Meaning people would have died who otherwise would have lived. Sudden short-term spikes in the price of power can't be easily dealt with since so much of the components of electrical demand can't (quickly) be changed other than by drastic measures such as turning off the air conditioning.
Sorry to rain on your libertarian parade, but anybody in a democratic republic who would allow somebody like Enron to kill old people doesn't deserve anybody's vote.
Whatever problems California's government is undergoing now, the fact is that had they simply passed through all of the cost of electricity on the spot market to the end-user, people would have DIED before the market 'fixed the problem'. Relatively few governments, even Californian forms of such, are willing to take that risk.
There's a certain percentage of electric demand which is elastic, and a certain percentage which is inelastic; pretending that a simple libertarian anarchic solution would have solved everything is pretty damn juvenile.
By the way, don't bring Texas into it; I live here too; and the only thing preventing us from undergoing the same stuff that California went through is that most of our large utilities have not been forced to divest as they were.
Limbaugh _has_ said in the past that California (government) was to blame for the lack of local supply that was partially responsible for the high prices. He has _also_ said that California shouldn't have agreed to subsidize retail electricity for the end-user; but that would have been political suicide given the astronomical spikes which occurred (and which have now been shown not to be natural market forces at work; but rather, an illegal manipulation of the market by Enron et al).
The "refuse" power of California was typically blamed on environmental regulations and NIMBYism; portraying the power debacle as a failure not of deregulation itself but of overregulation (silly environmental laws, as Limbaugh would say).
The problem with that point of view is that nobody applied to build a plant while deregulation was being discussed.
It is entirely possible that California (the state) and its local governments would have "refused" to approve any given plant which was proposed by a utility or private company, but the misleading part of your statement is that you ASSUMED they would have refused to approve; when in fact, nobody ever applied.
This is, again, because deregulation was being painted as a panacea for lowering rates; and nobody (utility or private company) wanted to risk a huge capital investment on those terms.
So again, for those keeping score, the "conservative lie" is that "California refused to build any plants" (implying that California refused a bunch of plants which were being proposed by helpful businessmen); the truth is that everybody (outside perhaps Enron) thought no new plants would be needed.
California did not refuse to construct new plants; this is a Limbaughesque lie. In fact, the predictions were that deregulation would lower the cost of power so much that nobody _wanted_ to invest in building a plant; there simply weren't any applications made during the period which deregulation was being discussed because nobody thought they would be anything but a big waste of money.
when a country (India) where the average person can't afford Windows ends up putting Linux on a whopping 10% of its computers. I'm surprised it's not higher; not because Linux is better; but because of the cost of Windows.
As more corporate attention is paid to India's computer industry, the tolerance for pirated copies of Windows is doubtlessly getting lower; and thus there's pressure to either pay for a real copy of Windows for each desk (pricey by Indian standards) or find something else legal.
The "touching" part was Lisa's interaction with smart Homer, and Homer's difficulty deciding whether interacting with Lisa or the others was more important. It ranked right up there, for me, with Do It For Her.
Man, did you ever miss the point - that episode was SUPPOSED to be sad and touching; probably an answer to those (like myself) who bemoaned the slight slip towards the Married With Children problem (if you try too hard to be funny and forget to make the characters in the family care about each other, the humor goes all to hell).
I thought it was one of the better episodes overall.
More specifically, regarding their business plan, the idea that the set of customers who finds US or UK law to be too restrictive seems to have little intersection with the set of customers who are willing to pay extraordinarily high rates for hosting services.
In short, hackers and kooks ain't where the money's at.
I was disappointed not to see a section about Chris Sawyer, who programmed one of the most popular games ever essentially on-his-own (although backed by a commercial vendor, eventually).
Again: store it in the grid. If we can sell power from Texas to California today (and we do); then why not sell solar back to Texas on a cloudy day?
The thing you're missing is that the areas with the most air-conditioning demand ALSO are the least likely to be cloudy. The Southeastern US simply doesn't have all-day cloudy during the summer very often; and in the Southwest and interior California it's unheard of.
but they have already paid for 3 windows licenses for me. One that came with the machine, one they put on the machine over the original one and one to use Citrix.
So your employers paid for 3 copies of Windows, and yet you think Microsoft does not have monopoly power?
You store the power in the grid; the power company maintains the gigantic flywheels. Keep in mind that in sunny climates, the power consumption at 5:00 PM is overwhelmingly higher than at midnight (air conditioning); so the power you need to "save" for nighttime is nowhere near as large as you imply.
The fact that most corporations mandate usage of Windows is a side-effect; a symptom; and an indicator of MS's monopoly status; not proof thereof. But it is a useful correlation to analyze; because in a competitive OS market, that behavior would not exist.
MS is a monopoly because no commercial competitor exists. Linux improvements are typically not made to satisfy the demands of the end-user market (but for other, certainly valid reasons); just as how the last N changes in Netscape were not made for end-users but for the benefit of AOL.
A free "competitor" does not disprove a monopoly. In fact, it shows how desperate people are to escape the monopoly.
Again, what company (commercial) are you talking about here? It's trivially easy to say that the existence of linux proves that Microsoft isn't a monopoly; but it's also trivially false.
The facts that support MS' monopoly definition are that you can't practically and reliably get corporate-level PCs without Windows (even today); and that in most corporations you must run Windows to be able to do your job; even if that job is programming.
Hate to break it to you, but if you're using Citrix on Windows, you're "using Windows". Thus, you are support for, not against, the position that Microsoft is still effectively a requirement in most corporations.
Uh, bamboo is a nuisance plant in many places around the world, including this country. It's certainly a good thing when you can generate some economic activity out of what, now, is a waste.
I think you're reading too much into the term monopoly... I hate MS as much as the next guy, and you're right, in order for things to work in a company with 1 IT guy, he'll likely have to go windows... but there's absolutely no monopoly power telling him he can't standardize on linux!
That's ridiculous. If he standardized on linux, and remember, he's the only IT guy at the company, then the CEO, COO, secretary, and salespeople would have to use linux; and if you think that's even remotely feasible today, you're smoking a particularly potent brand of crack.
Right now, 2004, there is no monopoly. At the time MS did the things they got "fact found" on, they probably were. But the market fixed that little problem, it's just a matter of time now companies to move out from their shadow.
The market fixed that little problem? What company in the market fixed it? What commercial competitors to Microsoft Windows exist? Note: linux is not a market solution to this problem.
If I was the IT department at most companies (assumed here: typical companies treat IT like the red-headed stepchild; and we're talking about TypicalCompany), I would have required that you give up the ability to file _all_ tickets; because, honestly, I (the IT guy) don't know you from Adam; I have no idea if you're a L33T genius or a bonehead; and at TypicalCompany, any extra time I have to spend on your linux-specific issue (even if caused by Windows playing poorly) gets me in big trouble with my boss.
If Windows is required to be on the machine, then you've just paid Microsoft for a license; and you've just supported the position that Microsoft is a monopoly.
I agree; but the "don't worry, I won't call you guys with any Linux specific issues" usually only works with 1 guy, if you can trust him. I think the IS people here would tell you if you gave them a chance that trusting the users too much can really bite you.
According to CIOs and studies such as the one the Peopleware book is based on the *majority* of started software projects fail. Why should we expect Microsoft to buck the norm here?
Depends on the definition of "fail". Of course, the examples discussed here were of software projects which weren't simply *started* but were either released or at least heavily publicized; so judging by the Peopleware book seems to be a bit generous.
The fact that I work at a big-10 university has something to do with this, I'm sure, but I'm running RH9 on my laptop right now. Why is that important to you? Because I'm a manager, not a programmer. And I find RH9 to be very productive and useful for me. Granted, I manage the staff who admin our UNIX servers (Linux, AIX, Solaris) but no one manages my laptop for me.
Academia? Check.
Managing unix admins? Check.
Representative of exactly one millionth of the market? Check.
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Read up on the Chicago heat wave in the mid 90s, son.
Sorry to rain on your libertarian parade, but anybody in a democratic republic who would allow somebody like Enron to kill old people doesn't deserve anybody's vote.
There's a certain percentage of electric demand which is elastic, and a certain percentage which is inelastic; pretending that a simple libertarian anarchic solution would have solved everything is pretty damn juvenile.
By the way, don't bring Texas into it; I live here too; and the only thing preventing us from undergoing the same stuff that California went through is that most of our large utilities have not been forced to divest as they were.
Limbaugh _has_ said in the past that California (government) was to blame for the lack of local supply that was partially responsible for the high prices. He has _also_ said that California shouldn't have agreed to subsidize retail electricity for the end-user; but that would have been political suicide given the astronomical spikes which occurred (and which have now been shown not to be natural market forces at work; but rather, an illegal manipulation of the market by Enron et al).
The problem with that point of view is that nobody applied to build a plant while deregulation was being discussed.
It is entirely possible that California (the state) and its local governments would have "refused" to approve any given plant which was proposed by a utility or private company, but the misleading part of your statement is that you ASSUMED they would have refused to approve; when in fact, nobody ever applied.
This is, again, because deregulation was being painted as a panacea for lowering rates; and nobody (utility or private company) wanted to risk a huge capital investment on those terms.
So again, for those keeping score, the "conservative lie" is that "California refused to build any plants" (implying that California refused a bunch of plants which were being proposed by helpful businessmen); the truth is that everybody (outside perhaps Enron) thought no new plants would be needed.
California did not refuse to construct new plants; this is a Limbaughesque lie. In fact, the predictions were that deregulation would lower the cost of power so much that nobody _wanted_ to invest in building a plant; there simply weren't any applications made during the period which deregulation was being discussed because nobody thought they would be anything but a big waste of money.
As more corporate attention is paid to India's computer industry, the tolerance for pirated copies of Windows is doubtlessly getting lower; and thus there's pressure to either pay for a real copy of Windows for each desk (pricey by Indian standards) or find something else legal.
The "touching" part was Lisa's interaction with smart Homer, and Homer's difficulty deciding whether interacting with Lisa or the others was more important. It ranked right up there, for me, with Do It For Her.
I thought it was one of the better episodes overall.
In short, hackers and kooks ain't where the money's at.
I was disappointed not to see a section about Chris Sawyer, who programmed one of the most popular games ever essentially on-his-own (although backed by a commercial vendor, eventually).
The thing you're missing is that the areas with the most air-conditioning demand ALSO are the least likely to be cloudy. The Southeastern US simply doesn't have all-day cloudy during the summer very often; and in the Southwest and interior California it's unheard of.
You store the power in the grid; the power company maintains the gigantic flywheels. Keep in mind that in sunny climates, the power consumption at 5:00 PM is overwhelmingly higher than at midnight (air conditioning); so the power you need to "save" for nighttime is nowhere near as large as you imply.
MS is a monopoly because no commercial competitor exists. Linux improvements are typically not made to satisfy the demands of the end-user market (but for other, certainly valid reasons); just as how the last N changes in Netscape were not made for end-users but for the benefit of AOL.
A free "competitor" does not disprove a monopoly. In fact, it shows how desperate people are to escape the monopoly.
If you work in a company where your IT guy can get the CEO to run an O/S that doesn't come from Microsoft, you work in paradise.
The facts that support MS' monopoly definition are that you can't practically and reliably get corporate-level PCs without Windows (even today); and that in most corporations you must run Windows to be able to do your job; even if that job is programming.
Hate to break it to you, but if you're using Citrix on Windows, you're "using Windows". Thus, you are support for, not against, the position that Microsoft is still effectively a requirement in most corporations.
Uh, bamboo is a nuisance plant in many places around the world, including this country. It's certainly a good thing when you can generate some economic activity out of what, now, is a waste.
If I was the IT department at most companies (assumed here: typical companies treat IT like the red-headed stepchild; and we're talking about TypicalCompany), I would have required that you give up the ability to file _all_ tickets; because, honestly, I (the IT guy) don't know you from Adam; I have no idea if you're a L33T genius or a bonehead; and at TypicalCompany, any extra time I have to spend on your linux-specific issue (even if caused by Windows playing poorly) gets me in big trouble with my boss.
Thanks for your assistance.
I agree; but the "don't worry, I won't call you guys with any Linux specific issues" usually only works with 1 guy, if you can trust him. I think the IS people here would tell you if you gave them a chance that trusting the users too much can really bite you.
Managing unix admins? Check.
Representative of exactly one millionth of the market? Check.