The big problem for labour will be the unravelling of the Lib Dem tactical vote.
Seat predictions show Labour winning the next election, but work too simply. They work as a straight line prediction, where the maths are more complicated.
A lot of LD voters will not give tactical support to Labour again, and there's a heck of a lot of Labour seats with quite small majorities.
I think they will still win, but it could be much closer than people think.
If Iraq gets a lot worse, I think that the figures will really change.
That's probably because it's really difficult to do so.
If you live in London, you can quite easily get to anywhere in the city, and for getting out to places, you are often on direct lines.
Try getting from Oxford to Cambridge without a car. You'll often have 2 or 3 connections to make. It's quite impractical. Although for many people, train is a good and viable option a lot of the time, and they still sit in cars!
Some places outside London are OK because they sit on major junctions - Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Didcot and Reading (and some others).
Absolutely. Sometimes you have to protect certain groups from exploitation (although that doesn't stop TV from being allowed to advertise junk food and boy bands).
However, there's an attitude in government that people should be protected from themselves, led by a dumb press with politicians who are cowards. Government gets involved in all sorts of things, like the price of soft drinks in pubs, instead of leaving it to the market. It's based on an idea that people can't be educated, informed or trusted to make their own decisions.
Worst of all, once you start down the "people need looking after" track, it gets worse and worse.
"So, as you've got nothing to hide, you won't mind me putting cameras in your bedroom and bathroom, then".
Sadly, such concepts of liberty are not strong in the UK because there is no-one in politics or the media with a libertarian standpoint. Even the Tories, who have played the "liberty" card over Fox hunting often fail to do so in other areas. Because most politicians are professional politicians now, they are a bunch of cowards.
I got the iPod PDQ, and remember, there was already a "portable music" market - the difference was that the iPod did it bigger and better. People have had personal stereos for 20+ years. I'll admit that I thought the price was too high, but at least something of a market was there.
As far as "carrying photos around", I can't see a market at all. Ask yourself - how often do you want to carry photos around? So, people can carry hundreds or thousands of photos around? How long before this becomes a product that screams "boring" all over it - "oh good, here comes a guy with an iPhoto. Do I sit here and watch 1000 photos of their kids, or get up and run to the next continent".
Personally I think things like online galleries have beaten this. I don't have to take photos round. I can upload them and invite all my friends.
I know a lot of people with Dell servers, PCs and laptops, and generally they rate them well. I think there are other good makes too. I'd avoid companies that are more targetted at consumers, though.
My time is valuable, and really, building is just too much hassle for very little benefit now.
Dell are selling PCs for £169+VAT+Delivery (without monitor).
The breakpoint of telling people to buy rather than build has definitely happened for me.
You want to really get a shocker about ratios? The price of Office Pro. Go on the Dell site and choose "Configure and Buy" and add in the price of Office Pro. A £300 PC (with monitor and XP Pro) ends up at over £500. A friend of mine said "but that's nearly as much as the PC". So I burnt him a copy of OpenOffice.org.
If you can't find someone dumping one, you can get a Pentium 2 300 off Ebay for about $100.
Stick OpenOffice.org on for nothing and off you go.
To do word processing, you need a 4mhz processor, 256K of RAM and a floppy drive. I wrote all my college reports on an Amstrad 8256 machine running CP/M.
I'm totally fed up with Hollywood deciding that instead of employing people to write new stories, that the best thing to do is to just find some video game (a format not really about "story telling"), pay a gazillion bucks for the rights, hire a cheap writer and stick a well-known cast on hoping to get enough punters in before word-of-mouth kicks in.
I don't get why studios don't get this even though it is said again and again and again. It's all about the writing.
Spiderman wasn't a great film because of the cast and effects. It was really well written and directed AND also had a great cast. Of many of the recent summer films, it's one that will stand the test of time.
Remember, people were dazzled by films like King Kong and Frankenstein, even though to modern audiences, they would be able to disect the effects. The only thing is, if someone made a film as engaging as those, even without the effects, people would suspend disbelief and just roll with it - they only look at crap effects if they aren't having fun.
There's also the question of what the percentage point is where manufacturers decide that supporting Linux by either binary or source drivers is in their interest.
The fact that you can buy Linux laptops from HP suggests this move is already happening.
To be honest, when people start talking about anything "Groklaw propaganda" they lose any credibility in my eyes.
There's one reason why people like to use such language - because they've run out of coherent arguments about what is being said on such sites. Margaret Thatcher once said that she didn't mind personal attacks, because it meant she had won the political argument.
Never mind whether it's going to kill them or be good for them, those reboots are because of software bugs. Put the software on the servers, and users don't need to do reboots.
The five minutes every few days doing a few days is five minutes that can deployed doing something else - it is also frustrating for users.
I've been saying for a couple of years now - users want SERVICES not SOFTWARE.
A number of pieces of software have already seen a demise in sales because there are online services that do the same thing.
OK, people on/. may want their software, but millions of people want stuff like word processing, photo editing etc. As the networks get faster, the concept of storing your data online will grow.
Maybe you'll have to pay a per month price, but tell people that instead of having to upgrade their PCs, and they'll go for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Seat predictions show Labour winning the next election, but work too simply. They work as a straight line prediction, where the maths are more complicated.
A lot of LD voters will not give tactical support to Labour again, and there's a heck of a lot of Labour seats with quite small majorities.
I think they will still win, but it could be much closer than people think.
If Iraq gets a lot worse, I think that the figures will really change.
If you live in London, you can quite easily get to anywhere in the city, and for getting out to places, you are often on direct lines.
Try getting from Oxford to Cambridge without a car. You'll often have 2 or 3 connections to make. It's quite impractical. Although for many people, train is a good and viable option a lot of the time, and they still sit in cars!
Some places outside London are OK because they sit on major junctions - Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Didcot and Reading (and some others).
A parallel I'd use is if someone said that California was part of Texas.
IIRC If the police ask for your name and address, refusing to give it, or giving a false one counts as an offence.
However, there's an attitude in government that people should be protected from themselves, led by a dumb press with politicians who are cowards. Government gets involved in all sorts of things, like the price of soft drinks in pubs, instead of leaving it to the market. It's based on an idea that people can't be educated, informed or trusted to make their own decisions.
Worst of all, once you start down the "people need looking after" track, it gets worse and worse.
"So, as you've got nothing to hide, you won't mind me putting cameras in your bedroom and bathroom, then".
Sadly, such concepts of liberty are not strong in the UK because there is no-one in politics or the media with a libertarian standpoint. Even the Tories, who have played the "liberty" card over Fox hunting often fail to do so in other areas. Because most politicians are professional politicians now, they are a bunch of cowards.
I got the iPod PDQ, and remember, there was already a "portable music" market - the difference was that the iPod did it bigger and better. People have had personal stereos for 20+ years. I'll admit that I thought the price was too high, but at least something of a market was there.
As far as "carrying photos around", I can't see a market at all. Ask yourself - how often do you want to carry photos around? So, people can carry hundreds or thousands of photos around? How long before this becomes a product that screams "boring" all over it - "oh good, here comes a guy with an iPhoto. Do I sit here and watch 1000 photos of their kids, or get up and run to the next continent".
Personally I think things like online galleries have beaten this. I don't have to take photos round. I can upload them and invite all my friends.
I know a lot of people with Dell servers, PCs and laptops, and generally they rate them well. I think there are other good makes too. I'd avoid companies that are more targetted at consumers, though.
My time is valuable, and really, building is just too much hassle for very little benefit now.
You can buy Office without MS Access or Word on it's own.
I remember looking into the price of I think Nero, and it was about the same price to buy a retail box of a new DVD drive with a bundled Nero.
The breakpoint of telling people to buy rather than build has definitely happened for me.
You want to really get a shocker about ratios? The price of Office Pro. Go on the Dell site and choose "Configure and Buy" and add in the price of Office Pro. A £300 PC (with monitor and XP Pro) ends up at over £500. A friend of mine said "but that's nearly as much as the PC". So I burnt him a copy of OpenOffice.org.
If you can't find someone dumping one, you can get a Pentium 2 300 off Ebay for about $100.
Stick OpenOffice.org on for nothing and off you go.
To do word processing, you need a 4mhz processor, 256K of RAM and a floppy drive. I wrote all my college reports on an Amstrad 8256 machine running CP/M.
I'm totally fed up with Hollywood deciding that instead of employing people to write new stories, that the best thing to do is to just find some video game (a format not really about "story telling"), pay a gazillion bucks for the rights, hire a cheap writer and stick a well-known cast on hoping to get enough punters in before word-of-mouth kicks in.
Spiderman wasn't a great film because of the cast and effects. It was really well written and directed AND also had a great cast. Of many of the recent summer films, it's one that will stand the test of time.
Remember, people were dazzled by films like King Kong and Frankenstein, even though to modern audiences, they would be able to disect the effects. The only thing is, if someone made a film as engaging as those, even without the effects, people would suspend disbelief and just roll with it - they only look at crap effects if they aren't having fun.
"lighten up, it's just a bit of fun".
It's a feeble excuse for a lame film. Jackie Chan makes fun films. The Indiana Jones films are fun. Leon and Nikita are great fun action films.
But, a lot of popcorn movies are just lame. A bunch of special effects, instantly forgettable trash.
The fact that you can buy Linux laptops from HP suggests this move is already happening.
It would be great to see IBM hitting some of the papers who wrote FUD in this case with lawsuits regarding damaging their business.
There's a key ingredient missing - any humour. Satire would be suggesting that RMS is going to work for Microsoft.
Satire needs to show something that is obviously untrue or heavily exaggerated.
I know that Robert Rodrigues uses digital, and I thought Spy Kids predated AOTC.
To me, taking advice from a trade union about power supplies is like asking a chef for advice on setting up a LAN.
One big feature they have is plugs for laptops/phone chargers. Means I can work for 3 or 4 hours while I'm on the train.
There's one reason why people like to use such language - because they've run out of coherent arguments about what is being said on such sites. Margaret Thatcher once said that she didn't mind personal attacks, because it meant she had won the political argument.
The five minutes every few days doing a few days is five minutes that can deployed doing something else - it is also frustrating for users.
At the moment, the network speeds for home users is probably still too slow, but it will get there.
Many users are rightly cheesed off with having to run updates and reboots on a regular basis.
A number of pieces of software have already seen a demise in sales because there are online services that do the same thing.
OK, people on /. may want their software, but millions of people want stuff like word processing, photo editing etc. As the networks get faster, the concept of storing your data online will grow.
Maybe you'll have to pay a per month price, but tell people that instead of having to upgrade their PCs, and they'll go for it.