Well Open Source does give you the option to hire someone to pick up the source code and make improvements/bugfixes. Not particularly interesting for a private user, but relevant in a commercial context.
It's not as relevant in a commercial context as you might think either. Hiring programmers and building an development team is expensive.
Businesses are no different than individuals. They want something that Just Works and that support for is phone call away. They don't want to pay the (high) ongoing costs of maintenance and/or the hassle of doing it themselves.
This imperial crap almost everyone else in the US uses is rather incomprehensible.
Yet, somehow, millions of people routinely do so - and have for a couple of centuries now. That suggests it's not actually incomprehensible.
We've lost people and multi-million dollar machines because of imperial, is it really worth it?
On the other hand, we've saved people with imperial units, and built and operated hundreds (millions?) of billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of equipment with imperial units...
So yeah, it's worth it.
Now, ask some kid who knows metric how many meters are in a kilometer. How many centimeters are in a kilometer. Bet you that prepubescent child that know metric will give you an answer really fast, and be right every time.
So what? Why would anyone outside of a small percentage of specialists need to know something as silly as the number of centimeters in a kilometer or the number of inches in a mile? I mean, it's really impressive that you can get a "prepubescent child" to carry out a neat parlor trick... but it's not really relevant to most people's real lives.
What I don't understand about this is how you build a simulator for a craft that only a handful of people have flown, is in limited production and for which there is no combat data in existence.
It's an iterative process - the simulator is initially based on calculations and studies, but continuously updated with data from test flights. By the time they start seriously training for combat maneuvers, the real thing will have been in [simulated] combat already. It's a tried and true process by now, and it works.
I know that test pilots take their jobs pretty seriously but can they really have tried all of the stupid things that ALL of the multinational end-users are going to try?
Pilots, generally, are not inclined to try significantly stupid things. These aren't teenagers with their first hot rod, but trained professionals. All the same, as I said above - as they expand the envelope in flight testing, the data will be fed back into the simulator. If the pilots do try something extreme, and it's actually within the capability of the aircraft, it'll be in the simulator.
Both the military and the aerospace industry have been playing with simulators for three quarters of a century now, they do have some idea of how to go about it.
Great more money wasted n a project that is already behind and overbudget.
The simulator was almost certainly contracted for and ordered years ago. Canceling it would have saved almost nothing (and probably would have cost in contract termination fees and having to pay to have it scrapped) while crippling the training and possibly costing the lives of future pilots.
I decided that herding other soldiers for an additional couple hundred bucks a month wasn't worth it and got out
If you stop and think about, it should come as no surprise that the military doesn't want 'pure' senior techs. Ninety five percent of a senior techs job is doing stuff that a mid grade or junior tech could do, and that's a waste of money and manpower. So what they want is senior techs who will lead, teach, and supervise the mid grade and junior techs - and be there to pull their fat out of the fire when they get in over their heads or one of those five percent of the time problems show up.
As a caveat, YMMV in the Air Force, Navy, or Coast Guard. The Coast Guard was the one I should have checked into but didn't.
No, all the services are pretty much the same for the same reasons.
When you put you belongings in a safety deposit box, do they belong to you or to the person/company that actually owns the safety deposit box?
They belong to you. But that doesn't mean the organization that physically owns the box won't give up the contents when so ordered by the courts. Ditto for the office or house that you rent.
"...Dropbox cooperates with United States law enforcement when it receives valid legal process..."
A "valid legal process" could be a court order, a subpoena, a discovery motion, a search warrant, etc... etc... There's more than one valid and legal avenue for someone to request access to your data, hence their language covers all the bases rather than complies with your simple minded belief that there is only one.
It certainly makes you consider that Dropbox -- like other service providers with access to you data -- would give up your files just for a request from the cops, the FBI, etc. without even the limited due process of an actual court order.
Under certain instances, such a request *is* a "valid legal process" without the need for a specific court order. Take off the tinfoil hat and educate yourself on the legal system.
Google *already* does this, how do you think AdSense generates all those nice targets ads?
The result hasn't been people going berserk. The result has been people putting their fingers in their ears, shutting their eyes tightly, and going "Google does no evil, GOOGLE does no evil, GOOGLE DOES NO EVIL".
When I come home at night and see people in my apartment building's windows, I see quite a lot of tube TVs still going strong (remember, analog broadcast is dead but the cable companies are keeping it alive and well).
And even where analog cable is dead and gone (as it is here), odds are the cable company provided a converter box or card, or a new cable box for free (as they did here).
We haven't gone to an HDTV for several reasons (in no particular order):
Our (analog tube) TV is only six years old, and was a top-of-the-line model when we were given it (as an anniversary present).
Our Tivo box not only converts the digital signal to analog, it automagically letterboxes HD content.
Because of the (inflexible) layout of our living room, we need a minimum of a 47" HDTV or we lose screen size (as seen from the couch), and anything above 40" remains pretty pricey.
Sooner or later the TV or the Tivo is going to die, but until then they suffice to our needs and they Just Work. Even though we can afford to do so, we just can't convince ourselves to pay for little gain.
It's also quite interesting to note who -didn't- get funding in this round (but are of course contenders for future funding rounds):
ULA: This was the most surprising one, since basically all of the accepted non-SpaceX spacecraft proposals have ULA's Atlas V rocket as their baseline and would require upgrades to their emergency detection system.
I'm not surprised at all, it's a deep flaw in the capsule cabal's thinking and one I've pointed out for nearly a decade - extreme and myopic concentration on the 'sexy' parts (the crew) and a near complete lack of attention to the 'unsexy' parts (the booster and cargo delivery).
I think you've missed the point. It's not to say that their overall profitability is that high, but that the margin on the physical product alone is, meaning that manufacturing efficiency and actual product improvement (something that many people would consider to have value) are largely unimportant to them
I think you missed *my* point - which is that is an unsupported assumption.
Honestly I'm not sure I agree, but your conjecture that they spend a lot on marketing, promos, sponsorships and so forth actually reinforces that point - it certainly doesn't refute what the GP post was saying.
The GP made the assumption the margins were high because the cost to the consumer is so high relative to the likely cost of manufacture. I showed how unlikely that was - directly refuting him. I.E., I don't think you understood what he said either.
I just went to an event yesterday sponsored by Monster Energy. I imagine the profit margins on a $5 can of non-carbonated pop is *at least* 500%.
You're error isn't in your imagining, but in proceeding to act as though your imagination represents reality.
Given the amount spent on marketing at the various levels, the amount spent on promotions and sponsorships, the extreme competition in the field, etc... etc... I'd be *very* surprised if the margins were that high. That so far the grocery chains are declining to introduce 'house' brands of energy drinks just adds more weight to the suspicion that the margin is considerably lower.
Not to mention that, the average nuclear submarine has between 0.01 to 0.001 the amount of fuel than one reactor at Fukushima (maybe less)
Nuclear submarine fuel is also enriched to near bomb grade (90 odd percent) while civil reactor fuel is only enriched to around 20%.
Even if Fukushima was a PWR like in a nuclear submarine (it's not, it's a BWR) there are... significant differences in the design of a naval plant versus a civil plant.
BTW: don't some very famous, large, geographically dispersed software projects get along just fine without weekly conference calls? Apache, GCC, and Linux come to mind.
The other thing(s) those projects also have in common are, not needing to meet a budget, not needing to meet a schedule, etc... etc... They're also (largely) worked on in people's spare time - they wouldn't reliably be available for a phone call in the first place.
Yes, and everything else is handwaving and smokescreens. Period.
I don't know how this actually competes with nuclear, economics-wise. These people are betting on it.
No. They aren't competing with nuclear as they're a peaking or load following plant, not baseload. They're betting the increased price they can demand at peak will be sufficient to offset their high cost/kW.
Shakespeare wrote "it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.". Which is pretty much an accurate description of the squawking of the internet.
Because that costs money and doesn't make any sense. In the $100-$300 P&S market, adding cost to your device to compete against $20 webcams puts you a competitive disadvantage in seriously cutthroat segment of the market. In the $300-600 P&S/Compact market, you could probably put such a mode in and get away with it... but who is going to buy it? That's the entry level for the serious photographer and videographer. Above that, in the compact/SLR range - you're going to be even worse shape as going to the effort to add webcam functionality to semi-pro cameras is going to be regarded as taking away effort from improving the photography and videography functionality.
Characters dying on television and being brought back at the convenience of the show has been a staple of television for decades. This rather lame plot device has been abused most egregiously on soap operas (both daytime and nighttime), where this sort of thing has been the norm almost from the get-go.
Not just television... comic books/manga, cartoons/anime, etc... etc... Even Shakespeare brought back key characters are ghosts (since reincarnation was not part of his culture's worldview). Go back into the myths and legends of ancient times, and you'll find reincarnation and ghosts there too.
Amusingly the report is about "CS" enrollment, which is all about analysis of algorithms, Knuth, and Scheme/LISP, but all the comments on/. so far are about "IT" jobs, which are all about SQL, TPS reports, and the "COBOL of the New Millennium aka Java"
It's the same conceit that leads them to call themselves "$X Engineers" rather than "Programmers".
Slashdot Mirror
It's not as relevant in a commercial context as you might think either. Hiring programmers and building an development team is expensive.
Businesses are no different than individuals. They want something that Just Works and that support for is phone call away. They don't want to pay the (high) ongoing costs of maintenance and/or the hassle of doing it themselves.
Yet, somehow, millions of people routinely do so - and have for a couple of centuries now. That suggests it's not actually incomprehensible.
On the other hand, we've saved people with imperial units, and built and operated hundreds (millions?) of billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of equipment with imperial units...
So yeah, it's worth it.
So what? Why would anyone outside of a small percentage of specialists need to know something as silly as the number of centimeters in a kilometer or the number of inches in a mile? I mean, it's really impressive that you can get a "prepubescent child" to carry out a neat parlor trick... but it's not really relevant to most people's real lives.
The aircraft being referred to was a Canadian aircraft operated by a Canadian airline flying between Canadian cities.
On top of that, the mistake wasn't made because of the use of the Imperial system - it was made because of the switch to the Metric system.
It's an iterative process - the simulator is initially based on calculations and studies, but continuously updated with data from test flights. By the time they start seriously training for combat maneuvers, the real thing will have been in [simulated] combat already. It's a tried and true process by now, and it works.
Pilots, generally, are not inclined to try significantly stupid things. These aren't teenagers with their first hot rod, but trained professionals. All the same, as I said above - as they expand the envelope in flight testing, the data will be fed back into the simulator. If the pilots do try something extreme, and it's actually within the capability of the aircraft, it'll be in the simulator.
Both the military and the aerospace industry have been playing with simulators for three quarters of a century now, they do have some idea of how to go about it.
The simulator was almost certainly contracted for and ordered years ago. Canceling it would have saved almost nothing (and probably would have cost in contract termination fees and having to pay to have it scrapped) while crippling the training and possibly costing the lives of future pilots.
It's like the old saying "Don't trust anyone over thirty" - you're point of view changes when you hit thirty yourself.
If you stop and think about, it should come as no surprise that the military doesn't want 'pure' senior techs. Ninety five percent of a senior techs job is doing stuff that a mid grade or junior tech could do, and that's a waste of money and manpower. So what they want is senior techs who will lead, teach, and supervise the mid grade and junior techs - and be there to pull their fat out of the fire when they get in over their heads or one of those five percent of the time problems show up.
No, all the services are pretty much the same for the same reasons.
They belong to you. But that doesn't mean the organization that physically owns the box won't give up the contents when so ordered by the courts. Ditto for the office or house that you rent.
A "valid legal process" could be a court order, a subpoena, a discovery motion, a search warrant, etc... etc... There's more than one valid and legal avenue for someone to request access to your data, hence their language covers all the bases rather than complies with your simple minded belief that there is only one.
Under certain instances, such a request *is* a "valid legal process" without the need for a specific court order. Take off the tinfoil hat and educate yourself on the legal system.
Google *already* does this, how do you think AdSense generates all those nice targets ads?
The result hasn't been people going berserk. The result has been people putting their fingers in their ears, shutting their eyes tightly, and going "Google does no evil, GOOGLE does no evil, GOOGLE DOES NO EVIL".
And even where analog cable is dead and gone (as it is here), odds are the cable company provided a converter box or card, or a new cable box for free (as they did here).
We haven't gone to an HDTV for several reasons (in no particular order):
Sooner or later the TV or the Tivo is going to die, but until then they suffice to our needs and they Just Work. Even though we can afford to do so, we just can't convince ourselves to pay for little gain.
I'm not surprised at all, it's a deep flaw in the capsule cabal's thinking and one I've pointed out for nearly a decade - extreme and myopic concentration on the 'sexy' parts (the crew) and a near complete lack of attention to the 'unsexy' parts (the booster and cargo delivery).
They doesn't seem to be the case in the US as near as I can tell.
I think you missed *my* point - which is that is an unsupported assumption.
The GP made the assumption the margins were high because the cost to the consumer is so high relative to the likely cost of manufacture. I showed how unlikely that was - directly refuting him. I.E., I don't think you understood what he said either.
You're error isn't in your imagining, but in proceeding to act as though your imagination represents reality.
Given the amount spent on marketing at the various levels, the amount spent on promotions and sponsorships, the extreme competition in the field, etc... etc... I'd be *very* surprised if the margins were that high. That so far the grocery chains are declining to introduce 'house' brands of energy drinks just adds more weight to the suspicion that the margin is considerably lower.
Nuclear submarine fuel is also enriched to near bomb grade (90 odd percent) while civil reactor fuel is only enriched to around 20%.
Even if Fukushima was a PWR like in a nuclear submarine (it's not, it's a BWR) there are... significant differences in the design of a naval plant versus a civil plant.
The other thing(s) those projects also have in common are, not needing to meet a budget, not needing to meet a schedule, etc... etc... They're also (largely) worked on in people's spare time - they wouldn't reliably be available for a phone call in the first place.
Yes, and everything else is handwaving and smokescreens. Period.
No. They aren't competing with nuclear as they're a peaking or load following plant, not baseload. They're betting the increased price they can demand at peak will be sufficient to offset their high cost/kW.
In other words, the poster whose argument you are protesting is correct - this is a very expensive part-time plant, resulting in a very high cost/kW.
No.
That's what all the highly modded 'experts' on Slashdot have been saying - for four years now.
Shakespeare wrote "it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.". Which is pretty much an accurate description of the squawking of the internet.
Because that costs money and doesn't make any sense. In the $100-$300 P&S market, adding cost to your device to compete against $20 webcams puts you a competitive disadvantage in seriously cutthroat segment of the market. In the $300-600 P&S/Compact market, you could probably put such a mode in and get away with it... but who is going to buy it? That's the entry level for the serious photographer and videographer. Above that, in the compact/SLR range - you're going to be even worse shape as going to the effort to add webcam functionality to semi-pro cameras is going to be regarded as taking away effort from improving the photography and videography functionality.
Not just television... comic books/manga, cartoons/anime, etc... etc... Even Shakespeare brought back key characters are ghosts (since reincarnation was not part of his culture's worldview). Go back into the myths and legends of ancient times, and you'll find reincarnation and ghosts there too.
It's the same conceit that leads them to call themselves "$X Engineers" rather than "Programmers".