... with the PowerPC architecture would not be a Macintosh cpu chip. It would have had to be a variant of the PowerPC targeted for the iPod, with low prices and huge production volumes. That, and the requisite condition that Apple be an "all-Intel" producer to obtain similar pricing as Dell receives, is what drove the switch.
That, and Intel was prepared to suck up to Steve, while IBM would have treated him as just another customer. It didn't help things that while IBM failed to deliver a 3GHz G5 to Apple, Microsoft was making all kinds of noise about the triple-core 3.2GHz G5 variant they were going to use in the Xbox.
Apple could easily be in the same place they are in today with the new Intel chips by using the Freescale dual-core e600 chips, AND retain the Altivec facility, probably with lower power usage as well. But the iPods would be stuck, with no place to go, and certainly no future like they will have using the Intel processors they will be moving into any day now, at the rock-bottom pricing they will be paying for them. And the iPods are currently more important to Apple than the Macintosh products.
Yup, Apple could switch back to IBM, but IBM would have to be a lot farther ahead of Intel's products, in performance AND pricing AND heat dissipation, before that would ever happen.
Any word on the future of the Darwin PPC Apple support? Will an open source PPC port of Darwin still be provided? The answer to that question will tell you whether or not there is any possibility of switching back or offering PPC versions of OS X at any point in the future.
To me, this screams "code whore", where you are billed out to do whatever the intersection of business needs and buck$ happens to be. As such, you will be under-utilized 99.99% of the time.
I speak from experience. As an employee, you are expected to work to the full extent of your abilities, but as a contractor, your time will (almost) always be spent doing work below your abilities, as most users of contractors try to rent bodies whose skills are considerably above those demanded by the task, in order to justify (?) the expense, and to ensure that they will be able to handle the work (believe it or not, contractors' qualifications are frequently exaggerated).
But to me, the real issue here is whether or not you would always wonder if you had passed on an opportunity you should have taken.
I say GO FOR IT!
The consulting firm would surely be willing to hire you back (should this new venture not work out), assuming you are on good terms with them, and don't burn any bridges by leaving to try this out. From their perspective, this experience would make you more marketable.
Of course, a lot depends upon exactly how big a pay cut is involved, and the results of any due diligence on your part as to the viability of the startup (which statistics would say will likely fail, but that probably should not be a large consideration, depending on your ability to tolerate uncertainty and risk).
Good Luck with whatever path you chose. But be sure that you do CHOOSE a path, and not let inertia carry you along.
An assumption of $2.20 per gallon over the next 200,000 miles seems rather artificial and far-fetched. There are (some) arguments for gas prices falling, and (a lot) for gas prices rising over the near-term future.
One would expect that purchasers of hybrids do so with the expectation that gas prices will continue to increase. It would be instructive to see various cost models based on the price of gas moving from $2.20 per gallon to something like $4.20 per gallon over that 200,000 miles.
However, by my figuring, allowing for a linear rise in the price of gas from $2.20 to $4.20 per gallon over that 200,000 miles, the savings is still only $1,272. But there are still a lot of back-of-the-envelope assumptions involved here, not the least of which is an inflation rate of zero.
The point of all this is that evaluating the merits of anything that is intended to save money based on future conditions is a dicey business. All one requires to see an effective price of gas of oh, say something like $10/gallon, would be a nuclear war in the Middle East. Given the current state of affairs in that region, it doesn't seem like all that long a bet that such an event would take place sometime in the near future (5-10 years out). And in that case, the ability to make short trips in a hybrid using only battery power might be priceless.
1) as Billy the Mountain (225541) suggests, put the foam on the inside
2) after every fueling, inspect (xray, ultrasound, ?) the foam, looking for crack propagation through it, stripping and re-foaming as needed
3) change the foam to a series of interspersed layers of foam and a sealant layer
and others, all of which are designed to prevent the cryopumping action by disrupting crack propagation through the foam to the atmosphere. All that remains is to perform some tests and analyses to determine the intersection of the cost curve and the effectiveness curve to select the best method.
Other problems exist (tile damage from other sources (e.g., bird strike, lightning) springs to mind), but those would seem to be manageable.
While the shuttle is still an obsolete and expensive vehicle, it would appear that we can continue to get some mileage out of our investment in shuttle technology -- at least until the replacement is ready to launch.
Of COURSE we are hard-wired (in some manner) for geometry!!!
We're visual creatures operating in (a perceived) Euclidean space!
How could we not be (geometry-aware)?
As to the implication that we have some innate ability to reason geometrically, I think the folks at MSNBC and the AAAS must not have tried any mathematical proofs recently (or perhaps ever).
THERE's an area where there is ample evidence that we have zilch in the way of pre-wiring (a.k.a. "instinct"), and must undergo extensive pain and effort to wire ourselves to perform logical reasoning -- a skill that is foreign to most of the human population.
There's a pretty substantial chasm between the ability to recognize lines and shapes, and the ability to develop a method for bisecting an angle (using straight edge and compass) and showing that such a method is correct (i.e., develop a proof).
Here's how Real America (and most likely Real Earth) is structured:
A Hierarchy of Control and Influence
multinational corporations
domestic corporations
acolytes of Satan (a.k.a. professional lobbyists, and inherited political dynasties)
national governments
state governments
local governments
clueless masses
Subservient organizations mimic their superiors in this hierarchy. Thus it's no surprise to see CIOs appearing in domestic corporations -- regardless of size -- and all forms of government.
I suspect that Hell itself is readying a CIO position to be occupied by Steve Balmer (the next time he indulges in a monkey dance, it may just do him in), who will preside over a vast array of Macs and Linux machines, with competent users who ignore his every decree to "standardize", and insist upon spreading entropy (disguised as diversity) throughout his realm.
The fictions taught in the schools of a system wherein the teeming masses apply their collective wisdom to designate those to temporarily rule over them have been completely up-ended in the fullness of time.
Political parties control the political process, and are given their marching orders (and income) by the professional lobbyist cadre, who are employees of larger, more sinister organizations.
Sadly, I couldn't locate any info on the proposed operating envelope of this thing. The prototype is powered by a couple of ultralite motors, but that tells us almost nothing, as it is, after all, a prototype.
One would hope that it flies at speeds in excess of 100 kt (115 mph), and at altitudes of at least 10,000 ft -- to avoid potshots from ground-based yahoos, I believe that there are few weapons capable of firing a bullet through 10,000 ft of atmosphere and across a 10,000 ft gravitational potential. If it also achieves significantly greater fuel efficiencies than over-the-road trucking, I would think there is an economic niche for such a vehicle.
But at only 10,000 ft, they will be flying through (or landing to avoid flying through) most of the rough weather. To avoid the weather, they will need to fly considerably higher, at altitudes which will require pressurization of both crew spaces and the cargo containers.
For this to be viable as a cargo vehicle, it will need to do one or more of:
*) travel faster than trucks or trains, at lower fuel cost than airplanes
*) cost less per ton per mile in fuel than trucks or trains
If it can't do either of these, I see no cargo transport economic niche for it to occupy.
Perhaps there is another use -- consider the equivalent of airborne cruise ships, with spectacular views of the terrain below... this would need some sort of dispensation from gambling prohibitions, similar to that enjoyed by riverfront floating casinos, so that states travelled over would not be arresting gamblers or trying to tax flying casinos.
A means of luxury travel, faster than driving, but slower than airlines, with oodles of space and luxury to pamper oneself in... this is pretty much what the early 20th century dirigibles aimed at as well.
I wouldn't mind taking a weekend to fly somewhere on such a vehicle (40 hrs at 100 mph = 4000 miles), especially if I had plenty of room, good food, a sleeper compartment. It would sure beat being crammed into an airline with my knees stuffed up my nose for half a day. I would think that the economics of such a craft (potentially thousands of passengers, hundreds for sure, plus lower fuel costs and of course the revenue from four star restaurants and gambling tables) would make it hard to beat.
Perhaps a GeekCruise to MWSF... traveling in style.
-- Actually, it's more of a solidifying of our position in that grouping.
If you examine the state rankings in various categories (education, income, employment), you will consistently find The Hoosier State struggling to get off the bottom. Most of the major employers have departed the state over the past several decades, and the mindless politicians looted the budget surplus of a few years ago when nobody was keeping track of outgo vs remaining balance -- this played nicely into our current budget deficit.
That said, I take this with a grain of salt, as we are heading into off-year elections next year, and politicians have this overwhelming desire to get their names out in front of the public. There have also been noises about our state joining the Intelligent Design circus.
... we're about as close to achieving "true" AI as we are to understanding how we think.
While there is an outside chance that we might accidentally create AI, there is zero chance that we will recognize it until we can describe things like human consciousness, decompose a human brain into functional units, and relate how the electrochemical activity of the brain produces that whimsical tautology: "I think, therefore I am."
Google is planning to build their own internet and bypass the telecom industy's pipes.
Now if only some decent wireless technology would be rolled out that would allow me to connect to my non-Bell ISP without going over the Bell copper (or fiber) to my house.
"So if everyone just starts installing IPv6 hardware, everything is happy."
"Scuse me, but I can't think of a personal computer being sold today that does *NOT* support IPv6.
XP does, Linux does, Macs do too. I'm pretty sure that Cisco's equipment supports IPv6, and all the wireless routers that I am familiar with support it.
So why isn't IPv6 being rolled out for general consumption? What's the problem here?
He's already stated their motive for going to OO was to save money by avoiding the upgrade to Office 2003.
Assume that they can no longer purchase copies of their current (older) version of Office, or that they are anticipating an increase in the number of seats.
Admittedly, the cash outlay is less than upgrading to Office 2003 -- unless Microsoft will no longer sell them copies of their current software. Then they are stuck -- unless they opt to make additional copies of their current version of Office without paying for them. That route makes upgrading to Office 2003 look downright cheap, as once the BSA hits them with an "audit", Microsoft effectively owns their company. And you can expect an "audit", as the company is vulnerable to disgruntled ex-employees snitching on them to the BSA.
Corporate pirating of products from Microsoft is stupider than lying to the SEC.
This is one of the best arguments for replacing Office with open source products, as it removes control of your IT budget from the hands of Microsoft. The fact that you save money immediately is trivial. The important thing is the ongoing savings you have achieved, which repeat annually. Anyone who pitches replacing Office with OO should do so via a spreadsheet and a chart showing the cumulative impact of those savings. And then mention that this does not include the impact of occasional additional expense of forced software upgrades.
2) the "application bundle" concept, wherein each app resides in a self-contained directory bundle, having few external ties and making it easy to move apps anywhere and still have them work, along with tings like drag-and-drop installation and removal of apps. This alone makes Darwin superior to any other flavor of unix, IMHO.
3) the use of plists instead of a blizzard of plain text files for prefs and config info gives Darwin a uniformity lacking in other unix apps.
I count those as "practical" advantages, as they provide Darwin with an ease of use lacking in ANY OTHER UNIX VARIANT. Ease of use is a "practical" advantage that comes in ahead of efficiency (for which I cheerfully give Linux the top 'o the hat) in most usage.
It is arguable whether the use of the microkernel to manage hardware drivers and separate those drivers from the kernel codespace. I think it improves Darwin and makes Linux more problem-prone, but that's just me, and I don't know of any hard data to support it (unlike the security performance listed above).
Before painting "LINUX" on your shaven head and running about the stadium screaming "TUX, TUX!", try learning SOMETHING about the differences in the various flavors of unix.
Linux is the best choice for many people in the developed world, mostly due to the enormous support community that has had to develop to allow Linux to progress to the relatively smooth and easy state it enjoys today. It's pretty similar to Windows in that regard (simply amazing how many people stick with Windows 'cause they know the demi-geek down the street can help them repair it).
For a community that probably doesn't have oodles of time to ferret out the secrets of "how to do it", and doesn't have the connections to the support communities in the so-called "developed world", a more straightforward OS (like Darwin) has advantages over Linux.
But as I said in my original post, neither OS X (nor Windows) has any business contending to be the OS running a $100 computer that is VERY skinny on resources. Neither does a fully rigged Linux with Gnome and a boatload of software. But Linux CAN be slimmed down, as can Darwin -- and when comparing the "slim & trim" versions of each, I think Darwin is likely to be much more uniform and eary to use than a comparable Linux.
Why not Darwin? It includes most of the things that set OS X above Linux (no slurs intended), like the better BSD security, the bundling of applications into self-contained directory structures, etc.
It's also open source, which meets the specified requirement. If Steve really wanted Apple to be a part of this, he would have pushed Darwin.
Full-blown OS X has way too much overhead to be practical on the proposed hardware, in any event. This was just a PR thing, no real intentions -- other than putting the product name (OS X) into the news.
... telecom lobbyists "suggest" to their White House contacts that Cerf and Kahn be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom...
... a while later, telecom lobbyists "suggest" to committee chairs a good date to hold the hearings. Attending the Medal of Freedom ceremonies is one item that Cerf and Kahn would not be able to reschedule.
Easy to arrange, tough to prove. Given how badly the Bells would like to control the internet, I think it's a reasonable suspicion.
Considering the SBC CEO's recent statements about holding bandwidth for ransom to VoIP providers, I think we have motive, method, and opportunity.
But no proof. All we're left with is impossible-to-prove conspiracy theories. But then, this IS Slashdot, right?
While it's obviously way early in development, I think it needs to be fleshed out with an econometric AI (something like the one that runs Sim City), time controls (game time and real time) on making moves, and the ability to zoom in (Google Earth style, of course) to a fictional society based on the data from the econometric model. Here is yet another field for Google to sashay into and dominate, providing a hosting environment for subscriber-based private/public games.
I can see a modern civil war game (called "Red State, Blue State" or maybe just "Red and Blue") becoming very popular every four years.
It starts with a national election, with each side cranking up the polarization and emotional temperature, and moves into the middle game by one side or the other (doesn't matter which) winning effective control of government (legislature + executive branches) and immediately imposing a mess o' laws+policies that are as objectionable as possible to the other side (the "thumb in the eye" school of politics). From there we move into the end game, initiated by riots and armed insurrection (Paris-style), possibly some assassinations, and wind up with a military-style game not unlike RISK (the Civil War edition).
Of course, that would take us back to the age-old argument as to whether games cause/reinforce bad behavior, or whether they are a harmless outlet to blow off steam. The people raising a fuss about it would be the Republican and Democrat national parties, because it would infringe upon their intellectual property. But as they have not filed either copyrights or patents on the strategies and dirty tricks employed, I think it's in the public domain.
"... Perhaps they like that they can recompile their x86 specific programs on Macs now. (Yay! SBCL w/ Threading on OS X!? Dare I dream!?!?)..."
"Dream?" Fantasize is more like it. If "recompiling" was all it takes, there would be no differences between what is available under OS X from anything else. Recompiling of C or C++ code (so long as it doesn't need to interact with Quartz/Aqua) targeting PPC has been available since Day One for OS X.
While it is one thing to run faceless software that can connect to the BSD guts of OS X, once it needs to talk to the user it will have to interact with the Cocoa (Objective C) GUI layer, or be retricted to running from the Terminal window or X11 or maybe use a Java presentation layer -- none of which are completely satisfactory (assuming there is a significant amount of user interaction).
However, I note that SBCL is supported on both PowerPC and Intel hardware, under OS X and PPC in particular (but NOT OS X on X86), as well as most *nix flavors on X86 platforms. Windozers apparently need not apply. If you want to run SBCL on a Mac, you'd better be securing one of the last PPC Macs, as there seems to be no X86 port in progress. Sadly, the SBCL port is (apparently) *not* an Xcode implementation, as they would be able to produce a universal binary that would run under both X86 and PPC platforms by merely clicking the appropriate checkbox at build time.
I guess you fall into that camp of believers in Intel performance. I hope it comes out that way, but a lot of the PPC bigots (and I am one such) are wary of the ginormous power draws of the Intel desktop line, and are suspicious that the reduced power notebook lines give up horsepower to achieve their low power goals (which may or may not be acceptable, depending on how one uses a notebook).
Anybody got some benchmarks showing Intel notebooks vs comparable Intel desktops -- or better yet, Intel notebooks vs PowerPC notebooks, both running Linux (to remove any cloud of differing OS efficiencies that might be raised)? Such testing would make me a lot less queasy about the coming move, and guide me in whether to latch onto one of the last PPC models or wait to venture down the Intel path.
However, I do grasp onto the ray of hope that comes from the shrinking chip geometries. As they move from the 90 micron to the 65 micron production technologies, there is hope that both performance and power consumption can be improved, such that despite the (IMHO) superior RISC architecture of the PPC and the much beefier onboard vector units, the Intel design may well prove to provide greater throughput at less power. IBM seems to be (for whatever reason) 3-5 years behind Intel in implementing smaller production geometries, which do raise the stakes considerably for a chip manufacturer. But the power draws I've seen published/previewed/leaked for the coming Intel Yonah and Merom lines do not give me and comfort when compared to things like the Freescale dual core MPC8641D chip (10W at 1.4 GHz) (which inexplicably is not in the cards for Mac portable use).
Prices are another area of concern, as Intel's cpu pricing is quite a bit more (several hundred $$$) than comparable PPC chips, at least in modest quantities. Supposedly the legendary monopolistic all-your-business discount will make this less of a concern.
In any event, Mac performance/pricing had apparently little or nothing to do with the move to Intel, which was apparently based on driving the iPods into video realms that were not otherwise possible without dedicated video hardware in the iPods (although the current video iPods seem to be doing quite nicely using the Broadcom chips for H.264 manipulation).
Me too on that grain of crystalline substance thing. Time will tell, just have to wait and see what develops.
You (and the NYT) are correct. My apologies. I read their statement, I just didn't believe it. And the first place I looked to verify their claim didn't show Jobs as a major stockholder any longer.
I had to look at the latest Pixar annual report to get it, but yes, Steve Jobs owns 51% of Pixar.
Still, the question remains: Why would Steve want to cash out and remove his control over the one company that he can guarantee will allow Apple to sell movies over the web? Does he have a need for $4B in cash (assuming Pixar would sell for $8B, about a 30% premium to it's current valuation)? Pixar stands to have its stock increase rather strongly, depending on what the specifics of their next distribution arrangement are.
The only reason I can imagine for Steve to sell off his Pixar holdings is that he felt that the stock was overpriced, and unlikely to grow to those levels in the forseeable future. Unless he has a pressing need to raise billions in cash, that is. Or maybe some company is waving a ridiculously large price under his nose. Disney would be the first choice, but their finances don't appear to be able to support a really large price for Pixar (e.g., double their current price), and it's just silly to think that they would be thinking about abandoning their in-house studio until Chicken Little proves or disproves that they can still make animated movies.
Somehow I don't see either of those things as real possibilities. Steve would be giving up an awfully huge impact in the media content industry, which would cascade through Apple's iTunes businesses -- Steve Jobs comes to the table as a media mogul himself when he talks with other content producers about licensing issues. How much money would he have to get to make the loss of that clout palatable?
But I CAN see the NYT spinning speculative stories just to sell papers. Whenever you see a "news" organization trafficking in rumors instead of reporting the news, you ought to be a little suspicious of their motives, especially in these times when print media is finding it more and more difficult to sell their product (due to competition from TV and the internet, as well as a shrinking demographic of those who read instead of watching or listening to get their news, or who don't bother to get the news at all).
... and silly Slashdotters who will believe anything they read on the web.
What's the motivation for this? Last time I checked, Steve Jobs was not one of the bigger shareholders, so he would get little out of the deal, except to cede control of the one place which he can guarantee will allow Apple to sell movies via iTMS.
How much would it go for? The NYT piece says such a sale would have to command a premium over the current market valuation (over $6B). Given annual revenues approaching $300M and heading into some new distribution arrangements that are likely to significantly raise that amount (hint: they are slaves to Disney under the current arrangement, with Disney taking the lion's share of the profits and owning all the I.P.), such a sale price is highly speculative, but I would think something on the order of $9B (or a share price of about $75) would be in the ballpark.
Who would buy it? Disney could pull off such an acquisition, but if would strain the resources of the Mouse, and would require either issuing a boatload of new stock (pissing off the current stockholders by diluting their holdings) or taking on massive amounts of debt (at a time when interest rates are rising) or some combination thereof. Microsoft is a much more likely prospect, as they would give anything to expand out of their software box into other realms -- why do you think they're sinking boatloads of money into the Xbox? But the odds of Steve Jobs selling Pixar to Bill Gates are only slightly better than those of SCO bringing IBM to its knees -- I think.
Who benefits? The obvious parties here are the mutual fund holders, who would gleefully pocket their profits. But then they also profit if Pixar continues on course to some new distribution arrangement with Disney, Sony, or whomever, significantly increasing the company's revenues in the process. Once a new distribution arrangement is announced, removing some of the uncertainty about the future of Pixar, a reasonable expectation would be for the stock to rise, reflecting the increased profitability (which depends upon the details of whatever distribution arrangement Steve works out with the new partners -- Steve isn't widely known for being generous in such dealings). It surely will not be more than a couple of years after the new distribution arrangement is concluded that Pixar's stock price hits 75, and possibly as little as 12-15 months.
I see no reason for Pixar, mutual funds, or individual stockholders to sell Pixar stock at this point. The NYT probably just phoned Michael Eisner and asked for a good story to print.
... why Homeland Defense is so eager to pursue the "criminals, terrorists and spies" lurking in this country, and so afraid to pursue them in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other nations where they obviously exist in great abundance?
Is is simply a case of looking for one's lost keys under the streetlight across the street, where you've not been, instead of down through the sewer grate you're standing over, just 'cause the light is better over there?
If they really want to start locally, I think they'd have more success bugging the phones and routers of the Congress and Executive branch, and posting the results on the web to further the cause of transparency and honesty in government. Nothing more would be required -- no investigations, no prosecutions, because we live in a nation with a free press and the freedom to vote our feeble minds.
Yes, let's bug every nook and cranny in the Capitol -- I believe we would root out a great many "criminals, terrorists and spies". It would not greatly surprise me to find Osama bin Laden living the good life in some Georgetown penthouse apartment.
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." -- Mark Twain
... that any place crazy enough to get on the DST bandwagon should go all the way and adopt year-round DST. If a little of it is a good thing, and more is better, then shouldn't we maximize that goodness and adopt DST 365 days a year?
I mean, in the absence of any sort of hard data as to whether or not there actually is any beneficial impact to DST (and one would think, that after a century of bickering about it, someone would have collected some data to statistically demonstrate that DST does ANYTHING, but NOooo!), Why the Hell Not?
The morons^H^H^H^H^H^HThoughtful Citizens who insist that this is such a Good Thing will be happy, and I won't have to change all my clocks multiple times a year. Software could be simplified and a ton of consumer electronics could have one less poorly-implemented configuration item for the consumer to screw up.
And consider a much larger floating platform, one on the order of a square kilometer, made up of a carbon fiber grid about ten meters in height. Balloons can be placed at regular intervals, with access to them via the adjoining cells. On the underside, there is a large amount of space in which one can hang MANY antennas and cameras, each individually capable of being repositioned and/or set to different frequencies to avoid interference. Along the topside there is an extensive array of solar cells to keep the onboard batteries charged and power the tons of electronics the thing will carry aloft.
It's a communications and mapping services platform, running a wireless network, broadcast HDTV, VoIP, and various leased VPN services. Also, the cameras would provide varying degrees of timeliness in a very high-resolution form, such that people concerned with doing real-time surveillance would pay a high rate, but people more interested in reasonably accurate mapping info could pay a lesser rate for week-old (or month-old, year-old, etc) imagery. Store owners could restrict the scope of their surveillance coverage to their buildings, for an appropriate reduction in the subscription fee. Google might choose to upgrade the currency of their imagery by purchasing access to month-old images, updated daily (so that every image is exactly one month old). And of course, the intelligence services would get something superior to the very best orbiting surveillance cameras, and could pay for dedicated camera access for a flotilla of cameras, sufficient to monitor the activities of every square meter that they behold.
There's a lot of ways to play this, but basically, you have a permanently floating platform that can cover not just all of the U.K. but probably all of Europe as well, depending on just how many antennas and cameras you chose to put on a one square kilometer island in the sky.
Permanent? Won't it leak gas and eventually descend? Not if you drop a line to a supply airship and pull up regular tanks of hydrogen (or water, and convert it to H2 and O2 onboard). I would envision a small crew of 10-20 individuals who would crew the thing 24x7 for 6 months at a time, arriving the same way that the water and other supplies do. An on-board hydroponics facility and extensive recycling would keep the size of the regular supply run to a minimum. Refrigeration would not be a problem, just store perishables in a chamber that's open to the (fairly cold, that far up) atmosphere and accessible via airlock. Most of the crew's activities would be in the maintenance area, replacing broken or worn-out equipment and adding new/upgraded gear.
It might be possible to lease space onboard such a platform -- if the Russians can sell trips to the ISS at $20M each, a week/month aboard a stratospheric platform could be offered for a whole lot less and still be emminently profitable. No zero-G, but then you would also miss the physically degrading aspects of weightlessness as well. You would stil get the black sky of space above you, and the curvature of the Earth below. And lifeboat departures in the event of a catastrophe onboard (hydrogen fire, meteor strike, missile attack) are much simpler (though not trivial) when you don't have to decelerate from orbital velocities.
Is it economically feasible? If you look at the revenues of telecom and satellite TV companies, you quickly arrive at revenue upwards of $50B annually (at least here in the US). Even assuming costs of $10B or so to develop and launch it, and reasonable operational expenses (I'll guess at about $1B per year), I think a payback within a year is virtually guaranteed. There are considerable savings in not having to deal with a grid of wires/fiber, and in consolidating all your transmission facilities in one place, with zero energy expenses.
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... with the PowerPC architecture would not be a Macintosh cpu chip. It would have had to be a variant of the PowerPC targeted for the iPod, with low prices and huge production volumes. That, and the requisite condition that Apple be an "all-Intel" producer to obtain similar pricing as Dell receives, is what drove the switch.
That, and Intel was prepared to suck up to Steve, while IBM would have treated him as just another customer. It didn't help things that while IBM failed to deliver a 3GHz G5 to Apple, Microsoft was making all kinds of noise about the triple-core 3.2GHz G5 variant they were going to use in the Xbox.
Apple could easily be in the same place they are in today with the new Intel chips by using the Freescale dual-core e600 chips, AND retain the Altivec facility, probably with lower power usage as well. But the iPods would be stuck, with no place to go, and certainly no future like they will have using the Intel processors they will be moving into any day now, at the rock-bottom pricing they will be paying for them. And the iPods are currently more important to Apple than the Macintosh products.
Yup, Apple could switch back to IBM, but IBM would have to be a lot farther ahead of Intel's products, in performance AND pricing AND heat dissipation, before that would ever happen.
Any word on the future of the Darwin PPC Apple support? Will an open source PPC port of Darwin still be provided? The answer to that question will tell you whether or not there is any possibility of switching back or offering PPC versions of OS X at any point in the future.
To me, this screams "code whore", where you are billed out to do whatever the intersection of business needs and buck$ happens to be. As such, you will be under-utilized 99.99% of the time.
I speak from experience. As an employee, you are expected to work to the full extent of your abilities, but as a contractor, your time will (almost) always be spent doing work below your abilities, as most users of contractors try to rent bodies whose skills are considerably above those demanded by the task, in order to justify (?) the expense, and to ensure that they will be able to handle the work (believe it or not, contractors' qualifications are frequently exaggerated).
But to me, the real issue here is whether or not you would always wonder if you had passed on an opportunity you should have taken.
I say GO FOR IT!
The consulting firm would surely be willing to hire you back (should this new venture not work out), assuming you are on good terms with them, and don't burn any bridges by leaving to try this out. From their perspective, this experience would make you more marketable.
Of course, a lot depends upon exactly how big a pay cut is involved, and the results of any due diligence on your part as to the viability of the startup (which statistics would say will likely fail, but that probably should not be a large consideration, depending on your ability to tolerate uncertainty and risk).
Good Luck with whatever path you chose.
But be sure that you do CHOOSE a path, and not let inertia carry you along.
An assumption of $2.20 per gallon over the next 200,000 miles seems rather artificial and far-fetched. There are (some) arguments for gas prices falling, and (a lot) for gas prices rising over the near-term future.
One would expect that purchasers of hybrids do so with the expectation that gas prices will continue to increase. It would be instructive to see various cost models based on the price of gas moving from $2.20 per gallon to something like $4.20 per gallon over that 200,000 miles.
However, by my figuring, allowing for a linear rise in the price of gas from $2.20 to $4.20 per gallon over that 200,000 miles, the savings is still only $1,272. But there are still a lot of back-of-the-envelope assumptions involved here, not the least of which is an inflation rate of zero.
The point of all this is that evaluating the merits of anything that is intended to save money based on future conditions is a dicey business. All one requires to see an effective price of gas of oh, say something like $10/gallon, would be a nuclear war in the Middle East. Given the current state of affairs in that region, it doesn't seem like all that long a bet that such an event would take place sometime in the near future (5-10 years out). And in that case, the ability to make short trips in a hybrid using only battery power might be priceless.
... to deal with the problem.
1) as Billy the Mountain (225541) suggests, put the foam on the inside
2) after every fueling, inspect (xray, ultrasound, ?) the foam, looking for crack propagation through it, stripping and re-foaming as needed
3) change the foam to a series of interspersed layers of foam and a sealant layer
and others, all of which are designed to prevent the cryopumping action by disrupting crack propagation through the foam to the atmosphere. All that remains is to perform some tests and analyses to determine the intersection of the cost curve and the effectiveness curve to select the best method.
Other problems exist (tile damage from other sources (e.g., bird strike, lightning) springs to mind), but those would seem to be manageable.
While the shuttle is still an obsolete and expensive vehicle, it would appear that we can continue to get some mileage out of our investment in shuttle technology -- at least until the replacement is ready to launch.
Of COURSE we are hard-wired (in some manner) for geometry!!!
We're visual creatures operating in (a perceived) Euclidean space!
How could we not be (geometry-aware)?
As to the implication that we have some innate ability to reason geometrically, I think the folks at MSNBC and the AAAS must not have tried any mathematical proofs recently (or perhaps ever).
THERE's an area where there is ample evidence that we have zilch in the way of pre-wiring (a.k.a. "instinct"), and must undergo extensive pain and effort to wire ourselves to perform logical reasoning -- a skill that is foreign to most of the human population.
There's a pretty substantial chasm between the ability to recognize lines and shapes, and the ability to develop a method for bisecting an angle (using straight edge and compass) and showing that such a method is correct (i.e., develop a proof).
Here's how Real America (and most likely Real Earth) is structured:
A Hierarchy of Control and Influence
multinational corporations
domestic corporations
acolytes of Satan (a.k.a. professional lobbyists, and inherited political dynasties)
national governments
state governments
local governments
clueless masses
Subservient organizations mimic their superiors in this hierarchy.
Thus it's no surprise to see CIOs appearing in domestic corporations -- regardless of size -- and all forms of government.
I suspect that Hell itself is readying a CIO position to be occupied by Steve Balmer (the next time he indulges in a monkey dance, it may just do him in), who will preside over a vast array of Macs and Linux machines, with competent users who ignore his every decree to "standardize", and insist upon spreading entropy (disguised as diversity) throughout his realm.
The fictions taught in the schools of a system wherein the teeming masses apply their collective wisdom to designate those to temporarily rule over them have been completely up-ended in the fullness of time.
Political parties control the political process, and are given their marching orders (and income) by the professional lobbyist cadre, who are employees of larger, more sinister organizations.
Sadly, I couldn't locate any info on the proposed operating envelope of this thing. The prototype is powered by a couple of ultralite motors, but that tells us almost nothing, as it is, after all, a prototype.
... this is pretty much what the early 20th century dirigibles aimed at as well.
... traveling in style.
One would hope that it flies at speeds in excess of 100 kt (115 mph), and at altitudes of at least 10,000 ft -- to avoid potshots from ground-based yahoos, I believe that there are few weapons capable of firing a bullet through 10,000 ft of atmosphere and across a 10,000 ft gravitational potential. If it also achieves significantly greater fuel efficiencies than over-the-road trucking, I would think there is an economic niche for such a vehicle.
But at only 10,000 ft, they will be flying through (or landing to avoid flying through) most of the rough weather. To avoid the weather, they will need to fly considerably higher, at altitudes which will require pressurization of both crew spaces and the cargo containers.
For this to be viable as a cargo vehicle, it will need to do one or more of:
*) travel faster than trucks or trains, at lower fuel cost than airplanes
*) cost less per ton per mile in fuel than trucks or trains
If it can't do either of these, I see no cargo transport economic niche for it to occupy.
Perhaps there is another use -- consider the equivalent of airborne cruise ships, with spectacular views of the terrain below... this would need some sort of dispensation from gambling prohibitions, similar to that enjoyed by riverfront floating casinos, so that states travelled over would not be arresting gamblers or trying to tax flying casinos.
A means of luxury travel, faster than driving, but slower than airlines, with oodles of space and luxury to pamper oneself in
I wouldn't mind taking a weekend to fly somewhere on such a vehicle (40 hrs at 100 mph = 4000 miles), especially if I had plenty of room, good food, a sleeper compartment. It would sure beat being crammed into an airline with my knees stuffed up my nose for half a day. I would think that the economics of such a craft (potentially thousands of passengers, hundreds for sure, plus lower fuel costs and of course the revenue from four star restaurants and gambling tables) would make it hard to beat.
Perhaps a GeekCruise to MWSF
"Indiana wants to join the ranks of the failures"
-- Actually, it's more of a solidifying of our position in that grouping.
If you examine the state rankings in various categories (education, income, employment), you will consistently find The Hoosier State struggling to get off the bottom. Most of the major employers have departed the state over the past several decades, and the mindless politicians looted the budget surplus of a few years ago when nobody was keeping track of outgo vs remaining balance -- this played nicely into our current budget deficit.
That said, I take this with a grain of salt, as we are heading into off-year elections next year, and politicians have this overwhelming desire to get their names out in front of the public. There have also been noises about our state joining the Intelligent Design circus.
This could spark a wave of vasectomies and hysterectomies.
... Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
... we're about as close to achieving "true" AI as we are to understanding how we think.
While there is an outside chance that we might accidentally create AI, there is zero chance that we will recognize it until we can describe things like human consciousness, decompose a human brain into functional units, and relate how the electrochemical activity of the brain produces that whimsical tautology: "I think, therefore I am."
Google is planning to build their own internet and bypass the telecom industy's pipes.
Now if only some decent wireless technology would be rolled out that would allow me to connect to my non-Bell ISP without going over the Bell copper (or fiber) to my house.
"Scuse me, but I can't think of a personal computer being sold today that does *NOT* support IPv6.
XP does, Linux does, Macs do too. I'm pretty sure that Cisco's equipment supports IPv6, and all the wireless routers that I am familiar with support it.
So why isn't IPv6 being rolled out for general consumption? What's the problem here?
JUST DO IT.
He's already stated their motive for going to OO was to save money by avoiding the upgrade to Office 2003.
Assume that they can no longer purchase copies of their current (older) version of Office, or that they are anticipating an increase in the number of seats.
Admittedly, the cash outlay is less than upgrading to Office 2003 -- unless Microsoft will no longer sell them copies of their current software. Then they are stuck -- unless they opt to make additional copies of their current version of Office without paying for them. That route makes upgrading to Office 2003 look downright cheap, as once the BSA hits them with an "audit", Microsoft effectively owns their company. And you can expect an "audit", as the company is vulnerable to disgruntled ex-employees snitching on them to the BSA.
Corporate pirating of products from Microsoft is stupider than lying to the SEC.
This is one of the best arguments for replacing Office with open source products, as it removes control of your IT budget from the hands of Microsoft. The fact that you save money immediately is trivial. The important thing is the ongoing savings you have achieved, which repeat annually. Anyone who pitches replacing Office with OO should do so via a spreadsheet and a chart showing the cumulative impact of those savings. And then mention that this does not include the impact of occasional additional expense of forced software upgrades.
1) it's got better security -- go check the stats
2) the "application bundle" concept, wherein each app resides in a self-contained directory bundle, having few external ties and making it easy to move apps anywhere and still have them work, along with tings like drag-and-drop installation and removal of apps. This alone makes Darwin superior to any other flavor of unix, IMHO.
3) the use of plists instead of a blizzard of plain text files for prefs and config info gives Darwin a uniformity lacking in other unix apps.
I count those as "practical" advantages, as they provide Darwin with an ease of use lacking in ANY OTHER UNIX VARIANT. Ease of use is a "practical" advantage that comes in ahead of efficiency (for which I cheerfully give Linux the top 'o the hat) in most usage.
It is arguable whether the use of the microkernel to manage hardware drivers and separate those drivers from the kernel codespace. I think it improves Darwin and makes Linux more problem-prone, but that's just me, and I don't know of any hard data to support it (unlike the security performance listed above).
Before painting "LINUX" on your shaven head and running about the stadium screaming "TUX, TUX!", try learning SOMETHING about the differences in the various flavors of unix.
Linux is the best choice for many people in the developed world, mostly due to the enormous support community that has had to develop to allow Linux to progress to the relatively smooth and easy state it enjoys today. It's pretty similar to Windows in that regard (simply amazing how many people stick with Windows 'cause they know the demi-geek down the street can help them repair it).
For a community that probably doesn't have oodles of time to ferret out the secrets of "how to do it", and doesn't have the connections to the support communities in the so-called "developed world", a more straightforward OS (like Darwin) has advantages over Linux.
But as I said in my original post, neither OS X (nor Windows) has any business contending to be the OS running a $100 computer that is VERY skinny on resources. Neither does a fully rigged Linux with Gnome and a boatload of software. But Linux CAN be slimmed down, as can Darwin -- and when comparing the "slim & trim" versions of each, I think Darwin is likely to be much more uniform and eary to use than a comparable Linux.
Why not Darwin? It includes most of the things that set OS X above Linux (no slurs intended), like the better BSD security, the bundling of applications into self-contained directory structures, etc.
It's also open source, which meets the specified requirement. If Steve really wanted Apple to be a part of this, he would have pushed Darwin.
Full-blown OS X has way too much overhead to be practical on the proposed hardware, in any event. This was just a PR thing, no real intentions -- other than putting the product name (OS X) into the news.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along now.
Easy to arrange, tough to prove. Given how badly the Bells would like to control the internet, I think it's a reasonable suspicion.
Considering the SBC CEO's recent statements about holding bandwidth for ransom to VoIP providers, I think we have motive, method, and opportunity.
But no proof. All we're left with is impossible-to-prove conspiracy theories.
But then, this IS Slashdot, right?
While it's obviously way early in development, I think it needs to be fleshed out with an econometric AI (something like the one that runs Sim City), time controls (game time and real time) on making moves, and the ability to zoom in (Google Earth style, of course) to a fictional society based on the data from the econometric model. Here is yet another field for Google to sashay into and dominate, providing a hosting environment for subscriber-based private/public games.
I can see a modern civil war game (called "Red State, Blue State" or maybe just "Red and Blue") becoming very popular every four years.
It starts with a national election, with each side cranking up the polarization and emotional temperature, and moves into the middle game by one side or the other (doesn't matter which) winning effective control of government (legislature + executive branches) and immediately imposing a mess o' laws+policies that are as objectionable as possible to the other side (the "thumb in the eye" school of politics). From there we move into the end game, initiated by riots and armed insurrection (Paris-style), possibly some assassinations, and wind up with a military-style game not unlike RISK (the Civil War edition).
Of course, that would take us back to the age-old argument as to whether games cause/reinforce bad behavior, or whether they are a harmless outlet to blow off steam. The people raising a fuss about it would be the Republican and Democrat national parties, because it would infringe upon their intellectual property. But as they have not filed either copyrights or patents on the strategies and dirty tricks employed, I think it's in the public domain.
"Dream?" Fantasize is more like it. If "recompiling" was all it takes, there would be no differences between what is available under OS X from anything else. Recompiling of C or C++ code (so long as it doesn't need to interact with Quartz/Aqua) targeting PPC has been available since Day One for OS X.
While it is one thing to run faceless software that can connect to the BSD guts of OS X, once it needs to talk to the user it will have to interact with the Cocoa (Objective C) GUI layer, or be retricted to running from the Terminal window or X11 or maybe use a Java presentation layer -- none of which are completely satisfactory (assuming there is a significant amount of user interaction).
However, I note that SBCL is supported on both PowerPC and Intel hardware, under OS X and PPC in particular (but NOT OS X on X86), as well as most *nix flavors on X86 platforms. Windozers apparently need not apply. If you want to run SBCL on a Mac, you'd better be securing one of the last PPC Macs, as there seems to be no X86 port in progress. Sadly, the SBCL port is (apparently) *not* an Xcode implementation, as they would be able to produce a universal binary that would run under both X86 and PPC platforms by merely clicking the appropriate checkbox at build time.
I guess you fall into that camp of believers in Intel performance. I hope it comes out that way, but a lot of the PPC bigots (and I am one such) are wary of the ginormous power draws of the Intel desktop line, and are suspicious that the reduced power notebook lines give up horsepower to achieve their low power goals (which may or may not be acceptable, depending on how one uses a notebook).
Anybody got some benchmarks showing Intel notebooks vs comparable Intel desktops -- or better yet, Intel notebooks vs PowerPC notebooks, both running Linux (to remove any cloud of differing OS efficiencies that might be raised)? Such testing would make me a lot less queasy about the coming move, and guide me in whether to latch onto one of the last PPC models or wait to venture down the Intel path.
However, I do grasp onto the ray of hope that comes from the shrinking chip geometries. As they move from the 90 micron to the 65 micron production technologies, there is hope that both performance and power consumption can be improved, such that despite the (IMHO) superior RISC architecture of the PPC and the much beefier onboard vector units, the Intel design may well prove to provide greater throughput at less power. IBM seems to be (for whatever reason) 3-5 years behind Intel in implementing smaller production geometries, which do raise the stakes considerably for a chip manufacturer. But the power draws I've seen published/previewed/leaked for the coming Intel Yonah and Merom lines do not give me and comfort when compared to things like the Freescale dual core MPC8641D chip (10W at 1.4 GHz) (which inexplicably is not in the cards for Mac portable use).
Prices are another area of concern, as Intel's cpu pricing is quite a bit more (several hundred $$$) than comparable PPC chips, at least in modest quantities. Supposedly the legendary monopolistic all-your-business discount will make this less of a concern.
In any event, Mac performance/pricing had apparently little or nothing to do with the move to Intel, which was apparently based on driving the iPods into video realms that were not otherwise possible without dedicated video hardware in the iPods (although the current video iPods seem to be doing quite nicely using the Broadcom chips for H.264 manipulation).
Me too on that grain of crystalline substance thing. Time will tell, just have to wait and see what develops.
I had to look at the latest Pixar annual report to get it, but yes, Steve Jobs owns 51% of Pixar.
That'll teach me to rely on data from Yahoo! Finance.
Still, the question remains: Why would Steve want to cash out and remove his control over the one company that he can guarantee will allow Apple to sell movies over the web? Does he have a need for $4B in cash (assuming Pixar would sell for $8B, about a 30% premium to it's current valuation)? Pixar stands to have its stock increase rather strongly, depending on what the specifics of their next distribution arrangement are.
The only reason I can imagine for Steve to sell off his Pixar holdings is that he felt that the stock was overpriced, and unlikely to grow to those levels in the forseeable future. Unless he has a pressing need to raise billions in cash, that is. Or maybe some company is waving a ridiculously large price under his nose. Disney would be the first choice, but their finances don't appear to be able to support a really large price for Pixar (e.g., double their current price), and it's just silly to think that they would be thinking about abandoning their in-house studio until Chicken Little proves or disproves that they can still make animated movies.
Somehow I don't see either of those things as real possibilities. Steve would be giving up an awfully huge impact in the media content industry, which would cascade through Apple's iTunes businesses -- Steve Jobs comes to the table as a media mogul himself when he talks with other content producers about licensing issues. How much money would he have to get to make the loss of that clout palatable?
But I CAN see the NYT spinning speculative stories just to sell papers. Whenever you see a "news" organization trafficking in rumors instead of reporting the news, you ought to be a little suspicious of their motives, especially in these times when print media is finding it more and more difficult to sell their product (due to competition from TV and the internet, as well as a shrinking demographic of those who read instead of watching or listening to get their news, or who don't bother to get the news at all).
I see no reason for Pixar, mutual funds, or individual stockholders to sell Pixar stock at this point.
The NYT probably just phoned Michael Eisner and asked for a good story to print.
Is that unlike most astronomical images, which show events that have occurred in the distant past, this one shows events from the future!
The datestamp in the upper left corner of the frame shows frames moving from 1992 to 2006.9 !!
Cosmic Daylight Savings Time?
Is is simply a case of looking for one's lost keys under the streetlight across the street, where you've not been, instead of down through the sewer grate you're standing over, just 'cause the light is better over there?
If they really want to start locally, I think they'd have more success bugging the phones and routers of the Congress and Executive branch, and posting the results on the web to further the cause of transparency and honesty in government. Nothing more would be required -- no investigations, no prosecutions, because we live in a nation with a free press and the freedom to vote our feeble minds.
Yes, let's bug every nook and cranny in the Capitol -- I believe we would root out a great many "criminals, terrorists and spies". It would not greatly surprise me to find Osama bin Laden living the good life in some Georgetown penthouse apartment.
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." -- Mark Twain
... that any place crazy enough to get on the DST bandwagon should go all the way and adopt year-round DST. If a little of it is a good thing, and more is better, then shouldn't we maximize that goodness and adopt DST 365 days a year?
I mean, in the absence of any sort of hard data as to whether or not there actually is any beneficial impact to DST (and one would think, that after a century of bickering about it, someone would have collected some data to statistically demonstrate that DST does ANYTHING, but NOooo!), Why the Hell Not?
The morons^H^H^H^H^H^HThoughtful Citizens who insist that this is such a Good Thing will be happy, and I won't have to change all my clocks multiple times a year. Software could be simplified and a ton of consumer electronics could have one less poorly-implemented configuration item for the consumer to screw up.
And consider a much larger floating platform, one on the order of a square kilometer, made up of a carbon fiber grid about ten meters in height. Balloons can be placed at regular intervals, with access to them via the adjoining cells. On the underside, there is a large amount of space in which one can hang MANY antennas and cameras, each individually capable of being repositioned and/or set to different frequencies to avoid interference. Along the topside there is an extensive array of solar cells to keep the onboard batteries charged and power the tons of electronics the thing will carry aloft.
It's a communications and mapping services platform, running a wireless network, broadcast HDTV, VoIP, and various leased VPN services. Also, the cameras would provide varying degrees of timeliness in a very high-resolution form, such that people concerned with doing real-time surveillance would pay a high rate, but people more interested in reasonably accurate mapping info could pay a lesser rate for week-old (or month-old, year-old, etc) imagery. Store owners could restrict the scope of their surveillance coverage to their buildings, for an appropriate reduction in the subscription fee. Google might choose to upgrade the currency of their imagery by purchasing access to month-old images, updated daily (so that every image is exactly one month old). And of course, the intelligence services would get something superior to the very best orbiting surveillance cameras, and could pay for dedicated camera access for a flotilla of cameras, sufficient to monitor the activities of every square meter that they behold.
There's a lot of ways to play this, but basically, you have a permanently floating platform that can cover not just all of the U.K. but probably all of Europe as well, depending on just how many antennas and cameras you chose to put on a one square kilometer island in the sky.
Permanent? Won't it leak gas and eventually descend? Not if you drop a line to a supply airship and pull up regular tanks of hydrogen (or water, and convert it to H2 and O2 onboard). I would envision a small crew of 10-20 individuals who would crew the thing 24x7 for 6 months at a time, arriving the same way that the water and other supplies do. An on-board hydroponics facility and extensive recycling would keep the size of the regular supply run to a minimum. Refrigeration would not be a problem, just store perishables in a chamber that's open to the (fairly cold, that far up) atmosphere and accessible via airlock. Most of the crew's activities would be in the maintenance area, replacing broken or worn-out equipment and adding new/upgraded gear.
It might be possible to lease space onboard such a platform -- if the Russians can sell trips to the ISS at $20M each, a week/month aboard a stratospheric platform could be offered for a whole lot less and still be emminently profitable. No zero-G, but then you would also miss the physically degrading aspects of weightlessness as well. You would stil get the black sky of space above you, and the curvature of the Earth below. And lifeboat departures in the event of a catastrophe onboard (hydrogen fire, meteor strike, missile attack) are much simpler (though not trivial) when you don't have to decelerate from orbital velocities.
Is it economically feasible? If you look at the revenues of telecom and satellite TV companies, you quickly arrive at revenue upwards of $50B annually (at least here in the US). Even assuming costs of $10B or so to develop and launch it, and reasonable operational expenses (I'll guess at about $1B per year), I think a payback within a year is virtually guaranteed. There are considerable savings in not having to deal with a grid of wires/fiber, and in consolidating all your transmission facilities in one place, with zero energy expenses.