the Bad guys can: * claim they dint hijack the car, or carry out kidnapping just by sending a car to the right place and right person at the right time, with only the bot/ AI/ firmware hacked or manipulated * if the hacker is anonymous, it just takes the human element out of the crime, great situation! yu can get a guy into the car, lock the doors up and direct him to a secluded cliff, and drive him off it! fantastic, just waht gangster have been waiting for! * arrange for a hacked car, the robbers rob the bank dump the loot in one car and drive in some other:)... man, one too many situations to think of. imagine the central server hosted on a Windows Server 2018 and it has been compromised by WIN128/ Blaster-2018 virus, and all the auto-driven security cars directed outside of the city. and all the post and courier vans directed to dump all those 5000 mails into your lawn. that'd be spam for real!!!!:) just rolling the dice for some permutation and combinations! was sure fun though! there sure would be immobilizer and other technology. just supposing....
i still find that reasonable than the joke of a broadband offered by BSNL/ India. We have a 2 Mbps link with a cap of 400MB datacap, and if you exceed the base limit - you are charged 25 cents an MB! and rack up 15-20 dollars suppose you download the ubuntu ISO. Of course, the package is very cheap at 6 dollars.
512 kbps unlimited bandwidth goes for 50 dollars and 256 kbps for abt $25. i know, kinda sucks, but its getting better all the time. a few years back, many villages that did not see any kind of connectivity are now plugged, 256/ 512 kbps - which is good. Metropolitans have Wimax with similar schemes (256/ 512, and similar pricing).
given the time of the release, virtually every other major phone manufacturer has had smart phone/ multimedia phone, which.. either needed backward compatibility with their previous model (software/ platform), or were stuck with technology and cost of components (low res screen, expensive RAM, blooding of these fancy devices). Apple iPhone arrived at the perfect time when they had success with ipod (their name legendary with handheld multimedia gadget - ipod video + audio + clickwheel); virtually, the first access to NAND ram than any other company; previous experience with newton, and most importantly, they had so many failed aspects of various devices to study!!! a wealth of data.
...they were perfectly placed to do it.
that they actually, went ahead and created this phone is cool. thats another thing is associated with apple... 'cool'. make that iCool.
i guess Micro$oft is going after companies who make good desktops for linux. if you notice, both xandros and novell had excellent desktops. maybe they're very scared after dell started talking to canonical. maybe dell is only one of the scores of vendors tired of being dictated by MS; so MS knows very well that others might start 'idea forums' to ask people what they prefer, and the vocal linux community might just ask for linux:)
Ive used open-suse before they made the deal with the devil, i left it for principle mostly. although i do not regret shifting to kubuntu which seems to be really fast and agile, easy to maintain desktop right now (as opposed to Novell's kitchen sink, commode & bath-tub distro, im glad i got rid of the flab).
maybe people in the USA are lucky to have such ridiculously low gas prices. startled aren't you ?
yeah. i bet.
In india, in most states, its about $4.50 a gallon, as compared to the *a somewhat lowly* $2.27 (http://www.gaspricewatch.com/new/)!!! thanks to the high state & central taxes - which forms about 40% of the gas price,...most people prefer vehicles that offer more mileage/ economy.
Murphy! I've had the monkey live on my back, all my life!
CDRoms & writers fail just after the warranty period, just about every part in my last PC dint last the distance - and to rub salt into the wounds... its gone dead just after the warranty period. thankfully, the current generation of computer parts have longer warranty and are cheaper than a couple of years back.
so, my question: are they built specifically to last only such a distance ? (for some equipment maybe yeah - the prices are lower too. but for some others - it does not seem so. for something decidedly low tech and with very few moving parts - say an Iron, it should work for a long time right ? but it does not! even other white goods! the conspiracy theorist part of my brain hollers that, there's a timer chip in there!"...kidding. maybe there IS some truth in it, any product designer in here who can shed some light on it?)
...maybe then, novell should wake up, smell the coffee, and then get the heck out of that deal! the writ is against them, they are going against the grain, and as mentioned by bruce that a lot of analysts are indeed verifying the deal with a healthy dose of caution. looks like novell's just pulled the trigger on themselves.
is this another case of greedy management looking after their wad of greens ? maybe the board should simply fire the mgt team and get a new one and save the company from being on the headlines at fuckedcompany.com very very soon.
I'm ticked off & tired of the treachery by Novell. is there a way out ? I like suse, and want to continue using it, but, i do not want to support Novell and its brain dead ways(its pretty obvious that the community did not figure ANYWHERE in their talks, it was all about the dough, some covenants, licenses, assurances, novell & MS).
I do not want to piss people off the opensuse projects, its not their fault. can we have freesuse ? since its GPL'ed code, is'nt that possible ?
maybe we can thank Novell for what it has done so far and start afresh, leaving them alone to deal with the devil, their covenants, and the get-quick-rich scheme. good luck to the employees of Novell (err... Suse, Ximian, and others, they need a good pay packet after all)....
> Divide and conquer. Confuse and attack. Assimilate.
yup, you were right, they just did that. Mr. Shuttleworth has fired the first salvo. they're already squabbling, while mark clearly mentioned about his post isn't meant to divide the community, he did the opposite. sad.
i think novell missed the bus already! microsoft has in effect done precisely what they intended. drive a wedge find a weak link. greedy corporations/ half baked manager/ mgt teams are the precise target. they know it the game very well, novell played by their game, bought the tripe and is now stuck. if what perens has to say is true - staying with old software is too much of a hassle to handle, and the open source community will not touch the 'pariah' code. this in itself a major victory. duplication of efforts by novell and the mess would be grain in the gears.
open source is forging ahead in a lot of things. novell has 2 of the brigtest and hardworking team in them (suse and ximian), what better way to scuttle the open source army's healthy progress! imagine if kde 4 was already out in time for vista (no, they aren't in the same market). things would have looked good for a lot of enterprises to go for solid products like novell desktop with say all the gloss of kde 4. i don't know how this war is heading/ shaping, and also what microsoft's plans are - but one thing's for sure - they have won the battle number one. they've split the community. it upto us in the community to close the ranks, regroup and look for the best possible solution, i wouldnt want novell to go down and taking suse and ximian along with them!
microsoft is glutton for punishment. they first throttle every other company in this world, and dont let any other OS to compete.
there ought to be different pricing points for different people. there are people who want the the OS for less, but NO, microsoft decides to kill all the other operating systems with brute force, or for that matter any software that threatens their monopoly. so the people who don't have the money to pay their software simply go for piracy(say most of the 3rd world countries).
now, microsoft with all their money can really donate software free of cost to these people instead of fleecing these people first and then act magnanimous (like bill gates does right now, does his charity). on the other hand they are really torturing the rest of the paying public with all these activation schemes, and put up with all kinds of hardship. these guys should be sent to the corporate gallows. each time they have wasted our time with their shoddy software right through the ages, they have killed us by a wee bit, just a jab each time!!!
* there's a whole lot of people who will upgrade or be pushed into windows vista.
* there's a whole lot of businesses who will be pushed to vista, sooner than later
windows xp with whatever software supposedly in TFA that helps save power is just fine. that doesn't convince me one bit. Windows vista is about to trigger a massive rollout of new computers that will edge out computers/machines that are just fine with windows Xp. anything labeled "vista ready" will be the one to buy, after all most normal people (average joes and janes) buy the marketing tripe than sensible purchase decisions. the gamers and enthusiasts (me included) would obviously want the latest and the greatest anyways (so count them out).
for most people running a browser, with a notepad & word + excel, a winamp or throw in the odd application - a normal athlon or a sempron or a beefed up celeron... & of course running on windows xp is just fine. but, all these people would have to upgrade sooner than thier normal upgrade cycle because of windows vista and its huge appetite for hardware with some meat on it. these PCs will consume much more power (despite all those power saving innovations), and also add to the burden & the cost of producing new hardware (environmental pollution, water consumption et al!
all in all i dont see any significant contribution by MS towards proclaiming itself green anytime soon. lets instead compare the cost to the environment by the marauding windows VISTA.
the cost of such a system is quite low. any government for that matter can invest on buying such a thing for a lot of purposes:
- arming rural farmers - wiring them to data centers for a wealth of information - from kind of crop that will be in demand in the coming season, weather patterns & steps to b taken to protect themselves, etc.
- fishermen who need advance warning systems.
- forest officers who need computing & info systems to connect to central systems for monitoring activities
...these are just afew uses i can think of - and rudimentary systems are already in place in india. im sure there are a ton of uses where they might need cheap computing on the go, i seriously think that such a computer which is easy to communicate/ good enough for regular emails, has a good keybrord, a good display/wide screen for various purposes, a beefier battery need to be installed/ handcrank's good for low-batt situation.
well, is it such a bad idea? probably its success lies in a range of application rather than restrict it only for school children.
far from it. social conditions are vastly different from western societies in india. the western society has a tendency to accumulate material goods. there are people in most vllages whose lives are slow and the sort of amish kind of life. they are perfectly happy without too many needs. a few pair of clothes, a regular house (not anywhere close to western standards) etc. he probably will have work very hard to save enough to build a house with a dollar a day. but typically - these dollar a day earners have multiple members i nthe family who also earn. they manage to sve to build a 2 room house in a colony with common bathrooms. yes the life's miserable by most standards - but i guess yu'd have to read books like "city of joy" to get a grip of the conditions.
the purpose of my argument was solely that a lot can be had in a dollar - it was initially pointed out that - almost nothing could be bought for a doallr. while in fact a lot of people in india in the lower strata earn that much - 1500 to 2000 ruppees a month. they have other members of the family earning. if yu see the slums in bombay - many there have TV/ refridgerator/ washing machine/ food processer etc. in fact the government has alloted many of them with apartments - but they chose to live in the slums - where they grew up or have friends - and have rented those apartments given by the governments.
yeah, probably a family could barely eke out a living on it i guess. they could survive. cos those prices are canteen/ restaurant prices. if someone were to cook a meal it would obviously be much cheaper than that. but its sadly true that there are people who earn less than that and somehow make a living!!!
A Dollar fetches a lot of things in India, and i'm surprised that a lot has been assumed and written about without checking the facts. as of today, a dollar equals about Ruppees 45.84 (that was yesterday's rates). a Dollar fetches a lot of stuff, in fact i will give 2 examples - one for the metropolitan poor man with a dollar and the poor man in the rural india.
the poor man in the metro(bombay/ bangalore) at a typical roadside joint, they dish out decent fare: * BREAKFAST is available for as less as rupees ten (vada pao or idli/vada = bun + potato filling/ rice pudding+spicey coconut cream & a spicey donut) plus a cup coffee or tea for rupees four - there are small canteens that offer half a cup of coffee for rupees two, but these are teeny weeny cups (fifteen rupees for a breakfast) * LUNCH: you have thalis for around rupees 15 to 20. (full meal with an indian bread - roti, plus lentils, a curry, pickle, rice, a cracker, and a sweetmeat) * Dinner: repeat the same menu as lunch
this meal is what an average indian has at his home, and this can be pretty comfortable. the variety and quality differs, but for man earning a dollar a day - ths is pretty much a luxury. the same menu as above can be had for 15 rupees lesser at lesser quality, of course - at around ruppees 30! so he has money to commute, and make a phone call if necessary at ruppee 1 for 3 minutes to a landline phone, or i minute to a mobile phone.
Poor man earning a dollar in rural areas: there are places where the same menu described above can be had for around 25 -30 ruppees. but largely, india different from state to state, eating habits, the geogrpahy is different. but in rural areas - you could easily survive 2 days with ruppees 45.
thereare places in arid zones - north karnataka, rajasthan etc - where you get the indian bread - roti for a ruppee. so if a person consumes 5 rotis plus chillies and onions (the std fare that they have in certain areas). they can easily survive for 3-4 days with rupees 45 at hand
Sadly, there are areas where poor farmers, continue to earn only about ruppees 15 -20 per day making it difficult for them to break free from the landlords they work for. each member of the family lives on thier own, and its literally a hand to mouth existence. they barely make the cut. they might lead normal life though (but oppressed and at the mercy of the landlords).
but surviving with ruppees 45? i bet a college student or an average business man, or a an average indian easily can! of course, he need not step into a McDonalds for a burger which might cost ruppees 45 there.
i doubt if it seriously is an issue being idealistic. the current capitalistic model is flawed at best. the shareholders present a unique breed. in the short term they have zero tolerance towards anything else than profits and growth, in the long term, its the capital that they want, its an investment from thier end. the creator of the comapanies are sometimes driven away as was in the case of mandrake linux creator. agreed there might be true breed of investors investing only in blue chip companies. but the vast majority look at the scrip prices and are bothered abt the the ticker and the price. hardly anything else. its this large crowd that probably is a bane to the companies that work hard, give some thing useful and perish quickly simply at a wish of the board members, or shareholders, not interested in the long haul/ interested in quick profits, or a huge profits in the long haul. and ironically, its now more than ever that mega corporations are being constructed everywhere. look at the at&t bell south deal, or any of the many mergers! yahoo, google all gobbling small entities, they might good or bad, but its the damn ticker that the "investers" are bothered abt. i offer no magic solution to this problem, but i do find this model as flawed.
ditto! radical islam is asserting itself way too much - and the western open minded people cannot fathom the same (and are quite flabbergasted why the issue snowballed). probably, USA shouldnt have stepped into iraq, and bush would've had much better credibility dealing with terrorists and chasing them down to any corner of the world. the war on iraq has made the islamic countries group together, and in hushed tones are falling in line with the more radical views. the depiction of prophet in a cartoon has hurt them deeply, and provided a forum to air thier anti-west views. the excessive riots and burning vindicates this point of view.
the burning issue - yahoo has gone a step ahead for self censorship - clearly uncalled for. private companies have no business trying to appease certain groups and religions - how many names of gods will they ban ? how many religious groups will they cater to ? will they not be unfair to the groups they do not cater to ?
this behaviour is not just limited to any particular region! since the cell phone companies are multinationals in most cases - the dirty habit seems to just spread. In India too, like everywhere else - the Cell companies have the same sort of problems.
case1: whenever there's a complicated billing - when somebody's sharing a cell phone in a family, like say kids, spouse - the main member of the family is billed. the billing scheme explicitly says that the sharing members have a limited billing and one of them is eligible for an unlimited/ higher paying option with more facility / more talktime. and they end up switching the schemes. the result - the person who's spoken the max will get a huge bill(and is shifted to the most expensive plan available), while the person who uses the phone sparingly gets a tiny bill.
case2: cell phone cloning: this has been done here too by some unscrouplous elements. there's one provider reliance india here (similar to microsoft in many respect, and they do have a tieup with MS for broadband and stuff). they have handsets with the simcard built into the set. all that the culprits have to do is get the codes of the cell - the IMEI number and that of the sim when it comes for repairs, and they use the same onto a new phone - just flash these numbers into the rom of the new cell - viola! you have a phone with the same number - use as you please. the cell phone company can easily check this, but typically the customer ends up paying.
case3: ringtones/ schmingtones: users are forcibly thrust with ringtones, and other "facility" that they will "enjoy" for a small fee. often, these happen without asking the customer. and the company representatives claim that since it is done entirely through electronic activation - they feign ignorance. besides these calls are handled by the call centres - who'd know nothing abt the unscruplous acts of the companies. if one isnt particular and is not absolutely determined not to have the companies' devious ways, they end up paying ! it was esy to get them off the back though - just issue them the warning that the next time they'd hear from my lawyers, and get them scurrying - within no time there'd be a customer care executive in another half an hour's time pacifying you!
case 4: false billing: the companies would claim that you havent paid the previous month's bill, and that yu'd have to pay them a fine as well! typically people would pay the bill through cash at a local franchisee. if you save the bill - good for you, or else you should've paid it through a card or through cheque. failing which the cell phone company would have its way!
well, i could go on and on. but its interesting that the frauds are mostly related to human behaviour - which happens to be the same worldwide! especially to cell phone companies. so what is it ? greed ?
i dont think the scene is the same. and its with this 3000+ chip onwards. i've seen local vendors selling AMD 3000+ in truckloads. (yeah, i know, the retail channels/ branded PCs are the ones that sells by the shiploads, and that the intel inside logo works really well, and that joe and janes like the little sticker - since its been printed into thier tiny brains by the intel brain washing machines). but for a change we have AMDs running a LOT cooler than intels, a lot faster - as usual, much cheaper than intels. and the average joe now has started seeing value in AMDs yu can see that in the AMD quarterly sales figures. when people see big savings and a good product there's no reason they'll turn to AMD. its upto AMD now to really get thier act together - intel seems to be the big bully with great support, good drivers and products and things nicely set in every department. the geeks+gamers always knew it all the while where they could get maximum bang for thier bucks.
ad creators have resorted to many such "sliders" and transparent ads, to grab attention. or there are ads which appear before the page is loaded. yeah, like i've faced similar troubles. i wrote to the portal owners politely that they should script the ads properly or have alternate version - and use browser detection. but they hardly ever respond to the same. however, i have seen that usually these guys either adopt the suggestions or remove them - but with a bit of pestering from users/ customers like us. but they never respond to any suggestions. this ticks me off. its probably this attitude that pisses most people. the end user is almost always helpless and is forced to looks for means to get away from the intrusive ads. while on tv - the ads are less intrusive. they dont flash red and yellow lights to grab your attention or use deception. most ads are getting clever to the point that people like many ads. storylines are appreciated, so is humor. now that the ads are generating revenues online - they need to evolve it. google started the evolution, others should wake up.
oh! another addition: get yur favourite bits by following this link: http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/178 /42// welll, get the Flash, Acrobat, Windows Media, MP3, and RealMedia support without downloading the kitchen sink!
get the suse super then! thats a single cd version!!! get the rest of them, say the propreietary bits like java and stuff later when yu connect again. this single cd version has a kde build and a gnome build, also something known as "slick". i am using the beta version currently and will soon upgrade the single cd - kde only final release - it was pretty good for a beta even, BTW.
its about $5.6 in India (though a large part of it is tax component). moreover - the oil marketing companies have been asked not to hike the prices(by the government which still has the price control mechanism) - sending the oil companies into a tailspin financially. in the near future the gas here is supposed to touch 7 dollars a gallon in india - going by the price of 60 dollars a barrel! imagine that - you guys in the USA are lucky to be buying gas so cheap!
(the reasons for the high price of gas is varied. they have umpteen cess included like: highway development, road maintenance, check the oil pool deficit, subsidising diesel,kerosene and cooking LPG, etc. etc. - so there's already a dis-incentive for the people not to enjoy thier SUVs, expensive cars etc)
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the Bad guys can: :) ... man, one too many situations to think of. imagine the central server hosted on a Windows Server 2018 and it has been compromised by WIN128/ Blaster-2018 virus, and all the auto-driven security cars directed outside of the city. and all the post and courier vans directed to dump all those 5000 mails into your lawn. that'd be spam for real!!!! :) just rolling the dice for some permutation and combinations! was sure fun though! there sure would be immobilizer and other technology. just supposing ....
* claim they dint hijack the car, or carry out kidnapping just by sending a car to the right place and right person at the right time, with only the bot/ AI/ firmware hacked or manipulated
* if the hacker is anonymous, it just takes the human element out of the crime, great situation! yu can get a guy into the car, lock the doors up and direct him to a secluded cliff, and drive him off it! fantastic, just waht gangster have been waiting for!
* arrange for a hacked car, the robbers rob the bank dump the loot in one car and drive in some other
i still find that reasonable than the joke of a broadband offered by BSNL/ India. We have a 2 Mbps link with a cap of 400MB datacap, and if you exceed the base limit - you are charged 25 cents an MB! and rack up 15-20 dollars suppose you download the ubuntu ISO. Of course, the package is very cheap at 6 dollars.
512 kbps unlimited bandwidth goes for 50 dollars and 256 kbps for abt $25. i know, kinda sucks, but its getting better all the time. a few years back, many villages that did not see any kind of connectivity are now plugged, 256/ 512 kbps - which is good. Metropolitans have Wimax with similar schemes (256/ 512, and similar pricing).
given the time of the release, virtually every other major phone manufacturer has had smart phone/ multimedia phone, which .. either needed backward compatibility with their previous model (software/ platform), or were stuck with technology and cost of components (low res screen, expensive RAM, blooding of these fancy devices). Apple iPhone arrived at the perfect time when they had success with ipod (their name legendary with handheld multimedia gadget - ipod video + audio + clickwheel); virtually, the first access to NAND ram than any other company; previous experience with newton, and most importantly, they had so many failed aspects of various devices to study!!! a wealth of data.
...they were perfectly placed to do it.
that they actually, went ahead and created this phone is cool. thats another thing is associated with apple... 'cool'. make that iCool.
i guess Micro$oft is going after companies who make good desktops for linux. if you notice, both xandros and novell had excellent desktops. maybe they're very scared after dell started talking to canonical. maybe dell is only one of the scores of vendors tired of being dictated by MS; so MS knows very well that others might start 'idea forums' to ask people what they prefer, and the vocal linux community might just ask for linux :)
Ive used open-suse before they made the deal with the devil, i left it for principle mostly. although i do not regret shifting to kubuntu which seems to be really fast and agile, easy to maintain desktop right now (as opposed to Novell's kitchen sink, commode & bath-tub distro, im glad i got rid of the flab).
who's next canonical ?
apple could very well just make it MyPhone or MiPhone. the greedy fans will lap up anything apple has to throw at them anyways!
maybe people in the USA are lucky to have such ridiculously low gas prices. startled aren't you ?
...most people prefer vehicles that offer more mileage/ economy.
yeah. i bet.
In india, in most states, its about $4.50 a gallon, as compared to the *a somewhat lowly* $2.27 (http://www.gaspricewatch.com/new/)!!! thanks to the high state & central taxes - which forms about 40% of the gas price,
Murphy! I've had the monkey live on my back, all my life!
... its gone dead just after the warranty period. thankfully, the current generation of computer parts have longer warranty and are cheaper than a couple of years back.
...kidding. maybe there IS some truth in it, any product designer in here who can shed some light on it?)
CDRoms & writers fail just after the warranty period, just about every part in my last PC dint last the distance - and to rub salt into the wounds
so, my question: are they built specifically to last only such a distance ?
(for some equipment maybe yeah - the prices are lower too. but for some others - it does not seem so. for something decidedly low tech and with very few moving parts - say an Iron, it should work for a long time right ? but it does not! even other white goods! the conspiracy theorist part of my brain hollers that, there's a timer chip in there!"
...maybe then, novell should wake up, smell the coffee, and then get the heck out of that deal! the writ is against them, they are going against the grain, and as mentioned by bruce that a lot of analysts are indeed verifying the deal with a healthy dose of caution. looks like novell's just pulled the trigger on themselves.
is this another case of greedy management looking after their wad of greens ? maybe the board should simply fire the mgt team and get a new one and save the company from being on the headlines at fuckedcompany.com very very soon.
I'm ticked off & tired of the treachery by Novell. is there a way out ? I like suse, and want to continue using it, but, i do not want to support Novell and its brain dead ways(its pretty obvious that the community did not figure ANYWHERE in their talks, it was all about the dough, some covenants, licenses, assurances, novell & MS).
I do not want to piss people off the opensuse projects, its not their fault. can we have freesuse ? since its GPL'ed code, is'nt that possible ?
maybe we can thank Novell for what it has done so far and start afresh, leaving them alone to deal with the devil, their covenants, and the get-quick-rich scheme. good luck to the employees of Novell (err... Suse, Ximian, and others, they need a good pay packet after all)....
'Free' Suse please.
> Divide and conquer. Confuse and attack. Assimilate.
yup, you were right, they just did that. Mr. Shuttleworth has fired the first salvo. they're already squabbling, while mark clearly mentioned about his post isn't meant to divide the community, he did the opposite. sad.
i think novell missed the bus already! microsoft has in effect done precisely what they intended. drive a wedge find a weak link. greedy corporations/ half baked manager/ mgt teams are the precise target. they know it the game very well, novell played by their game, bought the tripe and is now stuck. if what perens has to say is true - staying with old software is too much of a hassle to handle, and the open source community will not touch the 'pariah' code. this in itself a major victory. duplication of efforts by novell and the mess would be grain in the gears.
open source is forging ahead in a lot of things. novell has 2 of the brigtest and hardworking team in them (suse and ximian), what better way to scuttle the open source army's healthy progress! imagine if kde 4 was already out in time for vista (no, they aren't in the same market). things would have looked good for a lot of enterprises to go for solid products like novell desktop with say all the gloss of kde 4. i don't know how this war is heading/ shaping, and also what microsoft's plans are - but one thing's for sure - they have won the battle number one. they've split the community. it upto us in the community to close the ranks, regroup and look for the best possible solution, i wouldnt want novell to go down and taking suse and ximian along with them!
microsoft is glutton for punishment. they first throttle every other company in this world, and dont let any other OS to compete.
there ought to be different pricing points for different people. there are people who want the the OS for less, but NO, microsoft decides to kill all the other operating systems with brute force, or for that matter any software that threatens their monopoly. so the people who don't have the money to pay their software simply go for piracy(say most of the 3rd world countries).
now, microsoft with all their money can really donate software free of cost to these people instead of fleecing these people first and then act magnanimous (like bill gates does right now, does his charity). on the other hand they are really torturing the rest of the paying public with all these activation schemes, and put up with all kinds of hardship. these guys should be sent to the corporate gallows. each time they have wasted our time with their shoddy software right through the ages, they have killed us by a wee bit, just a jab each time!!!
one word: vista.
... & of course running on windows xp is just fine. but, all these people would have to upgrade sooner than thier normal upgrade cycle because of windows vista and its huge appetite for hardware with some meat on it. these PCs will consume much more power (despite all those power saving innovations), and also add to the burden & the cost of producing new hardware (environmental pollution, water consumption et al!
* there's a whole lot of people who will upgrade or be pushed into windows vista.
* there's a whole lot of businesses who will be pushed to vista, sooner than later
windows xp with whatever software supposedly in TFA that helps save power is just fine. that doesn't convince me one bit. Windows vista is about to trigger a massive rollout of new computers that will edge out computers/machines that are just fine with windows Xp. anything labeled "vista ready" will be the one to buy, after all most normal people (average joes and janes) buy the marketing tripe than sensible purchase decisions. the gamers and enthusiasts (me included) would obviously want the latest and the greatest anyways (so count them out).
for most people running a browser, with a notepad & word + excel, a winamp or throw in the odd application - a normal athlon or a sempron or a beefed up celeron
all in all i dont see any significant contribution by MS towards proclaiming itself green anytime soon. lets instead compare the cost to the environment by the marauding windows VISTA.
the cost of such a system is quite low. any government for that matter can invest on buying such a thing for a lot of purposes:
...these are just afew uses i can think of - and rudimentary systems are already in place in india. im sure there are a ton of uses where they might need cheap computing on the go, i seriously think that such a computer which is easy to communicate/ good enough for regular emails, has a good keybrord, a good display /wide screen for various purposes, a beefier battery need to be installed/ handcrank's good for low-batt situation.
- arming rural farmers - wiring them to data centers for a wealth of information - from kind of crop that will be in demand in the coming season, weather patterns & steps to b taken to protect themselves, etc.
- fishermen who need advance warning systems.
- forest officers who need computing & info systems to connect to central systems for monitoring activities
well, is it such a bad idea? probably its success lies in a range of application rather than restrict it only for school children.
far from it. social conditions are vastly different from western societies in india. the western society has a tendency to accumulate material goods. there are people in most vllages whose lives are slow and the sort of amish kind of life. they are perfectly happy without too many needs. a few pair of clothes, a regular house (not anywhere close to western standards) etc. he probably will have work very hard to save enough to build a house with a dollar a day. but typically - these dollar a day earners have multiple members i nthe family who also earn. they manage to sve to build a 2 room house in a colony with common bathrooms. yes the life's miserable by most standards - but i guess yu'd have to read books like "city of joy" to get a grip of the conditions.
the purpose of my argument was solely that a lot can be had in a dollar - it was initially pointed out that - almost nothing could be bought for a doallr. while in fact a lot of people in india in the lower strata earn that much - 1500 to 2000 ruppees a month. they have other members of the family earning. if yu see the slums in bombay - many there have TV/ refridgerator/ washing machine/ food processer etc. in fact the government has alloted many of them with apartments - but they chose to live in the slums - where they grew up or have friends - and have rented those apartments given by the governments.
the truth is far from what might be inferred.
yeah, probably a family could barely eke out a living on it i guess. they could survive. cos those prices are canteen/ restaurant prices. if someone were to cook a meal it would obviously be much cheaper than that. but its sadly true that there are people who earn less than that and somehow make a living!!!
A Dollar fetches a lot of things in India, and i'm surprised that a lot has been assumed and written about without checking the facts. as of today, a dollar equals about Ruppees 45.84 (that was yesterday's rates). a Dollar fetches a lot of stuff, in fact i will give 2 examples - one for the metropolitan poor man with a dollar and the poor man in the rural india.
the poor man in the metro(bombay/ bangalore) at a typical roadside joint, they dish out decent fare:
* BREAKFAST is available for as less as rupees ten
(vada pao or idli/vada = bun + potato filling/ rice pudding+spicey coconut cream & a spicey donut)
plus a cup coffee or tea for rupees four - there are small canteens that offer half a cup of coffee for rupees two, but these are teeny weeny cups (fifteen rupees for a breakfast)
* LUNCH: you have thalis for around rupees 15 to 20.
(full meal with an indian bread - roti, plus lentils, a curry, pickle, rice, a cracker, and a sweetmeat)
* Dinner: repeat the same menu as lunch
this meal is what an average indian has at his home, and this can be pretty comfortable. the variety and quality differs, but for man earning a dollar a day - ths is pretty much a luxury. the same menu as above can be had for 15 rupees lesser at lesser quality, of course - at around ruppees 30! so he has money to commute, and make a phone call if necessary at ruppee 1 for 3 minutes to a landline phone, or i minute to a mobile phone.
Poor man earning a dollar in rural areas:
there are places where the same menu described above can be had for around 25 -30 ruppees. but largely, india different from state to state, eating habits, the geogrpahy is different. but in rural areas - you could easily survive 2 days with ruppees 45.
thereare places in arid zones - north karnataka, rajasthan etc - where you get the indian bread - roti for a ruppee. so if a person consumes 5 rotis plus chillies and onions (the std fare that they have in certain areas). they can easily survive for 3-4 days with rupees 45 at hand
Sadly, there are areas where poor farmers, continue to earn only about ruppees 15 -20 per day making it difficult for them to break free from the landlords they work for. each member of the family lives on thier own, and its literally a hand to mouth existence. they barely make the cut. they might lead normal life though (but oppressed and at the mercy of the landlords).
but surviving with ruppees 45? i bet a college student or an average business man, or a an average indian easily can! of course, he need not step into a McDonalds for a burger which might cost ruppees 45 there.
i doubt if it seriously is an issue being idealistic. the current capitalistic model is flawed at best. the shareholders present a unique breed. in the short term they have zero tolerance towards anything else than profits and growth, in the long term, its the capital that they want, its an investment from thier end. the creator of the comapanies are sometimes driven away as was in the case of mandrake linux creator. agreed there might be true breed of investors investing only in blue chip companies. but the vast majority look at the scrip prices and are bothered abt the the ticker and the price. hardly anything else. its this large crowd that probably is a bane to the companies that work hard, give some thing useful and perish quickly simply at a wish of the board members, or shareholders, not interested in the long haul/ interested in quick profits, or a huge profits in the long haul. and ironically, its now more than ever that mega corporations are being constructed everywhere. look at the at&t bell south deal, or any of the many mergers! yahoo, google all gobbling small entities, they might good or bad, but its the damn ticker that the "investers" are bothered abt. i offer no magic solution to this problem, but i do find this model as flawed.
ditto! radical islam is asserting itself way too much - and the western open minded people cannot fathom the same (and are quite flabbergasted why the issue snowballed). probably, USA shouldnt have stepped into iraq, and bush would've had much better credibility dealing with terrorists and chasing them down to any corner of the world. the war on iraq has made the islamic countries group together, and in hushed tones are falling in line with the more radical views. the depiction of prophet in a cartoon has hurt them deeply, and provided a forum to air thier anti-west views. the excessive riots and burning vindicates this point of view. the burning issue - yahoo has gone a step ahead for self censorship - clearly uncalled for. private companies have no business trying to appease certain groups and religions - how many names of gods will they ban ? how many religious groups will they cater to ? will they not be unfair to the groups they do not cater to ?
this behaviour is not just limited to any particular region! since the cell phone companies are multinationals in most cases - the dirty habit seems to just spread. In India too, like everywhere else - the Cell companies have the same sort of problems.
case1:
whenever there's a complicated billing - when somebody's sharing a cell phone in a family, like say kids, spouse - the main member of the family is billed. the billing scheme explicitly says that the sharing members have a limited billing and one of them is eligible for an unlimited/ higher paying option with more facility / more talktime. and they end up switching the schemes. the result - the person who's spoken the max will get a huge bill(and is shifted to the most expensive plan available), while the person who uses the phone sparingly gets a tiny bill.
case2:
cell phone cloning:
this has been done here too by some unscrouplous elements. there's one provider reliance india here (similar to microsoft in many respect, and they do have a tieup with MS for broadband and stuff). they have handsets with the simcard built into the set. all that the culprits have to do is get the codes of the cell - the IMEI number and that of the sim when it comes for repairs, and they use the same onto a new phone - just flash these numbers into the rom of the new cell - viola! you have a phone with the same number - use as you please. the cell phone company can easily check this, but typically the customer ends up paying.
case3:
ringtones/ schmingtones:
users are forcibly thrust with ringtones, and other "facility" that they will "enjoy" for a small fee. often, these happen without asking the customer. and the company representatives claim that since it is done entirely through electronic activation - they feign ignorance. besides these calls are handled by the call centres - who'd know nothing abt the unscruplous acts of the companies. if one isnt particular and is not absolutely determined not to have the companies' devious ways, they end up paying ! it was esy to get them off the back though - just issue them the warning that the next time they'd hear from my lawyers, and get them scurrying - within no time there'd be a customer care executive in another half an hour's time pacifying you!
case 4: false billing:
the companies would claim that you havent paid the previous month's bill, and that yu'd have to pay them a fine as well! typically people would pay the bill through cash at a local franchisee. if you save the bill - good for you, or else you should've paid it through a card or through cheque. failing which the cell phone company would have its way!
well, i could go on and on. but its interesting that the frauds are mostly related to human behaviour - which happens to be the same worldwide! especially to cell phone companies. so what is it ? greed ?
i dont think the scene is the same. and its with this 3000+ chip onwards. i've seen local vendors selling AMD 3000+ in truckloads. (yeah, i know, the retail channels/ branded PCs are the ones that sells by the shiploads, and that the intel inside logo works really well, and that joe and janes like the little sticker - since its been printed into thier tiny brains by the intel brain washing machines). but for a change we have AMDs running a LOT cooler than intels, a lot faster - as usual, much cheaper than intels. and the average joe now has started seeing value in AMDs yu can see that in the AMD quarterly sales figures. when people see big savings and a good product there's no reason they'll turn to AMD. its upto AMD now to really get thier act together - intel seems to be the big bully with great support, good drivers and products and things nicely set in every department. the geeks+gamers always knew it all the while where they could get maximum bang for thier bucks.
ad creators have resorted to many such "sliders" and transparent ads, to grab attention. or there are ads which appear before the page is loaded. yeah, like i've faced similar troubles. i wrote to the portal owners politely that they should script the ads properly or have alternate version - and use browser detection. but they hardly ever respond to the same. however, i have seen that usually these guys either adopt the suggestions or remove them - but with a bit of pestering from users/ customers like us. but they never respond to any suggestions. this ticks me off. its probably this attitude that pisses most people. the end user is almost always helpless and is forced to looks for means to get away from the intrusive ads. while on tv - the ads are less intrusive. they dont flash red and yellow lights to grab your attention or use deception. most ads are getting clever to the point that people like many ads. storylines are appreciated, so is humor. now that the ads are generating revenues online - they need to evolve it. google started the evolution, others should wake up.
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get the suse super then! thats a single cd version!!! get the rest of them, say the propreietary bits like java and stuff later when yu connect again. this single cd version has a kde build and a gnome build, also something known as "slick". i am using the beta version currently and will soon upgrade the single cd - kde only final release - it was pretty good for a beta even, BTW.
its about $5.6 in India (though a large part of it is tax component). moreover - the oil marketing companies have been asked not to hike the prices(by the government which still has the price control mechanism) - sending the oil companies into a tailspin financially. in the near future the gas here is supposed to touch 7 dollars a gallon in india - going by the price of 60 dollars a barrel! imagine that - you guys in the USA are lucky to be buying gas so cheap!
(the reasons for the high price of gas is varied. they have umpteen cess included like: highway development, road maintenance, check the oil pool deficit, subsidising diesel,kerosene and cooking LPG, etc. etc. - so there's already a dis-incentive for the people not to enjoy thier SUVs, expensive cars etc)