I think GP's point was that targeting your product to a group of people that probably can't even set up said product might not be the best idea. That said, I don't think it's that big of a deal. The Wii is incredibly easy to setup especially if your TV has a set of composite inputs on the front. It's not at all like wiring surround sound. I also agree with GGP about the manual transmission thing. It's basically like riding a bike in terms of the learning process and retention of knowledge. It takes practice at first, but once you've got it, you've got it. It does seem like people don't even want to follow simple installation instructions anymore. Thank our instant gratification culture for that.
The MCO MIB has determined that the root cause for the loss of the MCO spacecraft was
the failure to use metric units in the coding of a ground software file, "Small Forces,"
used in trajectory models. Specifically, thruster performance data in English units instead
of metric units was used in the software application code titled SM_FORCES (small
forces). A file called Angular Momentum Desaturation (AMD) contained the output data
from the SM_FORCES software. The data in the AMD file was required to be in metric
units per existing software interface documentation, and the trajectory modelers assumed
the data was provided in metric units per the requirements.
So, the contractor was required to give the units in metric form, but there were no units attached since it was just software output. However, there were lots of other contributing factors. The report lists them and is pretty interesting as a study of how not to run a critical software development process.
And by that logic only China and India aren't "minorities". Unless you count the EU as one country, which I do not, but apparently wikipedia does (at least for population purposes): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ population
Individually, all the countries in the EU save Germany have less than 1% of the world's population. Also, 4.58% will round to 5%, it all depends on your rounding policy;)
hardware != software
There are a lot of smart hardware developers out there, but with all the decisions you have to make regarding architecture, I doubt anything would get done unless a 'hardware Linus' stepped up. In addition, even if you could collaboratively design a competitive chip, you'd then have to produce it. This, I think, is the biggest problem. There's no way an open source project could get the kind of manufacturing support needed for a viable project; and if you tried to produce them as needed, it'd be extremely expensive. I like the idea and would love to join a project like that to learn from hardware gurus (I'm new to the field) and contribute to the open source community, but I just don't see it as feasible. As I recall, Nvidia does their new chip development and testing on a bunch of FPGAs. That's a lot of money for an open source project, not to mention the logistical problem of where to store these FPGAs and do the actual testing. Hardware is just a different animal. For software, you just need a cheap PC, a compiler, and a text editor (or dev environment + source control). There might be some OSS versions of board layout software or FPGA development environments, but I don't know of any. I'd be very surprised if anyone's actually started this type of project, but I'd welcome it and try to help.
Gag me with a bar of soap.
God is a being that puts candy in front of a child, tells the child not to touch it, and when the child does the predictable, God cuts off his hand.
Actually, God put the "child" in a paradise filled with tons of candy and told him not to eat one particular piece.
And you think this being deserves worship?
Yeah I do. Just like he gave Adam and Eve a choice to obey Him, we have a choice as well.
Do you realize thats the one thing they were told not to do. That is sacrifice their children, by fire, or any other means.
You look like you haven't read enough bibles. Please go read the fate of Jephthah's daugther in Judges 11, who god notably unluckier than Isaac, and much deader.
Maybe you should read the story and pay attention to what it says rather than skimming it and assuming. God didn't make Jephthah pledge and Jephthah didn't have to make his pledge so vague. He also could've just said he'd dedicate whatever came through the door to God (or he could've just said that he'd sacrifice 100 cows). Then, if it was a cow, it could've been a burnt offering and if it was his kid, she could've worked serving God. Now, God probably would've killed Jephthah for not keeping his word, but, based on other Scripture about the character of God, I think that's what God would've preferred. I doubt he was terribly happy that the daughter was killed especially given the prohibition God put on that sort of thing as mentioned in the post you quoted. The lesson here is that you should not make pledges to God lightly. A sub lesson for me would be to man up and admit a mistake if you did do what Jephthah did and don't kill your daughter and take your punishment, because this is completely different from Abraham and Issac, God didn't tell Jephthah to do this, Jephthah made a rash promise and wussed out when it backfired.
I guess I do not see what your point is regarding comparing Escalades to bicycles. You might as well compare Coke to Pepsi, because it has just as much relevence to this discussion.
The relevance is in the fallacy of your argument saying we should compare a 300mi car trip with a 3000mi plane trip simply because, without the plane, that many people would not travel 3000mi, they'd drive their car 300mi instead. You correctly noted that this is absurd in the Escalade/bicycle example, but completely missed the point of that comparison. The fact is that we have planes and we have cars. The problem comes in making absolute statements about efficiency. What we need to look at is efficiency(both time and fuel) v. distance traveled. If we just look at plane, car, walk/bike, then for the trip to the grocery store on the corner, walking is best; to get to the store across town, car; and to travel cross-country, it's a plane. Instead of making blanket statements, clarify. A plane is most efficient for long trips, a car for medium trips, and walking/biking for short trips. Define short, medium, and long based on known efficiencies, and you're done.
I totally agree. It sounds like you want the Perl job more anyways because of the work and environment. Enjoying the work you do and having a good work environment is worth alot more than money. You will spend alot of your life working, would you like to be happy all day or just when you aren't working? Plus, if you enjoy what you do, you generally work harder, do better work, and advance your skills quicker than you would otherwise, which can advance your career and get you that extra money.
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I think GP's point was that targeting your product to a group of people that probably can't even set up said product might not be the best idea. That said, I don't think it's that big of a deal. The Wii is incredibly easy to setup especially if your TV has a set of composite inputs on the front. It's not at all like wiring surround sound. I also agree with GGP about the manual transmission thing. It's basically like riding a bike in terms of the learning process and retention of knowledge. It takes practice at first, but once you've got it, you've got it. It does seem like people don't even want to follow simple installation instructions anymore. Thank our instant gratification culture for that.
And by that logic only China and India aren't "minorities". Unless you count the EU as one country, which I do not, but apparently wikipedia does (at least for population purposes): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ population
Individually, all the countries in the EU save Germany have less than 1% of the world's population. Also, 4.58% will round to 5%, it all depends on your rounding policy ;)
hardware != software There are a lot of smart hardware developers out there, but with all the decisions you have to make regarding architecture, I doubt anything would get done unless a 'hardware Linus' stepped up. In addition, even if you could collaboratively design a competitive chip, you'd then have to produce it. This, I think, is the biggest problem. There's no way an open source project could get the kind of manufacturing support needed for a viable project; and if you tried to produce them as needed, it'd be extremely expensive. I like the idea and would love to join a project like that to learn from hardware gurus (I'm new to the field) and contribute to the open source community, but I just don't see it as feasible. As I recall, Nvidia does their new chip development and testing on a bunch of FPGAs. That's a lot of money for an open source project, not to mention the logistical problem of where to store these FPGAs and do the actual testing. Hardware is just a different animal. For software, you just need a cheap PC, a compiler, and a text editor (or dev environment + source control). There might be some OSS versions of board layout software or FPGA development environments, but I don't know of any. I'd be very surprised if anyone's actually started this type of project, but I'd welcome it and try to help.
I totally agree. It sounds like you want the Perl job more anyways because of the work and environment. Enjoying the work you do and having a good work environment is worth alot more than money. You will spend alot of your life working, would you like to be happy all day or just when you aren't working? Plus, if you enjoy what you do, you generally work harder, do better work, and advance your skills quicker than you would otherwise, which can advance your career and get you that extra money.