Ok, poor choice of words for a post on Slashdot. I was using it in the sense that a principle is a rule or a code of conduct (one of the Merriam-Webster definitions). You can break a rule and the rule still exists.
That's easy to say when it isn't the life of your father or brother or son at stake. I absolutely agree that Wikipedia should be interested only in facts but like any principle, there are situations worthy of an exception. In this case, I don't think the timely publishing of the event was all that valuable, especially in comparison to the potential downside of publishing it.
Perhaps you no longer trust Wikipedia. Personally I'm not particularly bothered by this as the truth has come out.
Why shouldn't you use information from Wikipedia with no cited sources? Why can't Wikipedia be the source? Does the same go for citing from Encyclopedia Britannica?
Check into your state and local programs. I live in Texas and there are some very significant incentives available. I copied this from http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/texas/
EXAMPLE 3kW SYSTEM HOME INSTALL IN AUSTIN TEXAS
So, if you were to install a 3 kW system that would be about $27,000 ($9.00/Watt x 3,000 Watts). In this example youâ(TM)d be in line to receive the maximum incentive of $13,500. The Fed offers a 30% incentive in the form of a tax credit with no cap. Assuming you have the tax liability, youâ(TM)re in line to deduct another $8,100 (30% x $27,000). Now, youâ(TM)re at a net cost after year 1 of $5,400. This is a lot more palatable. Just think, this energy upgrade is also property tax exempt and youâ(TM)ll realize an immediate property value increase of 20 times your annual electricity bill savings. In this example, a 3kW system will increase your property value by about $9,600 ($40/mo savings x 12 = $480; $480 x 20 years = $9,600).
I don't know if it is unique to Texas, but our realtor told us about a program where the state will finance a solar panel installation. Apart from the hefty incentives, it's a great program because it basically rolls the cost of the panels into your property taxes. It isn't exactly property taxes, but it is a fee that stays with the house. So, if you sell the house, the new owner takes over the payments. True, there are going to be people who aren't interested in solar panels, but there are plenty of people who are and it definitely eases the concern of taking on a big investment when statistically you are likely to move before you reach the point of a positive return.
As soon as my house finishes construction, I'm looking into it. There's way too much sunshine here for me to not consider it.
I did exactly what you suggest - bought my daughter a cell phone. When she was in Kindergarten she was let off at the wrong stop and was lost for an hour or so. It was pretty intense hour. The bus company shifts drivers around quite a bit and as a consequence, drivers often have no idea where particular kids get off or even exactly where the stops are.
The cool thing is, she plays with her phone quite a bit and it's now one of her favorite "toys". She takes photos and movies with it, sends text messages to me and to her mom, and places the occasional phone call to her grandmother.
The problem with pay walls is that it greatly decreases the value of the content. When something is available and can be freely linked to and talked about by everybody, it is much more valuable than being hidden to most people.
Why are newspapers sacred? Should the tv networks get together and stop broadcasting the nightly news for free? Personally, I think the current generation of newspapers should be allowed to die. Let somebody else come along and buy the assets for pennies on the dollar. If they are smart enough not to take on massive debt, they will likely do quite well.
Telemarketers from the local paper call me once in a while and ask if I would like to get the paper for free. Even for free I don't want it. Why would I want to pay even a micropayment for it? If they can drive a paper out to my house every day for free, why the hell can't they survive from their website?
Do you not remember television from 10 and 20 years ago? I grew up watching a lot of TV. When I try to watch a rerun of Knight Rider, Different Strokes, Dukes of Hazzard, Three's Company, or just about anything else I used to like, I can barely believe that these shows were actually successful.
Cripes, TV today is waaaay better than it has ever been. Yes, there is a lot of crap out there and some if it is very popular (and thus profitable), but I wouldn't write TV off just yet.
Our app is one that has a pre-populated read-only database (that is, we never do updates, only selects). The database has only a single client and has to deal with bursts of activity that peak at 10's of queries per second. The load we put on the database is orders of magnitude away from what MySQL can handle. This what I meant when I said it works well enough. In fact, SQLite would probably even be a better choice.
I have never claimed to be a database developer. In fact, people like me rarely do. People like me pick the right tool for the job (I hate that phrase) and don't spend all day fucking around gilding lillies. If the database was a critical component for my application, I would definitely spend more time and money on it.
In the fine article, the photographer says "He took me out of the cell and took off the cuffs, had me sign a You have been trespassed by REI and can't go back for a year form".
Does this mean that REI has banned him for a year, or is this something the police came up with? Ideally, the REI security personnel should have defended their customer, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If they had, the karma flow would definitely be in the other direction.
Are they also provoking thought and questions regarding religion? Are they encouraging students to also look for holes in the biblical account of creation. Or perhaps they would like to offer the Scientologist view of how life on Earth started as an alternative theory. That would be cool.:)
First of all, I have a 6 year old and a 7 year old. They go through shoes pretty quickly. I probably buy myself new shoes once a year and my wife gets herself one or two pairs a year. Nothing extravagant.
I buy from Zappos because it is easy and I have no worries about returns if I pick the wrong shoes or want to return them for any reason. I don't want to drive out to the mall. I'd rather spend 10 minutes clicking around to find the shoes I want and have them delivered to me in a couple of days.
Zappos is one of the very few businesses that can count me as a loyal customer. The only others that I can think of are some local restaurants. And NewEgg.
BTW- I disagree that there is no difference in shopping at K-Mart vs a higher end store (I've never been in Macy's, so I don't know what they are like). You can argue that it isn't worth the premium (and I would probably agree), but great clothing stores are staffed by people who care about their jobs, who are knowledgeable about clothes and how they should fit, and can help you find stuff that looks good and will serve its purpose. People who know what they are doing can suggest minor tailoring that can transform a decent shirt into an excellent shirt. You might be able to buy more off the chrome racks of a harshly light K-Mart, but if you are like me and don't know anything about clothing, a little help can go a long way.
Zappos is good example of store that differentiates itself from the competitors with customer service. From what I've heard, they are doing quite well. My family buys most of our shoes there (probably only 6-8 pairs a year).
There are lots of stories on the net about Zappos legendary customer service. I think the key is that you can't just have good customer service- it has to be outrageously good. And you have to be savvy enough to get the word spread by others.
I think you've nailed it. The phone market is huge, but it's also looking somewhat saturated. New customer acquisition costs are large and competition is fierce. Thin margins could get even thinner.
The potential market for non-phone devices is enormous. Sprint and Amazon have shown how well it can work with the wireless connection on the Kindle. Start setting up deals like this everywhere and suddenly Sprint might have a chance to survive and prosper big time.
The phone companies hate the idea of just selling commodity bandwidth, but if Sprint/Google get this right, the upside is huge. If they don't do this, Sprint is likely dead anyway.
I'm guessing Google is going to buy them sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, that's often the case - but not always.
Where I live (Portland, OR) I can get dsl, cable modem, or other business class services (think T1's). Some people I work with have Verizon's fios, but I don't think that's available in my neighborhood yet.
I'm all for a bill of rights. Among the enumerated rights should be:
Any p2p user shall have available to them a detailed and complete description of what network services their monthly fees entitle them to. This will include all of the usage limits which may trigger account suspension or termination.
This information is required for any p2p user to make an informed choice among broadband providers. I don't particularly care if they advertise "unlimited" service, but there needs to be an asterisk which points to how they define unlimited.
I have to disagree with you a bit. Apple hardware may be expensive, but that's not all that you get. When you buy a Mac, you are also getting a bunch of software. I actually like the the OS and I like the bundled applications (the iLife stuff).
I think it might be different if Apple entered this space because they have a long history with machines designed for educational use. Recently he eMac's were a decent price (at the time) and, IIRC, the eMate was priced in the same ballpark that the current Asus machine is.
I can't argue that Apple's industrial design helps them command a premium, but that just goes to show that good design has value for some people.
Look at all the people in these comments who point out that they can buy a full-sized laptop for the same price. They totally miss the point that size and weight are features as well. For some, that is worth a premium.
Remember Apple's eMate? I always thought it was a terrible shame that this device wasn't allowed to live through a couple more versions. The OLPC arguably is better, but if the eMate were still around, I believe it could actually fulfill the promise of a $100 machine and that would be very cool.
I'm working on adding IPv6 support to a server package written in java. Part of what it does is use a subnet mask to discriminate LAN and WAN clients. Can I still do this if everything is IPv6? Would I just have a different subnet mask?
Are there still LAN ranges like 192.168 or 10. in IPv6? Do I still have a DHCP server on my LAN? Admittedly, I haven't spent a whole bunch of time researching this yet, but it seems like there aren't 1:1 relationships between IPv4 and IPv6 concepts.
It's going to be really interesting to see what Vista Server looks like. It's one thing for desktop / consumer editions of Windows to be thoroughly wrapped in DRM, but quite another for a server OS. Are they really going to reset major subsystems at the drop of a hat in a server OS because of DRM? I remember reading about the audio system causing networking problems and I believe the video subsystem checks for intrusions something like 30 times per second. Not something I want my server OS worrying about.
Slashdot Mirror
You might be thinking of Carrier Command. That was by far my favorite game on my Atari ST. I'd love to play it again and see how it holds up.
Ok, poor choice of words for a post on Slashdot. I was using it in the sense that a principle is a rule or a code of conduct (one of the Merriam-Webster definitions). You can break a rule and the rule still exists.
I should have said "goal" or "guideline" I guess.
That's easy to say when it isn't the life of your father or brother or son at stake. I absolutely agree that Wikipedia should be interested only in facts but like any principle, there are situations worthy of an exception. In this case, I don't think the timely publishing of the event was all that valuable, especially in comparison to the potential downside of publishing it.
Perhaps you no longer trust Wikipedia. Personally I'm not particularly bothered by this as the truth has come out.
Why shouldn't you use information from Wikipedia with no cited sources? Why can't Wikipedia be the source? Does the same go for citing from Encyclopedia Britannica?
Check into your state and local programs. I live in Texas and there are some very significant incentives available. I copied this from http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/texas/
EXAMPLE 3kW SYSTEM HOME INSTALL IN AUSTIN TEXAS
So, if you were to install a 3 kW system that would be about $27,000 ($9.00/Watt x 3,000 Watts). In this example youâ(TM)d be in line to receive the maximum incentive of $13,500. The Fed offers a 30% incentive in the form of a tax credit with no cap. Assuming you have the tax liability, youâ(TM)re in line to deduct another $8,100 (30% x $27,000). Now, youâ(TM)re at a net cost after year 1 of $5,400. This is a lot more palatable. Just think, this energy upgrade is also property tax exempt and youâ(TM)ll realize an immediate property value increase of 20 times your annual electricity bill savings. In this example, a 3kW system will increase your property value by about $9,600 ($40/mo savings x 12 = $480; $480 x 20 years = $9,600).
I don't know if it is unique to Texas, but our realtor told us about a program where the state will finance a solar panel installation. Apart from the hefty incentives, it's a great program because it basically rolls the cost of the panels into your property taxes. It isn't exactly property taxes, but it is a fee that stays with the house. So, if you sell the house, the new owner takes over the payments. True, there are going to be people who aren't interested in solar panels, but there are plenty of people who are and it definitely eases the concern of taking on a big investment when statistically you are likely to move before you reach the point of a positive return.
As soon as my house finishes construction, I'm looking into it. There's way too much sunshine here for me to not consider it.
ac
I did exactly what you suggest - bought my daughter a cell phone. When she was in Kindergarten she was let off at the wrong stop and was lost for an hour or so. It was pretty intense hour. The bus company shifts drivers around quite a bit and as a consequence, drivers often have no idea where particular kids get off or even exactly where the stops are.
The cool thing is, she plays with her phone quite a bit and it's now one of her favorite "toys". She takes photos and movies with it, sends text messages to me and to her mom, and places the occasional phone call to her grandmother.
-ec
The problem with pay walls is that it greatly decreases the value of the content. When something is available and can be freely linked to and talked about by everybody, it is much more valuable than being hidden to most people.
Why are newspapers sacred? Should the tv networks get together and stop broadcasting the nightly news for free? Personally, I think the current generation of newspapers should be allowed to die. Let somebody else come along and buy the assets for pennies on the dollar. If they are smart enough not to take on massive debt, they will likely do quite well.
Telemarketers from the local paper call me once in a while and ask if I would like to get the paper for free. Even for free I don't want it. Why would I want to pay even a micropayment for it? If they can drive a paper out to my house every day for free, why the hell can't they survive from their website?
-ec
Really? I thought this was called WASTE when Shawn Fanning made it.
Do you not remember television from 10 and 20 years ago? I grew up watching a lot of TV. When I try to watch a rerun of Knight Rider, Different Strokes, Dukes of Hazzard, Three's Company, or just about anything else I used to like, I can barely believe that these shows were actually successful.
Cripes, TV today is waaaay better than it has ever been. Yes, there is a lot of crap out there and some if it is very popular (and thus profitable), but I wouldn't write TV off just yet.
I think you are being a little harsh.
Our app is one that has a pre-populated read-only database (that is, we never do updates, only selects). The database has only a single client and has to deal with bursts of activity that peak at 10's of queries per second. The load we put on the database is orders of magnitude away from what MySQL can handle. This what I meant when I said it works well enough. In fact, SQLite would probably even be a better choice.
I have never claimed to be a database developer. In fact, people like me rarely do. People like me pick the right tool for the job (I hate that phrase) and don't spend all day fucking around gilding lillies. If the database was a critical component for my application, I would definitely spend more time and money on it.
MySQL is better because I know how to use it and it works well enough. If I were to switch to Postgres, then I would have to spend time learning it.
My manager would rather me move some other feature forward rather than replace database A with database B.
When we hire somebody new, it is easier to find candidates who already know MySQL. That matters too.
-ec
In the fine article, the photographer says "He took me out of the cell and took off the cuffs, had me sign a You have been trespassed by REI and can't go back for a year form".
Does this mean that REI has banned him for a year, or is this something the police came up with? Ideally, the REI security personnel should have defended their customer, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If they had, the karma flow would definitely be in the other direction.
-ec
Are they also provoking thought and questions regarding religion? Are they encouraging students to also look for holes in the biblical account of creation. Or perhaps they would like to offer the Scientologist view of how life on Earth started as an alternative theory. That would be cool. :)
First of all, I have a 6 year old and a 7 year old. They go through shoes pretty quickly. I probably buy myself new shoes once a year and my wife gets herself one or two pairs a year. Nothing extravagant.
I buy from Zappos because it is easy and I have no worries about returns if I pick the wrong shoes or want to return them for any reason. I don't want to drive out to the mall. I'd rather spend 10 minutes clicking around to find the shoes I want and have them delivered to me in a couple of days.
Zappos is one of the very few businesses that can count me as a loyal customer. The only others that I can think of are some local restaurants. And NewEgg.
BTW- I disagree that there is no difference in shopping at K-Mart vs a higher end store (I've never been in Macy's, so I don't know what they are like). You can argue that it isn't worth the premium (and I would probably agree), but great clothing stores are staffed by people who care about their jobs, who are knowledgeable about clothes and how they should fit, and can help you find stuff that looks good and will serve its purpose. People who know what they are doing can suggest minor tailoring that can transform a decent shirt into an excellent shirt. You might be able to buy more off the chrome racks of a harshly light K-Mart, but if you are like me and don't know anything about clothing, a little help can go a long way.
Zappos is good example of store that differentiates itself from the competitors with customer service. From what I've heard, they are doing quite well. My family buys most of our shoes there (probably only 6-8 pairs a year).
There are lots of stories on the net about Zappos legendary customer service. I think the key is that you can't just have good customer service- it has to be outrageously good. And you have to be savvy enough to get the word spread by others.
I think you've nailed it. The phone market is huge, but it's also looking somewhat saturated. New customer acquisition costs are large and competition is fierce. Thin margins could get even thinner.
The potential market for non-phone devices is enormous. Sprint and Amazon have shown how well it can work with the wireless connection on the Kindle. Start setting up deals like this everywhere and suddenly Sprint might have a chance to survive and prosper big time.
The phone companies hate the idea of just selling commodity bandwidth, but if Sprint/Google get this right, the upside is huge. If they don't do this, Sprint is likely dead anyway.
I'm guessing Google is going to buy them sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, that's often the case - but not always.
Where I live (Portland, OR) I can get dsl, cable modem, or other business class services (think T1's). Some people I work with have Verizon's fios, but I don't think that's available in my neighborhood yet.
I'm all for a bill of rights. Among the enumerated rights should be:
Any p2p user shall have available to them a detailed and complete description of what network services their monthly fees entitle them to. This will include all of the usage limits which may trigger account suspension or termination.
This information is required for any p2p user to make an informed choice among broadband providers. I don't particularly care if they advertise "unlimited" service, but there needs to be an asterisk which points to how they define unlimited.
I have to disagree with you a bit. Apple hardware may be expensive, but that's not all that you get. When you buy a Mac, you are also getting a bunch of software. I actually like the the OS and I like the bundled applications (the iLife stuff).
I think it might be different if Apple entered this space because they have a long history with machines designed for educational use. Recently he eMac's were a decent price (at the time) and, IIRC, the eMate was priced in the same ballpark that the current Asus machine is.
I can't argue that Apple's industrial design helps them command a premium, but that just goes to show that good design has value for some people.
Look at all the people in these comments who point out that they can buy a full-sized laptop for the same price. They totally miss the point that size and weight are features as well. For some, that is worth a premium.
Of course the Alphasmart lasts hundreds of hours on 3 AA batteries and has no moving parts. Depending on the situation, this might be important.
Remember Apple's eMate? I always thought it was a terrible shame that this device wasn't allowed to live through a couple more versions. The OLPC arguably is better, but if the eMate were still around, I believe it could actually fulfill the promise of a $100 machine and that would be very cool.
I'm working on adding IPv6 support to a server package written in java. Part of what it does is use a subnet mask to discriminate LAN and WAN clients. Can I still do this if everything is IPv6? Would I just have a different subnet mask?
Are there still LAN ranges like 192.168 or 10. in IPv6? Do I still have a DHCP server on my LAN? Admittedly, I haven't spent a whole bunch of time researching this yet, but it seems like there aren't 1:1 relationships between IPv4 and IPv6 concepts.
-ec
It's going to be really interesting to see what Vista Server looks like. It's one thing for desktop / consumer editions of Windows to be thoroughly wrapped in DRM, but quite another for a server OS. Are they really going to reset major subsystems at the drop of a hat in a server OS because of DRM? I remember reading about the audio system causing networking problems and I believe the video subsystem checks for intrusions something like 30 times per second. Not something I want my server OS worrying about.
-ec
Here's a better article about the same thing. I was wondering if this story was going to get picked up anywhere.
I don't think JavaME will be given away any time soon. It's going to be really interesting to see what Sun does here.
-ec