In a sense it seems you showed how the market was "rational"--i.e. since in the larger market priced trumped all concerns, quality went out the window. Shame.
I certainly have no basis for criticism here, but I was wondering why you chose not to market your shocks to the $3000+ audience instead? It would seem with a reasonable markup (time and energy spent) to $800 or more, you could have captured the "low-end" there.
OTOH I would imagine persons who spend $3000+ on shocks are pretty much loyal consumers for some specific brands...
Anyway: I'd like to point out something from the article I think is silly, sort of in the same vein:
"The problem today is prices are prohibitively high for the average consumer," says Gartner analyst Joseph Unsworth. "When you consider a hard drive, you can get a terabyte for about $90. If you look at an SSD -- the Intel one I had with 160GB was $400. The point here is SSDs will never, ever be able to match hard disk drives on price per gigabyte."
Let's leave aside any regards we may have for the opinion of an "analyst". However I find his statement to be especially pernicious because he has completely ignored the scale-of-production factor with cost, i.e. the same thing which was pushing down prices before...
To illustrate my point? Look up the price of any DIMMs of DDR2 or lower speed, and note that prices are higher than when they were at peak production. Why? Well duh--good ol' supply and demand--and where supply exceeds demand, prices drop; and where they do not, prices rise.
My point? In sum: microeconomics is a good explanation of what happens here. At the macroeconomics level, however, the supply-demand fulcrum is overswung by the usual "madness of crowds" et al.
Removing a battery bay and the connectors is complexity reduction, and cost reduction.
Note I did not say retail price reduction.:)
Regardless, it is easy to sell consumers on this one: Joe and Jane Average hate batteries, hate swapping them, hate having them pop out on them... and are more than willing to "outsource" the issue to Apple.
*Sigh*
Unless you're some kind of Kaspersky, chances are you will have to take a shot in the dark now and then as to what you are attempting.
It's called learning. *Hmph*
Yes... and this is what we call "Honest Engineer Syndrome".:)
Don't worry, honesty is always the best policy. Just not necessarily the most remuerative.:D
Hmmph. To the person who scored this "redundant": I said that because I had a similar response above, not because I was doing the bobble-head.:)
Sorry for the comment pollution, this was not my intention.:|
See above where I said "unless you're working in an orthodox manner".
UML is used where UML is used; it is consider "orthodox" (AKA CYA). That's why I said the separation is harder when you're free from that sort of overarching process (which is good for some things, but overkill for many others).
Point being: if you find development dull, yet you are in a very Waterfall-oriented organization, then well... might not be the programming part.:)
If you mean purely the process of typing in code, well--that's kind of hard to gauge, isn't it? I've always found that the trial-and-error of development processes means that unless you're working in an orthodox manner it's really hard to separate "thinking" from "doing".
Also, I find that when you're in the "zone" it's not painful at all. Sounds like you may be working on something you don't enjoy so much?:D
I think what we're seeing here is IBM's attempt to dust off and leverage all that old work that went into the original OS/2 UI.
GNOME and KDE have fought on different fronts but suffer from the usual issue which Open Source software faces: lack of unitary direction; and compelling featuresets.
Final salvo in IBM's attempt to co-opt Linux's mindshare? You make the call!:D
i agree; and the real issue is getting systems in place that are non-intrusive. Things like email retention are great policy but run up against the myriad things people can do to remove or move them. Obviously, any email should be captured at the SMTP level. What stuck GP as odd is that in a very IT-centric operation, they state they have no policy: big company or no (and I agree with the slovenly and slapped together methods most work with) they are THE IT company. I imagine if this was not done it was again, via inertia rather than pure malice.
Of course by not having the emails, they have not done themselves well cos they cannot prove or disprove the allegation, and in the light of what this evidence provides it comes across a bit as "the dog ate my homework".
In sum: everyone knows a drunk is just gonna have one more. Sympathizing with it is another thing...
I think that the argument could be made that only every other version of Windows became "vital".
Windows 3.1 was vital. Windows 95 was liked, but Windows 98 was vital. Windows 2000 was liked, but Windows XP was vital.
Windows ME is best forgotten, obviously. As is Bob.
The Intel 945G video runs 'half' of its features through software emulation and you expect your customers to run a game on it? Scary.
Erm, dude... you do understand that he is talking about "average people" here and games like "The Sims", right? Believe it or not the on-board video provides quite adequate performance for many less-demanding games with XP. His point is that using the same game on the same system (same hardware), the only difference being the installed OS is Vista rather than XP, leads to a noticeable degrading of performance. What point do you think he was making here?
The upside is that a $500 PC that you buy today should serve you happily for the next 5 to 10 years though.
I have a feeling the PC he purchased that is six years old and still functional was not an "el cheapo".
I too had a six-year old PC last year which was still functional: but it had been a $4000 top-of-the-line PC laptop in 2000 when it was new. It also had contemporary software installed on it, not latest and greatest (e.g. Windows 2000). These machines will work fine if quality constructed and if you don't upgrade their software willy-nilly. For the record, I got rid of it when the hard drive died: obviously, it was old enough that hardware upgrades were not cost effective.
My wife currently has a five-year old PC, still perfectly functional. It was a $1500+ desktop when purchased. As such it too has aged gracefully, but it will never be running Vista.
Essentially the graphics card in a 2 year old PC is 2 - 4 generations behind what is currently on the market if it was current generation during its time of purchase. I'd personally consider a PC with a GPU 2 to 4 generations old, a CPU 1 - 2 Generations behind current and ram and motherboard architecture 1 to 2 generations behind current to be "older" hardware.
Yes, but these metrics say nothing about practical utility. For standard uses many a PC will age quite nicely.
I once had a Sony Ericsson T637 for AT&T Wireless. I did not like becoming a Cingular customer. So I cancelled my contract, unlocked the phone, and went to T-Mobile. With the purchase of a SIM card I was using a phone with AT&T Wireless branding on the T-Mobile network.
BTW, the DCMA in the USA allows customers to unlock their phone: to paraphrase their last findings, locking phones to particular networks was obviously "a way to protect a business model, not a technology model".
Please, you are moaning about a problem that does not exist. Not in the way you are pretending it does anyway.
BTW, I eventually gave that phone to my younger brother. He popped in a SIM card for Cingular, and when he went to Europe, put in a SIM card for a German company.
With CDMA phones, you have to program them but it's the same priniciple. Call them up, say you have a phone, they'll walk you through the network connection and bingo.
My post is intended to point out that these actions are not predicated on short-term thinking. They are predicated on medium-term and long-term thinking.
I am certain that one of the ways India intends to life those people out of poverty is by improving the industrial and technological base of the nation as a whole. The thinking that goes into this means that these actions will provide India with better means to support its burgeoning population.
I'm sorry, but that's silly. Money is not a "zero-sum game". You are thinking of "money" in a pure balance-sheet, consumption-level sense. Remember, money is a carrier of value, a representation. If the value of a thing increases ten-fold, do you still pay the same in money for it?
As an example, let's say that by India being able to launch its own satellites it is able to improve its communications grids and make great savings in the cash sense, without relying on Western launchpads and satellites.
Don't you think they're saving money in the long run? Don't you also suppose that by saving that money, they can re-invest those savings in programs that assist the poor?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, you can say "I don't want to help them": just disable Wifi, at least when they go through your city.
Wow, thanks for the link.
What's weird about the map is that of the old "Eastern Bloc" only the Czech Republic has been "street-viewed"--not even East Germany. WTF?
If Google were a person, they'd be a Mad Scientist.
Okay, that makes sense.
In a sense it seems you showed how the market was "rational"--i.e. since in the larger market priced trumped all concerns, quality went out the window. Shame.
I certainly have no basis for criticism here, but I was wondering why you chose not to market your shocks to the $3000+ audience instead? It would seem with a reasonable markup (time and energy spent) to $800 or more, you could have captured the "low-end" there.
OTOH I would imagine persons who spend $3000+ on shocks are pretty much loyal consumers for some specific brands...
Oy. Warmed-over Libertarianism, anyone?
Anyway: I'd like to point out something from the article I think is silly, sort of in the same vein:
Let's leave aside any regards we may have for the opinion of an "analyst". However I find his statement to be especially pernicious because he has completely ignored the scale-of-production factor with cost, i.e. the same thing which was pushing down prices before...
To illustrate my point? Look up the price of any DIMMs of DDR2 or lower speed, and note that prices are higher than when they were at peak production. Why? Well duh--good ol' supply and demand--and where supply exceeds demand, prices drop; and where they do not, prices rise.
My point? In sum: microeconomics is a good explanation of what happens here. At the macroeconomics level, however, the supply-demand fulcrum is overswung by the usual "madness of crowds" et al.
Not to take away from your answer, but OP was j/k. He was saying "it's 1996". :)
As for XUL... well, there's another semantically-bloated language.
Oh, and in XUL's case: "it's 1999". :D
Removing a battery bay and the connectors is complexity reduction, and cost reduction. Note I did not say retail price reduction. :)
Regardless, it is easy to sell consumers on this one: Joe and Jane Average hate batteries, hate swapping them, hate having them pop out on them... and are more than willing to "outsource" the issue to Apple.
Whatever. Apple's design decision was made to reduce cost and complexity. Complexity-reduction is Apple's raison d'etre. Don't hate the player...
*Sigh* Unless you're some kind of Kaspersky, chances are you will have to take a shot in the dark now and then as to what you are attempting. It's called learning. *Hmph*
d'fim: Yes, that was exactly what I was saying. Fact is, the mere mention of "UML" is telling... ;)
Yes... and this is what we call "Honest Engineer Syndrome". :)
Don't worry, honesty is always the best policy. Just not necessarily the most remuerative. :D
*sigh* Pedantism--Slashdot's ugly cousin.
Hmmph. To the person who scored this "redundant": I said that because I had a similar response above, not because I was doing the bobble-head. :)
Sorry for the comment pollution, this was not my intention. :|
See above where I said "unless you're working in an orthodox manner". UML is used where UML is used; it is consider "orthodox" (AKA CYA). That's why I said the separation is harder when you're free from that sort of overarching process (which is good for some things, but overkill for many others). Point being: if you find development dull, yet you are in a very Waterfall-oriented organization, then well... might not be the programming part. :)
What he said. Exactly.
If you mean purely the process of typing in code, well--that's kind of hard to gauge, isn't it? I've always found that the trial-and-error of development processes means that unless you're working in an orthodox manner it's really hard to separate "thinking" from "doing". Also, I find that when you're in the "zone" it's not painful at all. Sounds like you may be working on something you don't enjoy so much? :D
I think what we're seeing here is IBM's attempt to dust off and leverage all that old work that went into the original OS/2 UI. GNOME and KDE have fought on different fronts but suffer from the usual issue which Open Source software faces: lack of unitary direction; and compelling featuresets. Final salvo in IBM's attempt to co-opt Linux's mindshare? You make the call! :D
i agree; and the real issue is getting systems in place that are non-intrusive. Things like email retention are great policy but run up against the myriad things people can do to remove or move them. Obviously, any email should be captured at the SMTP level. What stuck GP as odd is that in a very IT-centric operation, they state they have no policy: big company or no (and I agree with the slovenly and slapped together methods most work with) they are THE IT company. I imagine if this was not done it was again, via inertia rather than pure malice.
Of course by not having the emails, they have not done themselves well cos they cannot prove or disprove the allegation, and in the light of what this evidence provides it comes across a bit as "the dog ate my homework".
In sum: everyone knows a drunk is just gonna have one more. Sympathizing with it is another thing...
I think that the argument could be made that only every other version of Windows became "vital". Windows 3.1 was vital. Windows 95 was liked, but Windows 98 was vital. Windows 2000 was liked, but Windows XP was vital. Windows ME is best forgotten, obviously. As is Bob.
The Intel 945G video runs 'half' of its features through software emulation and you expect your customers to run a game on it? Scary.
Erm, dude... you do understand that he is talking about "average people" here and games like "The Sims", right? Believe it or not the on-board video provides quite adequate performance for many less-demanding games with XP. His point is that using the same game on the same system (same hardware), the only difference being the installed OS is Vista rather than XP, leads to a noticeable degrading of performance. What point do you think he was making here?
The upside is that a $500 PC that you buy today should serve you happily for the next 5 to 10 years though.
I have a feeling the PC he purchased that is six years old and still functional was not an "el cheapo".
I too had a six-year old PC last year which was still functional: but it had been a $4000 top-of-the-line PC laptop in 2000 when it was new. It also had contemporary software installed on it, not latest and greatest (e.g. Windows 2000). These machines will work fine if quality constructed and if you don't upgrade their software willy-nilly. For the record, I got rid of it when the hard drive died: obviously, it was old enough that hardware upgrades were not cost effective.
My wife currently has a five-year old PC, still perfectly functional. It was a $1500+ desktop when purchased. As such it too has aged gracefully, but it will never be running Vista.
Essentially the graphics card in a 2 year old PC is 2 - 4 generations behind what is currently on the market if it was current generation during its time of purchase. I'd personally consider a PC with a GPU 2 to 4 generations old, a CPU 1 - 2 Generations behind current and ram and motherboard architecture 1 to 2 generations behind current to be "older" hardware.
Yes, but these metrics say nothing about practical utility. For standard uses many a PC will age quite nicely.
This argument is silly.
I once had a Sony Ericsson T637 for AT&T Wireless. I did not like becoming a Cingular customer. So I cancelled my contract, unlocked the phone, and went to T-Mobile. With the purchase of a SIM card I was using a phone with AT&T Wireless branding on the T-Mobile network.
BTW, the DCMA in the USA allows customers to unlock their phone: to paraphrase their last findings, locking phones to particular networks was obviously "a way to protect a business model, not a technology model".
Please, you are moaning about a problem that does not exist. Not in the way you are pretending it does anyway.
BTW, I eventually gave that phone to my younger brother. He popped in a SIM card for Cingular, and when he went to Europe, put in a SIM card for a German company.
With CDMA phones, you have to program them but it's the same priniciple. Call them up, say you have a phone, they'll walk you through the network connection and bingo.
Cheers, mate. Words of wisdom!
You are right, in the short-term.
My post is intended to point out that these actions are not predicated on short-term thinking. They are predicated on medium-term and long-term thinking.
I am certain that one of the ways India intends to life those people out of poverty is by improving the industrial and technological base of the nation as a whole. The thinking that goes into this means that these actions will provide India with better means to support its burgeoning population.
I'm sorry, but that's silly. Money is not a "zero-sum game". You are thinking of "money" in a pure balance-sheet, consumption-level sense. Remember, money is a carrier of value, a representation. If the value of a thing increases ten-fold, do you still pay the same in money for it?
As an example, let's say that by India being able to launch its own satellites it is able to improve its communications grids and make great savings in the cash sense, without relying on Western launchpads and satellites.
Don't you think they're saving money in the long run? Don't you also suppose that by saving that money, they can re-invest those savings in programs that assist the poor?