They are loathe to cut out a middle man unless it means a substantial guaranteed return on investment.
That's part of the picture. Consider:
* I buy 100 Dell systems, then leave. My stupid manager barely knows how to plug in a keyboard, but she can rely upon Dell for support. * I build 100 PCs and save 20-30%. My time is a sunk cost, and I'd have spent the same/similar time rolling out the Dells, if a bit more. I leave. My clueless manager has to find someone with the skillset to directly support these PCs; she is now reliant upon others down the food chain, instead of someone external. Why would she put herself in this bind?
Since most managers seem to see their subordinates as cogs, this is never a sane option for them.
I agree completely both from the corporate end of things & build your own home PC. I still build my own home desktop because I can get EXACTLY what I want, but it's more expensive even before I start figuring in my time.
Maybe. You'll still have to reinstall $os when it hoses itself, though.
The big thing about Dell, etc. is that the added cost, for the home user, doesn't add up. It's very easy to build better or equivalent, especially if you have cases just sitting about. The $150 premium you pay for the Dell could easily be put towards upgrades or replacements down the line. If you're smart and get a decent PSU, you're also able to utilize the full system, instead of being bound by some crap 250 watt PSU that's out of spec by 5% or more.
Sounds like you may have had electrical issues or you're buying the wrong crap if you're running into switch failures with any regularity. I've been working in IT for over a decade now, and I've yet to see a single managed switch die; I've rarely seen the more expensive unmanaged stuff die. Cheap switches die with fair regularity - but not so regularly that it's a problem.
Having a hot spare for 10 or so switches seems reasonable to me. You've got almost instant notification when one goes down (20-48 users calling you), and the 20-minute turnaround to get the replacement in. Not sure where you get "100 users making 20/hr doing nothing for 2-3hr" - that kind of failure seems fairly unrealistically catastrophic, unless your terminal server setup is stupid.
This kind of thing is hit or miss; sometimes you end up with a support nightmare, and other times you end up with something that Just Works. Unless you're buying the exact hardware and bench testing the hell out of it before you before you do a roll out, you're asking for problems.
A couple points/questions:
* Are you planning to replace all 1k systems every 18 months, or are you planning on replacing 1/3rd every 18 months? The later is sane, if you've got support man power. The former is crazy; you'd be better off rolling out new systems every 4 years with an upgrade to RAM after 2. (There are different ways to dice this, but consider: you have a lot more time overhead due to the need to design the systems yourself.) * Standard hardware installs are easier to manage with only a single system to base it on. Three different images/deployments is about as much as I'd want to mess with, though I suppose you could make it easier with RIS, to some degree (never messed with it, always used unattended, which isn't exactly finessed). * Intel sockets are changing too much right now for me to feel comfortable buying them for "upgrade CPU later" purposes. Honestly, I'd not even bother upgrading the CPU. Getting an AMD board with an ATI or nVidia onboard graphics controller (preferably the later) seems a better bet regardless (reduced cost, better generic desktop performance than an all-Intel solution). * Do not skimp on your PSUs. Get good ones, and you will see significantly fewer hardware failures in general. (Keep in mind that most OEM stuff is built for the limited-lifespan corporate deployment or the lifespan of batteries in mind.) * Assuming proper testing, I'd keep around 5 PSUs, 5 "memory units", 8 hard drives, and 2-3 motherboard/CPU combos in stock for every 100 systems. (Keep in mind that up-front cost estimation is difficult, but necessary - money managers like things such as warranties, which you will not have aside from on individual parts. This will be another cost due to management overhead.) * boards with Realtek ethernet are the way to go, due to the quality/availability of their drivers. * I'd avoid ATI due to the headache of their drivers.
If you spec your parts right (ie not skimping where you shouldn't for quality), your workstation builds should last you 5+ years with only minor replacements or upgrades. You might get in at around $700/machine in parts for a fairly decent system. Keep in mind that your time is costly, too , so $100 for an hour of your work for assembly is not unreasonable.
In my mind, the break-even for time/money/effort in a large environment for each roll out is probably right around 1k PCs. With 300, you're getting a fairly substantial sunk cost with each cycle - and 18 months replacement is somewhat insane, since the hardware is almost invariably still able to run the OS and common applications without a hitch. (I say this while typing on an 18-month-old system which is, in my mind, still 'new' - and it does a lot more than just 'common' operations. Though I'm about ready for a RAM upgrade.)
Anyway, I think it's fairly moot. Your premise is all sorts of fucked up: you can get decent version-locked models for $500-600, and quite suitable ones for $300-500. It's difficult to build systems at those prices due to needing CALs. $1000/machine is crazy, even if you're getting them with OEM CALs and then layering site CALs on top.
Those companies not keeping up are going to have some hefty bills to pay in a number of years (or stagnate and fall apart) when their infrastructure hits a point where it needs replacement.
There's no way a skeleton crew can keep up with upgrades, updates, and replacements (nevermind the 'trivial things', which add up when it comes time to do changes - like proper cable management and infrastructure capacity). I'm guessing many of these shops are still running XP. What are they going to do in 2, 3, 4 years? They likely won't even be able to source business workstations without migrating to something newer, and that won't be tenable without IT workers with increased/different skillsets. (I suppose H1B workers will be put back on the table.)
IT is like electricity or plumbing. People only really notice that it's there when something isn't working; otherwise, they take it for granted.
This is true. Our company has seen a great deal of this - IT MSPs behaving like your's: poor pay, poor benefits, and severely overworked 'knowledge workers'.
Guess what? We don't do that shit, and we (as well as another MSP I'm aware of) are growing substantially. We're taking clients from companies like your's because things were not done right from the ground up. They were done half-assed and on the cheap, with hefty up-front costs to the clients. Attention was not paid to the details. No consideration was taken for the clients' long term needs, just on getting a sale and the service bill paid.
While I'm not exactly paid the big bucks (starting to change as more clients come in, though), we're all compensated similarly or greater than we would be doing most anything else, locally. The company values me as an individual, and yes, I get plenty of comp time. (Granted, we're still small enough where not overworking your few human assets is preferable, and the locale is small enough that I'm not "easily" replaced for any cost.)
Which is interesting, because public libraries typically do a very poor job of actually making books more accessible to the community. Recently, there have been a couple instances of high-profile for-profit companies taking over 'public libraries'. Access has been greater, cost has been lower, and they're actually making a profit.
It's entirely possible to pay $100+/month and pay for 2Mbit up/down... and not get the full throughput due to upstream bottlenecks. (Just don't live in the boondocks of Wyoming.)
However, it's still not competitive with, say, California. 10/5Mbit? Sure, it's possible, but it'll cost you a bit more. And latency won't be nearly as good. Forget 50/10.
Speak for yourself - I had a hell of a time at 18, out in the boonies. In the boonies you can:
* on a whim, go off-roading. * with cows * and liquor * and firearms * and shoot things
Do that in an urban area and you're looking at hard time. In the boonies, dad says, "I hope you didn't hit a cow this time."
Oh, and I can do the same thing now that I'm an adult, too (provided I've got the land or know someone who does). That option isn't available in an urban area.
I'm exaggerating a bit with my drama above, but the point is: there really are things "to do". Most 18 year olds are bored, spending most of their time and energy fucking and drinking. What, exactly, does an urban environment offer in this regard, other than to spend more money doing so and run a higher risk of being arrested or mugged for/during said actions?
For a geek, there are quite a few 'rural' boonies with a combination of good bandwidth, good housing, and good jobs. For most, that's about all that they actually want or need in life. Hell, there are quite a few rural areas where there's good food, too - the threat of commercial competition outside "fast food" is significantly lower. (Find a town with a population under between 1k and 10k: you're probably going to find at least one diner where the owner/cook makes things from scratch, with decent to incredible original recipes.)
This, and other reasons, is why I prefer older vehicles.
Sure, rodents will chew the wires in older vehicles, too. But it's not nearly as tempting - not only have the wire on the older car wires given off most of their off-gassing already (which, I presume, would not attract them as much) but the coatings aren't as tempting to begin with.
Combine this with lower maintenance costs due to simpler mechanisms and cheaper parts (less to go wrong), and you've got a win. (Strut assembly for a 2005 Prius: $54. Strut assembly for a 2000 Ford Focus: $39 ($51 for the 2010 Focus). Strut on a 1990 Taurus: $24.
As for another rough example, but I can rebuild the entire suspension on my 1989 (I-beam frame) Ford truck for around $350. Hell, half the body can be destroyed in an accident and only minimal suspension/point parts have to be replaced. You can't even repair the frame/body on these newer vehicles. (Yay, unibody.)
If someone can turn a buck telling people trivial things which improve security - simply because he's an 'expert' - I'm all for it. I'd love such an easy job.
"Lock your doors at night" "Don't leave valuables in plain sight" "Look both ways before crossing" "Don't trust the panhandlers" "Cabbies are even worse"
All of this is common sense, but take a Bushman into a city and see how much sense it makes. He'd probably give many shiny beads to be led to safety.
Only half serious on that one, folks: you know they're going to push for it. It doesn't matter if they think they can get someone for 10%-20% than they could've 2 years ago if they can get someone for 30%+ less on account of statistics.
I'd not be surprised if this statistic is somehow funded by industry groups which want the IT wage to go down further.
I suspect part of the reason why there may be increased demand is healthcare. There are huge demands on healthcare IT right now on account of the spending the government is requiring to get hospitals (particularly rural healthcare) 'compliant'. If they're not compliant, they won't get any compensation for procedures, so spending $1-5 million on some updated EMR package seems "reasonable". Even for a 20 bed hospital.
Good thing they're "government operated," because they surely wouldn't have gone bankrupt with capitalists running the company!
No; no, they would have. It would have been a good thing, long term, for the automotive industry and transportation in general. They'd have had restructuring - firings, in part, but also re-examination of their design processes and the like to try to save money/improve the designs. The "brand" would suffer, as would their bottom line, as they went from 'shiney crap at inflated prices' to 'well made dull stuff at cheaper prices'.
And we all know private sector never lies!
Your point is: "the private sector lies, too", yes? What you fail to acknowledge (in this sarcastic statement or, likely, in your thought process) is two-fold:
1) While the private sector will frequently lie, it tends to result in nothing but negative outcomes for the company in question (long term). It is financially not in their interest to lie to frequently, as this creates long-term brand distrust when no true brand dichotomy exists (Republican vs. Democrat). Furthermore, the government is there to keep them in check, and is constantly busting knuckles due to private sector lies (unless there is money involved for them, of course).
2) The point is that government rarely doesn't lie. They can get away with it because nobody is held accountable through actual punishment - one administration leaves, and the other comes in to do the exact same things. Hell, the 'private sector' (corporations) are largely enabled by such government mechanizations: they'd not be capable of doing so were the government (politicians) not sitting by, complicit.
That's the most efficient, loss-free method of doing an EV: high-torque ICE (say, a turbine) generates electricity through a generator, which then directly powers smaller independent (more efficient) wheel motors. Maybe throw in a smaller lithium type battery - for starting as well as times when higher amperages are needed than current turbine RPMs can generate (though not likely, I've not done all the numbers).
Frankly, I'm surprised we're not seeing more conversions like this for the big off-road vehicles: you'd get better mileage (by a LOT), high torque, and good acceleration. Oh, and you'd not have to worry about something like crushing your axle while rolling over a bolder, because you wouldn't have any.
It's like the tag says: they're lying because they're government owned and operated now. That, and they're GM: one of the best examples of incompetence screwing over good concept and design to result in a bad products since... uh, well, quite a while.
The Volt has a number of deficiencies, the least of which is not the use of a gas engine to recharge batteries and/or drive the wheels directly. It's an awesome looking car, but they dropped the ball in many, many different ways: they could've gotten similar results from a diesel turbine-powered direct drive electric.
If a person votes for any social programs, they most certainly do have a responsibility to have children. Social programs rely on the future generations to pay for your retirement.
The responsibility to have children is otherwise a responsibility to themselves - not unlike saving for retirement yourself. If there is no future generation, there will be nobody to provide you services in your old age.
Additionally, as has been seen throughout history, lost generations tend to set a nation back for centuries or result in their ultimate demise - dissolving into other countries or being conquered.
Lastly they also did a lot to push in the direction of hardware detection and ease of installation, yes, the Debian installer existed before Ubuntu but they set it up to actually work on most hardware.
Seriously? No, that was the first thing Ubuntu did; it was (and is) the primarily reason that Ubuntu made a name. Amongst geeks, it was "hey, try Ubuntu, it's Debian but with better hardware support", and amongst the neophites, it's "try Ubuntu, it's an easy to use Linux".
The volunteers, likewise, followed. They're there simply because it was easy to use, and wasn't Vista or XP (for the most part).
If Ubuntu is 'starting to fade' it's for one of two reasons:
* Hey, Windows 7 is out now. * Those people are growing up and not terribly fanatical - or they're graduating on to other things, like Debian or CentOS (or for that matter, jobs and girlfriends).
My point is: do not marginalize the significance of "just works" installation and hardware support. That is quite important for any "doesn't come preinstalled" OS. The focused on the kernel and the pretty clicky graphics, whereas Debian, on which it is based, focused on utilities and tools. Those efforts, combined, resulted in a pretty solid system (yes, even now).
It's the same approach used by Stormix and Progeny years ago - the efforts of which are, likewise, part of Debian today.
I'm appreciative that it's like that. It keeps the signal/noise ratio down, as the intellectual miscreants who have no attention don't bother trying to figure it out, nevermind clicking three times before an installer starts downloading.
It is apparent that you don't know how things work.
They did not introduce a bug in Lucid. The kernel developers did, in all likelihood. If it's like the previous instances of kernel regressions I've seen for peripherals, they're probably doing something like rewriting the BT stack outright.
You've got several options:
* use the kernel from Lucid (no, really, you could probably do it just fine) * download the kernel for 10.10 and patch it with the older driver/stack that works, then rebuild. * Shut up and go back to pre-Lucid. * Suck it up and deal with it.
Alternatively, you could always go to Windows, where a several-year-old device may not have support options with any level of fuckery.
For what it's worth, I've seen this a dozen or so times - 'fringe' peripherals stop working with an upgrade. It's not specific to Ubuntu. Debian suffers from it, as does Fedora and SuSE.
I suppose you could always go to CentOS, which uses a 6-year-old kernel and only gets additions.:| Enjoy your performance.
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They are loathe to cut out a middle man unless it means a substantial guaranteed return on investment.
That's part of the picture. Consider:
* I buy 100 Dell systems, then leave. My stupid manager barely knows how to plug in a keyboard, but she can rely upon Dell for support.
* I build 100 PCs and save 20-30%. My time is a sunk cost, and I'd have spent the same/similar time rolling out the Dells, if a bit more. I leave. My clueless manager has to find someone with the skillset to directly support these PCs; she is now reliant upon others down the food chain, instead of someone external. Why would she put herself in this bind?
Since most managers seem to see their subordinates as cogs, this is never a sane option for them.
I agree completely both from the corporate end of things & build your own home PC. I still build my own home desktop because I can get EXACTLY what I want, but it's more expensive even before I start figuring in my time.
Maybe. You'll still have to reinstall $os when it hoses itself, though.
The big thing about Dell, etc. is that the added cost, for the home user, doesn't add up. It's very easy to build better or equivalent, especially if you have cases just sitting about. The $150 premium you pay for the Dell could easily be put towards upgrades or replacements down the line. If you're smart and get a decent PSU, you're also able to utilize the full system, instead of being bound by some crap 250 watt PSU that's out of spec by 5% or more.
Sounds like you may have had electrical issues or you're buying the wrong crap if you're running into switch failures with any regularity. I've been working in IT for over a decade now, and I've yet to see a single managed switch die; I've rarely seen the more expensive unmanaged stuff die. Cheap switches die with fair regularity - but not so regularly that it's a problem.
Having a hot spare for 10 or so switches seems reasonable to me. You've got almost instant notification when one goes down (20-48 users calling you), and the 20-minute turnaround to get the replacement in. Not sure where you get "100 users making 20/hr doing nothing for 2-3hr" - that kind of failure seems fairly unrealistically catastrophic, unless your terminal server setup is stupid.
Long run? Unless you're also paying for the OEM licenses up front, it's break-even under 100PCs, easily.
This kind of thing is hit or miss; sometimes you end up with a support nightmare, and other times you end up with something that Just Works. Unless you're buying the exact hardware and bench testing the hell out of it before you before you do a roll out, you're asking for problems.
A couple points/questions:
* Are you planning to replace all 1k systems every 18 months, or are you planning on replacing 1/3rd every 18 months? The later is sane, if you've got support man power. The former is crazy; you'd be better off rolling out new systems every 4 years with an upgrade to RAM after 2. (There are different ways to dice this, but consider: you have a lot more time overhead due to the need to design the systems yourself.)
* Standard hardware installs are easier to manage with only a single system to base it on. Three different images/deployments is about as much as I'd want to mess with, though I suppose you could make it easier with RIS, to some degree (never messed with it, always used unattended, which isn't exactly finessed).
* Intel sockets are changing too much right now for me to feel comfortable buying them for "upgrade CPU later" purposes. Honestly, I'd not even bother upgrading the CPU. Getting an AMD board with an ATI or nVidia onboard graphics controller (preferably the later) seems a better bet regardless (reduced cost, better generic desktop performance than an all-Intel solution).
* Do not skimp on your PSUs. Get good ones, and you will see significantly fewer hardware failures in general. (Keep in mind that most OEM stuff is built for the limited-lifespan corporate deployment or the lifespan of batteries in mind.)
* Assuming proper testing, I'd keep around 5 PSUs, 5 "memory units", 8 hard drives, and 2-3 motherboard/CPU combos in stock for every 100 systems. (Keep in mind that up-front cost estimation is difficult, but necessary - money managers like things such as warranties, which you will not have aside from on individual parts. This will be another cost due to management overhead.)
* boards with Realtek ethernet are the way to go, due to the quality/availability of their drivers.
* I'd avoid ATI due to the headache of their drivers.
If you spec your parts right (ie not skimping where you shouldn't for quality), your workstation builds should last you 5+ years with only minor replacements or upgrades. You might get in at around $700/machine in parts for a fairly decent system. Keep in mind that your time is costly, too , so $100 for an hour of your work for assembly is not unreasonable.
In my mind, the break-even for time/money/effort in a large environment for each roll out is probably right around 1k PCs. With 300, you're getting a fairly substantial sunk cost with each cycle - and 18 months replacement is somewhat insane, since the hardware is almost invariably still able to run the OS and common applications without a hitch. (I say this while typing on an 18-month-old system which is, in my mind, still 'new' - and it does a lot more than just 'common' operations. Though I'm about ready for a RAM upgrade.)
Anyway, I think it's fairly moot. Your premise is all sorts of fucked up: you can get decent version-locked models for $500-600, and quite suitable ones for $300-500. It's difficult to build systems at those prices due to needing CALs. $1000/machine is crazy, even if you're getting them with OEM CALs and then layering site CALs on top.
Those companies not keeping up are going to have some hefty bills to pay in a number of years (or stagnate and fall apart) when their infrastructure hits a point where it needs replacement.
There's no way a skeleton crew can keep up with upgrades, updates, and replacements (nevermind the 'trivial things', which add up when it comes time to do changes - like proper cable management and infrastructure capacity). I'm guessing many of these shops are still running XP. What are they going to do in 2, 3, 4 years? They likely won't even be able to source business workstations without migrating to something newer, and that won't be tenable without IT workers with increased/different skillsets. (I suppose H1B workers will be put back on the table.)
IT is like electricity or plumbing. People only really notice that it's there when something isn't working; otherwise, they take it for granted.
This is true. Our company has seen a great deal of this - IT MSPs behaving like your's: poor pay, poor benefits, and severely overworked 'knowledge workers'.
Guess what? We don't do that shit, and we (as well as another MSP I'm aware of) are growing substantially. We're taking clients from companies like your's because things were not done right from the ground up. They were done half-assed and on the cheap, with hefty up-front costs to the clients. Attention was not paid to the details. No consideration was taken for the clients' long term needs, just on getting a sale and the service bill paid.
While I'm not exactly paid the big bucks (starting to change as more clients come in, though), we're all compensated similarly or greater than we would be doing most anything else, locally. The company values me as an individual, and yes, I get plenty of comp time. (Granted, we're still small enough where not overworking your few human assets is preferable, and the locale is small enough that I'm not "easily" replaced for any cost.)
Which is interesting, because public libraries typically do a very poor job of actually making books more accessible to the community. Recently, there have been a couple instances of high-profile for-profit companies taking over 'public libraries'. Access has been greater, cost has been lower, and they're actually making a profit.
Depends on what you're comparing it to.
It's entirely possible to pay $100+/month and pay for 2Mbit up/down... and not get the full throughput due to upstream bottlenecks. (Just don't live in the boondocks of Wyoming.)
However, it's still not competitive with, say, California. 10/5Mbit? Sure, it's possible, but it'll cost you a bit more. And latency won't be nearly as good. Forget 50/10.
I know quite a few people who started fucking, unprotected, before the age of 18.
They're also married, with kids, and leading fairly happy, productive lives.
I'm not sure where the problem is.
Speak for yourself - I had a hell of a time at 18, out in the boonies. In the boonies you can:
* on a whim, go off-roading.
* with cows
* and liquor
* and firearms
* and shoot things
Do that in an urban area and you're looking at hard time. In the boonies, dad says, "I hope you didn't hit a cow this time."
Oh, and I can do the same thing now that I'm an adult, too (provided I've got the land or know someone who does). That option isn't available in an urban area.
I'm exaggerating a bit with my drama above, but the point is: there really are things "to do". Most 18 year olds are bored, spending most of their time and energy fucking and drinking. What, exactly, does an urban environment offer in this regard, other than to spend more money doing so and run a higher risk of being arrested or mugged for/during said actions?
For a geek, there are quite a few 'rural' boonies with a combination of good bandwidth, good housing, and good jobs. For most, that's about all that they actually want or need in life. Hell, there are quite a few rural areas where there's good food, too - the threat of commercial competition outside "fast food" is significantly lower. (Find a town with a population under between 1k and 10k: you're probably going to find at least one diner where the owner/cook makes things from scratch, with decent to incredible original recipes.)
There is an appropriate solution to this problem.
Shoot the rabbit and put it in a stew. Tastes like chicken and it's quicker than splicing a cut wire.
This, and other reasons, is why I prefer older vehicles.
Sure, rodents will chew the wires in older vehicles, too. But it's not nearly as tempting - not only have the wire on the older car wires given off most of their off-gassing already (which, I presume, would not attract them as much) but the coatings aren't as tempting to begin with.
Combine this with lower maintenance costs due to simpler mechanisms and cheaper parts (less to go wrong), and you've got a win. (Strut assembly for a 2005 Prius: $54. Strut assembly for a 2000 Ford Focus: $39 ($51 for the 2010 Focus). Strut on a 1990 Taurus: $24.
As for another rough example, but I can rebuild the entire suspension on my 1989 (I-beam frame) Ford truck for around $350. Hell, half the body can be destroyed in an accident and only minimal suspension/point parts have to be replaced. You can't even repair the frame/body on these newer vehicles. (Yay, unibody.)
If someone can turn a buck telling people trivial things which improve security - simply because he's an 'expert' - I'm all for it. I'd love such an easy job.
"Lock your doors at night"
"Don't leave valuables in plain sight"
"Look both ways before crossing"
"Don't trust the panhandlers"
"Cabbies are even worse"
All of this is common sense, but take a Bushman into a city and see how much sense it makes. He'd probably give many shiny beads to be led to safety.
Quick! Increase the H1B quota!
Only half serious on that one, folks: you know they're going to push for it. It doesn't matter if they think they can get someone for 10%-20% than they could've 2 years ago if they can get someone for 30%+ less on account of statistics.
I'd not be surprised if this statistic is somehow funded by industry groups which want the IT wage to go down further.
I suspect part of the reason why there may be increased demand is healthcare. There are huge demands on healthcare IT right now on account of the spending the government is requiring to get hospitals (particularly rural healthcare) 'compliant'. If they're not compliant, they won't get any compensation for procedures, so spending $1-5 million on some updated EMR package seems "reasonable". Even for a 20 bed hospital.
Good thing they're "government operated," because they surely wouldn't have gone bankrupt with capitalists running the company!
No; no, they would have. It would have been a good thing, long term, for the automotive industry and transportation in general. They'd have had restructuring - firings, in part, but also re-examination of their design processes and the like to try to save money/improve the designs. The "brand" would suffer, as would their bottom line, as they went from 'shiney crap at inflated prices' to 'well made dull stuff at cheaper prices'.
And we all know private sector never lies!
Your point is: "the private sector lies, too", yes? What you fail to acknowledge (in this sarcastic statement or, likely, in your thought process) is two-fold:
1) While the private sector will frequently lie, it tends to result in nothing but negative outcomes for the company in question (long term). It is financially not in their interest to lie to frequently, as this creates long-term brand distrust when no true brand dichotomy exists (Republican vs. Democrat). Furthermore, the government is there to keep them in check, and is constantly busting knuckles due to private sector lies (unless there is money involved for them, of course).
2) The point is that government rarely doesn't lie. They can get away with it because nobody is held accountable through actual punishment - one administration leaves, and the other comes in to do the exact same things. Hell, the 'private sector' (corporations) are largely enabled by such government mechanizations: they'd not be capable of doing so were the government (politicians) not sitting by, complicit.
That's the most efficient, loss-free method of doing an EV: high-torque ICE (say, a turbine) generates electricity through a generator, which then directly powers smaller independent (more efficient) wheel motors. Maybe throw in a smaller lithium type battery - for starting as well as times when higher amperages are needed than current turbine RPMs can generate (though not likely, I've not done all the numbers).
Frankly, I'm surprised we're not seeing more conversions like this for the big off-road vehicles: you'd get better mileage (by a LOT), high torque, and good acceleration. Oh, and you'd not have to worry about something like crushing your axle while rolling over a bolder, because you wouldn't have any.
It's like the tag says: they're lying because they're government owned and operated now. That, and they're GM: one of the best examples of incompetence screwing over good concept and design to result in a bad products since... uh, well, quite a while.
The Volt has a number of deficiencies, the least of which is not the use of a gas engine to recharge batteries and/or drive the wheels directly. It's an awesome looking car, but they dropped the ball in many, many different ways: they could've gotten similar results from a diesel turbine-powered direct drive electric.
I'd not be surprised if it tastes like pork, which tastes like cat, bear, and beaver (of type rodentia - the other kind tastes like fish).
Quite possibly, it has a stringy, dark meat which is bitter unless stewed (and then becomes quite savory).
The look of this creature is very similar to that of a badger or a wolverine - I'd not be surprised if it were related.
It also has a tail and shares a lot of characteristics with the lemur; I wonder if it might not be related to the lemur and have a marsupial heritage?
Depending on its age, it may be young (ie not full grown). It looks like a younger creature.
If a person votes for any social programs, they most certainly do have a responsibility to have children. Social programs rely on the future generations to pay for your retirement.
The responsibility to have children is otherwise a responsibility to themselves - not unlike saving for retirement yourself. If there is no future generation, there will be nobody to provide you services in your old age.
Additionally, as has been seen throughout history, lost generations tend to set a nation back for centuries or result in their ultimate demise - dissolving into other countries or being conquered.
Lastly they also did a lot to push in the direction of hardware detection and ease of installation, yes, the Debian installer existed before Ubuntu but they set it up to actually work on most hardware.
Seriously? No, that was the first thing Ubuntu did; it was (and is) the primarily reason that Ubuntu made a name. Amongst geeks, it was "hey, try Ubuntu, it's Debian but with better hardware support", and amongst the neophites, it's "try Ubuntu, it's an easy to use Linux".
The volunteers, likewise, followed. They're there simply because it was easy to use, and wasn't Vista or XP (for the most part).
If Ubuntu is 'starting to fade' it's for one of two reasons:
* Hey, Windows 7 is out now.
* Those people are growing up and not terribly fanatical - or they're graduating on to other things, like Debian or CentOS (or for that matter, jobs and girlfriends).
My point is: do not marginalize the significance of "just works" installation and hardware support. That is quite important for any "doesn't come preinstalled" OS. The focused on the kernel and the pretty clicky graphics, whereas Debian, on which it is based, focused on utilities and tools. Those efforts, combined, resulted in a pretty solid system (yes, even now).
It's the same approach used by Stormix and Progeny years ago - the efforts of which are, likewise, part of Debian today.
What are you smoking? This is on 9.10:
# dpkg -s mdadm /etc/init.d/mdadm 62dd8d0b38179b325bc11aa5f80357e2 /etc/cron.d/mdadm 9667bb71ffe6eff07835095976a7383c /etc/logcheck/ignore.d.server/mdadm f4815c7c4b4470500ead4e68715c64cb /etc/logcheck/violations.d/mdadm 74a1861042a5112dbf229088ac12c209
Package: mdadm
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Installed-Size: 660
Maintainer: Ubuntu Core Developers
Architecture: amd64
Version: 2.6.7.1-1ubuntu8
Replaces: mdctl
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.8), debconf (>= 1.4.72), lsb-base (>= 3.1-6), udev (>= 136-1), initramfs-tools (>= 0.85eubuntu24)
Recommends: postfix | mail-transport-agent, module-init-tools
Breaks: udev ( 136-1)
Conflicts: mdctl ( 0.7.2), raidtools2 ( 1.00.3-12.1)
Conffiles:
Description: tool to administer Linux MD arrays (software RAID)
The mdadm utility can be used to create, manage, and monitor MD
(multi-disk) arrays for software RAID or multipath I/O.
.
This package automatically configures mdadm to assemble arrays during the
system startup process. If not needed, this functionality can be disabled.
Homepage: http://neil.brown.name/blog/mdadm
Original-Maintainer: Debian mdadm maintainers
(slightly sanitized for posting)
I'm appreciative that it's like that. It keeps the signal/noise ratio down, as the intellectual miscreants who have no attention don't bother trying to figure it out, nevermind clicking three times before an installer starts downloading.
It is apparent that you don't know how things work.
They did not introduce a bug in Lucid. The kernel developers did, in all likelihood. If it's like the previous instances of kernel regressions I've seen for peripherals, they're probably doing something like rewriting the BT stack outright.
You've got several options:
* use the kernel from Lucid (no, really, you could probably do it just fine)
* download the kernel for 10.10 and patch it with the older driver/stack that works, then rebuild.
* Shut up and go back to pre-Lucid.
* Suck it up and deal with it.
Alternatively, you could always go to Windows, where a several-year-old device may not have support options with any level of fuckery.
For what it's worth, I've seen this a dozen or so times - 'fringe' peripherals stop working with an upgrade. It's not specific to Ubuntu. Debian suffers from it, as does Fedora and SuSE.
I suppose you could always go to CentOS, which uses a 6-year-old kernel and only gets additions. :| Enjoy your performance.