Quite to the contrary, my comments were right
on the money. Your original post didn't mention
anything about:
slow down the fans or replace them with
large heat sinks [...] UNDERCLOCK them on
purpose so that the CPU doesn't need a fan
[...] 100% ONE YEAR warranty
All of these prove that my points were valid.
I'm glad you thought of them as well, but you
did not mention any of these in your original
post. In fact, all you said was:
Take an old clunker, two nics and go to
[smoothwall.org] and download the latest
package
In fact, as you admit, it takes quite a bit
more work than that, and somebody who merely
follows this original advice is likely to
end up with a power hungry, noisy, and possibly
unreliable box.
And for a business user, I don't sell junk or problem machines to anyone.
I was not accusing you of selling junk. I was
merely pointing out that a business user
probably has a bigger budget (and can afford
a new dedicated box) and has a higher requirement
for reliability (which usually exceeds a one
year warranty for an old box).
They also tend to generate quite a bit of
noise and heat, and consume quite a bit of power,
compared to alternatives actually designed
to be running 24/7. These are problems
that are likely to bother a home user. Some
old PCs have irritating little problems like
refusing to boot unless a keyboard is
plugged in. Finally, since they are old PCs,
they may not be as reliable. These are
problems that are likely to bother a business
user.
The benefits, as you cited, as compelling.
However, to be an honest broker you should
point out all these potentially significant
drawbacks as well.
What kind of CPU would you need to encrypt 2 MegaPixels of data in a decent amount of time with public key algorithms?
If the flash chip is not removable (as in
physically an SD card or Memory Stick that a
hacker can just remove and insert into a PC),
then it doesn't need to be encrypted on the
flash. You can simply encrypt it on upload,
where time and power are less of a concern.
I'm trying to figure out what keeps the user from permanently "renting" this camera
A simple non-standard camera-to-PC connector,
even only on the camera side, would deter most
casual attempts.
A camera with the public key can encrypt all
uploaded pictures to deter nearly everyone
without the corresponding private key. For
added security, use multiple key pairs for
different batches of cameras (so that if one
key is compromised, not all the cameras are
compromised).
if you've got solid basics -- as any old-timer in this industry probably does -- you're never far behind the lead edge if you choose to catch up.
It's not just personally catching up that's the
problem. New languages may be easy to learn,
but they each still take some time to master.
You can write Fortran in any language, and a
lot of mistakes (it's easy to understand the
concept of OO, it's quite another skill to come
up with a appropriate and scalable object model
for a complex new project) are made along the
way. On the individual level, it's probably
worthwhile to make these mistakes. However, it
may not have been worthwhile to your company
to keep switching languages and making buggy
products.
I still remember listening to copied Michael Jackson tracks when I was 6 yrs old or so. And playing copied apple ][ games since I got my first system. Since then I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on software and music, and I'm sure I'd barely have spent a dime if I hadn't got a little "free taste".
This is not what they're scared of. Like you
say, copyright infringement has gone on for as
long as technology permitted.
The "problem" is that the record labels have
only two strangleholds on artists: the
initial capital with which to record an
album, and the promotion and distribution of
the finished album. P2P services are
essentially technology demonstrations of
Internet-based distribution, which means
that artists that can afford to record their
music (which are also those who likely make
the most money for the labels) can dispense
with them altogether. They'll be left with
investing in struggling new artists, which
is a business they know very well they've
historically sucked at. So, unlike hooking
up two VCRs to copy a rented movie, this is
not costing them just a percentage of profits,
but possibly their entire business.
The RIAA's "war on piracy" is an attempt to get
the artists to see Internet distribution as a
threat to their livelihoods, and increasingly
clever ways to "share" music helps that.
What we really want is for the artists to
see that (eventually) the Internet can save
them from the labels, and all we need is for
the most successful ones to leave, because
the rest of them aren't paying the bills for
the labels anyway.
You've got to be careful with your terminology here. All languages are equally expressive in the sense that anything you compute in one can be written in another.
I think the "expressiveness" of a language can
be defined as how many appropriate native
expressions it has for all thoughts that needs
expressing. For example, the Fukien dialect
of Chinese has a single word describing the
sensation of irritating a wound (perhaps by
sprinkling some salt on it). In this sense,
it is more expressive than Mandarin Chinese or
English, which lacks such a succinct
expression.
Using this definition then, generally a
bigger language is more expressive. C has
a hard time expressing the concept of
objects, and no real way to express
messages. C++ and Java are more expressive
than C in terms of objects, and Objective
C is more expressive than C in terms of
messages. On the other hand, C is probably
more expressive than Java and Pascal for low
level programming.
Note also that this quality is not infinitely
beneficial. A very expressive language is
also likely to be harder to master, because
there are more expressions to learn before
you can express yourself appropriately in
the language.
Works that have value will be replicated and emulated; works thta have no value simply have no value - where is the need (or logic) in "preserving" them?
Early American slave quarters frequently have
a pit underneath them, where food scraps and
trash are buried. Archaeologists carefully dig
these up and catalog them, because they give us
an idea of how much and what sorts of food the
slaves ate, and therefore a glimpse into their
daily lives. Diving into historical trash
piles is not an uncommon thing at all, and
they sometimes yield more real clues than
carefully preserved proclamations and works of
art. The food scraps certainly tell more than
formal records of slave trading, for example.
Is there really any value in running lotus 123 for the Apple//?
Lotus 1-2-3 was not available for the Apple ][
computer. I don't point this out to nitpick.
Lotus 1-2-3 was released in 1983, only 20
years ago, and you've already forgotten what
platform it ran on. As Lotus 1-2-3 was a big
factor to the business adoption and therefore
the rise of the IBM PC (even though many
people were already running VisiCalc on the
Apple ][), and from there the rise of Microsoft,
this little detail can be more important than
you think when a future historian is trying to
put it all back together.
The govt that fled to Taiwan (and hence ruled it alone, with US help) was an ally of Japanese Imperialists.
What are you smoking? Chiang Kai-Shek and
his nationalist government fought the Japanese
for 8 years on the Chinese mainland. He was
not a particularly nice guy, but he wasn't an
ally of the Japanese.
The reason Taiwain is democractic today has little to do with their original govt; the main reason Taiwain is democratic is because of USA. USA basically permitted and in some sense "forced" Taiwan to be democratic. USA had to do this to
combat Communism.
Taiwan remained under
the rule of father-and-son dictators for decades,
receiving US military aid for some 30 years.
Martial law was lifted only in 1987, nearly
forty years after Chiang Kai-Shek retreated
to Taiwan. Since the Soviet Union fell in 1991,
I think it's far more appropriate to say that
the US did nothing for Taiwanese democracy until
there was little to no communist threat.
If the Chinese government can go around propping up Chinese industries until American businesses get torched and American workers get laid off, then why do it?
First you need to figure out who benefits from
free trade. Free trade, in essence, is the
lowering of international trade barriers like
tariffs and various import bans or restrictions.
The immediate effect of free trade is a bigger
market for those with something to sell and
can effectively compete anywhere. The obvious
beneficiary is one who has the economy of
scale.
This seems fair, until you realize that the
western powers have decades and decades of
headstart, while many third world countries
are still struggling to even get agricultural
revolution going. Third world businesses
lack many of the skills and capital required
to compete at the scale forced upon them.
They will largely be crushed one by one by
American and other other western corporations
that can afford much more in R&D because they
sell so many more units. Without protectionism,
these third world companies have to face the
full wrath of well-heeled competitors before
they are ready.
So, just maybe, the American worker and the
Chinese entrepreneur are not really enemies.
I can drive for 24 hours in any direction and still be surrounded by people who speak English
Ever hear of that wonderful American invention
called an airplane? How about that other
American invention called a telephone? What
makes you think you need to drive anywhere to
have use for a foreign language?
Do I really need to learn another
language?
You don't need to learn anything. It's not
as if billions of people are finally getting
the education you take for granted in the
First World, and are just dying to take your
job. Nothing to worry about.
we have had radio for a very short time, just over 100 years. And our use of it is on the way out already. In another 100 years we will probably be producing a fraction of the radio waves we produce now.
Yes, and in 500 years, maybe we have the
resources to put up a huge radio beacon right
outside Pluto's orbit to see if anybody would
pick up our signal. We would do that, just
as we do SETI today, if it's cheap enough.
Similarly, a sufficiently prosperous alien
civilization might be putting up all sorts
of beacons to see if anybody shows up.
Oh, I was assuming the person works in or
around the Silicon Valley. If not, it doesn't
make much financial sense to live here.
And then there's insurance ($300 or more a month... if you're getting auto, home, and decent life coverage through work, you go...)
Typically, you'll get medical and dental
insurance from work. The automobile insurance
should run you maybe $100 a month. Home
and life insurance are hardly parts of a
"living wage", so let's not consider it.
Responding to two other posts that point out
inaccuracies, yes, I deliberately overestimated
food and automobile expenses. A subcompact
is probably closer to $300 a month, and food
is probably closer to $600 a month.
utilities (you can't run a server without electricity, nor can you live without water, sewer, etc.) which will run you about $200.
Most apartments cover water and trash
disposal costs. Electricity probably runs
from $50 to $100.
To summarize, from an after-tax income of
$5,500, we deduct:
2BR apartment - $1,500
car - $300
car insurance - $100
food (overestimated) - $600
cable - $50
phone - $30
ISP - $50
electricity, etc - $100
haircut - $20
others (overestimated) - $500
which leaves a nice $2,250, if my math skills
do not fail me too badly. Either way, you're
living decently with half of your salary. So
where are we now, indeed, Sparky?
even $100k is not really even a living wage
in Silicon Valley
A reality check is in order. $100,000 is
roughly $66,000 after taxes, or about $5,500
a month. Housing will take a big chunk of
that, where two decent bedrooms might run you
$1,500 to $2,500. A car payment for a
subcompact might be $500. Eating out for
two meals each day ($25 a meal) would cost
you another $1,500. Finally, add cable TV
($50), phone ($30), broadband ISP ($50), and
you should still be able to save a bit.
How is this not a living wage? Sure, you can
live far beyond what I described, but that's
not what a "living wage" means.
My theory is that humans are very susceptible to user interfaces. All cars are basically the same, all screwdrivers are basically the same, etc., but there are enough differences between MS Windows and Motif CDE to make people uncomfortable.
Another thing to consider is that a stereotypical
teenager might have observed his stereotypical
father driving for 16 years before being allowed
to touch the steering wheel. While the teenager
hasn't been paying attention to the mechanics
of driving all this time, he is developing a
great deal of familiarity with the car.
If you pull a stereotypical caveman from the
forest, and try to teach him to drive, you'll
probably find that he'll be scared to touch
the car radio if you didn't explicitly teach
him to work it. This is a lot like computer
newbies being fearful of clicking on any menu
item they weren't taught before.
What we are beginning to see is a generation
that grew up watching their parents work the
computer. I don't think they will be nearly
as uncomfortable as any generation before them.
one day, the city stopped doing that. So now I just toss all that stuff in the trash, because I am surly not going to take a 15 minute drive to the recycle place once a week.
I appreciate your honesty, and I agree with you
that a recycling system that doesn't take human
nature into account is doomed to failure.
However...
We're too lazy to go out of our way to recycle our trash, and rightfully so, a lot of us have better things to do.
...your honesty doesn't make it right.
Most right things take some effort to do, and
many even take outright sacrifice.
Here's an alternative I can suggest. Continue
saving your recyclables in a separate bag, and
if at the end of the week you are going to pass
by the recycling facility for some other
business, then take it along. If you won't
be, then toss it in the trash. Recycling
doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal, and
this suggestion should certainly take a lot
less effort than the weekly drive.
Re:It's not surpsing Carmack wants to get it right
on
No Doom 3 This Year?
·
· Score: 1
So what your saying is that it is not surprising that Carmack is taking his time to make sure it is right. Or to put it another way, you agree with me.
Only in the loosest sense of the word. You're
assuming he's a perfectionist; I'm saying that
from the same evidence you cited (Quake 3
still usable), he could be just in a lot of
trouble because his new product is unsellable.
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong.
I'm saying that your evidence does not
inevitably point to your conclusion. This
means you either need more evidence (to
exclude my scenario and other possibilities),
or admit you don't actually know why there's
a delay.
I'm pretty sure somebody could evolve Doom3 into a RTS, given enough time and incentive.
Given enough time and incentive, I can turn
Doom 3 into a Microsoft Windows compatible
operating system. The question is how much
incentive and how much time it will require.
Re:It's not surpsing Carmack wants to get it right
on
No Doom 3 This Year?
·
· Score: 1
If you consider how scaleable the Quake 3 engine is, and the fact that many games are still being released using it today (Star Trek - Elite Force 2 for example) then it is no surprise that Carmack wants to get the Doom 3 Engine right.
I have zero insider details, but there's a flip
side to your argument. If Quake 3 is so
scalable that it's still usable today, what
compelling features would make id's customers
upgrade to (and pay more for) Doom 3?
Similarly, gamers would have to want to pay
for Doom 3 and its derived games, but why would
they (referring to most gamers, not the hard
core) if Quake 3 derivatives are just fine?
Therefore, another plausible explanation is
that Doom 3 (the engine), however technically
cool to the hard core gamers, doesn't have
enough going for it to justify itself to
customers. id is adding additional features
to make it more compelling an upgrade.
This may be entirely BS, but it's a completely
different conclusion based on the same factoid
you provide.
why would I do that? That makes no sense at all. If I can get a superior product at a lower price, why on earth would I buy from a competitor?
Because, in this hypothetical scenario,
the monopoly's pricing scheme is perhaps below
actual cost, directed at destroying competition.
In such a case, if you purchase from the less
able and higher priced competitor long enough,
it can reinvest and improve the product, until
there are two viable products in the same space.
At this point, the monopoly may be forced to
become compatible and revert to a sane pricing
scheme. Conversely, taking the tempting
monopoly offer ensures that in the long run
there will be no competition, and prices will
rise again, while service and quality will
decline.
The behavior in my story above,
by the way, is illegal under US anti-trust
laws, but we've all seen how some monopolies
get away with barely a slap on the wrist.
Ultimately, it is up to the discerning
consumer to keep the market in balance.
if Microsoft did sell XP at $30, I'd probably buy it. If you think it's crap, so what? It's about using the right tool for the right job
My point was precisely about this line of thinking. In
the short term, a Microsoft (only because Microsoft is
a convenient target at this point in time, but the
point applies equally to other companies) product
may be the cheapest and technically best, but it can
still be a better purchase to buy from a competitor.
This is particularly true if Microsoft is pricing that
way to try to crush
a promising competitor, because if the competitor
does pick up steam, Microsoft will have to ship even
better and cheaper products, which may have to be
compatible and standards compliant.
What I mean by "total cost of ownership" is not the
usual TCO that a company would calculate, but also
the cost of helping maintain a monopoly. This
doesn't mean you should buy Apple products, for
example, until Apple has 95% of the market. What
we (consumers) want is a somewhat balanced
competitive market, because that's where we get the
best and most affordable products and services.
While I hate to further Microsoft's aims, as a matter of principle, if it does the job better and cheaper than other competing software for digital cable boxes, why not use it?
You should always use the product that is better
or cheaper, or both. However, you need to be
smart in making that determination. First of
all, "better" is not determined by a list of
features. The same feature can be implemented
in entirely unusable ways. Secondly, "cheaper"
does not refer to the price on the tag, either,
but the total cost of ownership.
For example, if Microsoft lowers the price of
XP to $30 in order to crush a new OS rival
selling at $50, you should not take the bait.
The long term cost (after the competitor is
crushed) is worse products and services, and
higher prices.
You can have a wonderful process, with everything down to the number of times the developers go to the bathroom and for how long documented and validated, and still have a product that's a piece of crap.
True. However, if your development processes are
unpredictable and unreliable, your product is most
likely going to be a piece of crap. You may have
superstar coders who will "save the release" by working
through the night for weeks, but the result is not
going to be a well thought out and maintainable piece
of code you can build future versions upon.
Like you, I've been through an ISO audit and I can
affirm your observation that it guarantees nothing.
However, if you don't go through something like it,
you won't even know if your process is poor.
Do we really want the government to say that we don't have the *freedom* to make such binding contracts and promises?
Depends on the relative strengths of the parties
involved in negotiation. For example, imagine
a jobless blue collar worker giving away his
rights to unionize in exchange for a job offer.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite to the contrary, my comments were right on the money. Your original post didn't mention anything about:
slow down the fans or replace them with large heat sinks [...] UNDERCLOCK them on purpose so that the CPU doesn't need a fan [...] 100% ONE YEAR warranty
All of these prove that my points were valid. I'm glad you thought of them as well, but you did not mention any of these in your original post. In fact, all you said was:
Take an old clunker, two nics and go to [smoothwall.org] and download the latest package
In fact, as you admit, it takes quite a bit more work than that, and somebody who merely follows this original advice is likely to end up with a power hungry, noisy, and possibly unreliable box.
And for a business user, I don't sell junk or problem machines to anyone.
I was not accusing you of selling junk. I was merely pointing out that a business user probably has a bigger budget (and can afford a new dedicated box) and has a higher requirement for reliability (which usually exceeds a one year warranty for an old box).
They also tend to generate quite a bit of noise and heat, and consume quite a bit of power, compared to alternatives actually designed to be running 24/7. These are problems that are likely to bother a home user. Some old PCs have irritating little problems like refusing to boot unless a keyboard is plugged in. Finally, since they are old PCs, they may not be as reliable. These are problems that are likely to bother a business user.
The benefits, as you cited, as compelling. However, to be an honest broker you should point out all these potentially significant drawbacks as well.
Makes you wonder how many Gentoo users actually get their compiler flags right, doesn't it?
If the flash chip is not removable (as in physically an SD card or Memory Stick that a hacker can just remove and insert into a PC), then it doesn't need to be encrypted on the flash. You can simply encrypt it on upload, where time and power are less of a concern.
A simple non-standard camera-to-PC connector, even only on the camera side, would deter most casual attempts.
A camera with the public key can encrypt all uploaded pictures to deter nearly everyone without the corresponding private key. For added security, use multiple key pairs for different batches of cameras (so that if one key is compromised, not all the cameras are compromised).
It's not just personally catching up that's the problem. New languages may be easy to learn, but they each still take some time to master. You can write Fortran in any language, and a lot of mistakes (it's easy to understand the concept of OO, it's quite another skill to come up with a appropriate and scalable object model for a complex new project) are made along the way. On the individual level, it's probably worthwhile to make these mistakes. However, it may not have been worthwhile to your company to keep switching languages and making buggy products.
This is not what they're scared of. Like you say, copyright infringement has gone on for as long as technology permitted.
The "problem" is that the record labels have only two strangleholds on artists: the initial capital with which to record an album, and the promotion and distribution of the finished album. P2P services are essentially technology demonstrations of Internet-based distribution, which means that artists that can afford to record their music (which are also those who likely make the most money for the labels) can dispense with them altogether. They'll be left with investing in struggling new artists, which is a business they know very well they've historically sucked at. So, unlike hooking up two VCRs to copy a rented movie, this is not costing them just a percentage of profits, but possibly their entire business.
The RIAA's "war on piracy" is an attempt to get the artists to see Internet distribution as a threat to their livelihoods, and increasingly clever ways to "share" music helps that. What we really want is for the artists to see that (eventually) the Internet can save them from the labels, and all we need is for the most successful ones to leave, because the rest of them aren't paying the bills for the labels anyway.
I think the "expressiveness" of a language can be defined as how many appropriate native expressions it has for all thoughts that needs expressing. For example, the Fukien dialect of Chinese has a single word describing the sensation of irritating a wound (perhaps by sprinkling some salt on it). In this sense, it is more expressive than Mandarin Chinese or English, which lacks such a succinct expression.
Using this definition then, generally a bigger language is more expressive. C has a hard time expressing the concept of objects, and no real way to express messages. C++ and Java are more expressive than C in terms of objects, and Objective C is more expressive than C in terms of messages. On the other hand, C is probably more expressive than Java and Pascal for low level programming.
Note also that this quality is not infinitely beneficial. A very expressive language is also likely to be harder to master, because there are more expressions to learn before you can express yourself appropriately in the language.
Early American slave quarters frequently have a pit underneath them, where food scraps and trash are buried. Archaeologists carefully dig these up and catalog them, because they give us an idea of how much and what sorts of food the slaves ate, and therefore a glimpse into their daily lives. Diving into historical trash piles is not an uncommon thing at all, and they sometimes yield more real clues than carefully preserved proclamations and works of art. The food scraps certainly tell more than formal records of slave trading, for example.
Is there really any value in running lotus 123 for the Apple//?
Lotus 1-2-3 was not available for the Apple ][ computer. I don't point this out to nitpick. Lotus 1-2-3 was released in 1983, only 20 years ago, and you've already forgotten what platform it ran on. As Lotus 1-2-3 was a big factor to the business adoption and therefore the rise of the IBM PC (even though many people were already running VisiCalc on the Apple ][), and from there the rise of Microsoft, this little detail can be more important than you think when a future historian is trying to put it all back together.
What are you smoking? Chiang Kai-Shek and his nationalist government fought the Japanese for 8 years on the Chinese mainland. He was not a particularly nice guy, but he wasn't an ally of the Japanese.
The reason Taiwain is democractic today has little to do with their original govt; the main reason Taiwain is democratic is because of USA. USA basically permitted and in some sense "forced" Taiwan to be democratic. USA had to do this to combat Communism.
Taiwan remained under the rule of father-and-son dictators for decades, receiving US military aid for some 30 years. Martial law was lifted only in 1987, nearly forty years after Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to Taiwan. Since the Soviet Union fell in 1991, I think it's far more appropriate to say that the US did nothing for Taiwanese democracy until there was little to no communist threat.
First you need to figure out who benefits from free trade. Free trade, in essence, is the lowering of international trade barriers like tariffs and various import bans or restrictions. The immediate effect of free trade is a bigger market for those with something to sell and can effectively compete anywhere. The obvious beneficiary is one who has the economy of scale.
This seems fair, until you realize that the western powers have decades and decades of headstart, while many third world countries are still struggling to even get agricultural revolution going. Third world businesses lack many of the skills and capital required to compete at the scale forced upon them. They will largely be crushed one by one by American and other other western corporations that can afford much more in R&D because they sell so many more units. Without protectionism, these third world companies have to face the full wrath of well-heeled competitors before they are ready.
So, just maybe, the American worker and the Chinese entrepreneur are not really enemies.
Ever hear of that wonderful American invention called an airplane? How about that other American invention called a telephone? What makes you think you need to drive anywhere to have use for a foreign language?
Do I really need to learn another language?
You don't need to learn anything. It's not as if billions of people are finally getting the education you take for granted in the First World, and are just dying to take your job. Nothing to worry about.
Yes, and in 500 years, maybe we have the resources to put up a huge radio beacon right outside Pluto's orbit to see if anybody would pick up our signal. We would do that, just as we do SETI today, if it's cheap enough. Similarly, a sufficiently prosperous alien civilization might be putting up all sorts of beacons to see if anybody shows up.
Oh, I was assuming the person works in or around the Silicon Valley. If not, it doesn't make much financial sense to live here.
And then there's insurance ($300 or more a month... if you're getting auto, home, and decent life coverage through work, you go...)
Typically, you'll get medical and dental insurance from work. The automobile insurance should run you maybe $100 a month. Home and life insurance are hardly parts of a "living wage", so let's not consider it.
Responding to two other posts that point out inaccuracies, yes, I deliberately overestimated food and automobile expenses. A subcompact is probably closer to $300 a month, and food is probably closer to $600 a month.
utilities (you can't run a server without electricity, nor can you live without water, sewer, etc.) which will run you about $200.
Most apartments cover water and trash disposal costs. Electricity probably runs from $50 to $100.
To summarize, from an after-tax income of $5,500, we deduct:
- 2BR apartment - $1,500
- car - $300
- car insurance - $100
- food (overestimated) - $600
- cable - $50
- phone - $30
- ISP - $50
- electricity, etc - $100
- haircut - $20
- others (overestimated) - $500
which leaves a nice $2,250, if my math skills do not fail me too badly. Either way, you're living decently with half of your salary. So where are we now, indeed, Sparky?A reality check is in order. $100,000 is roughly $66,000 after taxes, or about $5,500 a month. Housing will take a big chunk of that, where two decent bedrooms might run you $1,500 to $2,500. A car payment for a subcompact might be $500. Eating out for two meals each day ($25 a meal) would cost you another $1,500. Finally, add cable TV ($50), phone ($30), broadband ISP ($50), and you should still be able to save a bit.
How is this not a living wage? Sure, you can live far beyond what I described, but that's not what a "living wage" means.
Another thing to consider is that a stereotypical teenager might have observed his stereotypical father driving for 16 years before being allowed to touch the steering wheel. While the teenager hasn't been paying attention to the mechanics of driving all this time, he is developing a great deal of familiarity with the car.
If you pull a stereotypical caveman from the forest, and try to teach him to drive, you'll probably find that he'll be scared to touch the car radio if you didn't explicitly teach him to work it. This is a lot like computer newbies being fearful of clicking on any menu item they weren't taught before.
What we are beginning to see is a generation that grew up watching their parents work the computer. I don't think they will be nearly as uncomfortable as any generation before them.
I appreciate your honesty, and I agree with you that a recycling system that doesn't take human nature into account is doomed to failure. However...
We're too lazy to go out of our way to recycle our trash, and rightfully so, a lot of us have better things to do.
Here's an alternative I can suggest. Continue saving your recyclables in a separate bag, and if at the end of the week you are going to pass by the recycling facility for some other business, then take it along. If you won't be, then toss it in the trash. Recycling doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal, and this suggestion should certainly take a lot less effort than the weekly drive.
Only in the loosest sense of the word. You're assuming he's a perfectionist; I'm saying that from the same evidence you cited (Quake 3 still usable), he could be just in a lot of trouble because his new product is unsellable.
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong. I'm saying that your evidence does not inevitably point to your conclusion. This means you either need more evidence (to exclude my scenario and other possibilities), or admit you don't actually know why there's a delay.
Given enough time and incentive, I can turn Doom 3 into a Microsoft Windows compatible operating system. The question is how much incentive and how much time it will require.
I have zero insider details, but there's a flip side to your argument. If Quake 3 is so scalable that it's still usable today, what compelling features would make id's customers upgrade to (and pay more for) Doom 3? Similarly, gamers would have to want to pay for Doom 3 and its derived games, but why would they (referring to most gamers, not the hard core) if Quake 3 derivatives are just fine?
Therefore, another plausible explanation is that Doom 3 (the engine), however technically cool to the hard core gamers, doesn't have enough going for it to justify itself to customers. id is adding additional features to make it more compelling an upgrade.
This may be entirely BS, but it's a completely different conclusion based on the same factoid you provide.
Because, in this hypothetical scenario, the monopoly's pricing scheme is perhaps below actual cost, directed at destroying competition. In such a case, if you purchase from the less able and higher priced competitor long enough, it can reinvest and improve the product, until there are two viable products in the same space. At this point, the monopoly may be forced to become compatible and revert to a sane pricing scheme. Conversely, taking the tempting monopoly offer ensures that in the long run there will be no competition, and prices will rise again, while service and quality will decline.
The behavior in my story above, by the way, is illegal under US anti-trust laws, but we've all seen how some monopolies get away with barely a slap on the wrist. Ultimately, it is up to the discerning consumer to keep the market in balance.
My point was precisely about this line of thinking. In the short term, a Microsoft (only because Microsoft is a convenient target at this point in time, but the point applies equally to other companies) product may be the cheapest and technically best, but it can still be a better purchase to buy from a competitor. This is particularly true if Microsoft is pricing that way to try to crush a promising competitor, because if the competitor does pick up steam, Microsoft will have to ship even better and cheaper products, which may have to be compatible and standards compliant.
What I mean by "total cost of ownership" is not the usual TCO that a company would calculate, but also the cost of helping maintain a monopoly. This doesn't mean you should buy Apple products, for example, until Apple has 95% of the market. What we (consumers) want is a somewhat balanced competitive market, because that's where we get the best and most affordable products and services.
You should always use the product that is better or cheaper, or both. However, you need to be smart in making that determination. First of all, "better" is not determined by a list of features. The same feature can be implemented in entirely unusable ways. Secondly, "cheaper" does not refer to the price on the tag, either, but the total cost of ownership. For example, if Microsoft lowers the price of XP to $30 in order to crush a new OS rival selling at $50, you should not take the bait. The long term cost (after the competitor is crushed) is worse products and services, and higher prices.
True. However, if your development processes are unpredictable and unreliable, your product is most likely going to be a piece of crap. You may have superstar coders who will "save the release" by working through the night for weeks, but the result is not going to be a well thought out and maintainable piece of code you can build future versions upon.
Like you, I've been through an ISO audit and I can affirm your observation that it guarantees nothing. However, if you don't go through something like it, you won't even know if your process is poor.
Depends on the relative strengths of the parties involved in negotiation. For example, imagine a jobless blue collar worker giving away his rights to unionize in exchange for a job offer.