Why do you think they haven't drilled those 68 million acres? Since their goal is to make money, do you think they'd be holding back if drilling there could make them money?
Yes, there are millions of acres of undrilled leases. And there's a reason why they're undrilled: they're uneconomic. The combination of high costs (oil isn't the only thing up in price) and the current royalty/tax structure makes it financially stupid to drill there. Get the government to drop the tax and/or royalty rates, and you'll see the drilling start.
Oh, but we don't want to let those big, bad oil companies get away with lower taxes, even if it benefits everyone, so never mind...
Coal actually produces more radioactive waste than Nuclear, thanks to NORM. It's just that Nuclear power gives it to you in a nice hot package, and the coal plants spew it into the atmosphere.
Actually, meltdowns aren't as bad as people think they are. Three-mile Island had a reactor meltdown, but everything stayed contained in the reactor core. People think that Meltdown = Chernobyl, but it's a wholly incorrect perception.
It's important to distinguish between TMI and Chernobyl. Chernobyl exploded and contaminated an enormous aread. Three-mile Island did nothing of the sort--everything stayed contained within the reactor vessel. The operators *did* vent some small amount of contaminated gas, but it was dispersed well enough and was a small enough quantity that it wasn't considered harmful.
And who, pray tell, do you think is going to end up paying that tax? It's YOU, me, and everyone else who just wants to go on living our lives. I think I'll pass on that option.
Actually, the issue with spent fuel is the least of our worries. Most people don't realize this, but coal-burning plants actually produce more radioactive waste than nuclear plants do. It's called Normally-Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM), and it gets spewed into the atmosphere along with the rest of the exhaust from the coal-fired plants.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a smaller amount of waste from a nuclear reactor that I can package up and bury somewhere safe, rather than a larger amount of the stuff wafting around in the air.
I can think of one good reason why it can't spread. It's called "Economics". The current cost of purchasing and installing solar panels is not a wise financial move for most people right now. There *are* plenty of innovations coming down the pipeline that promise to improve the efficiency (and therefore economics) of solar panels, but for now, the technology is not economically viable. (add to this the concerns voiced by Rogerborg and OeLewhassisname)
We could use nuclear power in nearly every situation where we currently use natural gas--heating buildings, cooking, peak electricity generation. If natural gas doesn't get used for those applications, it will have to go elsewhere--and it will. The "gas-to-liquids" (GTL) process takes natural gas and turns it into ultra-low-sulfur diesel. Currently, it's not particularly economic, but if we reduce our demand for natural gas significantly (by building nuclear power plants, for example), the price for natural gas will drop to the point where GTL becomes economic.
Besides, it's important to remember that it's not just high gasoline prices, it's high energy prices in general. At our house, the cost per kWh has approximately doubled in the past two years, and our electricity bill currently dwarfs all our other bills put together (gas, water, cable, internet, phone, etc).
If another company uses your code to make their product better, they're still bound by the GPL. Thus, once you have their source code in hand, you're in a nice position to leapfrog their development.
Well, if you turn off all the extras, what's the point of having Vista in the first place?
AFAIK, turning off all the extras may improve the performance to some degree, but it still won't be as good as XP (given the same hardware), and the bloat on your hard drive hasn't diminished at all.
You're right that this particular case does not seem to affect many people. I think this is more of a "Woohoo! The RIAA lost a stupid lawsuit!" story.
Nevertheless, there are some broader, less obvious implications. Besides the illegality of sending someone something in the mail and then demanding it back, it can be seen as supporting the first-sale doctrine. Some also see it as a step towards the eventual invalidation of shrink-wrap licenses, but I think it's a bit early and far-removed to take it that far.
Keep in mind that it's the environmental lobby that has essentially caused high gas prices, thanks to bans on drilling off our own coasts and in ANWR, and the difficulty of building new refineries. Guess which party that is?
I'd be willing to bet that fewer than 99% of them have actually seen an oil drilling rig, or a drilling operation, or even an operational oil well. They say that drilling for oil would ruin ANWR. Sure, a drill rig's ugly while in operation, but they're actually pretty good about not messing up the environment, and once the well is in operation, all that's left is a wellhead about the size of a tall man.
There are actually operational oil wells in the coastal areas of California, in between houses and such. Nobody seems to notice them, since they're so unobtrusive.
There are a couple of reasons why McCain appeals to me:
Financial conservative. He wants to balance the budget by cutting spending, rather than by raising taxes. And he doesn't want to institute a trillion dollars of extra spending. The idea of treating budgetary and tax changes the same (either both are permanent or both have a sunset date) is one that appeals greatly to me.
Rational stance on Iraq. Whatever your opinion on whether we should have gone in there in the first place, we're there now. Immediately pulling our troops out is absolutely stupid. Obama's plan for Iraq is extremely short-sighted and ignores hundreds of years of history.
He's not advocating "universal healthcare". While the US health care system isn't perfect, socialized medicine is worse. There isn't a single socialized medicine system in the world that over the long term can be called successful. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars (and taking that same amount from tax payers) just to switch from one imperfect system to another seems unwise to me.
I think both candidates are way off the mark on energy issues.
I wonder what they mean by "operation". Do they mean "ease of operation"? A lot can fall under that category. Security (no getting bogged down with spyware/viruses/etc), quality of the GUI, ease of updating, longer battery life--those all might fall into that category.
For me, cost is the #1 "killer app." Following a close second is apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. The security, peace of mind, wide selection of applications, and community support are also huge selling points for me.
considering they are losing the two reasons home users RUN Windows, and then the added headaches associated to running it, why are they going to continue to bother?
Well, familiarity, for one. People are used to Windows. In fact, that's how some iterations of Windows became so popular in the home market. For example, people really liked Windows 2000 at work, so they started bringing it home and using it at home.
In other words, if businesses are stuck on Windows, then a large portion of the population will always be familiar with Windows, and that will bias them towards purchasing Windows on their home computer. However, if they also become more familiar with other OSes, that means that the value of that familiarity is lower i.e. they won't be willing to pay $100/$200/$300/$400 to stick with Windows. Microsoft will either have to lower prices or find some other way to make their product more competitive.
I think the truth lies in a combination of both stories. You're correct that Microsoft is responding to an emerging market opportunity--it is, after all, a chance to sell more Windows licenses. Don't believe for a minute, however, that they're not afraid of Linux making inroads.
Look at it this way: what happens if they don't bother with that market? Well, consumers (particularly less-informed ones) tend to choose the less-expensive option, which definitely describes these machines. If they get used to Linux on these ultraportables, it's a very small step indeed to start using linux on other computers, whether they be notebooks or desktops.
In other words, one of the keystones of the Microsoft monopoly is the fact that people are familiar with Windows and Windows only. If they get familiar with something else, they'll realize that they don't have to pay for their operating system and applications.
It's worse than just the retail numbers. Microsoft takes credit for every machine that is sold with Vista, whether or not that machine is sold with an XP install or whether the user subsequently wipes Vista and replaces it with something else. So basically every laptop sold to a business with a site license has counted as a sale of Vista, even though almost every large business replaces it with their own image.
My company (over 50k employees) took four years after the release of XP to adopt the new OS. They're moving more quickly on Vista, however, with rollout scheduled for 2009. It'll be really interesting to watch--about 50% of our entire workforce and 80-90% of our management are over 47 years old. There's going to be a great deal of bellyaching when users are suddenly confronted with the brand new user interface for both the shell (Aero will be on by default) and office suite (2007). I'll adapt fairly easily, I expect, since I'm still in my 20's, but I feel sorry for the poor folks at the Helpdesk when it hits.
I assume you meant to ask "why would [the manufacturers] use [XP]?" The reason is that people will see a line of mini notebooks, see one with a familiar interface, and say "I know how to use that one!" In other words, the manufacturer stands to make a lot more sales if the user thinks it's more familiar or easier to use. And considering the market penetration of Windows, that will apply to a very large potential customer base.
I think you may have missed the title of the submission--Vista's too big, Mobile's too small, but XP may be about right. Personally, I still think XP's on the pudgy side, but it's the best fit out of the current microsoft OSes
If he didn't agree with him, why did he go to that church? Please don't tell me you believe the "I never heard that" excuse--you don't attend a church for twenty years without something rubbing off on you.
Experience, for me, is the second biggest reason why I wouldn't want to vote for Obama. The biggest reason is that I simply disagree with him on many issues. A trillion dollars of extra government spending is one of them.
What about this: run some electrical cable down the pipe in parallel with the signal cable (assuming ethernet/Cat5/6 here). Every 100m, install a cheap hub. Since each hub will only be drawing a few watts, the voltage drop, even over 500m, will be quite small (14AWG has a resistance of about 4Ohms over 500m). This would allow you to run ethernet the entire distance while keeping costs down.
I know you're all about to scream "don't run power in parallel with data", but hear me out. I never said to use 120VAC. Why not run, say, 24VDC down 14AWG cable, with a DC-DC converter alongside each hub?
A couple years ago I was looking to do something similar. A bit of research shows that it's actually fairly easy to do, and with remarkably long ranges. Pretty much anything roughly parabolic will do, and a satellite dish is a great way to start. Here's a post with several useful links:
http://www.seattlewireless.net/pipermail/dev/2003-June/012784.html
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Why do you think they haven't drilled those 68 million acres? Since their goal is to make money, do you think they'd be holding back if drilling there could make them money?
Yes, there are millions of acres of undrilled leases. And there's a reason why they're undrilled: they're uneconomic. The combination of high costs (oil isn't the only thing up in price) and the current royalty/tax structure makes it financially stupid to drill there. Get the government to drop the tax and/or royalty rates, and you'll see the drilling start.
Oh, but we don't want to let those big, bad oil companies get away with lower taxes, even if it benefits everyone, so never mind...
Coal actually produces more radioactive waste than Nuclear, thanks to NORM. It's just that Nuclear power gives it to you in a nice hot package, and the coal plants spew it into the atmosphere.
Actually, meltdowns aren't as bad as people think they are. Three-mile Island had a reactor meltdown, but everything stayed contained in the reactor core. People think that Meltdown = Chernobyl, but it's a wholly incorrect perception.
It's important to distinguish between TMI and Chernobyl. Chernobyl exploded and contaminated an enormous aread. Three-mile Island did nothing of the sort--everything stayed contained within the reactor vessel. The operators *did* vent some small amount of contaminated gas, but it was dispersed well enough and was a small enough quantity that it wasn't considered harmful.
"Let's tax pollutants heavily..."
And who, pray tell, do you think is going to end up paying that tax? It's YOU, me, and everyone else who just wants to go on living our lives. I think I'll pass on that option.
Actually, the issue with spent fuel is the least of our worries. Most people don't realize this, but coal-burning plants actually produce more radioactive waste than nuclear plants do. It's called Normally-Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM), and it gets spewed into the atmosphere along with the rest of the exhaust from the coal-fired plants.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a smaller amount of waste from a nuclear reactor that I can package up and bury somewhere safe, rather than a larger amount of the stuff wafting around in the air.
I can think of one good reason why it can't spread. It's called "Economics". The current cost of purchasing and installing solar panels is not a wise financial move for most people right now. There *are* plenty of innovations coming down the pipeline that promise to improve the efficiency (and therefore economics) of solar panels, but for now, the technology is not economically viable. (add to this the concerns voiced by Rogerborg and OeLewhassisname)
We could use nuclear power in nearly every situation where we currently use natural gas--heating buildings, cooking, peak electricity generation. If natural gas doesn't get used for those applications, it will have to go elsewhere--and it will. The "gas-to-liquids" (GTL) process takes natural gas and turns it into ultra-low-sulfur diesel. Currently, it's not particularly economic, but if we reduce our demand for natural gas significantly (by building nuclear power plants, for example), the price for natural gas will drop to the point where GTL becomes economic.
Besides, it's important to remember that it's not just high gasoline prices, it's high energy prices in general. At our house, the cost per kWh has approximately doubled in the past two years, and our electricity bill currently dwarfs all our other bills put together (gas, water, cable, internet, phone, etc).
If another company uses your code to make their product better, they're still bound by the GPL. Thus, once you have their source code in hand, you're in a nice position to leapfrog their development.
Well, if you turn off all the extras, what's the point of having Vista in the first place?
AFAIK, turning off all the extras may improve the performance to some degree, but it still won't be as good as XP (given the same hardware), and the bloat on your hard drive hasn't diminished at all.
You're right that this particular case does not seem to affect many people. I think this is more of a "Woohoo! The RIAA lost a stupid lawsuit!" story.
Nevertheless, there are some broader, less obvious implications. Besides the illegality of sending someone something in the mail and then demanding it back, it can be seen as supporting the first-sale doctrine. Some also see it as a step towards the eventual invalidation of shrink-wrap licenses, but I think it's a bit early and far-removed to take it that far.
Keep in mind that it's the environmental lobby that has essentially caused high gas prices, thanks to bans on drilling off our own coasts and in ANWR, and the difficulty of building new refineries. Guess which party that is?
I'd be willing to bet that fewer than 99% of them have actually seen an oil drilling rig, or a drilling operation, or even an operational oil well. They say that drilling for oil would ruin ANWR. Sure, a drill rig's ugly while in operation, but they're actually pretty good about not messing up the environment, and once the well is in operation, all that's left is a wellhead about the size of a tall man.
There are actually operational oil wells in the coastal areas of California, in between houses and such. Nobody seems to notice them, since they're so unobtrusive.
There are a couple of reasons why McCain appeals to me:
Financial conservative. He wants to balance the budget by cutting spending, rather than by raising taxes. And he doesn't want to institute a trillion dollars of extra spending. The idea of treating budgetary and tax changes the same (either both are permanent or both have a sunset date) is one that appeals greatly to me.
Rational stance on Iraq. Whatever your opinion on whether we should have gone in there in the first place, we're there now. Immediately pulling our troops out is absolutely stupid. Obama's plan for Iraq is extremely short-sighted and ignores hundreds of years of history.
He's not advocating "universal healthcare". While the US health care system isn't perfect, socialized medicine is worse. There isn't a single socialized medicine system in the world that over the long term can be called successful. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars (and taking that same amount from tax payers) just to switch from one imperfect system to another seems unwise to me.
I think both candidates are way off the mark on energy issues.
I wonder what they mean by "operation". Do they mean "ease of operation"? A lot can fall under that category. Security (no getting bogged down with spyware/viruses/etc), quality of the GUI, ease of updating, longer battery life--those all might fall into that category.
For me, cost is the #1 "killer app." Following a close second is apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. The security, peace of mind, wide selection of applications, and community support are also huge selling points for me.
considering they are losing the two reasons home users RUN Windows, and then the added headaches associated to running it, why are they going to continue to bother?
Well, familiarity, for one. People are used to Windows. In fact, that's how some iterations of Windows became so popular in the home market. For example, people really liked Windows 2000 at work, so they started bringing it home and using it at home.
In other words, if businesses are stuck on Windows, then a large portion of the population will always be familiar with Windows, and that will bias them towards purchasing Windows on their home computer. However, if they also become more familiar with other OSes, that means that the value of that familiarity is lower i.e. they won't be willing to pay $100/$200/$300/$400 to stick with Windows. Microsoft will either have to lower prices or find some other way to make their product more competitive.
I think the truth lies in a combination of both stories. You're correct that Microsoft is responding to an emerging market opportunity--it is, after all, a chance to sell more Windows licenses. Don't believe for a minute, however, that they're not afraid of Linux making inroads.
Look at it this way: what happens if they don't bother with that market? Well, consumers (particularly less-informed ones) tend to choose the less-expensive option, which definitely describes these machines. If they get used to Linux on these ultraportables, it's a very small step indeed to start using linux on other computers, whether they be notebooks or desktops.
In other words, one of the keystones of the Microsoft monopoly is the fact that people are familiar with Windows and Windows only. If they get familiar with something else, they'll realize that they don't have to pay for their operating system and applications.
It's worse than just the retail numbers. Microsoft takes credit for every machine that is sold with Vista, whether or not that machine is sold with an XP install or whether the user subsequently wipes Vista and replaces it with something else. So basically every laptop sold to a business with a site license has counted as a sale of Vista, even though almost every large business replaces it with their own image.
My company (over 50k employees) took four years after the release of XP to adopt the new OS. They're moving more quickly on Vista, however, with rollout scheduled for 2009. It'll be really interesting to watch--about 50% of our entire workforce and 80-90% of our management are over 47 years old. There's going to be a great deal of bellyaching when users are suddenly confronted with the brand new user interface for both the shell (Aero will be on by default) and office suite (2007). I'll adapt fairly easily, I expect, since I'm still in my 20's, but I feel sorry for the poor folks at the Helpdesk when it hits.
I assume you meant to ask "why would [the manufacturers] use [XP]?" The reason is that people will see a line of mini notebooks, see one with a familiar interface, and say "I know how to use that one!" In other words, the manufacturer stands to make a lot more sales if the user thinks it's more familiar or easier to use. And considering the market penetration of Windows, that will apply to a very large potential customer base.
I think you may have missed the title of the submission--Vista's too big, Mobile's too small, but XP may be about right. Personally, I still think XP's on the pudgy side, but it's the best fit out of the current microsoft OSes
You really think that Bush caused the economy to fall in the gutter? I'd REALLY like to hear the reasoning behind that.
I don't recall Bush ever requiring people to get mortgages they couldn't afford, or forcing banks to make unreasonably risky loans, etc.
If he didn't agree with him, why did he go to that church? Please don't tell me you believe the "I never heard that" excuse--you don't attend a church for twenty years without something rubbing off on you.
Experience, for me, is the second biggest reason why I wouldn't want to vote for Obama. The biggest reason is that I simply disagree with him on many issues. A trillion dollars of extra government spending is one of them.
A cheaper/easier option might be to just use a shop-vac.
What about this: run some electrical cable down the pipe in parallel with the signal cable (assuming ethernet/Cat5/6 here). Every 100m, install a cheap hub. Since each hub will only be drawing a few watts, the voltage drop, even over 500m, will be quite small (14AWG has a resistance of about 4Ohms over 500m). This would allow you to run ethernet the entire distance while keeping costs down.
I know you're all about to scream "don't run power in parallel with data", but hear me out. I never said to use 120VAC. Why not run, say, 24VDC down 14AWG cable, with a DC-DC converter alongside each hub?
A couple years ago I was looking to do something similar. A bit of research shows that it's actually fairly easy to do, and with remarkably long ranges. Pretty much anything roughly parabolic will do, and a satellite dish is a great way to start. Here's a post with several useful links: http://www.seattlewireless.net/pipermail/dev/2003-June/012784.html