I got an Acer 3680 laptop for $500 last September. Quite a low end machine, but that's what I was looking for. It has Intel integerated graphics and works great with Compiz and Metisse. Much easier to get working than most other video cards in Linux.
How likely is there to be a situation when 10 people are going to want to use the diesel pump at exactly the same time? With so few diesels on the road, it would probably never happen. It's not like everybody is going to run out and buy a diesel overnight. Sure eventually usage for diesel could increase, but only over a period of probably 15 years (about the time of 3 generations of cars for most people). But by that time, the gas stations would have had time to adjust for the increase in demand, and installed more diesel pumps.
They did come up with it first. Only problem is, they charge $2000 for their model. Sure the Sony has more power, but with such a small form factor, you can only use it for so many things. Most people won't pay $2000 for something with such limited functionality.
The problem is you live in Kanata, which seems to have no service industry, despite a large number of people living and working out there. Filling up with diesel is more inconvenient, as less places do offer it, but it's still somewhat easy to find. My argument would be, why would you need more than 1 pump? Sure they could charge higher rates, because of less competition, but that doesn't seem to happen. Also, if you're travelling long distances, you'll find that most gas stations on the highway do offer diesel, as trucks bring in quite a lot of business.
I live in a Canadian tech sector too (Ottawa). I know people with Diesel trucks. They don't seem to have too much of a problem finding pumps. Also, people who are investigating hybrids are probably a little more forward thinking than most people. Market it to that crowd, and you could probably get quite a few buyers. All the efficiency of a hybrid, with the proven reliability and long-life of a diesel.
That's what I was thinking. We see a lot of push for hybrids, when you could easily get the same fuel mileage out of a car that isn't a hybrid. I remember seeing a VW Beatle deisel with a 3.0 L/100KM sticker on the side (it was a promotional thing) which equates to 78 Miles/Gallon (According to Google). Why bother toting around batteries, and having all the problems with their disposal and maintenance, when you can just go with a pure diesel engine?
Yeah, you could do that, but then why do you even need BluRay? We could just put Divx movies on plain old DVDs and have HighDef movies without even having a new disc. If you're going to rip the disk, you might as well rip it to a DVD resolution file, and make it only take up about 1 GB. You probably wouldn't even see the difference given the size of the screen and the quality of the sound card.
I'm not really for software patents in any way, but in the case of lossy compression, there actually is quite a bit of invention that goes into it. When you get down to it, there's a lot of research into what you can cut out that people won't notice. I think that is the really invenvtive part. It's not really just inherent in the data. When you think about an MP3 file, they put a lot of research into discovering what parts of the sound you could cut out, without too many people noticing.
The problem with software patents is that anything that's really novel, like your impossible compression algorithm is basically a mathematical algorithm. Since you can't patent mathematical algorithms, there shouldn't be any need for software patents. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything really inventive in software that wasn't a mathematical algorithm. There's patents on things like one-click shopping, which aren't mathematical algorithms, but which aren't really all that novel either. And then there's patents that are inventive, like GIF compression, MP3 Compression and others, but which fall under the umbrella of mathematical algorithms.
Abolishing copyright doesn't force anybody to release source code. That's the biggest problem with software. You get copyright protection. But even after your copyright runs out, nobody can benefit from your work, because they don't have the source code.
My biggest problem with software patents is that most of the don't provide a working model. If you want to patent the software, you should have to provide all the source code with the patent that shows your "invention" working. I don't like how software gets 3 kinds of legal protection where anything else in the world only gets one. With software you get trade secrets, because you never have to release your source code. You also get copyright, so the relased binaries (or source code if you choose to release it) can't be copied unless specific permission is given. You also get patent protection. No other thing produce by people gets so much legal protection. My biggest problem with software patents is that they are mostly given on trivial inventions, where any skilled developer faced with the same problem would come up with a very similar solution.
Does anybody else find it condescending to have little animated characters pop-up on your screen and try to help you. Some of us actually know how to use a computer, and find it insulting that you'd try to make the system more friendly with stupid animated characters.
The major consumer distros (Mandriva, Ubuntu, SUSE, RedHat) are only big in the sense that they come with lots of applications. They don't however require high-end hardware to run. You can easily run them on 512 MB of RAM, even with a 3D desktop.
What about my laptop that's listed as Vista Capable, yet only has 512 MB of RAM, Intel GMA, and 1.7 GHz Celeron. Vista certainly doesn't run well on that, no matter how much tweaking I've tried. Sounds like your machines that work fine with Vista have much better specs than a lot of the Vista Capable hardware being sold. Your systems don't really reflect some of the low end computers being passed off as Vista Capable. One has a processor that's almost twice as fast, with twice as much RAM, and the other has a processor that's about the same speed, yet has 4 times more RAM. Mandriva Linux runs quite smoothly, even with Compiz (3D desktop) for comparison's sake. And that's without any tweaks necessary. If Mandriva can provide all the eye-candy without needing a high end computer, why can't Vista?
I have a laptop that's "Vista Capable". It came with Celeron 1.4 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and Intel GMA. It cannot run Aero. It's quite slow even running without Aero. Granted, I bought the computer because it was cheap, and runs Mandriva just fine. It does run the version of window that came with it (Windows Home Basic), but it doesn't run it very well. I could very well see cause for complaint. I disabled every service and start-up process I could, and I still find the machine quite sluggish.
A lot of the open source products have moved to this model. Mandriva and Ubuntu both get updates every 6 months. I think it works a lot better. I think windows would be a lot better if they did smaller updates.
Just patents made sense 200 years ago, doesn't mean they made sense today. For instance, having a patent valid for 17 years used to make sense because it would probably take that long before your invention had adequate market penetration. However products don't even last 17 years anymore before the company, or inventor moves on to something else. 17 years seems like a really long time in our fast paced society. The world wide web wasn't even something most of the public knew about 17 years ago.
I didn't get into Waterloo. I went to Ottawa U. I found that there was a lot of good programmers there too. However, I was in the software engineering program, not CS. I found that a lot of the CS students couldn't program well, and that their programme didn't really prepare them well for programming in the real world. If you want to find good programmers, who know how to handle real projects, try looking in the software engineering programmes, rather than in the Computer Science programs.
No magical program manager can forge skills from programmers who don't have any. There's a large number of programmers who have no skills at all. No amount of working with them will ever resolve that. You can't forge a sword out of cotton. You can't forge a good programmer from somebody who just doesn't get it. You don't need to hire all superstars. But finding enough people who even have a clue how to program can often be huge challenge. There's so many people who want to be programmers, who just don't have it in them, that it's hard to sort through all the junk to find the good ones.
Not all kids are screaming brats. If the person can't control their kids, then they should be asked to leave (depending on the resaurant). Some kids have no problem at all conducting themselves properly in a restaurant.
Yeah. Except they can't get video games with blood or Nazis in them. In some ways they have more freedom, in other ways they have less. Just like almost every other country.
. I myself am a firm believer in this because I think a large part of our society has been so focused on individual short term greed rather then social long term wellbeing.
It always has been that way, and it always will be that way. I would love more than anything for people to work towards the good of society over the good of themselves, but I doubt that something like that would ever happen for the majority of people.
Let's say Apple tells PCWorld that they can't sell Macs anymore (I don't know if they sell them anyway). That would be a bit less profit for PCWorld, but they would have more shelf space for other products. Now let's say Microsoft tells Dell that they can't sell computers with Windows anymore. Dell would be bankrupt. That is monopoly power.
That's only because Dell has centered their business around selling Windows PCs. If Apple told "Macs R Us" (a fictitious company I made up) that they were no longer allowed to sell Macs, then they would surely go bankrupt also. Unless they completely changed their business, but Dell could do that too.
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I got an Acer 3680 laptop for $500 last September. Quite a low end machine, but that's what I was looking for. It has Intel integerated graphics and works great with Compiz and Metisse. Much easier to get working than most other video cards in Linux.
Yeah, kind of like Beavis and Butthead.
Or you could get a power adapter with the extension cables built in.
How likely is there to be a situation when 10 people are going to want to use the diesel pump at exactly the same time? With so few diesels on the road, it would probably never happen. It's not like everybody is going to run out and buy a diesel overnight. Sure eventually usage for diesel could increase, but only over a period of probably 15 years (about the time of 3 generations of cars for most people). But by that time, the gas stations would have had time to adjust for the increase in demand, and installed more diesel pumps.
They did come up with it first. Only problem is, they charge $2000 for their model. Sure the Sony has more power, but with such a small form factor, you can only use it for so many things. Most people won't pay $2000 for something with such limited functionality.
The problem is you live in Kanata, which seems to have no service industry, despite a large number of people living and working out there. Filling up with diesel is more inconvenient, as less places do offer it, but it's still somewhat easy to find. My argument would be, why would you need more than 1 pump? Sure they could charge higher rates, because of less competition, but that doesn't seem to happen. Also, if you're travelling long distances, you'll find that most gas stations on the highway do offer diesel, as trucks bring in quite a lot of business.
I live in a Canadian tech sector too (Ottawa). I know people with Diesel trucks. They don't seem to have too much of a problem finding pumps. Also, people who are investigating hybrids are probably a little more forward thinking than most people. Market it to that crowd, and you could probably get quite a few buyers. All the efficiency of a hybrid, with the proven reliability and long-life of a diesel.
That's what I was thinking. We see a lot of push for hybrids, when you could easily get the same fuel mileage out of a car that isn't a hybrid. I remember seeing a VW Beatle deisel with a 3.0 L/100KM sticker on the side (it was a promotional thing) which equates to 78 Miles/Gallon (According to Google). Why bother toting around batteries, and having all the problems with their disposal and maintenance, when you can just go with a pure diesel engine?
Yeah, you could do that, but then why do you even need BluRay? We could just put Divx movies on plain old DVDs and have HighDef movies without even having a new disc. If you're going to rip the disk, you might as well rip it to a DVD resolution file, and make it only take up about 1 GB. You probably wouldn't even see the difference given the size of the screen and the quality of the sound card.
I'm not really for software patents in any way, but in the case of lossy compression, there actually is quite a bit of invention that goes into it. When you get down to it, there's a lot of research into what you can cut out that people won't notice. I think that is the really invenvtive part. It's not really just inherent in the data. When you think about an MP3 file, they put a lot of research into discovering what parts of the sound you could cut out, without too many people noticing.
The problem with software patents is that anything that's really novel, like your impossible compression algorithm is basically a mathematical algorithm. Since you can't patent mathematical algorithms, there shouldn't be any need for software patents. I'm not sure if I've ever seen anything really inventive in software that wasn't a mathematical algorithm. There's patents on things like one-click shopping, which aren't mathematical algorithms, but which aren't really all that novel either. And then there's patents that are inventive, like GIF compression, MP3 Compression and others, but which fall under the umbrella of mathematical algorithms.
Abolishing copyright doesn't force anybody to release source code. That's the biggest problem with software. You get copyright protection. But even after your copyright runs out, nobody can benefit from your work, because they don't have the source code.
My biggest problem with software patents is that most of the don't provide a working model. If you want to patent the software, you should have to provide all the source code with the patent that shows your "invention" working. I don't like how software gets 3 kinds of legal protection where anything else in the world only gets one. With software you get trade secrets, because you never have to release your source code. You also get copyright, so the relased binaries (or source code if you choose to release it) can't be copied unless specific permission is given. You also get patent protection. No other thing produce by people gets so much legal protection. My biggest problem with software patents is that they are mostly given on trivial inventions, where any skilled developer faced with the same problem would come up with a very similar solution.
Does anybody else find it condescending to have little animated characters pop-up on your screen and try to help you. Some of us actually know how to use a computer, and find it insulting that you'd try to make the system more friendly with stupid animated characters.
The major consumer distros (Mandriva, Ubuntu, SUSE, RedHat) are only big in the sense that they come with lots of applications. They don't however require high-end hardware to run. You can easily run them on 512 MB of RAM, even with a 3D desktop.
What about my laptop that's listed as Vista Capable, yet only has 512 MB of RAM, Intel GMA, and 1.7 GHz Celeron. Vista certainly doesn't run well on that, no matter how much tweaking I've tried. Sounds like your machines that work fine with Vista have much better specs than a lot of the Vista Capable hardware being sold. Your systems don't really reflect some of the low end computers being passed off as Vista Capable. One has a processor that's almost twice as fast, with twice as much RAM, and the other has a processor that's about the same speed, yet has 4 times more RAM. Mandriva Linux runs quite smoothly, even with Compiz (3D desktop) for comparison's sake. And that's without any tweaks necessary. If Mandriva can provide all the eye-candy without needing a high end computer, why can't Vista?
I have a laptop that's "Vista Capable". It came with Celeron 1.4 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, and Intel GMA. It cannot run Aero. It's quite slow even running without Aero. Granted, I bought the computer because it was cheap, and runs Mandriva just fine. It does run the version of window that came with it (Windows Home Basic), but it doesn't run it very well. I could very well see cause for complaint. I disabled every service and start-up process I could, and I still find the machine quite sluggish.
A lot of the open source products have moved to this model. Mandriva and Ubuntu both get updates every 6 months. I think it works a lot better. I think windows would be a lot better if they did smaller updates.
Just patents made sense 200 years ago, doesn't mean they made sense today. For instance, having a patent valid for 17 years used to make sense because it would probably take that long before your invention had adequate market penetration. However products don't even last 17 years anymore before the company, or inventor moves on to something else. 17 years seems like a really long time in our fast paced society. The world wide web wasn't even something most of the public knew about 17 years ago.
I didn't get into Waterloo. I went to Ottawa U. I found that there was a lot of good programmers there too. However, I was in the software engineering program, not CS. I found that a lot of the CS students couldn't program well, and that their programme didn't really prepare them well for programming in the real world. If you want to find good programmers, who know how to handle real projects, try looking in the software engineering programmes, rather than in the Computer Science programs.
No magical program manager can forge skills from programmers who don't have any. There's a large number of programmers who have no skills at all. No amount of working with them will ever resolve that. You can't forge a sword out of cotton. You can't forge a good programmer from somebody who just doesn't get it. You don't need to hire all superstars. But finding enough people who even have a clue how to program can often be huge challenge. There's so many people who want to be programmers, who just don't have it in them, that it's hard to sort through all the junk to find the good ones.
Not all kids are screaming brats. If the person can't control their kids, then they should be asked to leave (depending on the resaurant). Some kids have no problem at all conducting themselves properly in a restaurant.
Yeah. Except they can't get video games with blood or Nazis in them. In some ways they have more freedom, in other ways they have less. Just like almost every other country.
. I myself am a firm believer in this because I think a large part of our society has been so focused on individual short term greed rather then social long term wellbeing. It always has been that way, and it always will be that way. I would love more than anything for people to work towards the good of society over the good of themselves, but I doubt that something like that would ever happen for the majority of people.