Since you paraphrased Edison, Tesla's paraphrased response might be appropriate:
"Had Edison thought out his work and spent more time in preparation, he would not sweat so much."
-- Nikola Tesla
Seeing as how many people just took the plunge a month ago, it's a cruel twist of fate that this should be decided now. If this came out in December, I think you would have been left with a lot more satisfied customers. My friend's parents just bought an HD-DVD player, and now those $200 or so have been completely wasted.
Which is fine. I encourage Intel to keep seeking out revenue. That doesn't excuse them from attempting back-door deals that go against contracts that they have made. If Intel had never signed up to assist OLPC, trying to get a piece of the market would not only make sense, but it would be commendable (as any form of competition would increase consumer choice, and thereby most likely drive down prices and force innovation). If one sleezy sales person (sorry for the redundancy there) decides that their commission is more important than one of their company's contracts, that's another thing. I don't think practicing dishonest business is excusable.
At least Intel had the decency to void their contract, instead of just continuing not to honor it.
I've tended to notice that for me, how often I practice also has a bearing on my perfecting a task - and then, how often I use said skill in practice. Repetition strengthens specific neural pathways, I think there's no doubt of that - the more often you perform a specific action, the more neurotransmitters flow between specific neurons, the stronger that bond becomes. On the flipside, disuse weakens those pathways, and when you go to access them again, they may not even be there. As an amusing anecdote, when I was younger I taught myself over a period of a few weeks how to tie about a dozen knots so well I could do them without thinking. However, I've only managed to remember which ones I use regularly, and would be hard pressed to come up even with mental images of the rest.
Am I the only one who had to read this twice?
"Can an open source project be acquired? ZDNet's Between The Lines says yes, one just did."
Just did what? Just did be acquired?
How about "one just was," as in "one just was acquired".
Makes a lot more sense, no?
Actually, not necessarily. Although you are technically correct (and I myself prefer "were" over "was"), subjunctive in English is widely recognized as being virtually extinct. Almost no one knows the difference anymore, which is a definite shame considering that there is one.
Well, suppliers tend to have either a love- or a hate-relationship with walmart. walmart has sent a number of companies up the river without a paddle, in order to provide, for example, a gallon jar of pickles for $2 (something that is frankly absurd).I'm happy for you that this wasn't the case in your situation.
but what if your production grew to the point that you were prolific, and in high demand, and walmart had you cut prices so that your products were no longer profitable? This has happened to various walmarts suppliers, and no one even hiccupped. Just make sure that the same fate isn't yours.
for one, I hate to be in a position of self-defense, but this information is correct to the best of my knowledge, and I didn't knowingly insert misinformation.
for two, suppliers do make money by selling to walmart, obviously, and those that supply to walmart make more money than those that don't. Unfortunately, because of this walmart has their suppliers by the balls, and can more or less tell them to do anything it wants, or lose their business (which is more or less a death knell these days). This means that if RFID tags don't rocket down in price to literally a penny or two per, then every business that is forced to use them on a box-by-box basis will be hurting.
Now don't get me wrong - I'm not anti RFID. one of the main reasons that walmart wants to use it is for inventory - have them on the pallettes, and on the shipping boxes. I think this makes perfect sense, and I encourage it. My point is that when it goes into every single product, and you can't raise your prices by 2-30 cents to cover it, you're SOL in walmarts eyes, cause they have the pick and choose of suppliers.
The generally do make money - I was talking about per item profit. They sell in such bulk quantities that they usually see pretty good profit - but it's really only a couple of pennies per item.
I am a very wary customer when it comes to walmart . They have a pretty long history of forcing their suppliers to their knees to get what they want, and from what I understand, RFID tags are no exception. Fox IV Technologies, a company run by the father of one of my co-workers, is in the business of manufacturing machines that print RFID tags. I was talking about this with said co-worker a few days ago, and he mentioned a couple interesting things:
*for one, RFID tags, individually, cost a pretty penny - upwards of some 30-40 cents per tag for a moderately sized tag (or, more appropriately put, a tag the size that walmart is looking at)
*Walmart is forcing their suppliers to comply with this -- WITHOUT COMPENSATION. The suppliers get no kickback or relief for using these tags - the cost is on the supplier. Even worse, they can't raise their prices, as that would go against Walmart's founding principle.
Taken together, this means that on individual products (such as razors, the most commonly stolen item from walmart, and a prime candidate for individual-product RFID tagging), the cost of these 30-40 cent tags STILL has to be footed by the supplier. This means that a $4 razor refill - on which the supplier was hardly making any money to begin with - now costs the supplier 10% more. Thus, their profit disappears, and it is no longer profitable to sell razors.
Remember, Walmart's only goal is for Walmart to make money. Not their suppliers, not their competitors, and in the end of it all, not the consumers. Be careful where you shop.
Hey, the ratio here isn't THAT bad.
I mean, I have a girlfriend, as do many of my friends.
Granted, they all go to different schools, but I think I've proved my point sufficiently.
Not just the finished, in-the-market games are worth looking at. A project I worked on for the longest time with a bunch of people, Timewarp, is a very enjoyable game patterned after the Melee portion of the Star Control saga, brought to us by Toys for Bob back in the day.
The game used to be based off of Allegro, and was easily compiled in any OS (whether it be windows, any number of UNIXes, and heck, even BeOS). Since then the project has taken a massive turn in another direction, in an attempt to switch from Allegro to SDL. However, the Allegro sources should still be widely available.
go check it out, if you have an hour or two to spare... be warned though... it can get very, very addictive.
Slashdot Mirror
Since you paraphrased Edison, Tesla's paraphrased response might be appropriate: "Had Edison thought out his work and spent more time in preparation, he would not sweat so much." -- Nikola Tesla
Seeing as how many people just took the plunge a month ago, it's a cruel twist of fate that this should be decided now. If this came out in December, I think you would have been left with a lot more satisfied customers. My friend's parents just bought an HD-DVD player, and now those $200 or so have been completely wasted.
Am I the only person who read BAE Systems?
Which is fine. I encourage Intel to keep seeking out revenue. That doesn't excuse them from attempting back-door deals that go against contracts that they have made. If Intel had never signed up to assist OLPC, trying to get a piece of the market would not only make sense, but it would be commendable (as any form of competition would increase consumer choice, and thereby most likely drive down prices and force innovation). If one sleezy sales person (sorry for the redundancy there) decides that their commission is more important than one of their company's contracts, that's another thing. I don't think practicing dishonest business is excusable.
At least Intel had the decency to void their contract, instead of just continuing not to honor it.
I've tended to notice that for me, how often I practice also has a bearing on my perfecting a task - and then, how often I use said skill in practice. Repetition strengthens specific neural pathways, I think there's no doubt of that - the more often you perform a specific action, the more neurotransmitters flow between specific neurons, the stronger that bond becomes. On the flipside, disuse weakens those pathways, and when you go to access them again, they may not even be there. As an amusing anecdote, when I was younger I taught myself over a period of a few weeks how to tie about a dozen knots so well I could do them without thinking. However, I've only managed to remember which ones I use regularly, and would be hard pressed to come up even with mental images of the rest.
Am I the only one who had to read this twice? "Can an open source project be acquired? ZDNet's Between The Lines says yes, one just did." Just did what? Just did be acquired? How about "one just was," as in "one just was acquired". Makes a lot more sense, no?
Actually, not necessarily. Although you are technically correct (and I myself prefer "were" over "was"), subjunctive in English is widely recognized as being virtually extinct. Almost no one knows the difference anymore, which is a definite shame considering that there is one.
There WERE comments, but they were all censored by the Chinese Government!
No, "dumb-ass", it's both.
That's $0.30 - $0.40 per RFID TAG, not per case.
It's primarily for inventory tracking, and secondarily for shelf stocking.
You'd think people would at least do supplimentory research.
Well, suppliers tend to have either a love- or a hate-relationship with walmart. walmart has sent a number of companies up the river without a paddle, in order to provide, for example, a gallon jar of pickles for $2 (something that is frankly absurd).I'm happy for you that this wasn't the case in your situation.
but what if your production grew to the point that you were prolific, and in high demand, and walmart had you cut prices so that your products were no longer profitable? This has happened to various walmarts suppliers, and no one even hiccupped. Just make sure that the same fate isn't yours.
I am curious though, what does your company make?
for one, I hate to be in a position of self-defense, but this information is correct to the best of my knowledge, and I didn't knowingly insert misinformation. for two, suppliers do make money by selling to walmart, obviously, and those that supply to walmart make more money than those that don't. Unfortunately, because of this walmart has their suppliers by the balls, and can more or less tell them to do anything it wants, or lose their business (which is more or less a death knell these days). This means that if RFID tags don't rocket down in price to literally a penny or two per, then every business that is forced to use them on a box-by-box basis will be hurting. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not anti RFID. one of the main reasons that walmart wants to use it is for inventory - have them on the pallettes, and on the shipping boxes. I think this makes perfect sense, and I encourage it. My point is that when it goes into every single product, and you can't raise your prices by 2-30 cents to cover it, you're SOL in walmarts eyes, cause they have the pick and choose of suppliers.
The generally do make money - I was talking about per item profit. They sell in such bulk quantities that they usually see pretty good profit - but it's really only a couple of pennies per item.
I am a very wary customer when it comes to walmart . They have a pretty long history of forcing their suppliers to their knees to get what they want, and from what I understand, RFID tags are no exception.
Fox IV Technologies, a company run by the father of one of my co-workers, is in the business of manufacturing machines that print RFID tags. I was talking about this with said co-worker a few days ago, and he mentioned a couple interesting things:
*for one, RFID tags, individually, cost a pretty penny - upwards of some 30-40 cents per tag for a moderately sized tag (or, more appropriately put, a tag the size that walmart is looking at)
*Walmart is forcing their suppliers to comply with this -- WITHOUT COMPENSATION. The suppliers get no kickback or relief for using these tags - the cost is on the supplier. Even worse, they can't raise their prices, as that would go against Walmart's founding principle.
Taken together, this means that on individual products (such as razors, the most commonly stolen item from walmart, and a prime candidate for individual-product RFID tagging), the cost of these 30-40 cent tags STILL has to be footed by the supplier. This means that a $4 razor refill - on which the supplier was hardly making any money to begin with - now costs the supplier 10% more. Thus, their profit disappears, and it is no longer profitable to sell razors.
Remember, Walmart's only goal is for Walmart to make money. Not their suppliers, not their competitors, and in the end of it all, not the consumers. Be careful where you shop.
just goes to show that they'll dish out patents for ANYTHING these days!! I mean, who had even heard of lasers in 1957 anyhow? let ALONE 1964!
Hey, the ratio here isn't THAT bad. I mean, I have a girlfriend, as do many of my friends. Granted, they all go to different schools, but I think I've proved my point sufficiently.
Wow, remind me never to cross you. Looking at me might take up too much of your precious time.
On second thought, I wish I knew you, just so I could give you Dickens for your birthday and watch you cry.
The game used to be based off of Allegro, and was easily compiled in any OS (whether it be windows, any number of UNIXes, and heck, even BeOS). Since then the project has taken a massive turn in another direction, in an attempt to switch from Allegro to SDL. However, the Allegro sources should still be widely available.
go check it out, if you have an hour or two to spare... be warned though... it can get very, very addictive.