1- "This looks expensive" 2- "Nope, it is all free, even the Office-like apps" 1- "Oh damn, it won't run my applications" 2- "There are many alternatives that work just as well or better" 1- "But what if there isn't one for an application" 2- "You can use Virtualbox and run at 100% native speed with very few bugs"
We use a thin environment; and even though it is under Linux, we don't want to pull in all of KDE for Ocular, etc. We need tight control over the apps, and prefer ones without "tendrils" into other stuff.
That doesn't work on links like I am talking about. The site isn't offering a file, it is calling a plugin. That is like trying to right click on a Flash link or a Javascript link and telling it open it with something else.
Now if we could just get all websites to stop depending on the damn Acrobat Reader plugin. I kid you not- I have had to fight several sites we must use at work that, instead of just offering links to necessary PDF files, they check "to make sure you have the Acrobat Plugin installed" and pull some type of plugin call. Extremely annoying. Why not just point the damn link at the PDF file and let the browser decide how to handle it!!!!! Most of us *hate* the Acrobat Reader plugin, we don't WANT to have to look at a PDF file embedded into the web browser.... it is slower, less flexible, doesn't offer all the controls, often doesn't free memory after you close that "page", and doesn't allow us to use some other reader.
And if I had a dollar for every site that claims I *MUST* have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to look at a damn PDF file, I would be rich.
Well, I know Flash is proprietary (I never implied otherwise)- but at least it has worked on most platforms for many years..NET, on the other hand... well, wake me up when there there is platform parity. In any case, you are right that what they did further damages their tainted reputation.
Yeah, well, so the sites will use some proprietary.NET stuff. I don't see such a plugin for non-MS operating systems. I would rather those sites that WERE ignoring Firefox code in something that not only works on all browsers but on all platforms as well.
I said 100 users, not 100 copies of Firefox. Not all users will run Firefox or OpenOffice or whatever at the same time. I would say there are probably 15 OpenOffices, 10 WordPerfects, 60 Sylpheeds, 30 Firefoxes, 100 xdm's, 70+ icewm's, and much, much more running at the same time. Centralized [*ix] systems are extremely memory efficient. All the code is shared in memory, so it is nowhere near the same amount of memory as individual machines each running it, added up. The system rarely uses more than 128MB of swap.
I will also point out that the software users can run is tightly controlled and optimized to prevent destroying the system performance (and security). For example, no flash or multimedia is allowed, Firefox settings are locked, users cannot access a shell, etc.
And we support around 100 Linux thin-client users on a single 2 core Linux server with 4GB of RAM doing everything from business apps and Email to Firefox to OpenOffice. OS $0. Thin client licenses $0. Server connect licenses $0. "MS-Office" licenses $0. Granted, it isn't for everyone, but it makes a pretty dramatic point... and it is quite real, and we have been doing so for many years.
Have you at least complained to ABC or Google (I have)?
I hear people complain on Slashdot all the time about how much they would love to use Linux, but X or Y doesn't work. And when questioned, they admit they have never complained to the people that matter- the ones designing X and Y to only work under MS-Windows.
OK, so, I never illegally download or upload copyrighted music or video.
But if we had to pay some type of tax to cover people breaking the law, then as far as I (and many people) are concerned, it becomes perfectly approved/legal to "share" as much music or video as we like. And that is going to help their "business model"???
Or do they expect honest people to pay for music/video twice?
I know it is not popular to post positives about an ISP, but...
As far as ISP's go, I must say that Cox is generally very "good". They don't use PPPOE, they don't redirect DNS, they don't lock the MAC address of your equipment to their modem, they don't require MS-Windows "stuff" to set up your account, they have not dropped/outsourced services like Email, they don't block "non-server" ports, they have not dropped USENET, they don't penalize non-Cox VOIP and such, and they have a very fast and robust setup. I must say, I have been quite pleased over many years; especially hearing the horror stories about other ISP's, both local and afar.
Note- this is the Hampton Roads market, not their other ones; so I can't attest to any other locations.
Anyway, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they will do the "right thing" and just prioritize traffic, only when necessary, not just to screw people. No matter how much bandwidth an ISP has, the customers are going to suck it all up, so *some* amount of traffic management really is necessary to prevent mass discontent from the customers. Let's hope Cox has watched and learned from the mistakes of other ISP's.
The general populace that drives econoboxes are not going to be the ones that can afford an EV anytime in the next decade or two. If you want to target the people who *can* afford an EV, you have to make sure it competes with the quality, spirited, feature-full cars such people already own. Eventually that will start the prices falling and others can follow along.
Offer a stripped-down EV with crappy performance and features (that will necessarily cost 20-50+% more than gas econoboxes) and it will likely be a failure.
>On a standard, 110 volt, 15 amp circuit, it takes 32 hours to fully charge
No doubt. But it should be much easier to provide a 220 volt, 20 amp circuit (4,400 watts) which is 266% more power than the energy of 15@110 (1,650 watts) (compared the the exotic 70A Tesla circuit). And, unless one is doing a LOT more than just commuting to work, one will rarely have to charge the car all the way from dead. So a half-charge top-up with 266% more power might be more like 6 or 7 hours.
> Or during the middle of the work day when everyone is recharging for their return commute
That doesn't make any sense. Any EV of any reasonable range will allow a commuter to get to AND from work. There should be no reason to need to charge at work.
I still think if almost all of the charging is done at night, it will not overload even the existing grid. Daytime loads are *huge* in the day from business consumption, by comparison. And in the summer, all those A/C units in all the buildings have to work very hard during the day and very little at night.
Most of our electricity nightmares (lack of plants, grids at capacity, brown/black-outs, etc) are at peak loads during the summer days. Charging a car at night will use similar power to an A/C running in the day; yet most of that time all your lights, TV's, etc are all off.
Electric companies even offer dual-metering with much lower night prices to encourage usage during the night when they have so much unused capacity. This is extremely common for businesses- less so for private/home, although it is possible (and could expand).
Although there is a relatively easy way to make such a definition, since it already exists. There are federal guidelines that regulate maximum noise of motorcycles and their exhaust systems. Replacing a muffler with something unapproved (or just removing it), it actually against the law. It is actually printed on the muffler, itself (believe it or not). So all these people tampering with their exhaust systems- removing the mufflers and replacing them with "louder" ones, are all breaking the law.
To my knowledge, there is little or no enforcement of such laws. I am not sure why, though... since it *should* be part of most states' annual inspections. But, I see unsafe and maladjusted vehicles all the time with valid state inspection stickers.
I haven't done the math, but I suspect that even if MANY millions of people were charging cars at night, it still wouldn't approach the daytime load of the grid. Keep in mind that most people would only need to top off their charge from their short (25 miles perhaps) daily commute.
As for cross-country, I guess one would have to rent a gas car.... they won't be going away anytime soon. Me? I would much rather fly (it is a LOT faster, and probably cheaper, too).
The load on the grid is not likely to be a problem at all. Why? Because most charging of electric vehicles would be at night, when the demand on the grid is at the very lowest.
I might not be typical, but if I had an electric car that had a range of 220 miles, then it would have covered me for all but two car trips in the last 16 or so years. If it had a range of 220 miles, then I would have to keep at least one gas vehicle, since I make trips of 220 miles about 10 times a year, many more times than I would be willing to rent a gas car.
Range is a basic limitation of most electric cars. Unless you have an ultracapacitor or something, charging is a looooooong process; unlike filling with gas or some other chemical fuel. Not sure what the magic range number might be to eliminate most people's need for a secondary gas car. But a typical family has at least two cars, so, unless the range is *really* low (like 50 miles), most families could easily get by with at least one electric car.
I have to agree with you, anonymous coward. I have a motorcycle. And it is *QUIET*. I have a motorcycle because it is fun, efficient, and fast. I don't think the definition of a motorcycle should include annoying the crap out of everyone around you.
@4: Because most of us (myself included) are spoiled (at least I admit it). We don't want to give up anything.
@7: Good point. Another point is that an electric car should retain more resale value. The wild-card, of course, is the cost of that battery pack replacement.
Slashdot Mirror
1- "This looks expensive"
2- "Nope, it is all free, even the Office-like apps"
1- "Oh damn, it won't run my applications"
2- "There are many alternatives that work just as well or better"
1- "But what if there isn't one for an application"
2- "You can use Virtualbox and run at 100% native speed with very few bugs"
At the end, they should have said:
"Have you ever heard of Linux?"
"What have you heard?"
"What you say if I told you this was Linux and not MS-Windows?"
Bingo!!!! I wish I could mod you up!
We use a thin environment; and even though it is under Linux, we don't want to pull in all of KDE for Ocular, etc. We need tight control over the apps, and prefer ones without "tendrils" into other stuff.
That doesn't work on links like I am talking about. The site isn't offering a file, it is calling a plugin. That is like trying to right click on a Flash link or a Javascript link and telling it open it with something else.
Foxit is not FOSS. The site is dedicated to FOSS. Foxit is, however, nice... too bad it isn't multi-platform.
Now if we could just get all websites to stop depending on the damn Acrobat Reader plugin. I kid you not- I have had to fight several sites we must use at work that, instead of just offering links to necessary PDF files, they check "to make sure you have the Acrobat Plugin installed" and pull some type of plugin call. Extremely annoying. Why not just point the damn link at the PDF file and let the browser decide how to handle it!!!!! Most of us *hate* the Acrobat Reader plugin, we don't WANT to have to look at a PDF file embedded into the web browser.... it is slower, less flexible, doesn't offer all the controls, often doesn't free memory after you close that "page", and doesn't allow us to use some other reader.
And if I had a dollar for every site that claims I *MUST* have Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to look at a damn PDF file, I would be rich.
Well, I know Flash is proprietary (I never implied otherwise)- but at least it has worked on most platforms for many years. .NET, on the other hand... well, wake me up when there there is platform parity. In any case, you are right that what they did further damages their tainted reputation.
Yeah, well, so the sites will use some proprietary .NET stuff. I don't see such a plugin for non-MS operating systems. I would rather those sites that WERE ignoring Firefox code in something that not only works on all browsers but on all platforms as well.
I said 100 users, not 100 copies of Firefox. Not all users will run Firefox or OpenOffice or whatever at the same time. I would say there are probably 15 OpenOffices, 10 WordPerfects, 60 Sylpheeds, 30 Firefoxes, 100 xdm's, 70+ icewm's, and much, much more running at the same time. Centralized [*ix] systems are extremely memory efficient. All the code is shared in memory, so it is nowhere near the same amount of memory as individual machines each running it, added up. The system rarely uses more than 128MB of swap.
I will also point out that the software users can run is tightly controlled and optimized to prevent destroying the system performance (and security). For example, no flash or multimedia is allowed, Firefox settings are locked, users cannot access a shell, etc.
And we support around 100 Linux thin-client users on a single 2 core Linux server with 4GB of RAM doing everything from business apps and Email to Firefox to OpenOffice. OS $0. Thin client licenses $0. Server connect licenses $0. "MS-Office" licenses $0. Granted, it isn't for everyone, but it makes a pretty dramatic point... and it is quite real, and we have been doing so for many years.
Have you at least complained to ABC or Google (I have)?
I hear people complain on Slashdot all the time about how much they would love to use Linux, but X or Y doesn't work. And when questioned, they admit they have never complained to the people that matter- the ones designing X and Y to only work under MS-Windows.
They do make a difference.
OK, so, I never illegally download or upload copyrighted music or video.
But if we had to pay some type of tax to cover people breaking the law, then as far as I (and many people) are concerned, it becomes perfectly approved/legal to "share" as much music or video as we like. And that is going to help their "business model"???
Or do they expect honest people to pay for music/video twice?
does it run Linux?
SOMEBODY has to ask, you know.
I know it is not popular to post positives about an ISP, but...
As far as ISP's go, I must say that Cox is generally very "good". They don't use PPPOE, they don't redirect DNS, they don't lock the MAC address of your equipment to their modem, they don't require MS-Windows "stuff" to set up your account, they have not dropped/outsourced services like Email, they don't block "non-server" ports, they have not dropped USENET, they don't penalize non-Cox VOIP and such, and they have a very fast and robust setup. I must say, I have been quite pleased over many years; especially hearing the horror stories about other ISP's, both local and afar.
Note- this is the Hampton Roads market, not their other ones; so I can't attest to any other locations.
Anyway, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they will do the "right thing" and just prioritize traffic, only when necessary, not just to screw people. No matter how much bandwidth an ISP has, the customers are going to suck it all up, so *some* amount of traffic management really is necessary to prevent mass discontent from the customers. Let's hope Cox has watched and learned from the mistakes of other ISP's.
The general populace that drives econoboxes are not going to be the ones that can afford an EV anytime in the next decade or two. If you want to target the people who *can* afford an EV, you have to make sure it competes with the quality, spirited, feature-full cars such people already own. Eventually that will start the prices falling and others can follow along.
Offer a stripped-down EV with crappy performance and features (that will necessarily cost 20-50+% more than gas econoboxes) and it will likely be a failure.
>On a standard, 110 volt, 15 amp circuit, it takes 32 hours to fully charge
No doubt. But it should be much easier to provide a 220 volt, 20 amp circuit (4,400 watts) which is 266% more power than the energy of 15@110 (1,650 watts) (compared the the exotic 70A Tesla circuit). And, unless one is doing a LOT more than just commuting to work, one will rarely have to charge the car all the way from dead. So a half-charge top-up with 266% more power might be more like 6 or 7 hours.
> Or during the middle of the work day when everyone is recharging for their return commute
That doesn't make any sense. Any EV of any reasonable range will allow a commuter to get to AND from work. There should be no reason to need to charge at work.
I still think if almost all of the charging is done at night, it will not overload even the existing grid. Daytime loads are *huge* in the day from business consumption, by comparison. And in the summer, all those A/C units in all the buildings have to work very hard during the day and very little at night.
Most of our electricity nightmares (lack of plants, grids at capacity, brown/black-outs, etc) are at peak loads during the summer days. Charging a car at night will use similar power to an A/C running in the day; yet most of that time all your lights, TV's, etc are all off.
Electric companies even offer dual-metering with much lower night prices to encourage usage during the night when they have so much unused capacity. This is extremely common for businesses- less so for private/home, although it is possible (and could expand).
So you ARE what you DRINK? :)
So true.
Although there is a relatively easy way to make such a definition, since it already exists. There are federal guidelines that regulate maximum noise of motorcycles and their exhaust systems. Replacing a muffler with something unapproved (or just removing it), it actually against the law. It is actually printed on the muffler, itself (believe it or not). So all these people tampering with their exhaust systems- removing the mufflers and replacing them with "louder" ones, are all breaking the law.
To my knowledge, there is little or no enforcement of such laws. I am not sure why, though... since it *should* be part of most states' annual inspections. But, I see unsafe and maladjusted vehicles all the time with valid state inspection stickers.
I haven't done the math, but I suspect that even if MANY millions of people were charging cars at night, it still wouldn't approach the daytime load of the grid. Keep in mind that most people would only need to top off their charge from their short (25 miles perhaps) daily commute.
As for cross-country, I guess one would have to rent a gas car.... they won't be going away anytime soon. Me? I would much rather fly (it is a LOT faster, and probably cheaper, too).
Um, most of your body weight is water. And water is not cells :)
The load on the grid is not likely to be a problem at all. Why? Because most charging of electric vehicles would be at night, when the demand on the grid is at the very lowest.
I might not be typical, but if I had an electric car that had a range of 220 miles, then it would have covered me for all but two car trips in the last 16 or so years. If it had a range of 220 miles, then I would have to keep at least one gas vehicle, since I make trips of 220 miles about 10 times a year, many more times than I would be willing to rent a gas car.
Range is a basic limitation of most electric cars. Unless you have an ultracapacitor or something, charging is a looooooong process; unlike filling with gas or some other chemical fuel. Not sure what the magic range number might be to eliminate most people's need for a secondary gas car. But a typical family has at least two cars, so, unless the range is *really* low (like 50 miles), most families could easily get by with at least one electric car.
I have to agree with you, anonymous coward. I have a motorcycle. And it is *QUIET*. I have a motorcycle because it is fun, efficient, and fast. I don't think the definition of a motorcycle should include annoying the crap out of everyone around you.
@4: Because most of us (myself included) are spoiled (at least I admit it). We don't want to give up anything.
@7: Good point. Another point is that an electric car should retain more resale value. The wild-card, of course, is the cost of that battery pack replacement.