In the article, you say you would like to open source all of it, but...Well, why not stick to your guns and keep wading through the vulture capitalists until you get what you want? Hold out for an angel investor instead.
I am inferring from the article you are primarily a windows user, true? And follow up, although you say it will be browser agnostic, will windows OS be the primary dev platform?
And money, this will be subscription based or ad driven? That appears to be the only two viable ways other than burning up startup capital, so which is it? And when will your alpha (or beta-whatever) code be available to people?
Just a wild guess, but exactly what is total control of the US federal government, and some states governments worth? What is control of the executive branch or either house worth? In terms of access to cash, discretionary order giving power, etc, command of vast numbers of heavily armed folks who will do your bidding without much question,etc, etc I would say it is worth trillions of dollars and power simply unparalleled in history.
I call this evoting situation the largest incentive and easiest to get away with opportunity ever for a potential crime in the history of the planet, and when you combine the reality that any large scale investigations would have to be run by the same people who might have done the crime......and we have on going overlapping smoke signals that are showing that crimes sure might have been committed.. I call shenanigans then. Too many coincidences, too much evidence that this is way beyond accidental or slopping coding or just random chance due to normal business practices.
I like occams beard remover, it looks like a crime, the motive is huge, the opportunity is there, and the potential perps have a verified track record now of chronic serial lying over very important issues involving billions of dollars and actual huge numbers of human beings getting wasted.
This is not a "oops! little glitch" level situation any more.
If this was just joe schmo doing some little petty crime, with this amount of outstanding evidence, his butt would have been in jail a long time ago.
The OLPC is not intended to *replace* any other aid or development effort,and I have no idea how that meme got started, it is meant to *compliment* it. It is the "educate the children" angle to go along with anything else, food aid or medical aid, etc. If you go to their wiki and read the purposes it becomes clear. This IS the "basic education" deal for those folks, starting with the children so that they can leapfrog into civilization-normal status in one generation, do it quickly (quicker anyway) and efficiently.
the old adage-give a man a fish or teach him to fish
And the primary reason for making it a laptop is because dead trees books cost so much, ebooks are much cheaper and easier to push out, they can be transported electroncally, don't require trucking, etc, plus it is valuable to have real time good quality net access, everything from fast weather updates for the local farmers and fishermen, to news to better educational software, etc. the instant wirelessmesh aspect is an important point of the design here as well, along with the alternative power angle to keep it all running. You can put hundreds of ebooks on a single laptop, whereas purchasing and shipping in hundreds of books per kid, even at donated copyright no royalties paperback prices, is just beyond the resources available in a lot of the projected demographic market.
I can read,and I read that, so I never signed. That was my reason, that and my secondary reason I couldn't (didn't want to) afford to donate two for one, but one for one I would have. I like the whole idea of it, and the tech angle with the instant mesh, very low power, etc, just when they keep saying they will never sell them-I believe them.
anyway, I am building my own slowly as prices drop for components. I got a mini itx board, now waiting for lcd screens to keep dropping in price and for flash drives to drop some more, then I'll assemble it in a small case with dual batteries (from home depot, cheap drill batteries) and a 12 VDC input power supply. I want a diskless low power but good enough system to use when the power goes out, which happens frequently here.
We bought some equipment and stuff from an estate sale last year, an elderly farmer had passed away. Even though his son wanted to continue farming, they couldn't, it was impossible, from the estate taxes, they (the trustee) had to sell off a lot of the equipment and a lot of the acreage, and what as left over wasn't enough to keep a farm going that was established in the 1800s.
Really, generalizations are hardly ever accurate. the income tax has nothing to do with governmental funding. We have a *fiat* currency system. With correct and open audits and productivity based monetized digits creation, we would not need income taxes at all, nor estate taxes. If you are saying you are in favor fo thte system as it stands, with a private bank issuing debt notes that they get to print up with zero oversight, then forcing us to pay interst on it, then the double insult of charging us taxes based on our labor which we are forced to use their debt notes for..I am flabbergasted. slashdot at least usually has a bit higher awaeness level to it with most of the olks here. We analyse and look at the facts. A fiat currency is fake, ersatz, it is based on nothing but a con and force of arms and a threat. The taxes that accompany that are just extensions of it. Little babies born today are born into a debt load that is already into 6 figures. that is the fruits of the fiat economy and globalism, just so you can have slightly cheaper stuff for a few years.
And if you can't see the critical difference between food and cheap electronic junk I don't know what to say, other than you have a lot more faith in global stability than I do, or maybe never had to suffer a sudden shortage of something critical. I have so perhaps that is why I have a different take on it. I don't trust transnational cororations and the government to have my best interests at heart, they emphasize the bottom line for them. I believe in buy local as much as possible and support your neighbor, I am more nationalist than most people I guess. And I want people overseas to feel the same way about their places of living, I am not racist of xenophiobe, but when it comes to basic manufacturing, foodstuffs and energy all nations should strive to be as self suficient as possible, because they can then go forward with foreign political policies that they can't be held to ransom over. It is that easy to grok.
It is *hard* today to shop that way inside the US, some things near impossible, but I have experienced globalism first hand with previous lost jobs and I don't believe it is viable long term solution, not the way it is practiced as opposed to their fairy tales of what it is supposed to be. I see no proof it works if you look at the current stats with regards to trade deficits, levels of savings, debt loads, etc. *Credit* is not the same as *accumulated real wealth*, and a temporary one generation long flood of cheap goods in exchange for selling off/killing your manufacturing and now the agricultural and soon to come most of the IT base is not worth it to me. The old expression was "don't eat your seed corn", and it still fits, but the lesson is lost on most people until it is too late to do anything about it. A tradesman may sell off his work tools and work truck on friday night and be very rich indeed for the weekend, but once the weekend is over and he needs to go back to work he is stuck. That is exactly what the elite are doing to the US right now. It is unsustainable and it is already starting to crack and crumble at the edges. They are pirates and plunderers and are stripping the middle class of the accumulated wealth inexchange for the fairy tale that in the future all these foreign places will keep working for cheap in exchange for pieces of paper. That only worked when we still had durable goods aplenty to export. That is changing radically, and this "IP" pseudo property and washing each others shirts or engaging in the dig a hole and fill it back up again government "jobs" deal is not going to replace real work making real s
killing off your own domestic food production is a pretty good way to get held up at some point. It is a national security issue because food is a necessity, we aren't talking about iPods and gameboys here. IMO, all nations need to be as self sufficient as possible, in widely diverse regions, because we can't control the weather. look at the grains markets this year, all three major wheat poducing areas got half borked from drought....which means you never know. It's also a fact that energy prices keep going up, making transportation more expensive. Nope, I'll have to pass, I think we need more farmers in more local areas. Plus, at least here we have some restrictions on farming practices and some oversight on how chemicals are used. A lot of these other places have no restrictions at all.
And a million bucks isn't that much for even a small farm anymore, it isn't, and the estate tax is a tax on money that has already been taxed, again, a bad idea. And now we get into economic issues, and in a fiat currency system like we have, all income taxes are social engineering, they have nothng to do with funding government, nothing, zero. They are a command and control carrot and stick social engineering force used to make people do what a lot of rich people want,and that's it. Tariffs and use taxes are taxes, income taxes are a con game scam used by the elite. Again, this is precisely because we have a fiat currency. If we didn't, I wouldn't have this opinion, but we do, so I do.
As to the big feedlots, I agree, I would prefer the laws adjusted so it is possible to sell easier and more locally as an independent. I like making sure the cows are happy and got some room to move, I don't like enclosed lots-but that's the system that has evolved. I would rather they didn't do the subsidies and just hired more inspectors, I would love to be able to sell directly to a market rather than the auction, but the hoop jumping for small amounts is way too high. And instead o subsidies then, farmers could make more in their pocket, eliminate one step of middlemen, and be able to bank for bad years. In *very* bbad years, all they need is a loan suspension for all their bills for that year, a delay rather than a bailout. that would be enough. You can't force nature, it is really hard to try and run a "this quarter" mentality dealing with living things and the weather, as much as they keep trying to do that.
I have 33 cows, they all eat grass.(yes, this is quite small compared to the huge operations, just what I have anecdotally to talk about) Switching to grain farming wouldn't be very productive here, just the equipment outlay would make it impractical and the way the land is here would make it impractical. It's only practical on the really huge and mostly flat terrain farms that can justify the potential ROI. Modern equipment is *not cheap*., and with few exceptions, local property taxes-and just land prices by the acre- are starting to kill off all the medium and small farming operations. The bulk of the farmers now are only able to keep farming because the land is in the family for generations, but without estate tax reform, that is vanishing rapidly. Until you can get the people(consumers) and the federal government to recognize that food-agriculture is of *critical* national importance and they change and alter the tax structure to reflect that, I mean radical changes including entire season floats on loan and operating costs expenses if there is a widespread drought, etc,, you will have the ag setup you see right now, which is the closest to even being marginally profitable for the bulk of the farmers out there.
In essence, you need to walk a mile in the other guy's muddy boots to see what is right and wrong with "the system" as it stands now.
...your telephone guy left you stranded, so the least you can do is *return the favor*. Go over to his house, stop down the block and check it out. If he is up on the roof, quick drive over and steal the ladder, then drive off laughing maniacally.
We have "poll watchers" but it's a joke when it comes to computerised voting. What can you watch?
With paper ballots and and empty box, anyone can sit and watch the count, it is transparent. Whereas, the computer claims such and such is the count, and if there's a dispute *they just run the program again*. DUH.
Once over here in Georgia where I live I was first in line at the polls, so I got the honor of being ballot box inspector. They unlock the box, you look in and see it is empty then verify it in front of all the witnesses present, then it is locked back up. Cool, all you need is some eyes that work. Now?? No way to do that. So they have it both ways, the thing can come pre hacked, then the resultant super-count later can be hacked as well-and no one can prove any different, because no one is allowed to look at how it is programmed or run. It gets "certified" by a few entrenched governmental party hacks, that's it.
I tried to file a protest the very first time I was forced to use a diebold machine, they (the poll officials in my voting precinct) couldn't even comprehend how insecure it was and how the vote could be manipulated. I mean, brainwashed, it's a computer so it must be correct!
I still vote but I think the chances of it being a clean election anymore is about zero. Those machines appear to be *designed on purpose* so that just a few people can control the election.
Before you had to have at least one crooked guy per important precinct to "stuff a ballot box", now all it takes is one programmer and a few insiders to swing whole races probably. I seriously think the last three elections (2000-2 and 4) where all manipulated extensively. I know here when we first went statewide with the machines (and we were the first state in the US to do this) that both the pre- and post- election polls did not reflect the actual official tally in several key races. Surprise surprise. We even got our first R governor since the end of the civil war. Up to then the pre and exit polls were usually pretty close and almost always correct in predicting the winners. Add in the blackbox computers, now they were off just enough. I think that is just a little bit too coincidental.
...so stupid. And you need anger management. Tell me o wise one, did you ever stop to think some folks might live hundreds of miles away from a decent library? There's a pretty big planet out there, and a lot of it is completely skipping the western world wired experience and going right to wireless and net access that way. No grid, local solar. No wired telecom, just cell phones and wifi. so, they get a taste of actually getting some knowledge then get charged western rich guy rates? What a sport! What a humanitarian! A lot of them don't make much either. So, you just tell them folks to go pound sand, tough shit for them? Even inside the US, you think everyone lives two blocks from some huge well equipped library? Are you nuts or just ignorant of facts on the ground today? I need to go look something up and it's a serious one hour round trip just for me to get to the library, and I am not even all that rural. And my local library only carries one expensive journal, that's it, and it isn't open when I need to use it, late at night. I have to work onsite, got things to do chores, livintg creatures to take care of, can't just go bop off to town. And that's why I got a computer and the internet, to use it. I don't play videogames, I use the web. There are MILLIONS of people just inside the US who are a long ways away from a library,. and chances are when they get there it is pretty small. Go do some travelling outside the top hundred major urban areas for a few weeks, you'll see.
And me lazy? HAHAHAHAHA! I do hard physical labor on a farm for a living,as in work,and I could work your pasty asthmatic ass into the ground any day of the week, guaranteed.
I am talking about all users all over, not just me, dig it, not just me. You want to keep your precious knowledge locked up and expensive, fine with me, but the rest of the world is starting to open up and SHARE because it's a spiffy idea. That is why wikipedia is so well received, because overall it is a wonderful idea. It still needs work and some tuning, hence the original article, but the basic concept is just great! You and your profits at any cost ilk can stick with the old feudalistic elite model, I'll pass on that, I was never that greedy, and I am NEVER gonna fork out ten dollars for a few page PDF file. That's stupid and I wouldn't even want my little local rural library to even think about it either, that's throwing good money at elitist fucktards for no reason other than their greed.
so go rub your hands together with maniacal glee and go "mine, mine , ALL MINE". Maybe count your money at the same time, sounds about your speed.
Guys like you crack me up really, wouldn't know a good thing if it bit you in the butt and then stopped and explained it to you. Probably smart, but clueless with the big picture on how cooperative sharing of knowledge helps everyone. Or maybe you do understand that, but just don't care. I am betting the latter.
Q)why do I believe it should be free (or *much more* affordable for everyone)?
A) It's just a better idea. I would like your education to have been free or more affordable. The dark ages method...is just that, the dark ages. Sorry if you got burned by the ongoing existing technofeudalism practices, but I am not in favor of that method. I think humanity as a whole is better off the more people who have access to more knowledge. and with modern advances, it has become pretty cheap to publish electronic data bits. We have arrived in the future, and we have at least one sort of functional "replicator" now, so I think we should use it as much as possible.
For instance, I support the OLPC project, I couldn't see dangling it in front of those kids and then going "well..like to give you access to this knowledge, but it will cost you 10$ an article and so on..pony it up or suffer..what? You only make 235 bucks a year over there in east elbownia? You can't afford it? Tough shit, kid, now, fuck off"
sorry, that method isn't working out very well for the bulk of the planet's population. That's what you want to keep in place for perpetuity? Just because that is the old method and a lot of the still running current method? Isn't that a little bogus?
Yes, wikipedia has some serious flaws, absolutely no one is saying it is exactly perfect, but at least it is a credible and working step in the right direction and has been a pretty good success so far and is undergoing practical evolution. I like that. Just like some of the open courseware offerings from some Unis are a good step in the right direction. I like those, too. Maybe eventually you'll (anyone you) be able to get a degree using them at very little cost, from wherever you might be sitting. Save a lot, humanity knowledge base expands rapidly, all good things. I think it should just be expanded further now that we know and can see it is actually possible. If it alters employment around the planet, so be it, I know I have had to change jobs several times and learn new skills from..well, mostly globalism and how the fatcats are running the economy. And I still am actually. And you probably will too. And it isn't going to stop, we have to accept reality, so the quickest way to make sure *no one* gets burnt is to increase the planetary knowledge-base, and the best way to do that is to provide as much free/inexpensive education as possible in the shortest time frame possible.
I get it quite clearly, and here's the rub-you already 100% have it your way. It's all out there in the low traffic and expensive journals. the bottom line is if you don't like the wiki, and don't want to contribute following that style-then don't. But to jump in and want to change it to make it like what you already have is a disservice to the concept of what the wiki is. It's not for you, and by the nature of the closed source/exclusive/expensive model you endorse, you really don't want very many people to have access to your products. So be it. I prefer the new way of doing it, flaws and all. I think-and this is only opinion-in the long run it will sort out better and be more useful for more people, something I am more concerned with. I want to drop barriers, not maintain the barriers that existed for so long or erect new ones. I mean, just dead trees versions existed for a long, long time, why even bother to publish electronically at all? Oh, you like how it makes it easier to access this way? Now maybe YOU might be getting it. and the rest of the planet would like that as well. We are all better off the easier/cheaper/faster knowledge is shared. We have been doing it the other way and funny how, especially in the last two centuries that the ability to easily and cheaply duplicate knowledge and distribute it that advances have been made. My opinion,but follow along with that concept to the next step, and the wiki sort of way is apparently headed in that direction. Not perfect, but the older style had a lot of flaws as well.
I like using tech, not restricting it to only the rich, or only the ones who live in major urban areas with huge libraries. There are whole societies all over the developing world, who are hundreds of miles from even a medicore library, let alone some well heeled major uiversity, but the web can bridge that, cheaper and faster than brick and mortar can. Which is better for the most people in a faster time frame? You can personally restrict your input, keep it locked away, but if it was me, and I had something to offer, and some person a thousand miles away could benefit from it, but what the asking price was represented a weeks pay for him at hard labor for the chance to read a few pages of text..well, I would be *ashamed* of that, that I was that uncaring and..well, just mean. It's not going to ever do that person much good, and frankly, it does me a civil disservice, I am just not built that way, never have been.
You are free to live your life like that, I prefer an alternative method.
see ya, have fun, hope your way works out for you, there's not much more to discuss, you can have the last word.
So every time someone wants to access something quality, do some research, they have to jump in the car and go to the library-that's your solution? In my case that's close to a 40 mile round trip, and obviously only when they are open.
Oh ya, that's just wonderful.... real practical, now why didn't I think of that... oh ya again, I did and do..but only once in a great while because it's an inconveninet and expensive PITA when I have a perfectly good computer and net connection right here...checks calendar..yes, 2006, not 1946, or 1596, we have the internet now, nice to use it.
sorry, feudalism sucks. Sucked then, sucks now and closed guilds did nothing to advance much of anything, just resulted in centuries of stagnation.
If they want to contribute to wikipedia, then publish their papers, wiki picks up the tab over at their site. If they want to restrict it to the expensive pay per view, then don't be surprised if very few people ever read them over there. Which is fine really, really, it is, if that is your's or their's goal-your choice, but dissin' wikipedia because you as the academic have a beef with some of the content, yet don't want to share your content, is beyond hypocritical, and falls into the *crazy* as in insane realm. Just go away then, keep doing what you are doing-some people are getting more involved with this and the open access concept is starting to get noticed and have some legs. Knowledge sharing will progress across the globe, and will be using what remains of the original concept of the web, despite you and some of your peers archaic and dark ages modelled elitist snob ways.
I agree with the inventor, you are free to disagree. We'll be seeing how it works out in the long run.
..and that is for them to collectively STOP hiding scholarly articles behind the expensive pay per view online mags subscription or by the article sites. Joe surfer, wikipedia user, is not going to pony up the thousands and thousands a year it would take to subscribe to all these places to get to the meat, just ain't happening. Wikipedia-in part - is the reaction to this "keep knowledge buried and expensive and only available to the elite" nonsense. I thought this got sorted out in the middle ages when it was finally decided that "the commoners" could learn to read, but apparently it is still some sort of feudalistic system. We already have a huge collaborative construction, called the web, and ways to find what you are looking for, called search engines, they just need to make access a little more user and *wallet* friendly. You either believe in sharing knowledge or you don't.
wikipedia entry -> blah blah, and she said he said next guy erases that, "no, it's like this and this is a stub anyway, needs an expert and..."
joe academic "but we are the real experts, and have all this stuff written down over here, look"
Joe searcher and seeker of knowledge-"you want HOW MUCH to read a few pages???"
Ball is in their court near as I can see it, put up or shutup. If they don't like the open nature of wikipedia, they can open up the existing journals, or dual publish, one or the other or both. They have had it in their power all along, so they have no excuse to whine about the free and Free aspects of the wiki, it has been a natural reaction.
Actually, jan-feb-march is the best time of year for deals (speaking generally as a life long tight wad), you get marked down new stuff so the vendors avoid an additional ad valorem tax, and the pawn shops are slap full of deals as a lot of folks have gotten their credit cards bills from christmas binge buying and need to come up with some cash *quick*. So, new or used, it's a great time to shop then for most stuff.
1) Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? ->NO, the regular CD has enough "material", it just costs too much to consider any longer. I haven't bought a new CD in years because it's a *blatant* ripoff based on all the technological advances that have occurred. There is no reason besides pure greed to charge ten to twenty dollars for a chunk of plastic with data bits on it, this is clearly consumer gouging that has been promoted by an industry wide price fixing cartel that should be busted by the DOJ and have a lot of execs sitting in the slammer now, if fair was fair. Of course, they can't even stop payola, which is small potatoes compared to price fixing, so I am not holding out for any action there, they have their media enforcement assets tied up elsewhere, where they can enforce the blatant price fixing for the cartel. Mob muscle in other words.
2)What material would you like to see? -> Just the music on the plastic disk, that's enough, with no BS added to it to make it a PITA to play in machine of choice and how I want. The same goes for the movie goons. Keep gouging, no sale. I don't download anything restricted, but I don't buy their crap either, with the exception of used a few disks a year at a more reasonable price (which should be closer to the "new" price), but that's it. Nothing full price new, I just detest blatant gougers. During the time period where complete computers have gone from thousands of dollars to just hundreds, due to tech advances and *volume sales leading to economies of scale*, their prices are *the same*. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt. I started purchasing entertainment media on disk-vinyl-in the 50s, and they have lost a customer over the past few years with their predatory actions. It's just wrong so I won't support it with my business. And no, I am not going to pay the same price to download some DRM infested chunk of bits either, that's just as much a gouge, in fact it's worse if you think about it.
I would imagine that if you were a very large data center and let the vendors know they could bid on an order for x-thousands of new servers, provided they came stock with DC power supplies instead of AC, you might get some takers. Just a guess though, but as purchase orders scale up, customization might become a little easier to get.
I honestly don't know though, merely contemplating some salesguy at acme servers inc telling is boss that acme data inc wanted 10 thou new servers but he blew them off from that requirement.....;)
With that said, I wonder if (probably) any big centers are located in old mines or caves that have more reasonable year round cool temps?
They make single wind chargers now well over 2 megawatts. I have never seen one, just pics, large dudes. So, one of those, one gas turbine, one diesel, plus grid tie, then you got fuel supply covered as well as generating capacity covered multiple ways.
..plenty to keep it coming despite security professionals and computer experts combatting it for years. Zombie nets and so forth.. Now compare that profit level with the potential of controlling governments completely through widespread and untraceable vote fraud.. No comparison, hence, why new shiny computerised voting has been pushed, IMO. this black box voting isn't an "accident", or just "sloppy coding" or "bad design", or "errors"m nope, it has been done *on purpose*.
In ye olden days you needed a ballot box "cracker" in every key precinct to try and rig an election..now? A few guys and some code and you ownzorz a huge government. Quite the ROI, isn't it? And once you own it, where is the incentive to really "bust" yourself over it?
$100 million would be a hefty campaign contribution to every US Rep and Senator, even divvied up like that-probably enough to get the dang laws changed to very short term copyrights with more substantial "fair use" provisions and maybe enough to lose the DMCA! If it was in the same bill...I say go for it, piece meal a few works isn't cost effective at all, it leaves the problem intact, so do ALL of them with that cash.
I would probably somewhat agree with you, but out in the world it just doesn't happen. Most of the whitebox fixit shops might recommend firefox over IE and the freebie OO.org and perhaps a free antivirus, but that's it, they won't be tryng to talk people into switching to another platform. It would be like ford advising you to switch to chevy or something, just doesn't happen that often.
for the record, I stopped using windows when they went to GUI from DOS and their GUI really sucked, and switched to mac classic, but when apple went to a unixy thing and my last personal mac wouldn't run it, a PB 1400, I stayed on classic for awhile and then went to linux on commodity hardware. And that's what I tell folks to switch to now, because I finally bingoed to the GPL and what it meant and overwhelmingly support the notion.
There's some volvos out there got way over a million miles on them, you can google for it. I don't know long run what slapping anew engine in once in awhile, every 10 to 20 years or something, will run for every single car out there, but I would bet cheaper than buying a new car. The system is not setup for that though, except for the hobbiest market. My record is sitting out in my yard right now, 75 chevy van with a 350. I have 308 thou on it before I blew the timing chain trying to snag out a dump truck stuck in the mud with it. It's parked now, it's one of those "one of these days I'll yank the engine and rebuild it" project. I think I could have pushed it to maybe 350 thou, it wasn't burning oil at that time but had a couple small leaks (mostly rear crank seal), and valve chatter wan't bad either. Just changed the oil, that's about it, few starters and a carb rebuild and some brake pads. thinking about it, I think it's only had two sets of rear shoes..
Ya, not a million, but not quite a throwaway and a decent amount of miles for a truck that got *worked* hard for years. And the new japanese cars, some of them anyway, are starting to show they can last. I think it's possible, close enough anyway. I think if you used really good components and high quality alloys, etc and something like the direct oil injection to the cylinders, and a immediate electronic pressurized oil system, with a diesel engine, yada yada yada could probably run off a list, I think you could build a stock car that with some care could go a million miles.
The point I was making though is that that would be SUCH a long time for most people that it would impact the bottom line for the company. I also said it was a bad car analogy..heh.
The deal is referring to businesses, once they have something that is "good enough", for the most part there isn't much incentive to make it all that much better if they keep selling what they have, just bery broadly speaking. I didn't invent the phrase, but we live in a throw away society now where one little dohickey busts and your latest gadget is broken, people just toss stuff now and get brand new, and that's how a lot of business is run. In software doubly so. There hasn't been much in the way of an incentive for MS to really push uber quality-because they still sell what they got by the boatload, and huge markets have developed alongside-the horizontal part-to address the shortcomings of it. Most small mom and pop whitebox shops make the bulk of their cash just cleaning systems-nothing is "broken" it is just b0rked from running windows on the intartubes. Big dfference there, and it's because they and MS *can* do that. Sort of an unstated agreement "don't rock the boat too much,and everyone gets to milk this cow for good cash". It was the grandparent I was talking about, runs a mac, cleans up by cleaning up MS "good enough but no where's near great" software. It's a cash cow, that's the phrase that fits.
Oh, and I have respect for automotive engineers,plenty, but here's reality-most of the really good ones are in racing, not building joe sixpacks car, they are in racing, because they get paid a lot better there and it is a lot more fun for them. They design cars to more or less go really fast for short periods, and do an excellent job at it. Turn them loose with completely different engineering goals and see what ya might get there. That's just a theory, but bet I'm right based on some of the outstanding designs and examples you can see outside of detroit, tokyo or stuttgart. Being an old gearious head from detroit denizens, i can assure you that any numberr of motivated builders who didn't have to ansser to the imemdiate bean counters have built and drve cars that "look" like what you can get at the local dealer but are in all ways MUCH better quality, because they take more care and use better parts. There's goofy stuff you can do that take a lot of time and effort but pay off. Ever sit down and REALLY balance pistons and connecting rods? And use forged over ca
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...go right ahead.
In the article, you say you would like to open source all of it, but...Well, why not stick to your guns and keep wading through the vulture capitalists until you get what you want? Hold out for an angel investor instead.
I am inferring from the article you are primarily a windows user, true? And follow up, although you say it will be browser agnostic, will windows OS be the primary dev platform?
And money, this will be subscription based or ad driven? That appears to be the only two viable ways other than burning up startup capital, so which is it? And when will your alpha (or beta-whatever) code be available to people?
Just a wild guess, but exactly what is total control of the US federal government, and some states governments worth? What is control of the executive branch or either house worth? In terms of access to cash, discretionary order giving power, etc, command of vast numbers of heavily armed folks who will do your bidding without much question,etc, etc I would say it is worth trillions of dollars and power simply unparalleled in history.
I call this evoting situation the largest incentive and easiest to get away with opportunity ever for a potential crime in the history of the planet, and when you combine the reality that any large scale investigations would have to be run by the same people who might have done the crime......and we have on going overlapping smoke signals that are showing that crimes sure might have been committed.. I call shenanigans then. Too many coincidences, too much evidence that this is way beyond accidental or slopping coding or just random chance due to normal business practices.
I like occams beard remover, it looks like a crime, the motive is huge, the opportunity is there, and the potential perps have a verified track record now of chronic serial lying over very important issues involving billions of dollars and actual huge numbers of human beings getting wasted.
This is not a "oops! little glitch" level situation any more.
If this was just joe schmo doing some little petty crime, with this amount of outstanding evidence, his butt would have been in jail a long time ago.
The OLPC is not intended to *replace* any other aid or development effort,and I have no idea how that meme got started, it is meant to *compliment* it. It is the "educate the children" angle to go along with anything else, food aid or medical aid, etc. If you go to their wiki and read the purposes it becomes clear. This IS the "basic education" deal for those folks, starting with the children so that they can leapfrog into civilization-normal status in one generation, do it quickly (quicker anyway) and efficiently.
the old adage-give a man a fish or teach him to fish
And the primary reason for making it a laptop is because dead trees books cost so much, ebooks are much cheaper and easier to push out, they can be transported electroncally, don't require trucking, etc, plus it is valuable to have real time good quality net access, everything from fast weather updates for the local farmers and fishermen, to news to better educational software, etc. the instant wirelessmesh aspect is an important point of the design here as well, along with the alternative power angle to keep it all running. You can put hundreds of ebooks on a single laptop, whereas purchasing and shipping in hundreds of books per kid, even at donated copyright no royalties paperback prices, is just beyond the resources available in a lot of the projected demographic market.
I can read,and I read that, so I never signed. That was my reason, that and my secondary reason I couldn't (didn't want to) afford to donate two for one, but one for one I would have. I like the whole idea of it, and the tech angle with the instant mesh, very low power, etc, just when they keep saying they will never sell them-I believe them.
anyway, I am building my own slowly as prices drop for components. I got a mini itx board, now waiting for lcd screens to keep dropping in price and for flash drives to drop some more, then I'll assemble it in a small case with dual batteries (from home depot, cheap drill batteries) and a 12 VDC input power supply. I want a diskless low power but good enough system to use when the power goes out, which happens frequently here.
We bought some equipment and stuff from an estate sale last year, an elderly farmer had passed away. Even though his son wanted to continue farming, they couldn't, it was impossible, from the estate taxes, they (the trustee) had to sell off a lot of the equipment and a lot of the acreage, and what as left over wasn't enough to keep a farm going that was established in the 1800s.
Really, generalizations are hardly ever accurate. the income tax has nothing to do with governmental funding. We have a *fiat* currency system. With correct and open audits and productivity based monetized digits creation, we would not need income taxes at all, nor estate taxes. If you are saying you are in favor fo thte system as it stands, with a private bank issuing debt notes that they get to print up with zero oversight, then forcing us to pay interst on it, then the double insult of charging us taxes based on our labor which we are forced to use their debt notes for..I am flabbergasted. slashdot at least usually has a bit higher awaeness level to it with most of the olks here. We analyse and look at the facts. A fiat currency is fake, ersatz, it is based on nothing but a con and force of arms and a threat. The taxes that accompany that are just extensions of it. Little babies born today are born into a debt load that is already into 6 figures. that is the fruits of the fiat economy and globalism, just so you can have slightly cheaper stuff for a few years.
And if you can't see the critical difference between food and cheap electronic junk I don't know what to say, other than you have a lot more faith in global stability than I do, or maybe never had to suffer a sudden shortage of something critical. I have so perhaps that is why I have a different take on it. I don't trust transnational cororations and the government to have my best interests at heart, they emphasize the bottom line for them. I believe in buy local as much as possible and support your neighbor, I am more nationalist than most people I guess. And I want people overseas to feel the same way about their places of living, I am not racist of xenophiobe, but when it comes to basic manufacturing, foodstuffs and energy all nations should strive to be as self suficient as possible, because they can then go forward with foreign political policies that they can't be held to ransom over. It is that easy to grok.
It is *hard* today to shop that way inside the US, some things near impossible, but I have experienced globalism first hand with previous lost jobs and I don't believe it is viable long term solution, not the way it is practiced as opposed to their fairy tales of what it is supposed to be. I see no proof it works if you look at the current stats with regards to trade deficits, levels of savings, debt loads, etc. *Credit* is not the same as *accumulated real wealth*, and a temporary one generation long flood of cheap goods in exchange for selling off/killing your manufacturing and now the agricultural and soon to come most of the IT base is not worth it to me. The old expression was "don't eat your seed corn", and it still fits, but the lesson is lost on most people until it is too late to do anything about it. A tradesman may sell off his work tools and work truck on friday night and be very rich indeed for the weekend, but once the weekend is over and he needs to go back to work he is stuck. That is exactly what the elite are doing to the US right now. It is unsustainable and it is already starting to crack and crumble at the edges. They are pirates and plunderers and are stripping the middle class of the accumulated wealth inexchange for the fairy tale that in the future all these foreign places will keep working for cheap in exchange for pieces of paper. That only worked when we still had durable goods aplenty to export. That is changing radically, and this "IP" pseudo property and washing each others shirts or engaging in the dig a hole and fill it back up again government "jobs" deal is not going to replace real work making real s
killing off your own domestic food production is a pretty good way to get held up at some point. It is a national security issue because food is a necessity, we aren't talking about iPods and gameboys here. IMO, all nations need to be as self sufficient as possible, in widely diverse regions, because we can't control the weather. look at the grains markets this year, all three major wheat poducing areas got half borked from drought....which means you never know. It's also a fact that energy prices keep going up, making transportation more expensive. Nope, I'll have to pass, I think we need more farmers in more local areas. Plus, at least here we have some restrictions on farming practices and some oversight on how chemicals are used. A lot of these other places have no restrictions at all.
And a million bucks isn't that much for even a small farm anymore, it isn't, and the estate tax is a tax on money that has already been taxed, again, a bad idea. And now we get into economic issues, and in a fiat currency system like we have, all income taxes are social engineering, they have nothng to do with funding government, nothing, zero. They are a command and control carrot and stick social engineering force used to make people do what a lot of rich people want,and that's it. Tariffs and use taxes are taxes, income taxes are a con game scam used by the elite. Again, this is precisely because we have a fiat currency. If we didn't, I wouldn't have this opinion, but we do, so I do.
As to the big feedlots, I agree, I would prefer the laws adjusted so it is possible to sell easier and more locally as an independent. I like making sure the cows are happy and got some room to move, I don't like enclosed lots-but that's the system that has evolved. I would rather they didn't do the subsidies and just hired more inspectors, I would love to be able to sell directly to a market rather than the auction, but the hoop jumping for small amounts is way too high. And instead o subsidies then, farmers could make more in their pocket, eliminate one step of middlemen, and be able to bank for bad years. In *very* bbad years, all they need is a loan suspension for all their bills for that year, a delay rather than a bailout. that would be enough. You can't force nature, it is really hard to try and run a "this quarter" mentality dealing with living things and the weather, as much as they keep trying to do that.
I have 33 cows, they all eat grass.(yes, this is quite small compared to the huge operations, just what I have anecdotally to talk about) Switching to grain farming wouldn't be very productive here, just the equipment outlay would make it impractical and the way the land is here would make it impractical. It's only practical on the really huge and mostly flat terrain farms that can justify the potential ROI. Modern equipment is *not cheap*., and with few exceptions, local property taxes-and just land prices by the acre- are starting to kill off all the medium and small farming operations. The bulk of the farmers now are only able to keep farming because the land is in the family for generations, but without estate tax reform, that is vanishing rapidly. Until you can get the people(consumers) and the federal government to recognize that food-agriculture is of *critical* national importance and they change and alter the tax structure to reflect that, I mean radical changes including entire season floats on loan and operating costs expenses if there is a widespread drought, etc,, you will have the ag setup you see right now, which is the closest to even being marginally profitable for the bulk of the farmers out there.
In essence, you need to walk a mile in the other guy's muddy boots to see what is right and wrong with "the system" as it stands now.
...your telephone guy left you stranded, so the least you can do is *return the favor*. Go over to his house, stop down the block and check it out. If he is up on the roof, quick drive over and steal the ladder, then drive off laughing maniacally.
We have "poll watchers" but it's a joke when it comes to computerised voting. What can you watch?
With paper ballots and and empty box, anyone can sit and watch the count, it is transparent. Whereas, the computer claims such and such is the count, and if there's a dispute *they just run the program again*. DUH.
Once over here in Georgia where I live I was first in line at the polls, so I got the honor of being ballot box inspector. They unlock the box, you look in and see it is empty then verify it in front of all the witnesses present, then it is locked back up. Cool, all you need is some eyes that work. Now?? No way to do that. So they have it both ways, the thing can come pre hacked, then the resultant super-count later can be hacked as well-and no one can prove any different, because no one is allowed to look at how it is programmed or run. It gets "certified" by a few entrenched governmental party hacks, that's it.
I tried to file a protest the very first time I was forced to use a diebold machine, they (the poll officials in my voting precinct) couldn't even comprehend how insecure it was and how the vote could be manipulated. I mean, brainwashed, it's a computer so it must be correct!
I still vote but I think the chances of it being a clean election anymore is about zero. Those machines appear to be *designed on purpose* so that just a few people can control the election.
Before you had to have at least one crooked guy per important precinct to "stuff a ballot box", now all it takes is one programmer and a few insiders to swing whole races probably. I seriously think the last three elections (2000-2 and 4) where all manipulated extensively. I know here when we first went statewide with the machines (and we were the first state in the US to do this) that both the pre- and post- election polls did not reflect the actual official tally in several key races. Surprise surprise. We even got our first R governor since the end of the civil war. Up to then the pre and exit polls were usually pretty close and almost always correct in predicting the winners. Add in the blackbox computers, now they were off just enough. I think that is just a little bit too coincidental.
...so stupid. And you need anger management. Tell me o wise one, did you ever stop to think some folks might live hundreds of miles away from a decent library? There's a pretty big planet out there, and a lot of it is completely skipping the western world wired experience and going right to wireless and net access that way. No grid, local solar. No wired telecom, just cell phones and wifi. so, they get a taste of actually getting some knowledge then get charged western rich guy rates? What a sport! What a humanitarian! A lot of them don't make much either. So, you just tell them folks to go pound sand, tough shit for them? Even inside the US, you think everyone lives two blocks from some huge well equipped library? Are you nuts or just ignorant of facts on the ground today? I need to go look something up and it's a serious one hour round trip just for me to get to the library, and I am not even all that rural. And my local library only carries one expensive journal, that's it, and it isn't open when I need to use it, late at night. I have to work onsite, got things to do chores, livintg creatures to take care of, can't just go bop off to town. And that's why I got a computer and the internet, to use it. I don't play videogames, I use the web. There are MILLIONS of people just inside the US who are a long ways away from a library,. and chances are when they get there it is pretty small. Go do some travelling outside the top hundred major urban areas for a few weeks, you'll see.
And me lazy? HAHAHAHAHA! I do hard physical labor on a farm for a living,as in work,and I could work your pasty asthmatic ass into the ground any day of the week, guaranteed.
I am talking about all users all over, not just me, dig it, not just me. You want to keep your precious knowledge locked up and expensive, fine with me, but the rest of the world is starting to open up and SHARE because it's a spiffy idea. That is why wikipedia is so well received, because overall it is a wonderful idea. It still needs work and some tuning, hence the original article, but the basic concept is just great! You and your profits at any cost ilk can stick with the old feudalistic elite model, I'll pass on that, I was never that greedy, and I am NEVER gonna fork out ten dollars for a few page PDF file. That's stupid and I wouldn't even want my little local rural library to even think about it either, that's throwing good money at elitist fucktards for no reason other than their greed.
so go rub your hands together with maniacal glee and go "mine, mine , ALL MINE". Maybe count your money at the same time, sounds about your speed.
Guys like you crack me up really, wouldn't know a good thing if it bit you in the butt and then stopped and explained it to you. Probably smart, but clueless with the big picture on how cooperative sharing of knowledge helps everyone. Or maybe you do understand that, but just don't care. I am betting the latter.
Q)why do I believe it should be free (or *much more* affordable for everyone)?
A) It's just a better idea. I would like your education to have been free or more affordable. The dark ages method...is just that, the dark ages. Sorry if you got burned by the ongoing existing technofeudalism practices, but I am not in favor of that method. I think humanity as a whole is better off the more people who have access to more knowledge. and with modern advances, it has become pretty cheap to publish electronic data bits. We have arrived in the future, and we have at least one sort of functional "replicator" now, so I think we should use it as much as possible.
For instance, I support the OLPC project, I couldn't see dangling it in front of those kids and then going "well..like to give you access to this knowledge, but it will cost you 10$ an article and so on..pony it up or suffer..what? You only make 235 bucks a year over there in east elbownia? You can't afford it? Tough shit, kid, now, fuck off"
sorry, that method isn't working out very well for the bulk of the planet's population. That's what you want to keep in place for perpetuity? Just because that is the old method and a lot of the still running current method? Isn't that a little bogus?
Yes, wikipedia has some serious flaws, absolutely no one is saying it is exactly perfect, but at least it is a credible and working step in the right direction and has been a pretty good success so far and is undergoing practical evolution. I like that. Just like some of the open courseware offerings from some Unis are a good step in the right direction. I like those, too. Maybe eventually you'll (anyone you) be able to get a degree using them at very little cost, from wherever you might be sitting. Save a lot, humanity knowledge base expands rapidly, all good things. I think it should just be expanded further now that we know and can see it is actually possible. If it alters employment around the planet, so be it, I know I have had to change jobs several times and learn new skills from..well, mostly globalism and how the fatcats are running the economy. And I still am actually. And you probably will too. And it isn't going to stop, we have to accept reality, so the quickest way to make sure *no one* gets burnt is to increase the planetary knowledge-base, and the best way to do that is to provide as much free/inexpensive education as possible in the shortest time frame possible.
mass education=good
mass ignorance=bad
near as I can see it...
I get it quite clearly, and here's the rub-you already 100% have it your way. It's all out there in the low traffic and expensive journals. the bottom line is if you don't like the wiki, and don't want to contribute following that style-then don't. But to jump in and want to change it to make it like what you already have is a disservice to the concept of what the wiki is. It's not for you, and by the nature of the closed source/exclusive/expensive model you endorse, you really don't want very many people to have access to your products. So be it. I prefer the new way of doing it, flaws and all. I think-and this is only opinion-in the long run it will sort out better and be more useful for more people, something I am more concerned with. I want to drop barriers, not maintain the barriers that existed for so long or erect new ones. I mean, just dead trees versions existed for a long, long time, why even bother to publish electronically at all? Oh, you like how it makes it easier to access this way? Now maybe YOU might be getting it. and the rest of the planet would like that as well. We are all better off the easier/cheaper/faster knowledge is shared. We have been doing it the other way and funny how, especially in the last two centuries that the ability to easily and cheaply duplicate knowledge and distribute it that advances have been made. My opinion,but follow along with that concept to the next step, and the wiki sort of way is apparently headed in that direction. Not perfect, but the older style had a lot of flaws as well.
I like using tech, not restricting it to only the rich, or only the ones who live in major urban areas with huge libraries. There are whole societies all over the developing world, who are hundreds of miles from even a medicore library, let alone some well heeled major uiversity, but the web can bridge that, cheaper and faster than brick and mortar can. Which is better for the most people in a faster time frame? You can personally restrict your input, keep it locked away, but if it was me, and I had something to offer, and some person a thousand miles away could benefit from it, but what the asking price was represented a weeks pay for him at hard labor for the chance to read a few pages of text..well, I would be *ashamed* of that, that I was that uncaring and..well, just mean. It's not going to ever do that person much good, and frankly, it does me a civil disservice, I am just not built that way, never have been.
You are free to live your life like that, I prefer an alternative method.
see ya, have fun, hope your way works out for you, there's not much more to discuss, you can have the last word.
So every time someone wants to access something quality, do some research, they have to jump in the car and go to the library-that's your solution? In my case that's close to a 40 mile round trip, and obviously only when they are open.
..checks calendar..yes, 2006, not 1946, or 1596, we have the internet now, nice to use it.
Oh ya, that's just wonderful.... real practical, now why didn't I think of that... oh ya again, I did and do..but only once in a great while because it's an inconveninet and expensive PITA when I have a perfectly good computer and net connection right here.
sorry, feudalism sucks. Sucked then, sucks now and closed guilds did nothing to advance much of anything, just resulted in centuries of stagnation.
If they want to contribute to wikipedia, then publish their papers, wiki picks up the tab over at their site. If they want to restrict it to the expensive pay per view, then don't be surprised if very few people ever read them over there. Which is fine really, really, it is, if that is your's or their's goal-your choice, but dissin' wikipedia because you as the academic have a beef with some of the content, yet don't want to share your content, is beyond hypocritical, and falls into the *crazy* as in insane realm. Just go away then, keep doing what you are doing-some people are getting more involved with this and the open access concept is starting to get noticed and have some legs. Knowledge sharing will progress across the globe, and will be using what remains of the original concept of the web, despite you and some of your peers archaic and dark ages modelled elitist snob ways.
I agree with the inventor, you are free to disagree. We'll be seeing how it works out in the long run.
..and that is for them to collectively STOP hiding scholarly articles behind the expensive pay per view online mags subscription or by the article sites. Joe surfer, wikipedia user, is not going to pony up the thousands and thousands a year it would take to subscribe to all these places to get to the meat, just ain't happening. Wikipedia-in part - is the reaction to this "keep knowledge buried and expensive and only available to the elite" nonsense. I thought this got sorted out in the middle ages when it was finally decided that "the commoners" could learn to read, but apparently it is still some sort of feudalistic system. We already have a huge collaborative construction, called the web, and ways to find what you are looking for, called search engines, they just need to make access a little more user and *wallet* friendly. You either believe in sharing knowledge or you don't.
wikipedia entry -> blah blah, and she said he said
next guy erases that, "no, it's like this and this is a stub anyway, needs an expert and..."
joe academic "but we are the real experts, and have all this stuff written down over here, look"
Joe searcher and seeker of knowledge-"you want HOW MUCH to read a few pages???"
Ball is in their court near as I can see it, put up or shutup. If they don't like the open nature of wikipedia, they can open up the existing journals, or dual publish, one or the other or both. They have had it in their power all along, so they have no excuse to whine about the free and Free aspects of the wiki, it has been a natural reaction.
does that man-month deal apply to all code, or only closed source?
I'm not a dev, would like to hear from devs who have worked both on large projects.
Actually, jan-feb-march is the best time of year for deals (speaking generally as a life long tight wad), you get marked down new stuff so the vendors avoid an additional ad valorem tax, and the pawn shops are slap full of deals as a lot of folks have gotten their credit cards bills from christmas binge buying and need to come up with some cash *quick*. So, new or used, it's a great time to shop then for most stuff.
1) Would it take 'additional material' to get you to keep buying CDs? ->NO, the regular CD has enough "material", it just costs too much to consider any longer. I haven't bought a new CD in years because it's a *blatant* ripoff based on all the technological advances that have occurred. There is no reason besides pure greed to charge ten to twenty dollars for a chunk of plastic with data bits on it, this is clearly consumer gouging that has been promoted by an industry wide price fixing cartel that should be busted by the DOJ and have a lot of execs sitting in the slammer now, if fair was fair. Of course, they can't even stop payola, which is small potatoes compared to price fixing, so I am not holding out for any action there, they have their media enforcement assets tied up elsewhere, where they can enforce the blatant price fixing for the cartel. Mob muscle in other words.
2)What material would you like to see? -> Just the music on the plastic disk, that's enough, with no BS added to it to make it a PITA to play in machine of choice and how I want. The same goes for the movie goons. Keep gouging, no sale. I don't download anything restricted, but I don't buy their crap either, with the exception of used a few disks a year at a more reasonable price (which should be closer to the "new" price), but that's it. Nothing full price new, I just detest blatant gougers. During the time period where complete computers have gone from thousands of dollars to just hundreds, due to tech advances and *volume sales leading to economies of scale*, their prices are *the same*. Sorry, but that dog don't hunt. I started purchasing entertainment media on disk-vinyl-in the 50s, and they have lost a customer over the past few years with their predatory actions. It's just wrong so I won't support it with my business. And no, I am not going to pay the same price to download some DRM infested chunk of bits either, that's just as much a gouge, in fact it's worse if you think about it.
I would imagine that if you were a very large data center and let the vendors know they could bid on an order for x-thousands of new servers, provided they came stock with DC power supplies instead of AC, you might get some takers. Just a guess though, but as purchase orders scale up, customization might become a little easier to get.
;)
I honestly don't know though, merely contemplating some salesguy at acme servers inc telling is boss that acme data inc wanted 10 thou new servers but he blew them off from that requirement.....
With that said, I wonder if (probably) any big centers are located in old mines or caves that have more reasonable year round cool temps?
They make single wind chargers now well over 2 megawatts. I have never seen one, just pics, large dudes. So, one of those, one gas turbine, one diesel, plus grid tie, then you got fuel supply covered as well as generating capacity covered multiple ways.
..plenty to keep it coming despite security professionals and computer experts combatting it for years. Zombie nets and so forth.. Now compare that profit level with the potential of controlling governments completely through widespread and untraceable vote fraud.. No comparison, hence, why new shiny computerised voting has been pushed, IMO. this black box voting isn't an "accident", or just "sloppy coding" or "bad design", or "errors"m nope, it has been done *on purpose*.
In ye olden days you needed a ballot box "cracker" in every key precinct to try and rig an election..now? A few guys and some code and you ownzorz a huge government. Quite the ROI, isn't it? And once you own it, where is the incentive to really "bust" yourself over it?
nice-and long-slideshow there. Seems to be a lot of cult of the personality large propoganda murals everywhere.
And what's up with the booze with the snake in it?? That was pretty funny, makes tequila with the worm in it look like it is for wussies...
$100 million would be a hefty campaign contribution to every US Rep and Senator, even divvied up like that-probably enough to get the dang laws changed to very short term copyrights with more substantial "fair use" provisions and maybe enough to lose the DMCA! If it was in the same bill...I say go for it, piece meal a few works isn't cost effective at all, it leaves the problem intact, so do ALL of them with that cash.
I would probably somewhat agree with you, but out in the world it just doesn't happen. Most of the whitebox fixit shops might recommend firefox over IE and the freebie OO.org and perhaps a free antivirus, but that's it, they won't be tryng to talk people into switching to another platform. It would be like ford advising you to switch to chevy or something, just doesn't happen that often.
for the record, I stopped using windows when they went to GUI from DOS and their GUI really sucked, and switched to mac classic, but when apple went to a unixy thing and my last personal mac wouldn't run it, a PB 1400, I stayed on classic for awhile and then went to linux on commodity hardware. And that's what I tell folks to switch to now, because I finally bingoed to the GPL and what it meant and overwhelmingly support the notion.
Here's a link of an example, over 2 million miles with a valve replacement when they stopped selling leaded gas
6 34.html
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2004/08/26/213
There's some volvos out there got way over a million miles on them, you can google for it. I don't know long run what slapping anew engine in once in awhile, every 10 to 20 years or something, will run for every single car out there, but I would bet cheaper than buying a new car. The system is not setup for that though, except for the hobbiest market. My record is sitting out in my yard right now, 75 chevy van with a 350. I have 308 thou on it before I blew the timing chain trying to snag out a dump truck stuck in the mud with it. It's parked now, it's one of those "one of these days I'll yank the engine and rebuild it" project. I think I could have pushed it to maybe 350 thou, it wasn't burning oil at that time but had a couple small leaks (mostly rear crank seal), and valve chatter wan't bad either. Just changed the oil, that's about it, few starters and a carb rebuild and some brake pads. thinking about it, I think it's only had two sets of rear shoes..
Ya, not a million, but not quite a throwaway and a decent amount of miles for a truck that got *worked* hard for years. And the new japanese cars, some of them anyway, are starting to show they can last. I think it's possible, close enough anyway. I think if you used really good components and high quality alloys, etc and something like the direct oil injection to the cylinders, and a immediate electronic pressurized oil system, with a diesel engine, yada yada yada could probably run off a list, I think you could build a stock car that with some care could go a million miles.
The point I was making though is that that would be SUCH a long time for most people that it would impact the bottom line for the company. I also said it was a bad car analogy..heh.
The deal is referring to businesses, once they have something that is "good enough", for the most part there isn't much incentive to make it all that much better if they keep selling what they have, just bery broadly speaking. I didn't invent the phrase, but we live in a throw away society now where one little dohickey busts and your latest gadget is broken, people just toss stuff now and get brand new, and that's how a lot of business is run. In software doubly so. There hasn't been much in the way of an incentive for MS to really push uber quality-because they still sell what they got by the boatload, and huge markets have developed alongside-the horizontal part-to address the shortcomings of it. Most small mom and pop whitebox shops make the bulk of their cash just cleaning systems-nothing is "broken" it is just b0rked from running windows on the intartubes. Big dfference there, and it's because they and MS *can* do that. Sort of an unstated agreement "don't rock the boat too much,and everyone gets to milk this cow for good cash". It was the grandparent I was talking about, runs a mac, cleans up by cleaning up MS "good enough but no where's near great" software. It's a cash cow, that's the phrase that fits.
Oh, and I have respect for automotive engineers,plenty, but here's reality-most of the really good ones are in racing, not building joe sixpacks car, they are in racing, because they get paid a lot better there and it is a lot more fun for them. They design cars to more or less go really fast for short periods, and do an excellent job at it. Turn them loose with completely different engineering goals and see what ya might get there. That's just a theory, but bet I'm right based on some of the outstanding designs and examples you can see outside of detroit, tokyo or stuttgart. Being an old gearious head from detroit denizens, i can assure you that any numberr of motivated builders who didn't have to ansser to the imemdiate bean counters have built and drve cars that "look" like what you can get at the local dealer but are in all ways MUCH better quality, because they take more care and use better parts. There's goofy stuff you can do that take a lot of time and effort but pay off. Ever sit down and REALLY balance pistons and connecting rods? And use forged over ca