That may be true...for now. It will cease being true in when their reflexes and visual acuity are no longer up to their "NASCAR" driving habits. Then they'll just be the asshats that everyone is desperately trying to avoid so they don't die in a fiery crash.
For 2008, with it's incredible oil boom, those budget figures were true. At the end of 2009 they are not even close. Russia is perilously close to bankrupt again.
Your mom and dad might not need ultra fast broadband but what about the local hospital? Could they enhance their life saving services if they ultra high speed access was available so that they could participate in tele-medicine?
How about a Managed Service Provider in that same town? If UFB was available could they break down geographical barriers and expand their business into new areas?
I'm puzzled why you put this into the context of your mom and dad when fast internet access can have a such a strong influence on business success.
Oh they would be able to afford it, just after they raised the prices for the goods and services that are PRODUCED in those rural areas.
City dwellers tend to forget, or like to ignore, that they share a symbiotic relationship with the rural hicks. Without the food and energy resources produced "in the sticks" city life would be impossible.
Tough to run a 40 Billion dollar trading company with no electricity. Tough to raise your family in a beautiful suburb when there's no electricity and nothing to eat. Oh you may have a power plant somewhere close to you, but go find out where the fuel for it comes from. You may have some farms somewhere close to your city but go find out what their production is and then divide that into your population.
You'll quickly discover that you'll be starving in the dark without those hicks in the sticks. On the other side of the coin those hicks in the sticks would be doing without life saving medical treatments and equipment, complicated machinery, and sophisticated technology.
Like I said, it's symbiotic but don't think that they couldn't afford it if they had to. They could, they'd just raise the cost of the food you're eating, the power you consume, etc, until they could.
Except it's not just Ubuntu. As an example the post one down from yours is complaining about a bare metal Fedora 10 install.
If the default configurations are so difficult to manage that two of the largest distributions going can't get them right then we, as a community, need to back up and rethink what we're doing.
I shouldn't have to spend hours flailing around trying to get audio working in the year 2009. I have yet to get PA to work correctly on any hardware and on some systems I haven't been able to get it working at all.
It's ludicrous. All the finger pointing in the world won't change the fact that with Kubuntu and ALSA my audio worked out of the box almost every time. With Kubuntu and PA it's never worked correctly if at all.
Frankly it's as bad, or worse, than getting an ATI video card to work correctly.
Between video and audio I gave up on K/Ubuntu. It just wasn't worth the headaches.
Your satellite reference doesn't apply here for many reasons but I'll give you two.
First because the signals are encrypted and you're breaking that encryption in order to receive them. This is clearly a DMCA violation.
Second, you're modifying your satellite receiver to receive access to a service for which you are not paying for. This is clearly illegal as a Theft of Service. How is this anything like the calculator issue being discussed?
If this business space is important to them then T.I. should create a special series of calculators that are directed at this very market.
My first thought would be a calculator that is very easy to reflash. So easy in fact that it's automatic. When you walk in to take your test you're forced to plug your calculator into the exam givers flashing unit which positively wipes your device and installs the test takers approved software load. After the exam you are free to reflash it with whatever it is you want.
This would be an acceptable method of resolving the problem. Threatening lawsuits against your users is not. Restricting the rights of people who have paid for your hardware is not.
Why is it the consumers responsibility to protect the business relationships of Texas Instruments? If the relationship you described is of value to them then perhaps T.I. should take some reasonable, and legal, steps on it's own to preserve them.
Restricting your customers usage of purchased hardware is not the appropriate avenue.
Same here and it works fine on my Samsung I760. I punch numbers and it dials. Takes about 8 seconds or so to launch and exits within two.
Of course my comment was part trick and part jerk, there IS no OneVoice client officially available for the iPhone so by contrast anything is superior.
Non-proprietary - Check, and been that way since day one. Light years ahead of Apple on this. Sexy Hardware - Nope...but then Microsoft doesn't make the hardware now do they? Standard, user liberated software - Check and been that way since day one. Smashes Apple in this regard.
So according to you they have two out of the three and for the two they do have they absolutely SMASH Apple and the iPhone. That leaves us with the sexy hardware problem. Since Microsoft doesn't build the hardware this is a real issue for them.
Of course it also means, according to your theory, that the REAL reason people are buying the iPhone is because it's "sexy", or to use another word it's fashionable.
So where we conclude is that either your theory about what it takes to build an awesome phone is wrong or the real reason the iPhone sells so well is because it's viewed as a must have fashion accessory and not based on any technical merit or software openness.
I'm personally in the fashion accessory camp. If it was about technical excellence and software openness then Android would be doing much better than it is.
I played the EF series to death, literally. I clanned up just like the Quake days (Fraggers United) and played for tens of hours each week until there were no longer enough online players to get a 6 v 6 match going. It's unfortunate that the EF2 release was so cartoonish and slow, it ruined the game and people quit playing.
Having spent some time in the I.T. trenches his "sensitive material" is probably a largish collection of porn, copyrighted material that he didn't pay for, and emails from his two mistresses. Yes I've seen all of those and in some cases all three of those on the same machine.
I'm not approving or endorsing the GPS plan in any way.
An odometer check will provide them with everything they need.
Increasing the fuel tax to offset reduced revenue by reduced usage is still not a good solution. It's a very regressive tax specifically targeted at people who cannot afford newer and more fuel efficient vehicles.
You're attempted rebuttal of "What's wrong with just increasing the gas tax? It's not like everyone's going to suddenly buy a Prius." is precisely the problem.
Those who CAN afford more fuel efficient cars will buy them, leaving those who cannot afford new cars to shoulder an increasing share of the burden.
People driving gas guzzlers ALREADY pay more than the fuel sipping 3,000lb Prius. They buy more fuel and thus pay more tax.
The problem in this scenario isn't the guy with the 7,000 Hummer, he's already paying out the nose in fuel taxes that get used for road maintenance.
The problem child here is the 3,000lb Prius who is paying far less per mile, so much less in fact that the highway cannot be maintained with the income generated.
Increasing the tax and pushing people to more fuel efficient cars will actually make the funding problem worse, not better.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmm, no.
Please run for three minutes and then attempt to put 10 rounds of .22 into the bulls-eye of a target that is 100 yards away.
Or, if you prefer, take up the biathlon. You simply MUST be an athlete, a "jock", in order to be good at it.
An out of shape couch potato may be able to fire a gun well when at rest but with physical activity they WILL struggle to aim and hit targets.
That may be true...for now. It will cease being true in when their reflexes and visual acuity are no longer up to their "NASCAR" driving habits. Then they'll just be the asshats that everyone is desperately trying to avoid so they don't die in a fiery crash.
I'll get off your lawn Sir.
Your comment seemed interesting. Unfortunately it was too long and I didn't finish reading it.
For 2008, with it's incredible oil boom, those budget figures were true. At the end of 2009 they are not even close. Russia is perilously close to bankrupt again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/world/europe/31russia.html
http://russiatooat.blogspot.com/2009/08/bank-rossii-eases-further-as-russias.html
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/economics-country-briefings/russias-economy-contracts-by-7-in-q1-2009/
Your mom and dad might not need ultra fast broadband but what about the local hospital? Could they enhance their life saving services if they ultra high speed access was available so that they could participate in tele-medicine?
How about a Managed Service Provider in that same town? If UFB was available could they break down geographical barriers and expand their business into new areas?
I'm puzzled why you put this into the context of your mom and dad when fast internet access can have a such a strong influence on business success.
Oh they would be able to afford it, just after they raised the prices for the goods and services that are PRODUCED in those rural areas.
City dwellers tend to forget, or like to ignore, that they share a symbiotic relationship with the rural hicks. Without the food and energy resources produced "in the sticks" city life would be impossible.
Tough to run a 40 Billion dollar trading company with no electricity. Tough to raise your family in a beautiful suburb when there's no electricity and nothing to eat. Oh you may have a power plant somewhere close to you, but go find out where the fuel for it comes from. You may have some farms somewhere close to your city but go find out what their production is and then divide that into your population.
You'll quickly discover that you'll be starving in the dark without those hicks in the sticks. On the other side of the coin those hicks in the sticks would be doing without life saving medical treatments and equipment, complicated machinery, and sophisticated technology.
Like I said, it's symbiotic but don't think that they couldn't afford it if they had to. They could, they'd just raise the cost of the food you're eating, the power you consume, etc, until they could.
So go quietly into that good night, dragged away by jackbooted thugs, or fight and end with a BANG.
I know which I would choose.
We're Geeks you insensitive clod!
Except it's not just Ubuntu. As an example the post one down from yours is complaining about a bare metal Fedora 10 install.
If the default configurations are so difficult to manage that two of the largest distributions going can't get them right then we, as a community, need to back up and rethink what we're doing.
Very nice but...
I shouldn't have to spend hours flailing around trying to get audio working in the year 2009. I have yet to get PA to work correctly on any hardware and on some systems I haven't been able to get it working at all.
It's ludicrous. All the finger pointing in the world won't change the fact that with Kubuntu and ALSA my audio worked out of the box almost every time. With Kubuntu and PA it's never worked correctly if at all.
Frankly it's as bad, or worse, than getting an ATI video card to work correctly.
Between video and audio I gave up on K/Ubuntu. It just wasn't worth the headaches.
Your satellite reference doesn't apply here for many reasons but I'll give you two.
First because the signals are encrypted and you're breaking that encryption in order to receive them. This is clearly a DMCA violation.
Second, you're modifying your satellite receiver to receive access to a service for which you are not paying for. This is clearly illegal as a Theft of Service. How is this anything like the calculator issue being discussed?
If this business space is important to them then T.I. should create a special series of calculators that are directed at this very market.
My first thought would be a calculator that is very easy to reflash. So easy in fact that it's automatic. When you walk in to take your test you're forced to plug your calculator into the exam givers flashing unit which positively wipes your device and installs the test takers approved software load. After the exam you are free to reflash it with whatever it is you want.
This would be an acceptable method of resolving the problem. Threatening lawsuits against your users is not. Restricting the rights of people who have paid for your hardware is not.
Why is it the consumers responsibility to protect the business relationships of Texas Instruments? If the relationship you described is of value to them then perhaps T.I. should take some reasonable, and legal, steps on it's own to preserve them.
Restricting your customers usage of purchased hardware is not the appropriate avenue.
Same here and it works fine on my Samsung I760. I punch numbers and it dials. Takes about 8 seconds or so to launch and exits within two.
Of course my comment was part trick and part jerk, there IS no OneVoice client officially available for the iPhone so by contrast anything is superior.
WinMo Phones:
Non-proprietary - Check, and been that way since day one. Light years ahead of Apple on this.
Sexy Hardware - Nope...but then Microsoft doesn't make the hardware now do they?
Standard, user liberated software - Check and been that way since day one. Smashes Apple in this regard.
So according to you they have two out of the three and for the two they do have they absolutely SMASH Apple and the iPhone. That leaves us with the sexy hardware problem. Since Microsoft doesn't build the hardware this is a real issue for them.
Of course it also means, according to your theory, that the REAL reason people are buying the iPhone is because it's "sexy", or to use another word it's fashionable.
So where we conclude is that either your theory about what it takes to build an awesome phone is wrong or the real reason the iPhone sells so well is because it's viewed as a must have fashion accessory and not based on any technical merit or software openness.
I'm personally in the fashion accessory camp. If it was about technical excellence and software openness then Android would be doing much better than it is.
Oh I don't know, the quality of the Google Voice app on my WinMo phone seems to be far better than the one available for the iPhone.
I played the EF series to death, literally. I clanned up just like the Quake days (Fraggers United) and played for tens of hours each week until there were no longer enough online players to get a 6 v 6 match going. It's unfortunate that the EF2 release was so cartoonish and slow, it ruined the game and people quit playing.
I heard it expressed as "Your job is to make your boss look good.". It's equally true regardless of how it's expressed.
Perhaps they are still trying to catch their breath from blowing on their Mario Brothers cartridges?
Having spent some time in the I.T. trenches his "sensitive material" is probably a largish collection of porn, copyrighted material that he didn't pay for, and emails from his two mistresses. Yes I've seen all of those and in some cases all three of those on the same machine.
I'm not approving or endorsing the GPS plan in any way.
An odometer check will provide them with everything they need.
Increasing the fuel tax to offset reduced revenue by reduced usage is still not a good solution. It's a very regressive tax specifically targeted at people who cannot afford newer and more fuel efficient vehicles.
You're attempted rebuttal of "What's wrong with just increasing the gas tax? It's not like everyone's going to suddenly buy a Prius." is precisely the problem.
Those who CAN afford more fuel efficient cars will buy them, leaving those who cannot afford new cars to shoulder an increasing share of the burden.
Under your scheme everyone who can't afford to purchase a fancy new hybrid or all electric vehicle will fund the highway system for those who can!
Are you rich? Do you vote Republican?
I think that it is possible to come up with a worse plan than what you proposed but it's going to take a few minutes of thought.
People driving gas guzzlers ALREADY pay more than the fuel sipping 3,000lb Prius. They buy more fuel and thus pay more tax.
The problem in this scenario isn't the guy with the 7,000 Hummer, he's already paying out the nose in fuel taxes that get used for road maintenance.
The problem child here is the 3,000lb Prius who is paying far less per mile, so much less in fact that the highway cannot be maintained with the income generated.
Increasing the tax and pushing people to more fuel efficient cars will actually make the funding problem worse, not better.
Bind it with another agent that will make it heaver than water and kick it over board and let it sink to the bottom.