I am not very rich. But I am comfortable. My company is small and has never had trouble competing with our larger competitors, because our R&D budget is higher than our marketing budget.
Maybe you should realize that just because you want something to be true doesn't mean you can make one sided statements like "software patents are helping businesses stamp out competition from those with less money." I *AM* those with less money. Software patents are helping me compete. Should I go fucking die just because I want some credit for doing something better than my opposition? Or should I just let them get all the good ideas and go back to a bullshit IT job?
Fuck you, man, thinkers got to eat. They shouldn't have to hope nobody else can figure out what they're doing and sell it better than they can (which wouldn't be hard...inventors are as bad at marketing as markeeters are at invention). And "hey, we developed the same thing at the same time, what a coinky-dink" isn't an excuse -- if it were, there'd be less impetus to publish ideas, resulting in less knowledge. Anybody could read the journals and claim coincidental development. It's impossible to prove somebody didn't have an idea unless they get it out in the open, known to you and I as "Prior art." Without patents, you'd have even more secrecy and even more backbiting, because you'd have to rely on copyright (which is worse) or trademarks.
Or maybe you didn't realize that every published patent includes detailed information on how to reproduce the invention being patented...thus guaranteeing documentation of a process for future generations in exchange for a few years of possible profit. No need to reverse engineer the process -- just wait.
Maybe you also didn't realize that very few of the broad patents issued recently have been successfully held up in court. Shit, it takes specific infringments of specific implementations -- like the LZW algorithm -- to even make it to court. Unisys' LZW patent didn't stop a hundred variant dictionary compression utilities to pop up (RAR, ZIP, ARC, ACE, MOO etc), nor did their lock on GIF prevent the development of PNG, SVG, etc. If a patent is too broad, it will be struck down. That's how patent law is set up...courts, not patent clerks, decide enforcability. A patent clerk could give you the patent to printing on cardboard, that doesn't mean you'll be able to successfully sue Kellog's.
Finally, maybe you didn't realize just how easy it is to work around most patents, especially if you're aware of them. Which is easy to do...they're freakin' published! Read their published docs and improve on key components, and patent it yourself.
Hey man, sometimes you gotta run. Even outta shape people gotta run. Shit, my dad's had a double bypass and a coronary artery thing and he runs every now and then. Fast bugger too.
I mean, you run for things like trains, shopping carts rolling towards your car, babies with forks near electrical outlets, knife wielding maniacs, and of course whenever you forget your umbrella.
I'm sure this device allows for some small sort of emergency speed up and slowing down of flow for those times when you just HAVE to run.
This is actually not a terrible idea. However, remember the cycle of power: circulation, combustion and exhaust. Improve one of these, and you still have two more bottlenecks to deal with. The exhaust system, aka lungs, can indeed be improved simply by strengthening the diaphragm. Combustion is another story. I do not know a way of speeding up mitochondria. But beleive me: soon as I find it, that mutant Lance Armstrong is gonna have some competition.
An excellent idea, but -- the question here is not whether user X has the ability to modify their device, but whether a third party company has the right to modify that device without warning. This isn't like adding a spoiler to your car...it's like a body shop replacing your engine so you can get new radio stations. That's what the DMCA is for...if you, personally, can hack your device to get it to play RealNetwork files, that's okay. But for somebody else to alter your device to play them -- or for somebody to tell you how to alter it -- is illegal. It's about stopping the flow of knowledge that could abate copyright infringement. Just because information wants to be free doesn't mean we have to let it escape.
How is this anything but the extension of Apple's product to make it more valuable?
Hey, I'm sure Apple would be thrilled...if they had an open plugin format and Real's patch didn't involve breaking their code to do this. But Apple's locked down the iPod a lot, to prevent their liability lest some hopeful soul make the ultimate copyright infringement tool and install it on an iPod. They've also locked it down to ensure that their consumer device doesn't have shoddy software.
Apple's now faced with having to support people who've installed this patch and fucked their iPod. They're faced with angry calls when their next update breaks the patch. And they're faced with the possibility that Real might fuck with the device's functionality in other ways -- like, say, reporting usage statistics?
Apple has been calm about hacking when it was not invasive. They don't mind people parsing their formats and indeed build their databases from XML files, so anybody can use them. This is the reason they're so protective of their binaries...the only reason to patch them is to do something they can't support, and they certainly don't want to fight a bunch of warranty battles so RealNetwork can look like it's still important.
I've dropped my iPod a few dozen times. Once it fell 25 feet, from the overhead running track at the Y, bouncing down the bleachers as it went. That was eight months ago, it's still fine. Granted, if it hadn't been hugged by its iSkin case I'm sure it would have been dashed to pieces, but it's still really impressive that nothing was jarred loose.
This is why I poo-poo naysayer who worry about running with a portable hard drive. I have shocked these things TO DEATH and they've been more reliable than any of my desktop drives.
Copying from three actively used locations, merging, and putting them on a slow external drive. Then I back up from there. I don't want to stop using my drives while I burn 30 DVDs.
so I guess renaming a bunch of files is faster than moving them to another partition
Noooooo, if you read my post I said that copying, moving and renaming, with a large amount of ID3 parsing, on HFS+ was faster than JUST copying on ReiserFS.
My dual Athlon never once locked up since I removed the audigy2 plat
A file system lock up is quite different from a REAL lock up. A file system lockup stops a particular Explorer window's contents to stop refreshing or responding for the period of the lockup. It happens regardless of hardware (happens all the time on our RAID at work, deleting a few hundred thousand bad mail files from Exchange).
I don't see many people who know what they're talking about "decrying" HFS+ -- just theorists. It's an amazingly efficient filesystem...today I copied, renamed and moved 25,000 MP3s prior to backing them up. File operations completed so quickly, I thought at first that they hadn't worked.
In fact, the whole procedure was completed in a quarter of the time it took to JUST move them onto the ReiserFS fileserver...but it's just a P3 somethingsomething...
NTFS is sort of garbage, but what's worse is the Windows file explorer. Working with 25,000 files in 1900 directories is a treat in the MacOS (so long as you use the column view). In Windows...well, expect lockups and failures.
Well, the key to a database filesystem will be seamless data entry and simple, powerful access to search and reporting features.
I have a firm belief that the OSS community will be able to come up with an elegant, efficient solution to the metadata filesystem question. However, I seriously doubt that they'll be able to handle the search and reporting system very well at all. What I'm guessing is that we'll see a thinly veiled front end to grep -- and as much as I like grep, it's a serious pricker bush. I expect to write a regular expression three or four times before I get it right...and I've been writing them for six years!
Easy. Because supply chains that deliver the product, advertising channels that inform the public about its existance, warranty coverage, taxation and even packaging information are COMPLETELY different for each market. Businesses won't pay the high up front cost that a consumer store has to charge to make profits on retail sales. And many consumers won't use the internet/catalog ordering for, say, a box of 5 CDs. Calling this gouging is sort of unfair -- essentially, you're paying for the ability to order with greater immediacy and granularity. Are the retail sales really doing that much better in overall revenue than catalog sales? And is retail volume high enough that they can get away with not advertising, not stocking shelves, not arranging things attractively, not training sales staff, not having a customer service department and not using informative packaging for low volume?
No it isn't. Therefore, it costs more to sell the same object to a consumer than to sell it to a business. Same as it costs more for a small business to sell you something than for a hyper efficient megastore. You have to ask yourself what's more important: price, or all of these "meta" services surrounding it. Shit, I buy my comics for face value at a local comic shop, because even though I could save 20% or more ordering them online, the people at the shop are so friendly, knowledgable and fun to talk to that I often enjoy going to the store more than reading the books I buy there. I certianly don't consider THAT price gouging. Similarly, I buy my bike gear at a local shop to learn about new trails in my area and my fishing gear at a local tackle shop to learn where they're biting. I buy my car paint down the street because it's closer to return if the shade is off and I buy my autoparts at a warehouse up north because they're often not all that busy and are willing to help me install it.
Anyhow, it is entirely possible to sell things for the same price to pretty much everybody. Saturn does it, as does Apple. The reason more people don't do it is that it would require them to charge volume clients more and consumers less, meaning less overall profit. Ok if you're not selling that many things...both Saturn and Apple have a pretty set market...but if what you're selling is no different from the other guy's commodities, you have to take the extra buck where you can get it.
Insightful? Short sighted is more like it. Do you REALLY think the only reason people buy branded items is because of the name? If so, then why not simply by the cheapest items with that name on it? Why buy the more elaborate models?
I'll tell you why: because style is more than just a brand name. It's a combination of "dreams" as you put them and actual looks, fit and feel. I shop at the gap because their shirts really are nice looking, are comfortable, somewhat durable (especially the stitching) have "safe" patterns and the look damn good on me. Is this worth %50 or more above the cost of similar gear at Walmart? Sure it is. I don't mind paying to look and feel good -- I don't spend all that much money on clothes anyway, maybe a few hundred dollars a year, so what's the difference between two pairs of Gap slacks or four pairs of Faded Glory?
I mean, anybody who's still trying to survive in a world of 20% markups over production cost is looking to shop at the dollar store, anyway. So you either pay whatever you're willing to pay and just live with the quality...or you buy what you want, and just live with the cost.
Uh, both these devices have radically different software. That's the difference in price. You can't do as much with the cheaper model...like, say, set it up as a WEP access point and repeater for an existing network...
I don't think that line of ignorance should be defended.
You can't hold everybody accountable because some don't want to learn. Maybe these people don't want to learn because they assume it will be hard...and nobody's taken the chance to explain it slow. Anyhow, you don't have to defend ignorance...just don't attack it. The last thing you want to do is make somebody feel like a dumbass for not knowing something -- defensive people don't learn.
And no, Google and Yahoo aren't in the bare minimum. Our secretary at work doesn't know how to go to a website directly. She doesn't want to learn. The MSN start page offers her utility enough for her to do what she has to, and beyond that, she asks me. I've offered to teach her, but she has real trouble remembering things she doesn't do every day. So I see no reason to press the issue...I save that energy up for when she forgets to buy coffee (joke).
I actually made a sale a few weeks ago solely based on the fact that I sat down and explained in detail what our program did and how it was situated in the market compared to other products. They told me I was the first developer to do more than just buzzwords and aires of superiority. Shit, they even bought products we haven't made yet.
Anyhow, thanks for reading my website. I shall endeavour to post more often, now that I realize it doesn't just sit there, unheard, like a Leonard Cohen record.
I dunno about that. There are a lot of programs that just wouldn't work on a local level. Social welfare programs, for example, benefit greatly from spreading the tax burden across regions. Defense benefits from a central authority. Not to mention ubiquitous interstate highways.
In fact, our government works really well, when you get down to it. Yeah, there's pork...but there's always going to be. Yeah, there's a lot of tragic stupidity...but we know about it, and we have the power to fix it. I can't think of a better government...well, maybe Canada, but they got all of our best progressive thinkers back during Vietnam:).
Expensive, yes. Overpriced, no. ESRI's stuff is far and away the best integrated and best functioning suite of GIS tools I've used...much easier and more flexible than the tools from MapInfo, and lightyears -- milllions of them -- ahead of anything the OSS community has come up with.
As soon as something can approach the functionality and usability of ArcInfo, I will gladly agree with you. But as it stands, ESRI's stuff isn't overpriced so much as everything else is under-engineered (and it shows!)
I don't feel bad giving my money or my clients' money to ESRI...because I know that they'll quickly eat up the $500-$1000 they save buying MapInfo stuff in wasted time due to silly interfaces and buggy code. MapInfo's data management and mapping tools are excellent...their data display and map generation tools, sorely lacking.
That said...for the absolute lowest level GIS stuff (splicing together seams of an orthoimage or converting mercater projection coordinates to longitude latitude), the ESRI package is major overkill. Few of our customers will never use the really impressive features of the toolset. But it also saves them time having ME install and layer their datasets...which I can do in a quarter of the time...and my time is billed at something obscene like $150 per hour.
See, the US government can operate on deficit spending. Many states can do this as well. A county cannot -- and counties just don't get that much tax. The budget is small and set...you know exactly how much money and how much help you have for the year, and you make do with that. Many places will have some positions that are only allowed to work 10 or 20 paid hours a week.
Local and regional governments get around this by buying packages of software and services with a yearly fee...cheaper than hiring an employee. This is probably what Arizona County did, especially seeing as they recently reduced property taxes and hence the county's budget.
Government budgeting *IS* wonderful. Unfortunately, the state and federal budgets AREN'T budgeted -- not really. They figure out how much they need, and then write that down...as opposed to figuring how much they get, and making that stretch.
Where, for example, is the line drawn between a local government's Tourism Bureau and an all-out travel information website
There isn't one. And why should there be? Government, especially on the local level, isn't separate from the people, it IS the people. We've just become so used to our interests differing from those of politicians that we've become out of sync with what government is. If the people of a town need tourism, and they decide to vote for a Councilman on the basis of creating a Bureau, then that Bureau should do everything it can to bring people in. If a commercial site were able to do the job as well or better, a new Councilman proposing to demolish the Bureau might be voted in. I've heard many stories of politicians running for local office on the platform of destroying the department they're elected to head...
I work in municipal software, and there's usually a great sense of community in local government. We will lost contracts to worse and more expensive competitors in their home towns. We can expect OUR home town to buy everything we do regardless. And in exchange, we go the extra mile for them...we've put thousands of dollars of support into their software, including daily site visits when they have problems. Government and Business aren't two opposed agencies, and they're certainly not creating a triangle with residents at the other end. Local government, when it works, is there to make residents' lives easier, and that includes the businesses that have residency there. It can also include FIGHTING businesses that ask for too much...a local village is splitting off of its parent town because the parent keeps allowing the Walmart corporation to develop land without any environmental impact, resident appeal or archeological survey (around the second oldest city in america!). The residents were sick of it...so they've begun incorporating themselves in preparation to block the development which is turning a nice semi-rural area into suburban sprawl. Government is leading this charge.
Uh, I love cynical posts like this. Hey brother, let me help you out. Government has a pricetag, and projects we like sometimes don't get the money they need. This is because government has to jump through a lot of hoops to get bonds and such passed, so generally they have a finitie amount of money for everything they have to do. For little projects like GIS datasets, which are EXTREMELY expensive to produce and yet most residents expect them to be free, people have to get a little creative. The US Government (USGS) outsources some of their larger data downloads to companies that either charge for bandwidth or ask you to assemble datasets to be burnt on a CD. My state gets around the cost of producing dataset by creating a community "clearinghouse," where members can download all the data in exchange for uploading all of theirs. Much of the orthoimagery (photos from planes) is done by amateurs and hobbiests. And still others of it is older data "retired" by professional GIS folks who can't sell last year's data (but can take a tax break for giving it up to said hobbiests).
Incidentally, there's been "advertising" by GIS firms on this state's GIS website for at least three years, as well as a directory of where to get your GIS imported. Most of these firms are NOT corporations at all...they're private firms and small businesses and sometimes just clever geographers with plotters and spare time. There's no reason government and business shouldn't work hand in hand, so long as it doesn't squelch peoples' rights, and in this case we're getting a lot more out of the deal than we're putting in to it.
Did the machine have Linux on it when you bought it?
No? They don't even SELL a laptop with Linux on it?
Then I'm not surprised they don't make special concessions for you. I wouldn't. Delivering a cross platform boot disk would require a more complicated installer than just a single MSI file...and for no economic benefit.
Get your Windows friend -- you know, the one you probably made fun of for not being smart and running Linux like you -- to copy the disk for you. And be thankful the industry hasn't fallen to DRM yet!
This is so funny! People don't know how to use computers and they get the terms wrong! I am glad I am not an idiot like this!
Anyhow, I got to go call my urinologist and see how my collinoscopy went. He said I might have a sissed!
In case you are not aware of sarcasm, I am calling you an elitist asshole. In the four years I worked technical support at a fucking college, I never once disrespected somebody for not knowing what they were doing. I dunno if you noticed, but computers are very complicated and full of completely arbitrary rules. One need not memorize all of them to get the job done, and many people don't find the random whirrings and flashing lights to be very interesting. These people learn the bare minimum to get along, and go on with their lives. I used to have this guy -- everybody else dreaded working with him -- who didn't know a damned thing about computers, I had to start Word for him and save his work (to three separate disks he hid about his person). This guy was working on a really cunning thesis and was regarded as people in the linguistics department as brilliant. Do you suppose he makes fun of his 101 students in the language lab? "Ho Ho Ho, so and so used the transitive form when he meant to use the pluperfect, what a maroon?"
I like to think he treated his students with more respect. Which is why I treated him with the same.
But the thing is, it shouldn't MATTER whose hard drives and models they use. And it doesn't. A company can give good support and still have lemon equipment...Apple, for example, often buys crap hardware in wholesale...but once they discover they're crap, they replace them, often even out of warranty. The G3 iBooks had a logic board warranty extension for this very reason (too late for my buddy, who had already parted his out on ebay).
Slashdot Mirror
I make a living.
Selling ideas.
I am not very rich. But I am comfortable. My company is small and has never had trouble competing with our larger competitors, because our R&D budget is higher than our marketing budget.
Maybe you should realize that just because you want something to be true doesn't mean you can make one sided statements like "software patents are helping businesses stamp out competition from those with less money." I *AM* those with less money. Software patents are helping me compete. Should I go fucking die just because I want some credit for doing something better than my opposition? Or should I just let them get all the good ideas and go back to a bullshit IT job?
Fuck you, man, thinkers got to eat. They shouldn't have to hope nobody else can figure out what they're doing and sell it better than they can (which wouldn't be hard...inventors are as bad at marketing as markeeters are at invention). And "hey, we developed the same thing at the same time, what a coinky-dink" isn't an excuse -- if it were, there'd be less impetus to publish ideas, resulting in less knowledge. Anybody could read the journals and claim coincidental development. It's impossible to prove somebody didn't have an idea unless they get it out in the open, known to you and I as "Prior art." Without patents, you'd have even more secrecy and even more backbiting, because you'd have to rely on copyright (which is worse) or trademarks.
Or maybe you didn't realize that every published patent includes detailed information on how to reproduce the invention being patented...thus guaranteeing documentation of a process for future generations in exchange for a few years of possible profit. No need to reverse engineer the process -- just wait.
Maybe you also didn't realize that very few of the broad patents issued recently have been successfully held up in court. Shit, it takes specific infringments of specific implementations -- like the LZW algorithm -- to even make it to court. Unisys' LZW patent didn't stop a hundred variant dictionary compression utilities to pop up (RAR, ZIP, ARC, ACE, MOO etc), nor did their lock on GIF prevent the development of PNG, SVG, etc. If a patent is too broad, it will be struck down. That's how patent law is set up...courts, not patent clerks, decide enforcability. A patent clerk could give you the patent to printing on cardboard, that doesn't mean you'll be able to successfully sue Kellog's.
Finally, maybe you didn't realize just how easy it is to work around most patents, especially if you're aware of them. Which is easy to do...they're freakin' published! Read their published docs and improve on key components, and patent it yourself.
Hey man, sometimes you gotta run. Even outta shape people gotta run. Shit, my dad's had a double bypass and a coronary artery thing and he runs every now and then. Fast bugger too.
I mean, you run for things like trains, shopping carts rolling towards your car, babies with forks near electrical outlets, knife wielding maniacs, and of course whenever you forget your umbrella.
I'm sure this device allows for some small sort of emergency speed up and slowing down of flow for those times when you just HAVE to run.
This is actually not a terrible idea. However, remember the cycle of power: circulation, combustion and exhaust. Improve one of these, and you still have two more bottlenecks to deal with. The exhaust system, aka lungs, can indeed be improved simply by strengthening the diaphragm. Combustion is another story. I do not know a way of speeding up mitochondria. But beleive me: soon as I find it, that mutant Lance Armstrong is gonna have some competition.
This is the coolest woman I've ever heard of.
Is she single? Does she like drinking beer and watching Family Guy?
Dude...it's GOT to be wierd to put your BODY on a charger.
Incidentally, I hope they don't use Lithium Ion batteries...and if they do, I hope they don't have Apple design the interface...
(apologies to apple. yes, i know they're user replacable, I've replaced them)
An excellent idea, but -- the question here is not whether user X has the ability to modify their device, but whether a third party company has the right to modify that device without warning. This isn't like adding a spoiler to your car...it's like a body shop replacing your engine so you can get new radio stations. That's what the DMCA is for...if you, personally, can hack your device to get it to play RealNetwork files, that's okay. But for somebody else to alter your device to play them -- or for somebody to tell you how to alter it -- is illegal. It's about stopping the flow of knowledge that could abate copyright infringement. Just because information wants to be free doesn't mean we have to let it escape.
How is this anything but the extension of Apple's product to make it more valuable?
Hey, I'm sure Apple would be thrilled...if they had an open plugin format and Real's patch didn't involve breaking their code to do this. But Apple's locked down the iPod a lot, to prevent their liability lest some hopeful soul make the ultimate copyright infringement tool and install it on an iPod. They've also locked it down to ensure that their consumer device doesn't have shoddy software.
Apple's now faced with having to support people who've installed this patch and fucked their iPod. They're faced with angry calls when their next update breaks the patch. And they're faced with the possibility that Real might fuck with the device's functionality in other ways -- like, say, reporting usage statistics?
Apple has been calm about hacking when it was not invasive. They don't mind people parsing their formats and indeed build their databases from XML files, so anybody can use them. This is the reason they're so protective of their binaries...the only reason to patch them is to do something they can't support, and they certainly don't want to fight a bunch of warranty battles so RealNetwork can look like it's still important.
I've dropped my iPod a few dozen times. Once it fell 25 feet, from the overhead running track at the Y, bouncing down the bleachers as it went. That was eight months ago, it's still fine. Granted, if it hadn't been hugged by its iSkin case I'm sure it would have been dashed to pieces, but it's still really impressive that nothing was jarred loose.
This is why I poo-poo naysayer who worry about running with a portable hard drive. I have shocked these things TO DEATH and they've been more reliable than any of my desktop drives.
Why do you copy before you backup?
Copying from three actively used locations, merging, and putting them on a slow external drive. Then I back up from there. I don't want to stop using my drives while I burn 30 DVDs.
so I guess renaming a bunch of files is faster than moving them to another partition
Noooooo, if you read my post I said that copying, moving and renaming, with a large amount of ID3 parsing, on HFS+ was faster than JUST copying on ReiserFS.
My dual Athlon never once locked up since I removed the audigy2 plat
A file system lock up is quite different from a REAL lock up. A file system lockup stops a particular Explorer window's contents to stop refreshing or responding for the period of the lockup. It happens regardless of hardware (happens all the time on our RAID at work, deleting a few hundred thousand bad mail files from Exchange).
I don't see many people who know what they're talking about "decrying" HFS+ -- just theorists. It's an amazingly efficient filesystem...today I copied, renamed and moved 25,000 MP3s prior to backing them up. File operations completed so quickly, I thought at first that they hadn't worked.
In fact, the whole procedure was completed in a quarter of the time it took to JUST move them onto the ReiserFS fileserver...but it's just a P3 somethingsomething...
NTFS is sort of garbage, but what's worse is the Windows file explorer. Working with 25,000 files in 1900 directories is a treat in the MacOS (so long as you use the column view). In Windows...well, expect lockups and failures.
Well, the key to a database filesystem will be seamless data entry and simple, powerful access to search and reporting features.
I have a firm belief that the OSS community will be able to come up with an elegant, efficient solution to the metadata filesystem question. However, I seriously doubt that they'll be able to handle the search and reporting system very well at all. What I'm guessing is that we'll see a thinly veiled front end to grep -- and as much as I like grep, it's a serious pricker bush. I expect to write a regular expression three or four times before I get it right...and I've been writing them for six years!
Why *can't* we all pay the same reasonable price?
Easy. Because supply chains that deliver the product, advertising channels that inform the public about its existance, warranty coverage, taxation and even packaging information are COMPLETELY different for each market. Businesses won't pay the high up front cost that a consumer store has to charge to make profits on retail sales. And many consumers won't use the internet/catalog ordering for, say, a box of 5 CDs. Calling this gouging is sort of unfair -- essentially, you're paying for the ability to order with greater immediacy and granularity. Are the retail sales really doing that much better in overall revenue than catalog sales? And is retail volume high enough that they can get away with not advertising, not stocking shelves, not arranging things attractively, not training sales staff, not having a customer service department and not using informative packaging for low volume?
No it isn't. Therefore, it costs more to sell the same object to a consumer than to sell it to a business. Same as it costs more for a small business to sell you something than for a hyper efficient megastore. You have to ask yourself what's more important: price, or all of these "meta" services surrounding it. Shit, I buy my comics for face value at a local comic shop, because even though I could save 20% or more ordering them online, the people at the shop are so friendly, knowledgable and fun to talk to that I often enjoy going to the store more than reading the books I buy there. I certianly don't consider THAT price gouging. Similarly, I buy my bike gear at a local shop to learn about new trails in my area and my fishing gear at a local tackle shop to learn where they're biting. I buy my car paint down the street because it's closer to return if the shade is off and I buy my autoparts at a warehouse up north because they're often not all that busy and are willing to help me install it.
Anyhow, it is entirely possible to sell things for the same price to pretty much everybody. Saturn does it, as does Apple. The reason more people don't do it is that it would require them to charge volume clients more and consumers less, meaning less overall profit. Ok if you're not selling that many things...both Saturn and Apple have a pretty set market...but if what you're selling is no different from the other guy's commodities, you have to take the extra buck where you can get it.
Insightful? Short sighted is more like it. Do you REALLY think the only reason people buy branded items is because of the name? If so, then why not simply by the cheapest items with that name on it? Why buy the more elaborate models?
I'll tell you why: because style is more than just a brand name. It's a combination of "dreams" as you put them and actual looks, fit and feel. I shop at the gap because their shirts really are nice looking, are comfortable, somewhat durable (especially the stitching) have "safe" patterns and the look damn good on me. Is this worth %50 or more above the cost of similar gear at Walmart? Sure it is. I don't mind paying to look and feel good -- I don't spend all that much money on clothes anyway, maybe a few hundred dollars a year, so what's the difference between two pairs of Gap slacks or four pairs of Faded Glory?
I mean, anybody who's still trying to survive in a world of 20% markups over production cost is looking to shop at the dollar store, anyway. So you either pay whatever you're willing to pay and just live with the quality...or you buy what you want, and just live with the cost.
Uh, both these devices have radically different software. That's the difference in price. You can't do as much with the cheaper model...like, say, set it up as a WEP access point and repeater for an existing network...
I don't think that line of ignorance should be defended.
You can't hold everybody accountable because some don't want to learn. Maybe these people don't want to learn because they assume it will be hard...and nobody's taken the chance to explain it slow. Anyhow, you don't have to defend ignorance...just don't attack it. The last thing you want to do is make somebody feel like a dumbass for not knowing something -- defensive people don't learn.
And no, Google and Yahoo aren't in the bare minimum. Our secretary at work doesn't know how to go to a website directly. She doesn't want to learn. The MSN start page offers her utility enough for her to do what she has to, and beyond that, she asks me. I've offered to teach her, but she has real trouble remembering things she doesn't do every day. So I see no reason to press the issue...I save that energy up for when she forgets to buy coffee (joke).
I actually made a sale a few weeks ago solely based on the fact that I sat down and explained in detail what our program did and how it was situated in the market compared to other products. They told me I was the first developer to do more than just buzzwords and aires of superiority. Shit, they even bought products we haven't made yet.
Anyhow, thanks for reading my website. I shall endeavour to post more often, now that I realize it doesn't just sit there, unheard, like a Leonard Cohen record.
I dunno about that. There are a lot of programs that just wouldn't work on a local level. Social welfare programs, for example, benefit greatly from spreading the tax burden across regions. Defense benefits from a central authority. Not to mention ubiquitous interstate highways.
:).
In fact, our government works really well, when you get down to it. Yeah, there's pork...but there's always going to be. Yeah, there's a lot of tragic stupidity...but we know about it, and we have the power to fix it. I can't think of a better government...well, maybe Canada, but they got all of our best progressive thinkers back during Vietnam
Expensive, yes. Overpriced, no. ESRI's stuff is far and away the best integrated and best functioning suite of GIS tools I've used...much easier and more flexible than the tools from MapInfo, and lightyears -- milllions of them -- ahead of anything the OSS community has come up with.
As soon as something can approach the functionality and usability of ArcInfo, I will gladly agree with you. But as it stands, ESRI's stuff isn't overpriced so much as everything else is under-engineered (and it shows!)
I don't feel bad giving my money or my clients' money to ESRI...because I know that they'll quickly eat up the $500-$1000 they save buying MapInfo stuff in wasted time due to silly interfaces and buggy code. MapInfo's data management and mapping tools are excellent...their data display and map generation tools, sorely lacking.
That said...for the absolute lowest level GIS stuff (splicing together seams of an orthoimage or converting mercater projection coordinates to longitude latitude), the ESRI package is major overkill. Few of our customers will never use the really impressive features of the toolset. But it also saves them time having ME install and layer their datasets...which I can do in a quarter of the time...and my time is billed at something obscene like $150 per hour.
You've never worked for a county.
See, the US government can operate on deficit spending. Many states can do this as well. A county cannot -- and counties just don't get that much tax. The budget is small and set...you know exactly how much money and how much help you have for the year, and you make do with that. Many places will have some positions that are only allowed to work 10 or 20 paid hours a week.
Local and regional governments get around this by buying packages of software and services with a yearly fee...cheaper than hiring an employee. This is probably what Arizona County did, especially seeing as they recently reduced property taxes and hence the county's budget.
Government budgeting *IS* wonderful. Unfortunately, the state and federal budgets AREN'T budgeted -- not really. They figure out how much they need, and then write that down...as opposed to figuring how much they get, and making that stretch.
Where, for example, is the line drawn between a local government's Tourism Bureau and an all-out travel information website
There isn't one. And why should there be? Government, especially on the local level, isn't separate from the people, it IS the people. We've just become so used to our interests differing from those of politicians that we've become out of sync with what government is. If the people of a town need tourism, and they decide to vote for a Councilman on the basis of creating a Bureau, then that Bureau should do everything it can to bring people in. If a commercial site were able to do the job as well or better, a new Councilman proposing to demolish the Bureau might be voted in. I've heard many stories of politicians running for local office on the platform of destroying the department they're elected to head...
I work in municipal software, and there's usually a great sense of community in local government. We will lost contracts to worse and more expensive competitors in their home towns. We can expect OUR home town to buy everything we do regardless. And in exchange, we go the extra mile for them...we've put thousands of dollars of support into their software, including daily site visits when they have problems. Government and Business aren't two opposed agencies, and they're certainly not creating a triangle with residents at the other end. Local government, when it works, is there to make residents' lives easier, and that includes the businesses that have residency there. It can also include FIGHTING businesses that ask for too much...a local village is splitting off of its parent town because the parent keeps allowing the Walmart corporation to develop land without any environmental impact, resident appeal or archeological survey (around the second oldest city in america!). The residents were sick of it...so they've begun incorporating themselves in preparation to block the development which is turning a nice semi-rural area into suburban sprawl. Government is leading this charge.
Uh, I love cynical posts like this. Hey brother, let me help you out. Government has a pricetag, and projects we like sometimes don't get the money they need. This is because government has to jump through a lot of hoops to get bonds and such passed, so generally they have a finitie amount of money for everything they have to do. For little projects like GIS datasets, which are EXTREMELY expensive to produce and yet most residents expect them to be free, people have to get a little creative. The US Government (USGS) outsources some of their larger data downloads to companies that either charge for bandwidth or ask you to assemble datasets to be burnt on a CD. My state gets around the cost of producing dataset by creating a community "clearinghouse," where members can download all the data in exchange for uploading all of theirs. Much of the orthoimagery (photos from planes) is done by amateurs and hobbiests. And still others of it is older data "retired" by professional GIS folks who can't sell last year's data (but can take a tax break for giving it up to said hobbiests).
Incidentally, there's been "advertising" by GIS firms on this state's GIS website for at least three years, as well as a directory of where to get your GIS imported. Most of these firms are NOT corporations at all...they're private firms and small businesses and sometimes just clever geographers with plotters and spare time. There's no reason government and business shouldn't work hand in hand, so long as it doesn't squelch peoples' rights, and in this case we're getting a lot more out of the deal than we're putting in to it.
Let me just say: between "dozy twat" and "tits up," I loved this post simply for the british slang factor.
Did the machine have Linux on it when you bought it?
No? They don't even SELL a laptop with Linux on it?
Then I'm not surprised they don't make special concessions for you. I wouldn't. Delivering a cross platform boot disk would require a more complicated installer than just a single MSI file...and for no economic benefit.
Get your Windows friend -- you know, the one you probably made fun of for not being smart and running Linux like you -- to copy the disk for you. And be thankful the industry hasn't fallen to DRM yet!
Ho Ho Ho!
This is so funny! People don't know how to use computers and they get the terms wrong! I am glad I am not an idiot like this!
Anyhow, I got to go call my urinologist and see how my collinoscopy went. He said I might have a sissed!
In case you are not aware of sarcasm, I am calling you an elitist asshole. In the four years I worked technical support at a fucking college, I never once disrespected somebody for not knowing what they were doing. I dunno if you noticed, but computers are very complicated and full of completely arbitrary rules. One need not memorize all of them to get the job done, and many people don't find the random whirrings and flashing lights to be very interesting. These people learn the bare minimum to get along, and go on with their lives. I used to have this guy -- everybody else dreaded working with him -- who didn't know a damned thing about computers, I had to start Word for him and save his work (to three separate disks he hid about his person). This guy was working on a really cunning thesis and was regarded as people in the linguistics department as brilliant. Do you suppose he makes fun of his 101 students in the language lab? "Ho Ho Ho, so and so used the transitive form when he meant to use the pluperfect, what a maroon?"
I like to think he treated his students with more respect. Which is why I treated him with the same.
But the thing is, it shouldn't MATTER whose hard drives and models they use. And it doesn't. A company can give good support and still have lemon equipment...Apple, for example, often buys crap hardware in wholesale...but once they discover they're crap, they replace them, often even out of warranty. The G3 iBooks had a logic board warranty extension for this very reason (too late for my buddy, who had already parted his out on ebay).