but it does is break the network effect. Customers and suppliers of Bank of America no longer have to have MS Office in order to communicate with them. It's the network effect which has made MS Office the monopoly product it is.
With MS Office, the format changes on a regular basis. There are already doc format files which are almost impossible to read, even on Windows. Governments, multinationals may want data to remain readable for the forseeable future, you don't get that unless you are using a standardised document format.
Mmmm, also switch platforms. With doc, you are locked into a monopoly, which is frankly a dumb place to put yourself given an easy alternative.
Office will become irrelevant. ODF is going to become the digital equivalent of paper. Universally readable, that'll remove the requirement for Office in a single stroke.
which is good btw, we'll see some real competition in that segment again.
We're moving from an era of abundance to an era of scarcity.
This means people are going to have to start paying their way for oil and water. Pay by the litre for both, no more flat rate water usage and higher prices for oil. Ultimately economics will drive more efficient technologies for both water and oil usage.
MS is big, *slow* and competing against people who can give their products away for free. My question is where are all the sharks taking advantage of this?
BTW, don't they just plug in and appear as a drive? Anyway...
It's all the peripherals. Your ipod, palm, nokia, cameras etc syncing with the calendar, todo, email, files etc. The problem isn't actually with Linux, it's with closed proprietary protocols. Saying the problem is with Linux is naive, the problem is with standardisation and with peripheral manufacturers writing software which works on several platforms. Its really an economic problem rather than a technical one.
Psion recognised that PDAs on their own would be overtaken by PDAs with a phone and connectivity built in. They made a deal with the number 1 phone company, Nokia. The Nokia Communicators are the result of that. They are Psions with phones added on.
I have a Nokia 9210 and yup, it's an updated Series 5 with colour screen, email, web etc etc etc. ok so it's a brick, but it's a brick that's served me well for years, a brick which will bring my life crashing to a halt when it breaks down. My next phone will be either a Nokia 9500 or a Nokia 9300 as replacement, slightly less brick like but still the Psion tech built in and a fabulous PDA OS and UI.
Have they learned that screen real estate is vital on these small displays yet? I can't tell much from the screenshot. The bar along the bottom suggests they haven't. The Linux/qtopia Zaurus I had was absolutely dreadful for wasting the screen. Menus, buttons, status lines, large scrollbars all over the place. Damned near unusable...looks at supplier web site... Nope they haven't fixed it, they're still taking the windows desktop metaphor and trying to squeeze it onto a tiny screen. Well maybe they've improved the keyboard shortcuts.
The Epoc based Nokia Communicator though does make good use of screen space. It should it came from a company who understood how to make a usable PDA.
You also have 180,000kg of aircraft traveling at 236m/s. Which gives you an additional 5 gigajoules. Hmm, insignificant in comparison to the fuel. As you were.
Mass spectrometers are much better than 99.99% accurate. Down to parts per billion is fairly common, and the pre Mass Spectrometer stage (gas, liquid chromatograph, or in this case, selected ion flow tube) manipulates out compounds you don't want to analyse. That doesn't mean you set the trigger level of the number of molecules at 1, or 10 molecules, you set it at a level which would indicate that there are quantities of explosives present.
The nice thing about this tech is it's very fast compared to gcms or lcms. I wouldn't count it out, it looks interesting.
Which is why some people buy bullion coins and e-gold with their excess cash.
The supply and demand of knowledge
on
The Expert Mind
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"Andy Soltis of Chess Life remarked on something like the 8-year limit whereupon nearly infinite amounts of continued work produce *no* further gains. This presumably relates to where natural talent leaves off."
Or where it's increasingly difficult to find the information necessary to progress. example...
Starting at 0% of the subject, 100% is available. 50% knowledge, 50% is available to learn. 90% knowledge learned only 10% is available to learn. 99% knowledge, only 1% is available to be learned.
As you progress it becomes harder and harder to find the information nesessary to progress so progress plateus. Extraordinary drive and motivation is necessary to search out those extra 0.5% and 0.1% bits of skill/knowledge because you have to search/train constantly for little reward.
"Truth is, when we solve a major math problem like the Poincaré conjecture, billions of dollars of revenue are generated by new technologies"
Ah. No... The money/capital isn't generated. It's simply moved from one place to another, from low performing areas to higher performing areas. Only the governments can print money. Are you trying to tell me that money invested in the telecoms industry inherently has more merit than money invested in the entertainment industry?
What makes a mathematical proof inherently better than comedy?
What you need to do is define "merit". Why is one thing better than another. You certainly can't define inherent merit in terms of money because that's simply market demand, if you do that then oil is the most meritful commodity in existence. It's a philosophical question, is a society where everyone is connected instantly to every one else but constantly working "better" than a society where everyone is happy and relaxed?
Eventually you'll come to the conclusion that merit or better is something that individuals define for themselves. There is no such thing as inherent value or inherent merit. Trade exists because individuals value different things for different reasons. Then those individuals pay their money for those things they think have merit and value...
So... Yes, Adam Sandler's comedy by definition has more merit or value to our society than Perelman's solution to the Poincaré conjecture. At some point in the unseen future that might change, the solution might on the other hand sit gathering dust on a shelf as a mathematical curiosity until the universe dies.
Slashdot Mirror
And that information wants to be free.
Hmmm, do you have a gmail address?
Business processes are god. which makes a sort of sense when people leave.
Lots of very personal information made public through simple lack of respect for customers.
Something traffic planners should read I reckon.
Nobody wants it. They're not willing to make the capital investment necessary to harvest it. That's because oil is incredibly cheap.
but it does is break the network effect. Customers and suppliers of Bank of America no longer have to have MS Office in order to communicate with them. It's the network effect which has made MS Office the monopoly product it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
Please read...
http://gplv3.fsf.org/gpl-draft-2006-07-27.html
With MS Office, the format changes on a regular basis. There are already doc format files which are almost impossible to read, even on Windows. Governments, multinationals may want data to remain readable for the forseeable future, you don't get that unless you are using a standardised document format.
Mmmm, also switch platforms. With doc, you are locked into a monopoly, which is frankly a dumb place to put yourself given an easy alternative.
Office will become irrelevant. ODF is going to become the digital equivalent of paper. Universally readable, that'll remove the requirement for Office in a single stroke.
which is good btw, we'll see some real competition in that segment again.
It's the year of our Lord 2006... Not 2003.
We're moving from an era of abundance to an era of scarcity.
This means people are going to have to start paying their way for oil and water. Pay by the litre for both, no more flat rate water usage and higher prices for oil. Ultimately economics will drive more efficient technologies for both water and oil usage.
MS is big, *slow* and competing against people who can give their products away for free. My question is where are all the sharks taking advantage of this?
On desktops anyway. No hard disk... Simply not required with 8Gb->32Gb USB drives available.
Adopt SI units... Please!
BTW, don't they just plug in and appear as a drive? Anyway...
It's all the peripherals. Your ipod, palm, nokia, cameras etc syncing with the calendar, todo, email, files etc. The problem isn't actually with Linux, it's with closed proprietary protocols. Saying the problem is with Linux is naive, the problem is with standardisation and with peripheral manufacturers writing software which works on several platforms. Its really an economic problem rather than a technical one.
Psion recognised that PDAs on their own would be overtaken by PDAs with a phone and connectivity built in. They made a deal with the number 1 phone company, Nokia. The Nokia Communicators are the result of that. They are Psions with phones added on.
I have a Nokia 9210 and yup, it's an updated Series 5 with colour screen, email, web etc etc etc. ok so it's a brick, but it's a brick that's served me well for years, a brick which will bring my life crashing to a halt when it breaks down. My next phone will be either a Nokia 9500 or a Nokia 9300 as replacement, slightly less brick like but still the Psion tech built in and a fabulous PDA OS and UI.
Have they learned that screen real estate is vital on these small displays yet? I can't tell much from the screenshot. The bar along the bottom suggests they haven't. The Linux/qtopia Zaurus I had was absolutely dreadful for wasting the screen. Menus, buttons, status lines, large scrollbars all over the place. Damned near unusable...looks at supplier web site... Nope they haven't fixed it, they're still taking the windows desktop metaphor and trying to squeeze it onto a tiny screen. Well maybe they've improved the keyboard shortcuts.
The Epoc based Nokia Communicator though does make good use of screen space. It should it came from a company who understood how to make a usable PDA.
The return on investment in lawyers isn't as high as it should be. Being unprofitable anything which reduces the numbers of lawyers is a good thing.
You also have 180,000kg of aircraft traveling at 236m/s. Which gives you an additional 5 gigajoules. Hmm, insignificant in comparison to the fuel. As you were.
Mass spectrometers are much better than 99.99% accurate. Down to parts per billion is fairly common, and the pre Mass Spectrometer stage (gas, liquid chromatograph, or in this case, selected ion flow tube) manipulates out compounds you don't want to analyse. That doesn't mean you set the trigger level of the number of molecules at 1, or 10 molecules, you set it at a level which would indicate that there are quantities of explosives present.
The nice thing about this tech is it's very fast compared to gcms or lcms. I wouldn't count it out, it looks interesting.
No really, no cellular phone ability...
They're handy for organising events between friends. The pub etc. Sometimes you meet new people through them which can be interesting.
I predict that the preponderance of non users will be substantially higher than 30% amongst Slashdot users.
Which is why some people buy bullion coins and e-gold with their excess cash.
"Andy Soltis of Chess Life remarked on something like the 8-year limit whereupon nearly infinite amounts of continued work produce *no* further gains. This presumably relates to where natural talent leaves off."
Or where it's increasingly difficult to find the information necessary to progress. example...
Starting at 0% of the subject, 100% is available.
50% knowledge, 50% is available to learn.
90% knowledge learned only 10% is available to learn.
99% knowledge, only 1% is available to be learned.
As you progress it becomes harder and harder to find the information nesessary to progress so progress plateus. Extraordinary drive and motivation is necessary to search out those extra 0.5% and 0.1% bits of skill/knowledge because you have to search/train constantly for little reward.
"Truth is, when we solve a major math problem like the Poincaré conjecture, billions of dollars of revenue are generated by new technologies"
Ah. No... The money/capital isn't generated. It's simply moved from one place to another, from low performing areas to higher performing areas. Only the governments can print money. Are you trying to tell me that money invested in the telecoms industry inherently has more merit than money invested in the entertainment industry?
What makes a mathematical proof inherently better than comedy?
What you need to do is define "merit". Why is one thing better than another. You certainly can't define inherent merit in terms of money because that's simply market demand, if you do that then oil is the most meritful commodity in existence. It's a philosophical question, is a society where everyone is connected instantly to every one else but constantly working "better" than a society where everyone is happy and relaxed?
Eventually you'll come to the conclusion that merit or better is something that individuals define for themselves. There is no such thing as inherent value or inherent merit. Trade exists because individuals value different things for different reasons. Then those individuals pay their money for those things they think have merit and value...
So... Yes, Adam Sandler's comedy by definition has more merit or value to our society than Perelman's solution to the Poincaré conjecture. At some point in the unseen future that might change, the solution might on the other hand sit gathering dust on a shelf as a mathematical curiosity until the universe dies.