So right you are. In the case of the example article, I'm involved. I'm a parent who is responsible for teaching my two boys not to be suckers for Madison Avenue*.
*Madison Avenue...a street in New York, renowned for the number of marketing firms located there.
Keep in mind, it's a "health INSURANCE" company...not a "health CARE" company.
The day we stop asking financial companies to provide anything other than financial services is the day we will find our way out of this health care debacle (please excuse my US-centrism here, but it seems that we are alone in the world in this particular foolishness).
And guns are just tools, but if your going to take over a country and subjugate the populace, you might want to see what you can do about making sure the people don't have any. The source code is the one and only tool that can guarantee that users will be able to retain control of their systems.
Beyond that, oil companies may have no interest in developing a resource that would devalue their existing oil wells, and their leases on the oil fields beneath them. Geo-thermal power would be the monopoly of no country, no region. It would be entirely disruptive of the power structure that the US has just spent hundreds of billions on in the Iraq debacle. It would probably bankrupt all existing car manufacturers, since electric-car competitors can be nimbler if small, and would need very little from currently patented automotive tech.
Geo-thermal would still be a monopoly, controlled by those that could afford to sink a pipe a few miles deep.
Besides, the oil companies could use the wells they've already drilled to be a further asset. Just push the well deeper to get into the magma, then turn the oil pipe into a heat-pipe, just like is used on an expensive CPU heatsink. Bring the heat to the surface inside the protective environment of the pipe, and then use steam generated from surface water that isn't loaded with sulfur and minerals.
The concept is a fluid that would turn to a gas in the high heat at the bottom, but be a liquid at the cold top. You push a pipe down the hole (like drilling for oil), then when it gets to where it is hot...pour in the fluid and cap the sucker. Build a boiler around it. Done.
If the magma around the tip gets to cold, just push the pipe deeper. The fluid would act as cooling to keep the bit from being melted away.
Recall the year 2000 scare. There was a huge buildup in all areas of IT as companies around the world rushed to update 5 to 20 year old systems. This included replacing hardware and software. Anyone who could even spell 'C' was in high demand. Hardware companies had to work full-tilt and add capacity to meet the demand for replacement equipment. Investors saw profits going up, and saw nothing but dollar signs. Never thinking to look beyond the upward curve to why it was curving up, and why it would curve down much harder after New Years 2000 passed.
The year turned over. Crisis abated.
Now what do we do with all those 'engineers' that can barely spell C? Lay 'em off.
We won't need to buy new equipment for years to come, so all the harware companies have surplus equipment, surplus capacity, AND surplus labor. Lay-offs again. I was working in the telecom sector (Alcatel). Not only did customers not need our new equipment, but there was a surplus of barely used equipment on the market. There was no need to keep development engineers on the payroll when there was no revenue rolling in to pay them.
It was a perfect storm. A conflaguration of several crashes that all came at once. Web2.0 won't have the same sort of bust, unless there is a Year-2000 type of event to go along with it.
Cost of extra training for sales people on the two differnt product lines if only a small portion will buy the Linux Acers then the cost of training could be more then the cost of sales.
Sales people get training? My experience is that they generally know less than what is printed on the box. How much can it cost to print out a few extra script sheets?
Cost of support, you get a person wanting linux but never used it before, get it and everything seems to go wrong and talking to technical support. I am assuming that they don't use global support.
Maybe they should consider providing the same level of support that they provide for Windows.
Cost of wearhousing now you need to manage 2 visual idenintal product lines the difference is the data on each system.
The '80s called. They want their product handling methodologies back. (Don't answer the other phone. It's the 90's looking for their lame form of sarcasm.) If Acer is warehousing PCs, then they'll be out of business within the year. PC manufacturers don't build a PC until it is ordered. Do you think loading a Linux hard-drive instead of a Windows hard-drive would be any more trouble than installing a 1024M DIMM instead of a 512M DIMM?
Cost of selling systems without Extra Junk installed, all those demo apps the company pays acer to put default on their system.
You can only load so much junk. Acer makes some money off of that, but I doubt it amounts to what they pay for a Windows license. I think $40(US) is a good estimate of what they would be paying for a license. Each preload amounts to a single advertisement. How much can Nero afford to advertise to one customer. $5(US)? Then you'd need 8 preloads just to pay for the Windows license. If one 'advertiser' drops out, you're losing money. Ubuntu would allow you to make your customer happier, while relieving you of the headache of having to maintain multiple 'relationships'. You also get from under Microsoft's thumb, and can be in complete control of the OOBE ("out of box experience). In other words, Acer can market their laptops instead of Microsoft's product.
Trade Policies, sometimes by changing the OS you may need to renegoate your trade policy with other countries.
I can guarantee that Acer doesn't negotiate trade policy directly. The most it may do is try to buy off some politicians.
Hmm.. I didn't think reading stories counted as research anymore, but I guess it does nowadays. Of course the majority of Vista users without problems are not out on the messages boards singing its praises, they (like me) are simply using their computer and find it more pleasent than XP.
I try to find reviews and comments from early adopters before I buy any high-tech equipment or software that I'm unfamiliar with. People do tend to sing the praise of products they like, and products with lots of negative comments tend to be crap.
Ahh, one test machine and you've written off Vista. I had print drivers that don't install, but that's because the manufactor hasn't released any Vista drivers for the printer.
And if manufacturers haven't gotten around to releasing drivers, then the OS is as useless as a 1.0 Linux kernel. That applies even if the 1.0 Linux Kernel were tested on only one laptop. How many test systems are needed to decide that it's totally useless once you discover that it doesn't operate with the hardware you have or that you detest the interface?
Unfortunately all most people see is the new UI. Its the only part of the OS you interact with, even though there are quite a few new features in there. Building applications on the new UI IS going to be much easier for me.. no longer do I have to fork out money just to get a context menu that can have a textbox in it.. I can put one together myself easily.
Ok. When all the secretaries in the office have a need to create a context menu with a textbox in it AND no use for printers, maybe somebody will be able to recommend the product.
Even if your daily commute is too significant to be made in electric-only mode (mine totals 40 miles and my employer won't let me recharge an EV at work), cutting some portion of the gas burning miles is still a major breakthrough.
Bingo. Remember the 80/20 rule. You usually get 80% of the benefit from 20% of the work.
It wouldn't work for you, but what about the guy that has a 8 mile commute. You're employer won't let you plug in your EV for the trip home, but would he let you set up a solar panel with an inverter. You can get a large panel and an inverter for less than $100. It charges for 8-hours most days, and you have a little gasoline for the cloudy ones.
The move *TOWARD* electric only is the big take-away with this move.
For the rest of us in the US, we need to implement "land ferries". Stations in the suburbs and work centers. Just flatbed trailers with quick operating securing mechanisms. You drive on, and drive off at the destination. No standing in the rain while waiting on a bus. Only a few miles driving...total. Read the paper/work/watch tv while the train takes you where you're going.
To the world at large: Trains don't work for most of the population in the US. For long trips, it will eventually get you to the destination city if you're patient enough, but then you're still left looking for a way to get to where you want to be. Most US cities are to dispersed for to seriously consider walking. Commuting by train is silly for most of us. If there is a route, you first have to get to the trainstation and spend more than a workday waiting for a train.
A "land ferry" would make short range electrics AND the rail system viable.
And don't forget their refusal to throw out technology that is long past useful just because there are 3 pilots in the US that refuse to upgrade dilapidated equipment.
"Whaah!! But, I LIKE my ADF*"
ADF == a radio with an indicator that points at the transmitter.
No. ATC isn't guarding the British coast from German bombers. The controllers won't know I'm there unless I turn on my transponder. The typical Rutan derivative aircraft (LongEze, VariEze, Cozy, etc), won't even show up on a lot of the military radars (glass and expoxy doesn't have a very large radar signature).
Windows 7 would be a new operating system based on the proven Windows NT kernel, but with a completely new user interface
What the **** for? How will repainting, and then moving all the icons around help anybody get the next quarterly reports or respond to an email faster? Sheesh! An OS is supposed to facilitate a user's management of their hardware and software. Another 'new' interface that just shifts things around doesn't help anyone, and there is very little else that CAN be done.
I don't mean to put Linus on a pedestal, but I remember something he said that I've found to be very prescient over time. It was something along the line of, "We found that there was only one best way to do things. Implementations that didn't follow the typical pattern were usually trying to cover up for some other deficiency, and the implementation improved once it was made to look like everyone else's implementation."
It's the same for UI. Do something substantially different, and it's just different. More often than not, it is less effective.
Slashdot Mirror
Guess why there's a consensus:
/
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations
Some people do question the data:
/
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations
So right you are. In the case of the example article, I'm involved. I'm a parent who is responsible for teaching my two boys not to be suckers for Madison Avenue*.
*Madison Avenue...a street in New York, renowned for the number of marketing firms located there.
My mother is Native American...American Indian...whatever you want to call it.
My father is from Scottish decent.
He had a plaque on his wall that read:
Before the white man came,
The men hunted, fished, and relaxed.
Women did all the hard work.
And the white men thought they could IMPROVE on that!?
Whew! The first few sentences there sounded like my last interview process.
Keep in mind, it's a "health INSURANCE" company...not a "health CARE" company.
The day we stop asking financial companies to provide anything other than financial services is the day we will find our way out of this health care debacle (please excuse my US-centrism here, but it seems that we are alone in the world in this particular foolishness).
Except for Windows Ultimate.
It should go to eleven.
Dude!?
Think about it! It's "The Ultimate"!!
Brought to you by the same guys whose volume control goes to eleven.
You don't know he didn't interfere. The disk was DOA after all. I'm sure she didn't kill it.
Huh?
And guns are just tools, but if your going to take over a country and subjugate the populace, you might want to see what you can do about making sure the people don't have any. The source code is the one and only tool that can guarantee that users will be able to retain control of their systems.
Beyond that, oil companies may have no interest in developing a resource that would devalue their existing oil wells, and their leases on the oil fields beneath them. Geo-thermal power would be the monopoly of no country, no region. It would be entirely disruptive of the power structure that the US has just spent hundreds of billions on in the Iraq debacle. It would probably bankrupt all existing car manufacturers, since electric-car competitors can be nimbler if small, and would need very little from currently patented automotive tech.
Geo-thermal would still be a monopoly, controlled by those that could afford to sink a pipe a few miles deep.
Besides, the oil companies could use the wells they've already drilled to be a further asset. Just push the well deeper to get into the magma, then turn the oil pipe into a heat-pipe, just like is used on an expensive CPU heatsink. Bring the heat to the surface inside the protective environment of the pipe, and then use steam generated from surface water that isn't loaded with sulfur and minerals.
Why don't they just use a heat pipe?
The concept is a fluid that would turn to a gas in the high heat at the bottom, but be a liquid at the cold top. You push a pipe down the hole (like drilling for oil), then when it gets to where it is hot...pour in the fluid and cap the sucker. Build a boiler around it. Done.
If the magma around the tip gets to cold, just push the pipe deeper. The fluid would act as cooling to keep the bit from being melted away.
If you believe anything that comes out of his cloaca, I've got a bridge to sell you...
That bridge isn't in Minnesota is it?
There was more to it than even that.
Recall the year 2000 scare. There was a huge buildup in all areas of IT as companies around the world rushed to update 5 to 20 year old systems. This included replacing hardware and software. Anyone who could even spell 'C' was in high demand. Hardware companies had to work full-tilt and add capacity to meet the demand for replacement equipment. Investors saw profits going up, and saw nothing but dollar signs. Never thinking to look beyond the upward curve to why it was curving up, and why it would curve down much harder after New Years 2000 passed.
The year turned over. Crisis abated.
Now what do we do with all those 'engineers' that can barely spell C? Lay 'em off.
We won't need to buy new equipment for years to come, so all the harware companies have surplus equipment, surplus capacity, AND surplus labor. Lay-offs again. I was working in the telecom sector (Alcatel). Not only did customers not need our new equipment, but there was a surplus of barely used equipment on the market. There was no need to keep development engineers on the payroll when there was no revenue rolling in to pay them.
It was a perfect storm. A conflaguration of several crashes that all came at once. Web2.0 won't have the same sort of bust, unless there is a Year-2000 type of event to go along with it.
Cost of extra training for sales people on the two differnt product lines if only a small portion will buy the Linux Acers then the cost of training could be more then the cost of sales.
Sales people get training? My experience is that they generally know less than what is printed on the box. How much can it cost to print out a few extra script sheets?
Cost of support, you get a person wanting linux but never used it before, get it and everything seems to go wrong and talking to technical support. I am assuming that they don't use global support.
Maybe they should consider providing the same level of support that they provide for Windows.
Cost of wearhousing now you need to manage 2 visual idenintal product lines the difference is the data on each system.
The '80s called. They want their product handling methodologies back. (Don't answer the other phone. It's the 90's looking for their lame form of sarcasm.)
If Acer is warehousing PCs, then they'll be out of business within the year. PC manufacturers don't build a PC until it is ordered. Do you think loading a Linux hard-drive instead of a Windows hard-drive would be any more trouble than installing a 1024M DIMM instead of a 512M DIMM?
Cost of selling systems without Extra Junk installed, all those demo apps the company pays acer to put default on their system.
You can only load so much junk. Acer makes some money off of that, but I doubt it amounts to what they pay for a Windows license. I think $40(US) is a good estimate of what they would be paying for a license. Each preload amounts to a single advertisement. How much can Nero afford to advertise to one customer. $5(US)? Then you'd need 8 preloads just to pay for the Windows license. If one 'advertiser' drops out, you're losing money. Ubuntu would allow you to make your customer happier, while relieving you of the headache of having to maintain multiple 'relationships'. You also get from under Microsoft's thumb, and can be in complete control of the OOBE ("out of box experience). In other words, Acer can market their laptops instead of Microsoft's product.
Trade Policies, sometimes by changing the OS you may need to renegoate your trade policy with other countries.
I can guarantee that Acer doesn't negotiate trade policy directly. The most it may do is try to buy off some politicians.
Hmm.. I didn't think reading stories counted as research anymore, but I guess it does nowadays. Of course the majority of Vista users without problems are not out on the messages boards singing its praises, they (like me) are simply using their computer and find it more pleasent than XP.
I try to find reviews and comments from early adopters before I buy any high-tech equipment or software that I'm unfamiliar with. People do tend to sing the praise of products they like, and products with lots of negative comments tend to be crap.
Ahh, one test machine and you've written off Vista. I had print drivers that don't install, but that's because the manufactor hasn't released any Vista drivers for the printer.
And if manufacturers haven't gotten around to releasing drivers, then the OS is as useless as a 1.0 Linux kernel. That applies even if the 1.0 Linux Kernel were tested on only one laptop. How many test systems are needed to decide that it's totally useless once you discover that it doesn't operate with the hardware you have or that you detest the interface?
Unfortunately all most people see is the new UI. Its the only part of the OS you interact with, even though there are quite a few new features in there. Building applications on the new UI IS going to be much easier for me.. no longer do I have to fork out money just to get a context menu that can have a textbox in it.. I can put one together myself easily.
Ok. When all the secretaries in the office have a need to create a context menu with a textbox in it AND no use for printers, maybe somebody will be able to recommend the product.
Even if your daily commute is too significant to be made in electric-only mode (mine totals 40 miles and my employer won't let me recharge an EV at work), cutting some portion of the gas burning miles is still a major breakthrough.
Bingo. Remember the 80/20 rule. You usually get 80% of the benefit from 20% of the work.
It wouldn't work for you, but what about the guy that has a 8 mile commute. You're employer won't let you plug in your EV for the trip home, but would he let you set up a solar panel with an inverter. You can get a large panel and an inverter for less than $100. It charges for 8-hours most days, and you have a little gasoline for the cloudy ones.
The move *TOWARD* electric only is the big take-away with this move.
For the rest of us in the US, we need to implement "land ferries". Stations in the suburbs and work centers. Just flatbed trailers with quick operating securing mechanisms. You drive on, and drive off at the destination. No standing in the rain while waiting on a bus. Only a few miles driving...total. Read the paper/work/watch tv while the train takes you where you're going.
To the world at large: Trains don't work for most of the population in the US. For long trips, it will eventually get you to the destination city if you're patient enough, but then you're still left looking for a way to get to where you want to be. Most US cities are to dispersed for to seriously consider walking. Commuting by train is silly for most of us. If there is a route, you first have to get to the trainstation and spend more than a workday waiting for a train.
A "land ferry" would make short range electrics AND the rail system viable.
Possibly not. The porosity of many plastics is simply amazing.
Several composite aircraft have had issues with aluminum corroding. The fittings were buried within the epoxy.
You're new here aren't you.
We don't actually READ the linked articles.
Unfortunately, most people are first and foremost just consumers. They don't want to edit video. They just want to watch it.
Very few people want to actually *DO* anything anymore, other than be entertained.
And don't forget their refusal to throw out technology that is long past useful just because there are 3 pilots in the US that refuse to upgrade dilapidated equipment.
"Whaah!! But, I LIKE my ADF*"
ADF == a radio with an indicator that points at the transmitter.
The aircraft GPS systems are assisted by fixed, ground-based transmitters.
No. ATC isn't guarding the British coast from German bombers. The controllers won't know I'm there unless I turn on my transponder. The typical Rutan derivative aircraft (LongEze, VariEze, Cozy, etc), won't even show up on a lot of the military radars (glass and expoxy doesn't have a very large radar signature).
Windows 7 would be a new operating system based on the proven Windows NT kernel, but with a completely new user interface
What the **** for?
How will repainting, and then moving all the icons around help anybody get the next quarterly reports or respond to an email faster? Sheesh! An OS is supposed to facilitate a user's management of their hardware and software. Another 'new' interface that just shifts things around doesn't help anyone, and there is very little else that CAN be done.
I don't mean to put Linus on a pedestal, but I remember something he said that I've found to be very prescient over time. It was something along the line of, "We found that there was only one best way to do things. Implementations that didn't follow the typical pattern were usually trying to cover up for some other deficiency, and the implementation improved once it was made to look like everyone else's implementation."
It's the same for UI. Do something substantially different, and it's just different. More often than not, it is less effective.