The free market is as much an idealized unattainable as the Star Trek no money communism utopia.
Oh yeah?
Success stories like Cogent Communications disagree. They went from literally nothing to a highly valuable multinational corporation in a scant few years. How? Leveraging market economics, innovative ideas, and contempt for contemporary approaches, they turned comms upside down (and pissed off the big dogs in the process).
If I recall correctly, Schaeffer started Cogent in Omaha, NE due to regional economic benefits, and he has a history of commercial property rentals and a degree in physics. So he came at Cogent out of far left field, but made a very solid go at it using "free market principles".
It would seem to me that ATT axing the "unlimited" plan would play to the benefit of Apple (and suffer ATT no significant negative consequences long-term): it'll give people (well, Apple customers, at any rate) the perception that they either have to buy the Apple product on or near IPO or miss out on the 'great deal' of whatever is bundled.
At the price point the iPad hits, without that unlimited data plan, it looks a LOT less appealing. We're talking hundreds+ of dollars more over the device's livespan...
New processor $300? Nope, mine are $100 and runs my one year old games perfectly.
Let me guess: you buy Intel processors?
New AMD processors can be gotten for $100, no problem. And yes, they'll play the new games just fine (the problem, of course, is usually going to be that $200 graphics card).
Yesterday I spent some time browsing using Chromium without an adblock package (on Windows).
My first thought was "my god, Windows Chromium" is poorly written and slow" but then I realized I was getting all the ads, flash and all. Common web browsing was taking 20% of all three cores.
Something seriously needs to be done with these advertisers. Half of what makes mobile computing worth the effort right now is that ads aren't even a real possibility on most platforms, form ost users; ruin that, and you're not only ruining the devices' battery life but a lot of the incentive to use the things.
Asimov " wrote the three laws of robotics forbidding fictional robots from harming humans" did he?
He also wrote books in which there was a unified theory of everything, allowing anything and everything to be mathematically proven. And don't forget the as-humans-as-humans robots.
But that's OK. It's entertaining science fiction - key word, fiction. (I am glad you made note of that yourself.)
In the real world, we have earthquakes which prevent city-domes; entropy preventing the prediction of everything; and human nature interfering with utopian ideals.
But if we can get rid of all the earthquakes, entropy, and humans, I'm sure it'd be possible.
Yet Windows is not "cheap" or "easy" in the grander scheme of things. Windows is very, very costly in terms of maintenance and licensing (for starters).
As far as 'average users'... we're not talking about your downloaded Ubuntu CD, or whatever it was you tried and failed. We're talking about a themed desktop with a couple shortcuts to applications which work identically on Windows as they do Linux (whether it's native OpenOffice.org or Citrix Presentation MS Word). Even so-called 'sophisticated' users won't know the difference (except for the lack of a couple sysadmin agitations).
The average user, if you were to tell them that their KDE4 was an upgrade to Windows XP, would believe you. I've seen such assumptions made without provocation. The average user is a dolt when it comes to computers.
You are aware that there is a version of Picasa for Linux, aren't you? I believe it is just the Windows version running on a WINE layer that gets installed with it but it's certainly been available now for quite some time in the Gentoo Linux repositories (which are what I use).
Yes, and? You do realize that this indicates the primary platform of development is Windows, right?
Until Picasa is shipping with QT or GTK+ libraries for Windows, what I said holds true.
You're modded funny, I think, because the treat (as manifest by FUD) is big.
Microsoft is pushing to get people off XP and onto 7 because, frankly, there's little incentive to go to 7 over something else if your internal policy has been "let's stick with XP and Office 2003 and wait for the next big release". Guess what? Moving from XP and O2003 to Linux (whether GNOME or KDE or something else) with OpenOffice is a smaller jump for most people than W7 and o2k7. And that's the problem Microsoft is facing.
Google announced officially that they're in the process of dropping support for IE6. To me, this means "we're no longer going to consider IE6 in our products and will start notifying IE6 users to upgrade in our web properties as IE6 ceases to work".
Running Windows (for a development environment or otherwise), sandboxed from public networks completely (or even other internal networks, for that matter) makes a lot of sense to me. 802.1q ftw.
As a network/systems administrator, Windows has little to no use left on the desktop any longer.
Compared to alternatives (and there are many!) common Windows machines on the desktops are costly and relatively expensive to maintain (in terms of manpower and infrastructure): you've got complex SUS arrangements (due to in-house app compatibility, usually), AD (same reasons, as well as work flow) and malware contentions - just for starters. Compare that to pointing all workstations at (say) a local Ubuntu LTS repository cache or updating from Apple. A lot can be said about Windows ACLs and its other underpinnings, but keeping things secure while allowing users to work is not one of them.
Additionally, the time and (domain) knowledge required to roll a minimalist Linux distro vs. a minimalist, locked-down Windows install (ie a 'thinclient image') is significantly different. With one, you've got a maintainable minimalist system that uses negligible resources to update; the other is pretty much a custom hack which will require significant efforts to update. I'll let you figure which is which.
The average user uses no more than 3 or 4 applications in a large environment, from what I've seen. There aren't many people who multi-role: they've got their own world and aside from a web browser, might touch one or two apps on a given day. For these apps, you've got things like Citrix Presentation Server or Windows Server 2008 remote applications. Centralize the common stuff when you can, so it's easier to maintain, update, etc.
As for Google, my experience has been (with the technical crowd) that those actually developing for Open Source type environments, having your development environment be similar to your production environment is a wee bit helpful. Aside form things like Picasa, I can't see much of a need for Windows; indeed, there's likely not even a preference for Windows at Google, short of the occasional mathematician. The yuppie post-graduate degreed geek seems to prefer Apple.
I've noticed that hardware that's good enough that significant effort goes into getting it to work in Linux (eg. anything Intel makes, it seems; Realtek hardware - if only due to quantity/commonality, etc.) will work better in Linux than in Windows. This seems to be the case with anything that is supported well in Linux, in fact: it'll run better there than in Windows. (I think NTFS on slow disks is largely the cause of poor performance on Windows, at that.)
I wonder if Asus has enough market sway to say "make Windows work on ARM". With the new Atom CPUs, it's questionable whether there's enough incentive, but Asus is the "Apple of PC hardware" in many regards (sans the price premium).
The question is which happens first? Either 1) these so called islamic "civizations" learn to accept basic concepts like "human rights" or 2) they finally become a real danger. By real danger I mean they actually set off a nuke in a western city, release a ton of nerve gas, set off a dirty bomb, start the black death 2.0, or do a bunch of little things that just really piss us off. Like say, killing the South Park guys.
Or, like, killing over 3,000 people in a suicide attack utilizing commercial flight airplanes, resulting in not only the deaths but draconian restrictions of our civil liberties?
My bet is that our great great grandchildren will be ashamed of what we do. But, I'm also betting that there are going to be very very few great great grandchildren who are raised as moslems.
Sir, as a (relatively young) father of 3... I hope you're right. I will gladly accept their shame for what I've done, if it means that they will be able to live free. My death, or perpetration of such on others, is a small price to pay for the free lives of future generations.
Though, if it does come to that... hopefully we're able to get rid of the limp-wristed demographic in the West at the same time. It's that demographic which has allowed the Muslim threat to not only become as large as it has domestically, but for it to have such a voice in our political events.
"The wild west"? First off, the Old West was (mostly) a pretty dull place, except for the occasional killing or Indian war party - years apart, with (per capita) the death toll being well below what occurs in LA or Detroit on any given night.
As for child porn and Islam... if child porn were offensive to them, why do you not see them rallying against it? Images of the Great Paedophile himself are bad news resulting in world-wide riots; images of naked children in compromised poses don't get so much as a whisper. Why is that?
Third: the Internet of today is oh so much more tame than it used to be. Sure, there are a lot more illicit activities, but back then you could openly steal (ie directly from bank accounts) and get away with it. Things are a bit different now...
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine that Muslims must take an oath to renounce Islam(not having to choose another religion, just renouncing Islam) upon immigration to generic, prosperous Western countries. How many would give up a safe and comfortable lifestyle and a good education, for themselves and their families, for the sake of religious self-righteousness?
The (minority, as in any faith) principled, sincere Muslims? They'd pass and stay in their home countries; their home countries would, as a result, become more peaceful and prosperous as a result.
The others? They'd lie. It is not only acceptable but condoned and suggested that Muslims lie to infidels in the pursuit of their conversion and conquest. (Yes, in the quran.)
For the record: as a non-Christian (in the 'organized religion' sense), non-Jewish believer-in-god, I sure find atheists annoying as hell. These guys need to shut the hell up and stop being so critical of every semi-religious/spiritual statement people make.
The phrase you are looking for which describes this Islamic belief is "Wahabbi Islam". It is the world's largest growing belief system - coming to a city near you, soon enough.:-/
. Not everyone is going to adhere to your religion and fighting crusades, jihads, or holding inquisitions won't change that and is not the correct solution.
And if they (Muslims) win their jihads?
HINT: the world's Islamic population is increasing substantially, and not solely through birth. Jihad is alive and well in many (most) parts of the world. Social subversion goes a long way towards reaching one's goals when the status quo is one of accepting others' beliefs: it doesn't take much pressure to flip the coin.
One is reliable works well in the snow but costs 30k. Now say that the other one is somewhat unreliable and dubious in the snow, but it costs only 20k
Yet that's not true. I can get a very good quality vehicle from Hyundai (for instance) which is not only reliable, works well in the snow, gets good mileage etc. but is $10k less than something "American" that (typically) isn't as reliable or well designed.
Granted, it doesn't have the bells and whistles of an American vehicle, but those bells and whistles are useless if the vehicle doesn't work well.
As for productivity... a large amount of that is factored by how much we make. Actual "successful work accomplished" is not considered in productivity determinations.
Honestly, I've come to actually appreciate Indian tech support recently.
Why?
1) It's not the same as it was 5+ years ago. The people answering the phone can speak passable English (better than someone from Atlanta, anyway). 2)They're polite. Maybe we just have good vendors, but I've been very satisfied once I get ahold of someone.
Yeah, there's bad support. But you'll get that anywhere.
(yes, obviously you could get a lesser job, but isn't that a waste of your talents and so ultimately unsatisfactory?).
I am likely one of only 2 or three people within 300 (or more) miles of where I sit who could do the job I am doing now. Granted, I live in a fairly rural area, but it's not BFN. The job is frustrating, stressful, and intellectually tiring - though it is satisfying on the occasional day.
If I were to lose this job, I'd seriously consider a career change. My 'talents' are not related to this job - those are skills, acquired over time, and a benefit of my talents. My talents are 'innate' and are well suited to any number of jobs.
Ideally, I'd like to be in a field with problem solving that doesn't mean GB of data burn down if you're not quick enough and in enough places at the same time.:)
And then you've got the people who drop out of college or don't go in the first place because the stupid people they know have gone, or they get there and realize how mind-numbingly stupid everyone is. The courses being dull (not boring, but dull) and slow don't help much, either.
Every once in a while these people end up becoming the foremost technical experts on a topic/field in their geographical region, by some twist of fate. I know two such people. Who'd think someone who dropped out of school could be competent?
In short: you're screwed. Unless you've got important data on them (ie not recoverable from a different source), throw them out and pick up some more (preferably a different model, at least until this one improves.)
What you've got on your hands there is defective flash (likely). There is no 'recovering' it as a storage medium. In essence, you paid for a 16GB, $40 floppy drive. Next time, unless you've got an overt need for 16GB all on one card, get several smaller ones. Sure, you're "throwing away" your cards; maybe you should've RMA'd them sooner as defective.
I'm somewhat surprised that the A-DATA memory is bad, on account of them not being known for crap quality. On the other hand, most vendors seem to pick and choose flash memory chips by price: there really is no consistency from even one card to the next within the same lots, it seems.
It's a bit easier to be skeptical of the Chinese stealing our stuff when it is a well-established fact that China (the country, not just the companies) actively tries to seed their nationals into our corporations to steal our intellectual assets.
Half the reason vehicles in the late 1980s and 1990s got such atrocious mileage was because of the 'emission control' measures put on vehicles.
Sure, you're cutting down the emissions per gallon of fuel. Guess what? You're burning more fuel in the process.
It's hardly a surprise in the "no emission test" states it's not uncommon to hear of people sticking a broom handle through their catalytic converter or running the engine slightly lean: you see an increase in performance AND fuel economy by doing so. Like, I get 18mpg in my 1989 Econoline conversion van, in town and on hilly terrain (rarely go over 45mph around here, too many hills). No, that's not incredible - but it's pretty good for an aged, falling-apart vehicle with almost 200k miles on an undersized (302cu") motor. And I'm usually hauling anywhere from 200-300 extra pounds of shit in the back, too (tools, mostly).
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The free market is as much an idealized unattainable as the Star Trek no money communism utopia.
Oh yeah?
Success stories like Cogent Communications disagree. They went from literally nothing to a highly valuable multinational corporation in a scant few years. How? Leveraging market economics, innovative ideas, and contempt for contemporary approaches, they turned comms upside down (and pissed off the big dogs in the process).
If I recall correctly, Schaeffer started Cogent in Omaha, NE due to regional economic benefits, and he has a history of commercial property rentals and a degree in physics. So he came at Cogent out of far left field, but made a very solid go at it using "free market principles".
It would seem to me that ATT axing the "unlimited" plan would play to the benefit of Apple (and suffer ATT no significant negative consequences long-term): it'll give people (well, Apple customers, at any rate) the perception that they either have to buy the Apple product on or near IPO or miss out on the 'great deal' of whatever is bundled.
At the price point the iPad hits, without that unlimited data plan, it looks a LOT less appealing. We're talking hundreds+ of dollars more over the device's livespan...
New processor $300? Nope, mine are $100 and runs my one year old games perfectly.
Let me guess: you buy Intel processors?
New AMD processors can be gotten for $100, no problem. And yes, they'll play the new games just fine (the problem, of course, is usually going to be that $200 graphics card).
Yesterday I spent some time browsing using Chromium without an adblock package (on Windows).
My first thought was "my god, Windows Chromium" is poorly written and slow" but then I realized I was getting all the ads, flash and all. Common web browsing was taking 20% of all three cores.
Something seriously needs to be done with these advertisers. Half of what makes mobile computing worth the effort right now is that ads aren't even a real possibility on most platforms, form ost users; ruin that, and you're not only ruining the devices' battery life but a lot of the incentive to use the things.
Asimov " wrote the three laws of robotics forbidding fictional robots from harming humans" did he?
He also wrote books in which there was a unified theory of everything, allowing anything and everything to be mathematically proven. And don't forget the as-humans-as-humans robots.
But that's OK. It's entertaining science fiction - key word, fiction. (I am glad you made note of that yourself.)
In the real world, we have earthquakes which prevent city-domes; entropy preventing the prediction of everything; and human nature interfering with utopian ideals.
But if we can get rid of all the earthquakes, entropy, and humans, I'm sure it'd be possible.
Yet Windows is not "cheap" or "easy" in the grander scheme of things. Windows is very, very costly in terms of maintenance and licensing (for starters).
As far as 'average users'... we're not talking about your downloaded Ubuntu CD, or whatever it was you tried and failed. We're talking about a themed desktop with a couple shortcuts to applications which work identically on Windows as they do Linux (whether it's native OpenOffice.org or Citrix Presentation MS Word). Even so-called 'sophisticated' users won't know the difference (except for the lack of a couple sysadmin agitations).
The average user, if you were to tell them that their KDE4 was an upgrade to Windows XP, would believe you. I've seen such assumptions made without provocation. The average user is a dolt when it comes to computers.
You are aware that there is a version of Picasa for Linux, aren't you? I believe it is just the Windows version running on a WINE layer that gets installed with it but it's certainly been available now for quite some time in the Gentoo Linux repositories (which are what I use).
Yes, and? You do realize that this indicates the primary platform of development is Windows, right?
Until Picasa is shipping with QT or GTK+ libraries for Windows, what I said holds true.
You're modded funny, I think, because the treat (as manifest by FUD) is big.
Microsoft is pushing to get people off XP and onto 7 because, frankly, there's little incentive to go to 7 over something else if your internal policy has been "let's stick with XP and Office 2003 and wait for the next big release". Guess what? Moving from XP and O2003 to Linux (whether GNOME or KDE or something else) with OpenOffice is a smaller jump for most people than W7 and o2k7. And that's the problem Microsoft is facing.
Google announced officially that they're in the process of dropping support for IE6. To me, this means "we're no longer going to consider IE6 in our products and will start notifying IE6 users to upgrade in our web properties as IE6 ceases to work".
Running Windows (for a development environment or otherwise), sandboxed from public networks completely (or even other internal networks, for that matter) makes a lot of sense to me. 802.1q ftw.
As a network/systems administrator, Windows has little to no use left on the desktop any longer.
Compared to alternatives (and there are many!) common Windows machines on the desktops are costly and relatively expensive to maintain (in terms of manpower and infrastructure): you've got complex SUS arrangements (due to in-house app compatibility, usually), AD (same reasons, as well as work flow) and malware contentions - just for starters. Compare that to pointing all workstations at (say) a local Ubuntu LTS repository cache or updating from Apple. A lot can be said about Windows ACLs and its other underpinnings, but keeping things secure while allowing users to work is not one of them.
Additionally, the time and (domain) knowledge required to roll a minimalist Linux distro vs. a minimalist, locked-down Windows install (ie a 'thinclient image') is significantly different. With one, you've got a maintainable minimalist system that uses negligible resources to update; the other is pretty much a custom hack which will require significant efforts to update. I'll let you figure which is which.
The average user uses no more than 3 or 4 applications in a large environment, from what I've seen. There aren't many people who multi-role: they've got their own world and aside from a web browser, might touch one or two apps on a given day. For these apps, you've got things like Citrix Presentation Server or Windows Server 2008 remote applications. Centralize the common stuff when you can, so it's easier to maintain, update, etc.
As for Google, my experience has been (with the technical crowd) that those actually developing for Open Source type environments, having your development environment be similar to your production environment is a wee bit helpful. Aside form things like Picasa, I can't see much of a need for Windows; indeed, there's likely not even a preference for Windows at Google, short of the occasional mathematician. The yuppie post-graduate degreed geek seems to prefer Apple.
I've noticed that hardware that's good enough that significant effort goes into getting it to work in Linux (eg. anything Intel makes, it seems; Realtek hardware - if only due to quantity/commonality, etc.) will work better in Linux than in Windows. This seems to be the case with anything that is supported well in Linux, in fact: it'll run better there than in Windows. (I think NTFS on slow disks is largely the cause of poor performance on Windows, at that.)
I wonder if Asus has enough market sway to say "make Windows work on ARM". With the new Atom CPUs, it's questionable whether there's enough incentive, but Asus is the "Apple of PC hardware" in many regards (sans the price premium).
The question is which happens first? Either 1) these so called islamic "civizations" learn to accept basic concepts like "human rights" or 2) they finally become a real danger. By real danger I mean they actually set off a nuke in a western city, release a ton of nerve gas, set off a dirty bomb, start the black death 2.0, or do a bunch of little things that just really piss us off. Like say, killing the South Park guys.
Or, like, killing over 3,000 people in a suicide attack utilizing commercial flight airplanes, resulting in not only the deaths but draconian restrictions of our civil liberties?
My bet is that our great great grandchildren will be ashamed of what we do. But, I'm also betting that there are going to be very very few great great grandchildren who are raised as moslems.
Sir, as a (relatively young) father of 3... I hope you're right. I will gladly accept their shame for what I've done, if it means that they will be able to live free. My death, or perpetration of such on others, is a small price to pay for the free lives of future generations.
Though, if it does come to that... hopefully we're able to get rid of the limp-wristed demographic in the West at the same time. It's that demographic which has allowed the Muslim threat to not only become as large as it has domestically, but for it to have such a voice in our political events.
"The wild west"? First off, the Old West was (mostly) a pretty dull place, except for the occasional killing or Indian war party - years apart, with (per capita) the death toll being well below what occurs in LA or Detroit on any given night.
As for child porn and Islam... if child porn were offensive to them, why do you not see them rallying against it? Images of the Great Paedophile himself are bad news resulting in world-wide riots; images of naked children in compromised poses don't get so much as a whisper. Why is that?
Third: the Internet of today is oh so much more tame than it used to be. Sure, there are a lot more illicit activities, but back then you could openly steal (ie directly from bank accounts) and get away with it. Things are a bit different now...
An interesting thought experiment would be to imagine that Muslims must take an oath to renounce Islam(not having to choose another religion, just renouncing Islam) upon immigration to generic, prosperous Western countries. How many would give up a safe and comfortable lifestyle and a good education, for themselves and their families, for the sake of religious self-righteousness?
The (minority, as in any faith) principled, sincere Muslims? They'd pass and stay in their home countries; their home countries would, as a result, become more peaceful and prosperous as a result.
The others? They'd lie. It is not only acceptable but condoned and suggested that Muslims lie to infidels in the pursuit of their conversion and conquest. (Yes, in the quran.)
For the record: as a non-Christian (in the 'organized religion' sense), non-Jewish believer-in-god, I sure find atheists annoying as hell. These guys need to shut the hell up and stop being so critical of every semi-religious/spiritual statement people make.
The phrase you are looking for which describes this Islamic belief is "Wahabbi Islam". It is the world's largest growing belief system - coming to a city near you, soon enough. :-/
. Not everyone is going to adhere to your religion and fighting crusades, jihads, or holding inquisitions won't change that and is not the correct solution.
And if they (Muslims) win their jihads?
HINT: the world's Islamic population is increasing substantially, and not solely through birth. Jihad is alive and well in many (most) parts of the world. Social subversion goes a long way towards reaching one's goals when the status quo is one of accepting others' beliefs: it doesn't take much pressure to flip the coin.
My state? I'm from the Western US.
As for Atlanta... there's the White Atlanta and the Black Atlanta. Guess which one can't speak English?
One is reliable works well in the snow but costs 30k. Now say that the other one is somewhat unreliable and dubious in the snow, but it costs only 20k
Yet that's not true. I can get a very good quality vehicle from Hyundai (for instance) which is not only reliable, works well in the snow, gets good mileage etc. but is $10k less than something "American" that (typically) isn't as reliable or well designed.
Granted, it doesn't have the bells and whistles of an American vehicle, but those bells and whistles are useless if the vehicle doesn't work well.
As for productivity... a large amount of that is factored by how much we make. Actual "successful work accomplished" is not considered in productivity determinations.
Honestly, I've come to actually appreciate Indian tech support recently.
Why?
1) It's not the same as it was 5+ years ago. The people answering the phone can speak passable English (better than someone from Atlanta, anyway).
2)They're polite. Maybe we just have good vendors, but I've been very satisfied once I get ahold of someone.
Yeah, there's bad support. But you'll get that anywhere.
(yes, obviously you could get a lesser job, but isn't that a waste of your talents and so ultimately unsatisfactory?).
I am likely one of only 2 or three people within 300 (or more) miles of where I sit who could do the job I am doing now. Granted, I live in a fairly rural area, but it's not BFN. The job is frustrating, stressful, and intellectually tiring - though it is satisfying on the occasional day.
If I were to lose this job, I'd seriously consider a career change. My 'talents' are not related to this job - those are skills, acquired over time, and a benefit of my talents. My talents are 'innate' and are well suited to any number of jobs.
Ideally, I'd like to be in a field with problem solving that doesn't mean GB of data burn down if you're not quick enough and in enough places at the same time. :)
And then you've got the people who drop out of college or don't go in the first place because the stupid people they know have gone, or they get there and realize how mind-numbingly stupid everyone is. The courses being dull (not boring, but dull) and slow don't help much, either.
Every once in a while these people end up becoming the foremost technical experts on a topic/field in their geographical region, by some twist of fate. I know two such people. Who'd think someone who dropped out of school could be competent?
In short: you're screwed. Unless you've got important data on them (ie not recoverable from a different source), throw them out and pick up some more (preferably a different model, at least until this one improves.)
What you've got on your hands there is defective flash (likely). There is no 'recovering' it as a storage medium. In essence, you paid for a 16GB, $40 floppy drive. Next time, unless you've got an overt need for 16GB all on one card, get several smaller ones. Sure, you're "throwing away" your cards; maybe you should've RMA'd them sooner as defective.
I'm somewhat surprised that the A-DATA memory is bad, on account of them not being known for crap quality. On the other hand, most vendors seem to pick and choose flash memory chips by price: there really is no consistency from even one card to the next within the same lots, it seems.
It's a bit easier to be skeptical of the Chinese stealing our stuff when it is a well-established fact that China (the country, not just the companies) actively tries to seed their nationals into our corporations to steal our intellectual assets.
Half the reason vehicles in the late 1980s and 1990s got such atrocious mileage was because of the 'emission control' measures put on vehicles.
Sure, you're cutting down the emissions per gallon of fuel. Guess what? You're burning more fuel in the process.
It's hardly a surprise in the "no emission test" states it's not uncommon to hear of people sticking a broom handle through their catalytic converter or running the engine slightly lean: you see an increase in performance AND fuel economy by doing so. Like, I get 18mpg in my 1989 Econoline conversion van, in town and on hilly terrain (rarely go over 45mph around here, too many hills). No, that's not incredible - but it's pretty good for an aged, falling-apart vehicle with almost 200k miles on an undersized (302cu") motor. And I'm usually hauling anywhere from 200-300 extra pounds of shit in the back, too (tools, mostly).