I'm not sure whether this is a good move for Apple (moving into the Big Enterprise market), Johnny.
Last time they tried this was with the Quadra series, and the LaserWriters, and they didn't fare so well.
Businesses are interested in the cheapest solution available, not necessarily the best technology. That's why you see $150 machines instead of iMacs being used for workstations.
"or will the bidding war indeed end at minimun wage."
Not necessarily.
Supply and demand says that as prices (in this case, wages) drop, suppliers (i.e. programmers) will leave the market, and consumers (here, those hiring programmers) will enter the market (because wages are going down). Once the amount of suppliers equals the amount of consumers (i.e., there is a job for every programmer), then wages will stabilize.
I don't think that this sets a precedent. First, SCO is angry because it thinks that thinks that some of the code it might or might not have owned got into Linux. GPL is not the fundamental issue. Here, the issue is the GPL being violated.
He sometimes has a bunch of railfans over, and they'll run a simulation of an actual run. He's got a place for a switchboard manager to sit, and all the forms that they would have used on the YVRR. They'll have multiple trains running, and the manager has to make all of the right switches switch at the right times, and everything. IIRC, they even stop the model steam engines every so often at a water tower to 'refill.'
He's built the thing based on primary source documents. He's got pictures of the YVRR dating back to when it was actaully running, and everything that he has modeled is exactly the way that it was back then.
I don't think that the lack of a sales tax is a very big reason that people buy online. Look at any online store. What you gain in not having a sales tax, you lose in paing $ for shipping (especially if you expedite shipping), and paying your time for shipping (i.e. you have to wait for the item to be shipped to you).
The main thing about online shopping is convenience, and perceived cost savings. You can get in your car, go out to your local Barnes and Noble, and fork over twenty bucks for a book, OR you can sit in front of your CRT, click a few buttons, and pay $15 for the same book.
(Nevermind that you pay $5 for shipping, and the book doesn't arrive until the next day).
Moreover, if we're lucky, governmental officials will not impose a tax.
Consider:
If they're really smart, they'll realize that the Net benefits greatly from having no sales taxes.
If they're just of mediocre intelligence, then they'll either not notice that they can start taxing online sales, or they'll be too confused about who to tax (buyer or seller, what rates, etc.) to actually implement any taxes.
And if they're just dumb, then we'll have net sales taxes.
But even then, the online stores will have to compete on their own merit. Remember from your econ classes? Competition is good, and it improves efficiency!
Ping will try to ping, but it won't recieve any replies. It's like the evil VeriSign IP (64.94.110.11) just won't return the ping packets (like any Good Server should).
I was waiting for someone to point this out. Moreover, the article says:
These new power-supplying machines will soon be used to charge mobile phones and lap top computers in a matter of seconds thereby eliminating the need to recharge them frequently.
They're claiming that they'll replace batteries. But then, what are you charging up "in a matter of seconds"? Massive capacitor banks?
But exactly how much energy could one get out of a vibration? Are we talking powering an LED by the San Andreas fault? Or are we talking powering San Francisco from the vibrations on an air conditioning shaft?
Let's see:
We'll consider the vibrations to be simple harmonic motion (because it is relatively accurate, and anything else is near impossible to calculate without a beowolf cluster).
Let's look at the vibration when your car goes over a speed bump. This should have a relatively large energy associated with it, since the energy in a object due to vibration is:
E = 0.5 K A^2
Where k is the spring constant (in metric, it would be N / m ).
K can be determined by calculating how far your car is lowered when you get in (your weight, in newtons, divided by how far your car is lowered, in meters).
Let's assume that you weigh 150 lbs. This is about 70 kilos, or 670 Newtons. Let's also assume that your car is lowered by about an inch when you get in (0.0254 m).
This makes the spring constant for your car's suspension:
670 N / 0.0254 m = 26,378 N / m
This is to say that if one were to depress your car's suspension by one meter, you would be exerting a force of 26,378 Newtons.
Let's also assume that, when going over the speed bump, your car bounces 10 inches. Thus, the amplitude of your car's motion is 5 inches, or 0.127 meters. Putting this information, and the spring constant into the first equation for energy:
E = 0.5 ( 26,378 N ) ( 0.0127 M ) ^ 2
E = 213 Joules.
Great. How does this relate to power needed for powering some electronic device?
Power = Energy / Time.
Let's assume that this vibrations to energy device in the article can absorb your car's vibrational energy in 10 seconds. Thus, the power going into the device is:
213 J / 10 s = 21.3 J/s = 21.3 W.
That's right. 21 watts. Barely enough to power a small lightbulb. And that is coming from a whole car!
Thus, I think that we can safely say that we're not going to be replacing our power plants any time soon. But for, say, a low-powered electronic sensor, which wirelessly broadcasts it's data in bursts every ten seconds, it would be fine.
How about putting your data into a program. The program then has code in it which will display the data in n years. Data (or a key to decrypt data) is stored in a format which is indistinguishable from the binary code of the program. Someone could simply change the date on their machine to fool the program, but you could, say, have the program detect the processor speed, and run filler code (i.e.
while oneInt (9999999 x 10 ^9999) { oneInt ++ }
). By the time the filler code is done, it's two years later. Just make sure that your system can handle bignums!
Is Linux really a threat to Microsoft in a antitrust sort of way? Since there's no corporation behind it, if Microsoft wanted to, say, force manufacturers to include hardware that would break Linux, then they're not infringing on another company's right to access a free market. After all, antitrust laws were not brought about to be _fair_, they were brought about to prevent a single company from controlling an entire market and hurting the economy. But the loss of Linux wouldn't immediately hurt the economy (despite the fact that, as we all know, if Linux were to die, and IIS to take over, life on this planet would end).
So does Linux count as competition to M$, in a Free Market sense?
They all are optimized for one thing: Moving digital data.
The whole point of any port on the back of a computer (except for the power port, of course) is to transfer data from point A to point B.
Also, the Universal Port doesn't have to be "optimized" for a single purpose. Just so long as you can teach a monkey how to use it, and the monkey is happy with the port's proformance, then it works. Sure, you could make a port that is faster/cheaper/etc., but no one would buy it, because the Universal Port is everywhere, and it is easy enough, cheap enough, and fast enough.
True, the whole "One Protocol" theory is a bit like putting all of your eggs in one basket, but, I believe Mark Twain said "Put all of your eggs in one basket, and Watch that basket. I don't think that this is a bad thing. Based on where this is coming from (a techno-philanthropist partially working for a non-profit-"Make-Things-Better" group), I don't think that we need to worry.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure whether this is a good move for Apple (moving into the Big Enterprise market), Johnny.
Last time they tried this was with the Quadra series, and the LaserWriters, and they didn't fare so well.
Businesses are interested in the cheapest solution available, not necessarily the best technology. That's why you see $150 machines instead of iMacs being used for workstations.
"or will the bidding war indeed end at minimun wage."
Not necessarily.
Supply and demand says that as prices (in this case, wages) drop, suppliers (i.e. programmers) will leave the market, and consumers (here, those hiring programmers) will enter the market (because wages are going down). Once the amount of suppliers equals the amount of consumers (i.e., there is a job for every programmer), then wages will stabilize.
I don't think that this sets a precedent. First, SCO is angry because it thinks that thinks that some of the code it might or might not have owned got into Linux. GPL is not the fundamental issue. Here, the issue is the GPL being violated.
It's a fundamentally different issue.
Question: Why does CmdrTaco have a 6-digit /. ID? And why doesn't the above post appear in the real CmdrTaco's list of recent posts?
Would someone please mod the parent down?
It's a whole garage full of trains!
He sometimes has a bunch of railfans over, and they'll run a simulation of an actual run. He's got a place for a switchboard manager to sit, and all the forms that they would have used on the YVRR. They'll have multiple trains running, and the manager has to make all of the right switches switch at the right times, and everything. IIRC, they even stop the model steam engines every so often at a water tower to 'refill.'
He's built the thing based on primary source documents. He's got pictures of the YVRR dating back to when it was actaully running, and everything that he has modeled is exactly the way that it was back then.
All in all, it's an amazing setup he's got.
Funny; he's making the most of the plethora of choices. He was running Safari when he took the screenshot.
Look down in the dock. He's even got a webpage open in it.
I don't think that the lack of a sales tax is a very big reason that people buy online. Look at any online store. What you gain in not having a sales tax, you lose in paing $ for shipping (especially if you expedite shipping), and paying your time for shipping (i.e. you have to wait for the item to be shipped to you).
The main thing about online shopping is convenience, and perceived cost savings. You can get in your car, go out to your local Barnes and Noble, and fork over twenty bucks for a book, OR you can sit in front of your CRT, click a few buttons, and pay $15 for the same book.
(Nevermind that you pay $5 for shipping, and the book doesn't arrive until the next day).
Moreover, if we're lucky, governmental officials will not impose a tax.
Consider:
If they're really smart, they'll realize that the Net benefits greatly from having no sales taxes.
If they're just of mediocre intelligence, then they'll either not notice that they can start taxing online sales, or they'll be too confused about who to tax (buyer or seller, what rates, etc.) to actually implement any taxes.
And if they're just dumb, then we'll have net sales taxes.
But even then, the online stores will have to compete on their own merit. Remember from your econ classes? Competition is good, and it improves efficiency!
Actually...
Ping does NOT work.
Ping will try to ping, but it won't recieve any replies. It's like the evil VeriSign IP (64.94.110.11) just won't return the ping packets (like any Good Server should).
Traceroute, however, does work. Go figure.
I was waiting for someone to point this out. Moreover, the article says: These new power-supplying machines will soon be used to charge mobile phones and lap top computers in a matter of seconds thereby eliminating the need to recharge them frequently. They're claiming that they'll replace batteries. But then, what are you charging up "in a matter of seconds"? Massive capacitor banks?
What's cursive?
Of course, one can't get any more energy. Duh.
/s = 21.3 W.
But exactly how much energy could one get out of a vibration? Are we talking powering an LED by the San Andreas fault? Or are we talking powering San Francisco from the vibrations on an air conditioning shaft?
Let's see:
We'll consider the vibrations to be simple harmonic motion (because it is relatively accurate, and anything else is near impossible to calculate without a beowolf cluster).
Let's look at the vibration when your car goes over a speed bump. This should have a relatively large energy associated with it, since the energy in a object due to vibration is:
E = 0.5 K A^2
Where k is the spring constant (in metric, it would be N / m ).
K can be determined by calculating how far your car is lowered when you get in (your weight, in newtons, divided by how far your car is lowered, in meters).
Let's assume that you weigh 150 lbs. This is about 70 kilos, or 670 Newtons. Let's also assume that your car is lowered by about an inch when you get in (0.0254 m).
This makes the spring constant for your car's suspension:
670 N / 0.0254 m = 26,378 N / m
This is to say that if one were to depress your car's suspension by one meter, you would be exerting a force of 26,378 Newtons.
Let's also assume that, when going over the speed bump, your car bounces 10 inches. Thus, the amplitude of your car's motion is 5 inches, or 0.127 meters. Putting this information, and the spring constant into the first equation for energy:
E = 0.5 ( 26,378 N ) ( 0.0127 M ) ^ 2
E = 213 Joules.
Great. How does this relate to power needed for powering some electronic device?
Power = Energy / Time.
Let's assume that this vibrations to energy device in the article can absorb your car's vibrational energy in 10 seconds. Thus, the power going into the device is:
213 J / 10 s = 21.3 J
That's right. 21 watts. Barely enough to power a small lightbulb. And that is coming from a whole car!
Thus, I think that we can safely say that we're not going to be replacing our power plants any time soon. But for, say, a low-powered electronic sensor, which wirelessly broadcasts it's data in bursts every ten seconds, it would be fine.
How about putting your data into a program. The program then has code in it which will display the data in n years. Data (or a key to decrypt data) is stored in a format which is indistinguishable from the binary code of the program. Someone could simply change the date on their machine to fool the program, but you could, say, have the program detect the processor speed, and run filler code (i.e.
while oneInt (9999999 x 10 ^9999)
{
oneInt ++
}
). By the time the filler code is done, it's two years later. Just make sure that your system can handle bignums!
On the topic of Microsoft and Antitrust,
Is Linux really a threat to Microsoft in a antitrust sort of way? Since there's no corporation behind it, if Microsoft wanted to, say, force manufacturers to include hardware that would break Linux, then they're not infringing on another company's right to access a free market. After all, antitrust laws were not brought about to be _fair_, they were brought about to prevent a single company from controlling an entire market and hurting the economy. But the loss of Linux wouldn't immediately hurt the economy (despite the fact that, as we all know, if Linux were to die, and IIS to take over, life on this planet would end).
So does Linux count as competition to M$, in a Free Market sense?
They all are optimized for one thing: Moving digital data. The whole point of any port on the back of a computer (except for the power port, of course) is to transfer data from point A to point B. Also, the Universal Port doesn't have to be "optimized" for a single purpose. Just so long as you can teach a monkey how to use it, and the monkey is happy with the port's proformance, then it works. Sure, you could make a port that is faster/cheaper/etc., but no one would buy it, because the Universal Port is everywhere, and it is easy enough, cheap enough, and fast enough.
True, the whole "One Protocol" theory is a bit like putting all of your eggs in one basket, but, I believe Mark Twain said "Put all of your eggs in one basket, and Watch that basket. I don't think that this is a bad thing. Based on where this is coming from (a techno-philanthropist partially working for a non-profit-"Make-Things-Better" group), I don't think that we need to worry.