from experience that the padding in good quality gear will protect you from the relatively minor impact you suffer when low-siding a bike... or even rolling off the hood of a car that just pulled out in front of you. I also know from all too good experience that said gear is unbeatable for its abrasion resistance. Had I worn the pants as well as the jacket, I would've not had the road rash! Don't kid yourself... jeans don't work so well when being worn down by asphalt.
I don't feel I look like a motocross or crotch rocket rider. I ride a sport touring bike (Kawasaki Concours 14) and feel I look like a sport-touring rider in my Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket and Tourmaster Venture pants. OK... yes... a minor slashvertisement... but although I haven't put either of these to the test, yet they provide fantastic all-season protection from the elements and have wonderful armor throughout.
Heh... and you think the average cager actually checks his mirrors before opening his door? Or check blind spots before changing lanes?
Doesn't happen... at least not in my experience. I realize that you're right... but as insinuated many times before; a person is smart... people are stupid.
(I am also a rider)
It's a calculated risk... you know, like you do every day when you pull out into traffic in ANY vehicle. Just because you're in a car, doesn't mean you're not at risk from precisely the same things.
I live in a state where lane splitting is illegal, more's the pity... but it's rarely a requirement here. When I was in England a few years ago on a motorbike though, it was definitely a great way to get through often standstill traffic, quite legal... and generally relatively safe.
First, there are certain guidelines that you need to understand as a rider. If you understand these guidelines then it's really quite safe to split lanes. Number one... 15mph approximately above the prevailing speed of traffic, and only when said traffic is going more than 30mph below the posted speed limit. Second, it is usually safer to lane split if there is more than one bike doing it at a time... people see more than one bike easier than just one. Third, it's actually safer to split on a bike that's noisy as drivers usually hear said bike coming.
I followed these guidelines and was quite safe, even when traveling through 2 miles of traffic that was "parked" on the M6 because of an accident. There were three bikes in that "convoy" as well as myself and we all were following the 15mph guideline.
Now, if you ignore these guidelines, that's your own body that's on the line. I can't tell any riders how to ride their bikes... only how I ride mine.
I'll have to say that I think Opera rocks on Windows Mobile devices. Unfortunately, the only problem I hit frequently is a lack of memory when loading desktop web pages.
That's a flaw of my device, not of Opera... but still, it's annoying :)
I plan to tackle this just as soon as AT&T gets their finger out and releases the Fuze... :D
And I think you missed part of my point; the point is that alternate data entry methods ARE available and they ARE practical. They're just not yet mainstream because the technology is still catching up. I am a bleeding edge kind of person, but do you realize how cool my management think I am when I can hit a button on my KVM at my desk and type up something on my phone with a real keyboard, mouse and monitor hooked through my Redfly? And this while the phone is still in my pocket...
And storage? You may be right, but maybe not. I see plenty of people drooling over 32GB of flash storage in their Macbook Air or IBM Thinkpad... and my phone has 4GB in it at any one time (multiple SDHC cards) and I've not wanted for storage despite using this thing a lot. Oh, and last I checked the iPhone has 16GB, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a 32GB one hits the shelves.
You've also apparently missed the memo about cloud computing... it's already here and has been for years... just people don't really realize it. I can fire up my phone everywhere except in serious BFN on my Redfly, fire up the Citrix client and work on whatever data I want to work on. If I lose my connection, NBD... I just reconnect and the document's still there (at least for the next 6 hours until my connection times out ;) ). If I need to fix a server at work and don't have my laptop on me, I can turn on the WiFi and fire up an RDP client to fix it... or PocketPutty (depending on the server).
I've literally gotten to the point where I don't need a laptop, 90% of the time. I still carry it because it IS nice to have a full-size portable device with me in the event I want a big screen, keyboard and (bluetooth) mouse at a remote location... but those days are becoming fewer and further between because the two devices I carry all the time (Redfly and phone) provide me all the functionality I *need* without bogging me down with stuff I don't.
No, you're right that the specs don't sell to anyone but geeks... but specs make the functionality work better. The iPhone wouldn't be nearly the seller it is without a very powerful CPU and a decent amount of RAM to run the operating system because it would run like crap. Even three years ago, the interface probably would've been impossible or at least extremely difficult.
Similarly, the specs didn't sell my cube-neighbour his Touch Diamond... but the specs sure as hell made that TouchFlo 3D interface possible and even usable.
I didn't miss the point... I am very aware of the point. Bear in mind as I said in my comments earlier that I am thinking far in advance of today. I'm already living in that world... I've been an early adopter all my life... but I don't believe for a second that I will be alone here for long. Hell, my friend with the Touch Diamond is buying a Redfly after payday (tomorrow) after seeing mine... and he doesn't care about specs either. He just likes the functional abilities it gives him in addition to the device he already carries around.