I don't accept that at all. Electric cars need servicing, new tyres, brakes, repairs, body work and spare parts. They need firmware updates, diagnostics, battery changes too. And of course there are second hand sales. There is plenty of business for an aftermarket to provide. It may well be that Tesla has to sell / licence the training, tools and software to do some of this but that doesn't stop dealers from offering the service.
Speaking in an absolute sense, you are right. Even electric cars need servicing.
Be practical, though. We aren't talking about just a few degrees of difference between electric cars and old-fashioned cars. The difference will prove to be huge.
Imagine an gasoline car but then remove the piston rings, gaskets, timing chain, water pump, starter motor and alternator (both of which mysteriously often fail), fuel pump, carburetor or fuel injectors. Petroleum burning vehicles have a level of complexity that is an order of magnitude greater than electrical cars. Of course they are going to fail more and require more frequent servicing.
In the long run, this debate will be moot. People buy whatever is cheapest up front. In the end, the fewer moving parts a device has, the cheaper it is. Count the moving parts.
The reason some Americans are concerned about this situation is because there is the very real possibility that in 20- or 30-years we could be stuck with automotive distribution regulations that are comically and expensively out of kilter with reality. Here in the colonies, business and government are often the same thing.
I've installed three GU10's at my house. Before, though, I did a TON of research, including tear-downs.
Most of the different GU10 vendors on Amazon are cheap Chinese crap-makers with names like Sunthin and Triangle or whatnot. I went ahead a paid a lot more for Philips brand.
I know a couple people in Austin who've paid for air-conditioning techs to "fix" their AC. It turns out that a relays in the compressor boxes outside their homes are caked with dead ant bodies, creating an insulating layer. Kinda pisses people off that nothing is actually broken but the service bill is tendered, just the same....and, of course, it's 100-degrees outside so it does need to be dealt with promptly.
You should have seen Charter drop prices from $75/m to $30/m within 3 days of another ISP announcing fiber. Too bad the naked 30Mb was only for new customers and for me to get the deal, I would have to bundle in a ton of extra channels and phone and a 2 year contract with a $300 cancellation fee.
Wonderful story, and EXACTLY why I avoid long-term contracts with all of the energy that I can muster. Long-term contracts are great for service providers but very bad for customers, regardless of the "discounts" that they are promising you get. Once you are in a contract, you are their bitch.
I want my service providers (not just ISPs but providers of all stripes) to wake up every morning, wondering what they will to do to keep my business -- I want to be a new, potential customer every day.
It is good to point out the Austin has Grande Communications, which actually has pretty good service for the price. The problem is they have limited coverage.
Grande coverage is so limited that no one I know has it -- not a single person. Maybe someone in Round Rock gets Grande but I know only a couple people out there and they use TW.
No, effectively Austin has just two large ISPs providing service and controlling the market: TimeWarner and ATT. They both pretty much suck.
Intelligent people go to great lengths to avoid having to pay more tax than they are legally obliged to. But if you're poor you don't pay much tax at all, so what the hell are you complaining about? You're using the same roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. All for a few hundred bucks a year.
I guess what you don't understand, Dunbal, is the difference between legal/illegal and right/wrong.
I OWNED a Commodore 1541 hard drive and, yes, they were slow but they held a lot of data and -- most importantly -- they doubled as a convenient electrical hibachi.
Equating intelligence with brain size has always been both stupid and puzzling to me, particularly since there's no good evidence to support it that can't be countered by contra-evidence that at least as good or better.
When I took a typing class back in the mid-70's on an Underwood 5 manual typewriter, I do believe that a word was 5-characters -- and that does not include the space between the words. The standard is surely older than you are, whipper snapper.
98% of the recommendations made here strike me as wrong.
Here's what you should do: Terminate your business with them.
The funds that they owe you? Move it into the "Bad Debt" section of your ledgers. Don't work for them anymore and don't waste anymore time and money going after what they owe you. Even if you did finally get them to pay you for some of your work, can you trust them?
If I'm late on my bill, does the phone company care why? Having been broke before I assure you they do not. I reciprocate by not caring at all why it is so hard for them to conduct their business, I care only for the benefits that accrue to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't accept that at all. Electric cars need servicing, new tyres, brakes, repairs, body work and spare parts. They need firmware updates, diagnostics, battery changes too. And of course there are second hand sales. There is plenty of business for an aftermarket to provide. It may well be that Tesla has to sell / licence the training, tools and software to do some of this but that doesn't stop dealers from offering the service.
Speaking in an absolute sense, you are right. Even electric cars need servicing.
Be practical, though. We aren't talking about just a few degrees of difference between electric cars and old-fashioned cars. The difference will prove to be huge.
Imagine an gasoline car but then remove the piston rings, gaskets, timing chain, water pump, starter motor and alternator (both of which mysteriously often fail), fuel pump, carburetor or fuel injectors. Petroleum burning vehicles have a level of complexity that is an order of magnitude greater than electrical cars. Of course they are going to fail more and require more frequent servicing.
In the long run, this debate will be moot. People buy whatever is cheapest up front. In the end, the fewer moving parts a device has, the cheaper it is. Count the moving parts.
The reason some Americans are concerned about this situation is because there is the very real possibility that in 20- or 30-years we could be stuck with automotive distribution regulations that are comically and expensively out of kilter with reality. Here in the colonies, business and government are often the same thing.
I've installed three GU10's at my house. Before, though, I did a TON of research, including tear-downs.
Most of the different GU10 vendors on Amazon are cheap Chinese crap-makers with names like Sunthin and Triangle or whatnot. I went ahead a paid a lot more for Philips brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The biggest improvement that Nissan could make to the Leaf, at least in Austin, Texas, is to actually have a couple units on the dealer's lots.
Last time I visited a Nissan dealer, they just had Leaf brochures.
The overall maintenance schedule is ridiculously light. No $600/year checkup. No oil changes. It's pretty much just cabin air filters and brakes.
Which is why dealerships in the various U.S. states have been fighting Telsa so vigorously. The Leaf doesn't scare them... yet.
There's a lot of money to be lost in empty service bays.
Everything is relative... In west Texas, pickup trucks with dual fuel tanks are not unheard of.
Urban drivers (most the the US population) would still be well-served by an electric vehicle.
Most people are more than willing to pay for more than they need, which explains a lot about cell phone data plans and such.
Just curious, is anyone aware of a Google intern that has a B-average in college? I mean, was hired that way.
Rice plays Texas because there's good money in it. That's how amateur sports work.
The answer to this is obvious: Contract with a HAM radio club or some group associated with the American Radio Relay League to do it.
Pink zip ties. Works fine in small groups.
Credit card buyer protection is all the reason that I need.
It's my negotiating sledgehammer. I *always* win.
End of story.
I know a couple people in Austin who've paid for air-conditioning techs to "fix" their AC. It turns out that a relays in the compressor boxes outside their homes are caked with dead ant bodies, creating an insulating layer. Kinda pisses people off that nothing is actually broken but the service bill is tendered, just the same. ...and, of course, it's 100-degrees outside so it does need to be dealt with promptly.
You should have seen Charter drop prices from $75/m to $30/m within 3 days of another ISP announcing fiber. Too bad the naked 30Mb was only for new customers and for me to get the deal, I would have to bundle in a ton of extra channels and phone and a 2 year contract with a $300 cancellation fee.
Wonderful story, and EXACTLY why I avoid long-term contracts with all of the energy that I can muster. Long-term contracts are great for service providers but very bad for customers, regardless of the "discounts" that they are promising you get. Once you are in a contract, you are their bitch.
I want my service providers (not just ISPs but providers of all stripes) to wake up every morning, wondering what they will to do to keep my business -- I want to be a new, potential customer every day.
--Richard
It is good to point out the Austin has Grande Communications, which actually has pretty good service for the price. The problem is they have limited coverage.
Grande coverage is so limited that no one I know has it -- not a single person. Maybe someone in Round Rock gets Grande but I know only a couple people out there and they use TW.
No, effectively Austin has just two large ISPs providing service and controlling the market: TimeWarner and ATT. They both pretty much suck.
Google fiber does not even have HBO or MAX.
This is SO FUCKING PERFECT!!!
--Richard
(a non-HBO/non-MAX-watching geek in Austin)
Intelligent people go to great lengths to avoid having to pay more tax than they are legally obliged to. But if you're poor you don't pay much tax at all, so what the hell are you complaining about? You're using the same roads, bridges, schools and hospitals. All for a few hundred bucks a year.
I guess what you don't understand, Dunbal, is the difference between legal/illegal and right/wrong.
I OWNED a Commodore 1541 hard drive and, yes, they were slow but they held a lot of data and -- most importantly -- they doubled as a convenient electrical hibachi.
They don't provide any actual data or proof on the site.
You have to have faith.
Equating intelligence with brain size has always been both stupid and puzzling to me, particularly since there's no good evidence to support it that can't be countered by contra-evidence that at least as good or better.
In what world does 5 characters define a word?
When I took a typing class back in the mid-70's on an Underwood 5 manual typewriter, I do believe that a word was 5-characters -- and that does not include the space between the words. The standard is surely older than you are, whipper snapper.
--Richard
98% of the recommendations made here strike me as wrong.
Here's what you should do: Terminate your business with them.
The funds that they owe you? Move it into the "Bad Debt" section of your ledgers. Don't work for them anymore and don't waste anymore time and money going after what they owe you. Even if you did finally get them to pay you for some of your work, can you trust them?
Move on. They have.
I gotta echo other user's sentiments about Microsoft karma. It's Apple's ball and Apple's court and parking lot and towels and heating and lights.
Microsoft should, of course, monitor the sales figures for this product on their Surface tablet and see how it goes.
Apple will still be around later if MS wants to submit iOS Office for sale on the Apple apps store and pay what everyone else pays.
...$99 a year. That's HUGE....
I don't think that you know what huge means. How long is 6-inches?
It's the way business is done, nowadays. It's nothing personal.
Problem with ZFS is that he'll need a shit ton of RAM. Once ZFS eats into swap, everything goes slowmo!
RAM is free, or nearly so.
If I'm late on my bill, does the phone company care why? Having been broke before I assure you they do not. I reciprocate by not caring at all why it is so hard for them to conduct their business, I care only for the benefits that accrue to me.
I love you.