There is no way to use a mixed system. The numbers are written as big as they can be, there are signs just after them, there is no space left for other numbers.
Anyway, why is everybody so concerned about using the magnetic north? The airports (the most affected) don't seem to care about that, and the pilots like that way. Why would anybody else care?
A compas won't give you the real North, but the latest GPS will give you the magnetic North. See, there is one option that everybody will like, and another one that not-everybody will like...
And just remember that the inconvenience for the airport every 10 years won't put any lifes in risk. The inconvenience for the pilots every time they land will put several (every crew member and passenger) lifes at risk.
Also, I don't get the GP. The pilots like it the way it is, the airports aren't complaining either and nobody else ever see the numbers (except by curiosity). What is his problem with the current convention?
Most apps aren't CPU bound. But you are talking about an application, running in a compatibility layer done by Microsoft, on top of Windows 8 on a slower CPU. I doubt MS will be able to optimize the compatibility layer and Windows enough for it not to make a difference.
That would be true if requirements remained constant. The problem is that they don't, and most business software needs constant development. Constant development has a nice feature:
At the begining, the system is small and organized, everything is well;
Then, comes the next iterations, and it gets bigger, but still organized, and things are still well;
With time, the developping tem will change, and newcomers won't understand the original organization, not to say that some of them will be simply bad developpers. They'll organize things their own way, and the system will become disorganized. Things won't be well by now, but that isn't a disaster yet;
With time the users of the application also change, ditto for their managers, and the newcomers won't have any kind of idea of what was the porpose of the application. They'll want it to do every kind of smart and dumb things. Worse yet, the developers also won't know the porpose of it, and will implement every kind of smart and dumb things on it. Scope increases fast, and at the same time the code is getting disorganized. It still ins't a disaster;
Then, a disaster happens. Anything can trigger it, it can appear anywhere at the application, and it may come from the business level, from within the code, from interfaces between code and external tools, or hardware, or realy any place. And nobody is able to solve the problem anymore, because the application is a monster too big and too complex to be mastered by any team.
"The extra cost of dealing with an emergency may be paid for by the lower cost of the gear and labor."
That is quite unlikely... And, by the way, the biggest problem out there is with deferred maintence on software. That causes low, but repetitive costs most of the time, until it gets so bad that it causes hight, and repetitive costs.
So, throw all the computers out of the window, and go back to paper and pencils. With no more colstly IT I bet any company can dominate the low cost markets.
"manufacturing can (and eventually will) move from China (to India, Brazil etc)"
May I recommend you to study those countries you cited, it will become clear why slave jobs won't go from China to India or Brazil. There are still a few places they could go, but China is only growing because nearly every place where those jobs could have gone at the past can't anymore.
"Another thing I learn is that in a perfectly competitive marketplace profit approaches 0."
And that sentence is right, by the theory, in a perfectly competitive market profits approach 0. What, of course makes the entire theory wrong, as you can easily see, on nearly all markets profits are bigger than 0.
Now, that part about lack of consumer information keeping the prices hight is right some times. Other times it is wrong. The same applies to lack of producer information keeping prices low.
Those plants have very hight fixed costs (mainly interest on initial investiment), and very low unitary costs. That's why, even with record low prices it doesn't make sense to reduce production. While they may not recover the initial investment, they'd lose even more money if they don't produce at full capacity.
They'll surely fix those problems on the next iterations, making the search more sensitive to context. Also, they'll probably want to add a central repository of stuff to launch even without context, so you can work faster... After that, they'll probably add a few builtin constructions to help you launch similar programs, and, if they are feeling inventive, a way to let one program communicate with the other (Microsoft being Microsoft, that will be a binary communication, maybe based on object message passing).
Then, they'll see the need of making the search box taller (may I sugest 25x80?), so that you can see the last searches, and if they are feeling a lot inventive, they'll create a way to let programs interact with you directly on the search area, without needing some other area elsewhere on the GUI, that will make simpler programs much more friendly. Maybe, someday somebody may even port a text editor to that interface...
It would be great for media players, no more "Where did I live the remote?". Also for kioskies, no defective touch screens. There are probably a lot of other uses around, that we just didn't see yet because we don't have the (cheap) device. Maybe some of those uses are even for desktop computers, as you said, a bit of occasional gesture.
It doesn't look for me that it will be a failure. It only probably won't be on every house.
Mocro-tornadoes are quite real, and relatively common where I live. But, of course, there being dust and sometimes clouds, they are normaly visible. The wind within them comes from slightly hight places, so it is colder than surface (here it means you can get 20C air while the external temperature is near 30C - how the hell can I make the degree symbol appear on a/. post?). I can imagine them being invisible in a cold and dry environment, becoming visible just after they touch the soil.
That said, there is another answer here about the likehood of dry air killing somebody in seconds. I'd add that it is quite hard to belive in invisible tornadoes whithin wet air, as it would at least condensate a lot of water.
That's interesting. 400 days is a long time for a game, so I was wrong.
Now, about people outside the 1st world countries, well, the game sellers don't seem to be concerned about us either. Here at Brazil it is also often easier to find a pirated title than an original one (exception from games distributed through the Internet), and the original games are often more expensive here than at the US, so some people just import them, (I've helped a few people calculate the final price of importing). Those countries don't have a market as big as the 1st world ones, but it is a lot of money that those companies are letting on the table.
I guess they didn't calculated that. They can't know how many pirate the game, but made a guess, then they proceed to make the calculation: X are pirates, some n*X (0 < n < 1) won't be able to pirate anymore after we release our DRM, thus, we'll sell n*X extra copies with DRM. People stoping buying because of DRM probably only come on their calculations now, that people actualy stopped buying.
Also, if everybody stopped buying because of DRM they'll just say "Damn pirates!!!" and make their DRM worse all the way to banckrupcy.
All* DRM schemes are cracked shortly after they are released. Some of them are cracked even before they are released. That happens because, despite your sugestion, it is impossible to have a proper cypto system doing it. It is impossible to create a challenge/response that pirates can't beat in a blink.
And that leads to my second point. Almost nobody will stop pirating your software because of DRM, but some people may stop buying (and pirate, or just go without) because of it. You have a situation where you want X*90% > Y*10%, but X is known to be very small. So, you can only hope Y is small too, because if it is even slightly big, you'll lose money.
* All the ones implemented on software. The ones implemented on hardware may be as expensive to beat that the pirates will only try after the product becomes sucessful. Of course, up to now, that possibility is just academical.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no way to use a mixed system. The numbers are written as big as they can be, there are signs just after them, there is no space left for other numbers.
Try doing that while landing a small plane.
Anyway, why is everybody so concerned about using the magnetic north? The airports (the most affected) don't seem to care about that, and the pilots like that way. Why would anybody else care?
A compas won't give you the real North, but the latest GPS will give you the magnetic North. See, there is one option that everybody will like, and another one that not-everybody will like...
No, direct stelaing comes from the banks. From monsanto comes only bio and chemical warfare against the general population (and some patent problems).
And just remember that the inconvenience for the airport every 10 years won't put any lifes in risk. The inconvenience for the pilots every time they land will put several (every crew member and passenger) lifes at risk.
Also, I don't get the GP. The pilots like it the way it is, the airports aren't complaining either and nobody else ever see the numbers (except by curiosity). What is his problem with the current convention?
Most apps aren't CPU bound. But you are talking about an application, running in a compatibility layer done by Microsoft, on top of Windows 8 on a slower CPU. I doubt MS will be able to optimize the compatibility layer and Windows enough for it not to make a difference.
That would be true if requirements remained constant. The problem is that they don't, and most business software needs constant development. Constant development has a nice feature:
So, life at the closed software world is as usual.
That is quite unlikely... And, by the way, the biggest problem out there is with deferred maintence on software. That causes low, but repetitive costs most of the time, until it gets so bad that it causes hight, and repetitive costs.
So, throw all the computers out of the window, and go back to paper and pencils. With no more colstly IT I bet any company can dominate the low cost markets.
If the electronics don't have time to react to the missiles, do you really think the pilot will?
May I recommend you to study those countries you cited, it will become clear why slave jobs won't go from China to India or Brazil. There are still a few places they could go, but China is only growing because nearly every place where those jobs could have gone at the past can't anymore.
And that sentence is right, by the theory, in a perfectly competitive market profits approach 0. What, of course makes the entire theory wrong, as you can easily see, on nearly all markets profits are bigger than 0.
Now, that part about lack of consumer information keeping the prices hight is right some times. Other times it is wrong. The same applies to lack of producer information keeping prices low.
Notice that Plants vs. Zombies for computers (Mac and PC) is different from the version available for phones.
Those plants have very hight fixed costs (mainly interest on initial investiment), and very low unitary costs. That's why, even with record low prices it doesn't make sense to reduce production. While they may not recover the initial investment, they'd lose even more money if they don't produce at full capacity.
They'll surely fix those problems on the next iterations, making the search more sensitive to context. Also, they'll probably want to add a central repository of stuff to launch even without context, so you can work faster... After that, they'll probably add a few builtin constructions to help you launch similar programs, and, if they are feeling inventive, a way to let one program communicate with the other (Microsoft being Microsoft, that will be a binary communication, maybe based on object message passing).
Then, they'll see the need of making the search box taller (may I sugest 25x80?), so that you can see the last searches, and if they are feeling a lot inventive, they'll create a way to let programs interact with you directly on the search area, without needing some other area elsewhere on the GUI, that will make simpler programs much more friendly. Maybe, someday somebody may even port a text editor to that interface...
It would be great for media players, no more "Where did I live the remote?". Also for kioskies, no defective touch screens. There are probably a lot of other uses around, that we just didn't see yet because we don't have the (cheap) device. Maybe some of those uses are even for desktop computers, as you said, a bit of occasional gesture.
It doesn't look for me that it will be a failure. It only probably won't be on every house.
Mocro-tornadoes are quite real, and relatively common where I live. But, of course, there being dust and sometimes clouds, they are normaly visible. The wind within them comes from slightly hight places, so it is colder than surface (here it means you can get 20C air while the external temperature is near 30C - how the hell can I make the degree symbol appear on a /. post?). I can imagine them being invisible in a cold and dry environment, becoming visible just after they touch the soil.
That said, there is another answer here about the likehood of dry air killing somebody in seconds. I'd add that it is quite hard to belive in invisible tornadoes whithin wet air, as it would at least condensate a lot of water.
Yep, you said everything. The models are wonky, but people use them a lot while analysing history and sociology.
I still don't get why one should not dismiss everything (the model and analysis).
You say that:
And then, goes on with:
You just get it.
Well, they've already had play for sure, and no credibility loss because of it. People stil buy their cloud services.
That said, why would you trust any cloud service with important data? I have no reason to point you.
That's interesting. 400 days is a long time for a game, so I was wrong.
Now, about people outside the 1st world countries, well, the game sellers don't seem to be concerned about us either. Here at Brazil it is also often easier to find a pirated title than an original one (exception from games distributed through the Internet), and the original games are often more expensive here than at the US, so some people just import them, (I've helped a few people calculate the final price of importing). Those countries don't have a market as big as the 1st world ones, but it is a lot of money that those companies are letting on the table.
I guess they didn't calculated that. They can't know how many pirate the game, but made a guess, then they proceed to make the calculation: X are pirates, some n*X (0 < n < 1) won't be able to pirate anymore after we release our DRM, thus, we'll sell n*X extra copies with DRM. People stoping buying because of DRM probably only come on their calculations now, that people actualy stopped buying.
Also, if everybody stopped buying because of DRM they'll just say "Damn pirates!!!" and make their DRM worse all the way to banckrupcy.
Oh, yes, PC people pirate more often than console users. I'll have to ask the question the GP asked agains, since you didn't seem to have read it...
"Why take 9 milion euros that are just on the table if you could just not release on that market and have nobody copying the game for their PCs?"
If you noticed that I was comparing orthogonal values, well, you are very near a rational tought. Run.
All* DRM schemes are cracked shortly after they are released. Some of them are cracked even before they are released. That happens because, despite your sugestion, it is impossible to have a proper cypto system doing it. It is impossible to create a challenge/response that pirates can't beat in a blink.
And that leads to my second point. Almost nobody will stop pirating your software because of DRM, but some people may stop buying (and pirate, or just go without) because of it. You have a situation where you want X*90% > Y*10%, but X is known to be very small. So, you can only hope Y is small too, because if it is even slightly big, you'll lose money.
* All the ones implemented on software. The ones implemented on hardware may be as expensive to beat that the pirates will only try after the product becomes sucessful. Of course, up to now, that possibility is just academical.