My HP2133 netbook uses a VIA chipset, and I haven't had a single problem (Ubuntu). I even got hardware accelerated 3D and Compiz operating on it without too much pain. Suspend and Hibernate work correctly. The only problem is the power consumption of the last generation VIA devices, which restricts the battery life.
A good argument indeed for embedding a web browser into the TV itself, which I'm sure will become common in the next year or two (albeit with a limited set of websites to view, to make the interface usable with a remote control). 10ft website interfaces for popular websites may become common.
Well the interface is a lot nicer, on my PS3 at least, than the previous one. The video quality is still poor though, would it kill them to stream the H.264 versions if a PS3 is detected?
It's a nice value add for the PS3, it's more convenient than the Wii's interface, and better resolution. Of course, I have an Apple bluetooth keyboard working with the PS3 to avoid that annoying on-screen keyboard.
Shame that there's very little worth watching on YouTube.
Well, if features don't matter, one might as well save some money and get a low end basic device that just works.
Except you have to spend half a day "simply dragging and dropping" files onto it, or dealing with some god-awful synchronisation/music software, or finding out that it doesn't "just work".
Less features on the player to make it easier to use for its core function, to avoid cluttering the interface? Acceptable.
More usability from start to finish (Music CD -> Computer -> Music Management (not File Management) -> Player)? Very very important.
Who cares about FM radio anyway, it's not broadcast on the tube, the music is pop pap, the DJs are wankers, the live sport is on AM, and ad-block doesn't work on the commercial stations!
Says it all really. You come on here trolling about how "simple" drag and drop is easy (how is it easier than "Sync all 4 and 5 star rated songs"? Where are the smart playlists? etc), and insulting people, and it turns out that you've never even used it!
Wow. The temerity of some people.
And who cares about FM, it's all shitty music. An AM tuner would be good though, that's where the live sport is.
Number of features is usually inversely proportional to usability.
This is why the iPod did so well. It had the desired features and ease of use and syncing, nothing more, and a winning form factor and styling. As other features could be integrated without compromising usability, they were added. Other players are finally catching up, or overtaking, just as the walkman was eventually overtaken, as the device's ability reaches a certain limit. The iPod Touch raises that limit vastly.
A lot of people don't want to have to wrestle with their personal computer after a day dealing with Windows at work. That's why Mac sales have increased so much, despite the price. Sure, the styling is a factor, but in the end people are choosing to get a Mac because they know it will work and be stress free.
There will always be people that have specific needs that Apple can't solve. Gamers. Businesses that have standardised on Windows. Etc. Apple is slowly nibbling away at these areas, but they can't beat a custom built PC for gaming or price.
The shame is that the education should be concentrating on how to achieve results via theory, not on a specific tool. Teaching, not Training.
You then apply the theory to the tool you are using, rather than know you have to hit the icon that looks like paper with a + on it, and a squiggle, on the third toolbar.
This is doubly more relevant because of Office 2007 which screwed up the user interface big time.
So what if the document is submitted in OpenOffice Word format? What matters is that the person applied the tool features correctly. If it isn't a course related to using office software, then it matters even less.
Good point, especially since the original paperwork will probably be lost, the house will have changed hands once or twice, and so on. Still, it only requires one person to do that in a public manner, and then everyone is checking and making claims.
So we can assume that they will be better than that as the warranty will be pessimistic. There's a good chance that they will generate more than enough power for ten, twenty years after the warranty expires, and that in that time, appliance replacement would have reduced power requirements (more efficient appliances) by more than the generated power would have dropped. Never mind that purchased power prices might be significantly higher. Indeed, in 15 years time in today's dollars he could be saving $5k a year instead of $3k, in 25 years, $7k. That's a nice retirement bonus!
TEN days, which arse-backwards African country are you living in?
25 days + national/bank holidays, that's more reasonable for an IT job. And the UK isn't that good for holidays compared to some European countries. In the UK the legal minimum for full time work is 20 days (4 weeks) a year (+ bank holidays).
Carrying forward holidays is still an issue. I think you should either be paid for that holiday, or allowed to take it forward. However I can understand limiting what you can carry forward, because you want your employees to be rested enough to do their job well, and holidays allow that.
Well if you are getting paid for your sick days, that is only fair if you are capable.
However it is unfair to expect someone to be available for work contact outside of their work hours, not unless the salary is commensurate for being on-call all the time. This seems to be a modern issue with businesses, expecting more and more out of their workforce, which gets more and more resentful and inefficient as a result.
There, have NI added too (not mentioning the 12% NI the employer has to pay as a hidden tax). Figures assuming about $1.45 to the pound I assume.
Then there is $1500 - $3000 a year council tax (per house). And 15% VAT (down from 17.5% last year) on most purchases except food and children's stuff.
Still, you can plainly see that it's failing as progressive taxation. Total income tax burden should be lower for lower wages (e.g., $8836 - $24000 at 21% say). You could argue that maybe at $120000+ it could be 50% as well.
If you are single then the 9/80 or 4/40 pattern is great, you get another *whole* day off (which are far more appealing and useful), and you can lose the time in the evening because you wouldn't do anything constructive in it anyway except play games or drink or watch TV.
If you aren't single, but have no offspring, then you want whatever will sync your time off (well, most people want that). If you can both get 9/80 or 4/40 that's brilliant, otherwise you probably want the evenings together. Of course, if you have a far shorter commute you could still sync up if you had 9/80, and you would get the bonus day off still.
With children, I think you would want time in the evening with them, so 5/40 is good here. Maybe 9/80 or 4/40 in holidays...
Right now I could do 9/80 quite happily. It means I avoid the rush hour on the way home for a start.
Why not just scrape away 20ft of regolith, build structures with bricks made from the regolith, and re-cover with the remaining regolith? Sure, you can tunnel downwards from there as opposed to outwards, but I'm sure it's easier to use diggers and explosives to dig a big pit initially than it is to tunnel initially. Then you might as well expand outwards as you have the diggers and brick making facilities in place.
Of course, by the time we're doing that on the moon, there'll probably be a way to build giant structural arches and domes using carbon nanotubes by some form of extrusion growing process that just needs the regolith as input, a power source, and something to take the finished goods away and erect them.
Anyway, the biggest problem on the moon is the moon dust itself, which is really sharp and sticky, and thus really bad to get in your lungs, and nearly impossible to filter out in an airlock, and in a location with sparse water... ick.
In an ideal world they are the ones bringing in work, business, contracts, and putting effort into making the business viable, and providing work, and hence a wage, to the employees.
Your issue isn't that this happens. It is that one role has been elevated significantly above the other, and the 'other' role is one that is highly skilled, arguably artistic, and takes years to become an expert.
I'm a good programmer, softwre architect, etc, whatever you call it. My business skills aren't brilliant however, but they come through experience and age. Even so, many people simply want technical promotion, if you are such a valuable asset to the company that you can't be replaced easily, then why aren't you worth the same as the senior executives? Mainly because the executives can't see the value of the "picasso" level programmer versus the "cave painting" masses. It's one big love in up there, very few properly technical CTOs that have the power to set up such a system.
The obvious solution is that some of the bits should resolve to a "code resolution service provider", so that there could be several databases providing codes. Instead Microsoft will be able to charge $100 or so for a person to enter a code into the database for their advertising campaign.
I think it's easier just to put a web address, I'm really not going to take photos of adverts to see a website, and the same goes for news articles and other signage and information. Maybe if it was seamless on the mobile device, without even needing to run this application... so really this isn't going to affect my life, so why should I care!
Using the CMYK colours is sensible, as long as the colours are aligned well when printed which should be the case. The reason the code is smaller is because there is no data payload apart from the ID, so they achieve different purposes.
I agree that they should provide the data as long as it might be legally required, but they should also provide download links for PDF versions, and anyone who might need that data for legal reasons should be printing them off, or just getting the print statements anyway.
Hence it's down to the individual to make use of the billing facility in such a way that they cover their own asses.
Wasn't the problem with Vampire CRTs - they would keep the tube warm, for instant on pictures. This isn't a problem with LCD and Plasma televisions, so they do actually draw minimal power on standby, ready for remote activity. Certainly my plasma states around 2W in standby...
With all the green stuff flying around, and some of it merely being transferring the emissions to an earlier part in the process (solar panels) or being horribly expensive (solar panels) and so on, people are getting jaded.
Also, there is a huge campaign against global climate change and selective reporting (e.g., DailyTech), never mind the man-made aspect of it, so lots of people just don't care that it matters.
In addition even recycling efforts have had negative PR - local governments getting residents to recycle, collecting it all, and shipping it off to China. Each time this happens, people think "why do I bother?!"
The best way to reduce emissions is to be thrifty - make use of what you have now, use things for longer, etc. Of course, that's not good for the economy!
Except this time I'm sure Steve Jobs has committed Apple to getting CEOs from inside, CEOs who have experienced the Apple culture for years, and were cultured for that role.
The day that Apple mess up and get a CEO from another company, is the day that they will start to fall apart as you mention. However Jobs might have put that off for a good decade after he leaves, perhaps two decades. But there's no knowing what the shareholders might demand if a CEO has a bad year, even if it was down to the economy.
However a new CEO might decide to be weaker to consumer demands. We might get a small tower Mac, or a conflagration of products to cover every need, making the purchasing of a computer as complex as it is from other manufacturers...
Technically, sure, he's semi-retired. He's totally retired from the 9-5 (sorry, 9-7, but you won't get paid the extra 2 hours) lifestyle however.
And if you enjoy doing the work that you need to do to get by, then it's like having a hobby that also gives you money, thus strengthening the 'retired' argument.
However you need to do more than just the work to get by on, you need to make sure you have a decent pension plan for when you really retire, or cannot get work any longer. The pension plan of "sell my expensive house in Country X and move to Country Y" sucks when house prices in X fall below those in upcoming country Y...
The problem is down to solder joints in the GPU, along with heat build up and different thermal expansion qualities between silicon and substrates and package.
ATI told Microsoft that this would happen with Microsoft's fabbing plans for the 360's GPU which ATI designed.
Microsoft chose to fab the CPU and GPU themselves. They chose the material. They had the information to hand, they chose not to act so that they could launch early - more early than they needed to given the PS3's delay. Microsoft effectively bought their current lead at the cost of $1b or more in extended warranties, and untold hassle and anguish on behalf of the affected purchasers.
The 360 has only just got the 65nm shrink of the GPU (the Jasper revision), although the CPU was shrunk a good time ago.
The BOM estimates of the 360 have always seemed to be rather optimistic, whereas the PS3 ones were pessimistic. The fact is that the 360 has a similar silicon overhead to the PS3, the difference is a wireless controller and the BluRay drive in the PS3. Nevermind the $1b+ hardware failure cost ($50 per console sold until they fixed it, mostly). The BluRay drive is probably a $50 premium over the DVD drive in the 360. The wireless is probably $10. The main dies (CPU, GPU) will have a similar cost. The memory might be cheaper in the 360 because half the PS3's is XDR, but the 360 has the eDRAM die too... maybe this translates to a $150+ cost difference at retail, a loss for Sony and a profit for Microsoft...
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My HP2133 netbook uses a VIA chipset, and I haven't had a single problem (Ubuntu). I even got hardware accelerated 3D and Compiz operating on it without too much pain. Suspend and Hibernate work correctly. The only problem is the power consumption of the last generation VIA devices, which restricts the battery life.
The new interface is far better however.
A good argument indeed for embedding a web browser into the TV itself, which I'm sure will become common in the next year or two (albeit with a limited set of websites to view, to make the interface usable with a remote control). 10ft website interfaces for popular websites may become common.
Well the interface is a lot nicer, on my PS3 at least, than the previous one. The video quality is still poor though, would it kill them to stream the H.264 versions if a PS3 is detected?
It's a nice value add for the PS3, it's more convenient than the Wii's interface, and better resolution. Of course, I have an Apple bluetooth keyboard working with the PS3 to avoid that annoying on-screen keyboard.
Shame that there's very little worth watching on YouTube.
Well, if features don't matter, one might as well save some money and get a low end basic device that just works.
Except you have to spend half a day "simply dragging and dropping" files onto it, or dealing with some god-awful synchronisation/music software, or finding out that it doesn't "just work".
Less features on the player to make it easier to use for its core function, to avoid cluttering the interface? Acceptable.
More usability from start to finish (Music CD -> Computer -> Music Management (not File Management) -> Player)? Very very important.
Who cares about FM radio anyway, it's not broadcast on the tube, the music is pop pap, the DJs are wankers, the live sport is on AM, and ad-block doesn't work on the commercial stations!
"when I hear iTunes can be"
So you've never used it.
Says it all really. You come on here trolling about how "simple" drag and drop is easy (how is it easier than "Sync all 4 and 5 star rated songs"? Where are the smart playlists? etc), and insulting people, and it turns out that you've never even used it!
Wow. The temerity of some people.
And who cares about FM, it's all shitty music. An AM tuner would be good though, that's where the live sport is.
iTunes is far more usable for most people than what you think is "simple drag-and-drop functionality".
It manages their music collection, it auto-syncs with their iPod, it gets album art for them, it sets the tags when ripping.
I think it's pretty dire, but I think people forget what the competition had. Musicmatch. Chinglish instructions. Nothing!
Too many people only see the player, and fail to see the entire workflow, and iTunes made that incredibly easy back in the day.
Number of features is usually inversely proportional to usability.
This is why the iPod did so well. It had the desired features and ease of use and syncing, nothing more, and a winning form factor and styling. As other features could be integrated without compromising usability, they were added. Other players are finally catching up, or overtaking, just as the walkman was eventually overtaken, as the device's ability reaches a certain limit. The iPod Touch raises that limit vastly.
A lot of people don't want to have to wrestle with their personal computer after a day dealing with Windows at work. That's why Mac sales have increased so much, despite the price. Sure, the styling is a factor, but in the end people are choosing to get a Mac because they know it will work and be stress free.
There will always be people that have specific needs that Apple can't solve. Gamers. Businesses that have standardised on Windows. Etc. Apple is slowly nibbling away at these areas, but they can't beat a custom built PC for gaming or price.
The shame is that the education should be concentrating on how to achieve results via theory, not on a specific tool. Teaching, not Training.
You then apply the theory to the tool you are using, rather than know you have to hit the icon that looks like paper with a + on it, and a squiggle, on the third toolbar.
This is doubly more relevant because of Office 2007 which screwed up the user interface big time.
So what if the document is submitted in OpenOffice Word format? What matters is that the person applied the tool features correctly. If it isn't a course related to using office software, then it matters even less.
Good point, especially since the original paperwork will probably be lost, the house will have changed hands once or twice, and so on. Still, it only requires one person to do that in a public manner, and then everyone is checking and making claims.
I got it to work in Ubuntu 8.10 on a HP 2133 netbook which has a crappy VIA chipset!
Sometimes Networking comes back up as disabled, and I need to re-enable it, and wait for it to connect to the wireless again.
So we can assume that they will be better than that as the warranty will be pessimistic. There's a good chance that they will generate more than enough power for ten, twenty years after the warranty expires, and that in that time, appliance replacement would have reduced power requirements (more efficient appliances) by more than the generated power would have dropped. Never mind that purchased power prices might be significantly higher. Indeed, in 15 years time in today's dollars he could be saving $5k a year instead of $3k, in 25 years, $7k. That's a nice retirement bonus!
TEN days, which arse-backwards African country are you living in?
25 days + national/bank holidays, that's more reasonable for an IT job. And the UK isn't that good for holidays compared to some European countries. In the UK the legal minimum for full time work is 20 days (4 weeks) a year (+ bank holidays).
Carrying forward holidays is still an issue. I think you should either be paid for that holiday, or allowed to take it forward. However I can understand limiting what you can carry forward, because you want your employees to be rested enough to do their job well, and holidays allow that.
Well if you are getting paid for your sick days, that is only fair if you are capable.
However it is unfair to expect someone to be available for work contact outside of their work hours, not unless the salary is commensurate for being on-call all the time. This seems to be a modern issue with businesses, expecting more and more out of their workforce, which gets more and more resentful and inefficient as a result.
$0-$8836 = 0%
$8836 - $59788 = 31%
$59788+ = 41%
There, have NI added too (not mentioning the 12% NI the employer has to pay as a hidden tax). Figures assuming about $1.45 to the pound I assume.
Then there is $1500 - $3000 a year council tax (per house).
And 15% VAT (down from 17.5% last year) on most purchases except food and children's stuff.
Still, you can plainly see that it's failing as progressive taxation. Total income tax burden should be lower for lower wages (e.g., $8836 - $24000 at 21% say). You could argue that maybe at $120000+ it could be 50% as well.
It depends on your life situation.
If you are single then the 9/80 or 4/40 pattern is great, you get another *whole* day off (which are far more appealing and useful), and you can lose the time in the evening because you wouldn't do anything constructive in it anyway except play games or drink or watch TV.
If you aren't single, but have no offspring, then you want whatever will sync your time off (well, most people want that). If you can both get 9/80 or 4/40 that's brilliant, otherwise you probably want the evenings together. Of course, if you have a far shorter commute you could still sync up if you had 9/80, and you would get the bonus day off still.
With children, I think you would want time in the evening with them, so 5/40 is good here. Maybe 9/80 or 4/40 in holidays...
Right now I could do 9/80 quite happily. It means I avoid the rush hour on the way home for a start.
Why not just scrape away 20ft of regolith, build structures with bricks made from the regolith, and re-cover with the remaining regolith? Sure, you can tunnel downwards from there as opposed to outwards, but I'm sure it's easier to use diggers and explosives to dig a big pit initially than it is to tunnel initially. Then you might as well expand outwards as you have the diggers and brick making facilities in place.
Of course, by the time we're doing that on the moon, there'll probably be a way to build giant structural arches and domes using carbon nanotubes by some form of extrusion growing process that just needs the regolith as input, a power source, and something to take the finished goods away and erect them.
Anyway, the biggest problem on the moon is the moon dust itself, which is really sharp and sticky, and thus really bad to get in your lungs, and nearly impossible to filter out in an airlock, and in a location with sparse water... ick.
In an ideal world they are the ones bringing in work, business, contracts, and putting effort into making the business viable, and providing work, and hence a wage, to the employees.
Your issue isn't that this happens. It is that one role has been elevated significantly above the other, and the 'other' role is one that is highly skilled, arguably artistic, and takes years to become an expert.
I'm a good programmer, softwre architect, etc, whatever you call it. My business skills aren't brilliant however, but they come through experience and age. Even so, many people simply want technical promotion, if you are such a valuable asset to the company that you can't be replaced easily, then why aren't you worth the same as the senior executives? Mainly because the executives can't see the value of the "picasso" level programmer versus the "cave painting" masses. It's one big love in up there, very few properly technical CTOs that have the power to set up such a system.
The obvious solution is that some of the bits should resolve to a "code resolution service provider", so that there could be several databases providing codes. Instead Microsoft will be able to charge $100 or so for a person to enter a code into the database for their advertising campaign.
I think it's easier just to put a web address, I'm really not going to take photos of adverts to see a website, and the same goes for news articles and other signage and information. Maybe if it was seamless on the mobile device, without even needing to run this application... so really this isn't going to affect my life, so why should I care!
Using the CMYK colours is sensible, as long as the colours are aligned well when printed which should be the case. The reason the code is smaller is because there is no data payload apart from the ID, so they achieve different purposes.
I agree that they should provide the data as long as it might be legally required, but they should also provide download links for PDF versions, and anyone who might need that data for legal reasons should be printing them off, or just getting the print statements anyway.
Hence it's down to the individual to make use of the billing facility in such a way that they cover their own asses.
Wasn't the problem with Vampire CRTs - they would keep the tube warm, for instant on pictures. This isn't a problem with LCD and Plasma televisions, so they do actually draw minimal power on standby, ready for remote activity. Certainly my plasma states around 2W in standby...
With all the green stuff flying around, and some of it merely being transferring the emissions to an earlier part in the process (solar panels) or being horribly expensive (solar panels) and so on, people are getting jaded.
Also, there is a huge campaign against global climate change and selective reporting (e.g., DailyTech), never mind the man-made aspect of it, so lots of people just don't care that it matters.
In addition even recycling efforts have had negative PR - local governments getting residents to recycle, collecting it all, and shipping it off to China. Each time this happens, people think "why do I bother?!"
The best way to reduce emissions is to be thrifty - make use of what you have now, use things for longer, etc. Of course, that's not good for the economy!
Except this time I'm sure Steve Jobs has committed Apple to getting CEOs from inside, CEOs who have experienced the Apple culture for years, and were cultured for that role.
The day that Apple mess up and get a CEO from another company, is the day that they will start to fall apart as you mention. However Jobs might have put that off for a good decade after he leaves, perhaps two decades. But there's no knowing what the shareholders might demand if a CEO has a bad year, even if it was down to the economy.
However a new CEO might decide to be weaker to consumer demands. We might get a small tower Mac, or a conflagration of products to cover every need, making the purchasing of a computer as complex as it is from other manufacturers...
Technically, sure, he's semi-retired. He's totally retired from the 9-5 (sorry, 9-7, but you won't get paid the extra 2 hours) lifestyle however.
And if you enjoy doing the work that you need to do to get by, then it's like having a hobby that also gives you money, thus strengthening the 'retired' argument.
However you need to do more than just the work to get by on, you need to make sure you have a decent pension plan for when you really retire, or cannot get work any longer. The pension plan of "sell my expensive house in Country X and move to Country Y" sucks when house prices in X fall below those in upcoming country Y ...
The problem is down to solder joints in the GPU, along with heat build up and different thermal expansion qualities between silicon and substrates and package.
ATI told Microsoft that this would happen with Microsoft's fabbing plans for the 360's GPU which ATI designed.
Microsoft chose to fab the CPU and GPU themselves. They chose the material. They had the information to hand, they chose not to act so that they could launch early - more early than they needed to given the PS3's delay. Microsoft effectively bought their current lead at the cost of $1b or more in extended warranties, and untold hassle and anguish on behalf of the affected purchasers.
The 360 has only just got the 65nm shrink of the GPU (the Jasper revision), although the CPU was shrunk a good time ago.
The BOM estimates of the 360 have always seemed to be rather optimistic, whereas the PS3 ones were pessimistic. The fact is that the 360 has a similar silicon overhead to the PS3, the difference is a wireless controller and the BluRay drive in the PS3. Nevermind the $1b+ hardware failure cost ($50 per console sold until they fixed it, mostly). The BluRay drive is probably a $50 premium over the DVD drive in the 360. The wireless is probably $10. The main dies (CPU, GPU) will have a similar cost. The memory might be cheaper in the 360 because half the PS3's is XDR, but the 360 has the eDRAM die too... maybe this translates to a $150+ cost difference at retail, a loss for Sony and a profit for Microsoft...