Yes. Thanks, I'm familiar with the Internet.
Freediag is interesting, but not really easy to understand if you're not familiar with this technology, and hard to tell just how well it works. The project is changing hands, considered alpha, hasn't had a lot of development, etc.
I was hoping to find people who could share experiences, maybe even supply some accounts of their experiences and photos.
...plumbing isn't going to be outsourced to India anytime soon.
Great point. Until paratrooper plumbers fly over the US (any moment now...) it will be local. Have a career or at least a backup that requires you to be there in person!
Excellent point. Sometimes you're better off taking a well paying job you're not in love with, so you don't have to stress over money and you can enjoy your hobbies.
Why is a lawyer who likes to paint silly and a painter who can't sell his work and is poor noble?
Sounds like you're doing awfully well. Wine and cheese, beaches and jungle, etc.
A landline is not a luxury, a cell phone could be argued to be. A laptop is also arguably a luxury.
Living in a big city isn't necessarily a luxury. You may just happen to be there, or that's where you can find a job. Of course, you don't have to live in the best area.
And for some people, money and time are in short supply, so they can't spend the extra time looking for deals.
While what you're proposing may be possible for you, it's not for everyone. As the author you're responding to said, having kids and a family changes everything. You can't have roommates and home-made health plans. You have to worry about living in a good neighborhood. You need lots and lots of time to take care of your kids - you can't work around the clock fixing people's toilets.
It's the "install them" part that takes up more time than would be ideal, and becomes the focus of too many reviews. Have you noticed most reviews of distors focus on installation and breeze over everything else? Seems a little crazy, doesn't it? I mean, even installing Gentoo or something, which can really become an experience to brag about, is generally not something you're doing every day.
Installing the *BSDs has not had the ease that many of the Linux distros have had, so hopefully this will encourage more competition, options, and enjoyment and savings.
I'm afraid that this is going to be the course of all good free/open source software projects. I work in an envioronment that uses Free software for our servers because the schools can't afford others. We've been using Mitel's SME Server (E-Smith for you old-schoolers) for quite a while. Recently Mitel is dropping support for this. This announcement came right after Redhat's shakeup a while back. Free/swan is an excellent tool that we've been using to connect schools and homes. Anyway, I'm afraid that education will suffer, which in turn will lead to everyone's suffering.
While I'm sure this will cause you difficulties, and I sympathize, there are items to consider.
1. forks
Because we're talking about open source it's not only an option, it happens. So you get to use Fedora, or any number of alternatives, if you want a Redhat-ish system and don't like the way Redhat has changed things. Some others have mentioned OpenSwan, which seems like it would be a relatively painless transition.
2. support
I understand the constrainsts your organization is probably under, but while the benefit of open source software is it's price, I believe there's also a certain obligation to participate in projects you rely on. At minimum that means feedback to developers, but this might be an opportunity to support the education of programmers who could take up the baton and keep the race going, or small donations to developers could encourage them to continue.
3. Why do you want it to continue?
May seem like a silly question, but sometimes a product is good enough. I mean, if Microsoft Word had stopped development of their product at say, Office 95, would you be missing out on anything? Maybe FreeSwan is good enough for now. It's not like they're going to discontinue a subscription you had, or support they gave you, right?
True enough. But if you're living off of interest from your well performing mutual fund, why stay in the states? Why not move to someplace cheap and sunny where you can live well for your $34k/yr? Belize, Thailand, etc.
I guess if you move offshore you'll use a Compaq and drink Coke, so you'll still be helping your former coworkers who don't have the $200k you need to live off of interest. They'll still need to work, in the bottling plant, or packing computers into cardboard boxes.
Does that work? Is a more complex, punitive tax system the answer? According to this article http://www.frissell.com/taxpat/FORBES1.HTM when taxes are raised on the rich, they just move.
Also, if you tax them, how is the income distributed? Do less wealthy people pay less in taxes?
When taxes and restrictions are high, some people and companies would prefer to shop/work/have businesses elsewhere to avoid taxes legally or otherwise.
OK. Lets say your job gets sent overseas, but you have enough investment in the stock mareket so you don't have to worry about your job and you can just live off of it.
If you have $200,000 in cash (you do, don't you?), and you can find a mutual fund like the S&P 500 during the '90s, with returns of 17.3% (you can find a fund like that, can't you?). If you do, you'll earn $34,600 in interest a year to live off of. Adjust the amount of cash you put in to reflect the salary you lived off of.
And if you don't have an income, you can't put money into your 401k or pension fund.
Normal, average people may own stock, but not so much that they can live off of mulitnational companies profitting overseas.
True, but I can see the value of listening to books this way all the same. In the last few years I've learned to read things in at least four different ways depending on how interesting or important the material. I don't skim through tech publications or mailing list digests the same way I read an entertaining novel, a relevant article or a manual or book to study.
When I was being overwhelmed with material I found I was wasting my time reading some things too carefully and wasn't enjoying some novels b/c I read them too carefully.
But in the end salaries will balance out just about everywhere.
Wow, I doubt that. First off, there are billions of people earning a lot less than the compartively low paid knowledge workers in countries like India. Some are qualified to take fight for those offshored jobs, others will be - maybe in a year, maybe in 10 years, but they'll be there to compete.
Plus, it's not like these jobs that go offshore go directly to someone at a lower rate. They go to a company that fills those positions. And I guarantee you they keep as much as they can.
So what does this really mean? It means people who want jobs being shipped out of the US will work for much less than it looks like they are now.
The only way you might outperform local salary averages is if your position requires physical proximity, and many don't, nowadays.
What can you do? Buy some stock.
Good advice. Buy stock and if you want real job security, do something that would be really difficult to send overseas.
Re:You can't get parts from India...
on
Orwellian Tech Support
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Who can either reeducate to get a better job, or who can transition into another job (our economy is expanding you know.)
The recovery is considered a jobless one. And whether the economy is improving or not, being out of work stinks, and intangible improvements to the economy do not put food on the table or pay the rent....and Indian laborers gain. Maybe. I'm not necessarily saying there is no merit to offshoring, but keep in mind that other countries don't have the worker protections the US does (minimum wage, work hours, etc). Some might be as good or better, but no guarantee.
And it looks like economies would benefit by higher income jobs, but globalization can do some wild stuff to economies, including making economies dependent on the global economy, rather than self sufficient.
Think about what is lacking out there that you can develop and sell. Couldn't find the message cubicledrone was quoting on this, but I was amazed to read it. The only person who would say something like that is someone who hasn't been unemployed for long, and who thinks they haven't been because they're such a wonderful asset.
Let me caution you to be modest and wise. Develop your network, keep skills current. There are lots of smart, creative people who have been out of work for months and years. It's not a reflection on their abilities. Getting work can be hard, and being out of work drags you down in just about every way.
Well put. Being a programmer requires a gamblers heart. You're fighting the clock to stay relevant and productive. There's always the threat that there will be a way to replace you with an entry level employee, H1-B visa holder or offshore workers. You have to avoid overcommiting, but not seem difficult. And long hours, weekend work and being willing to dispose of your vacation time are the sign of committment. Compensation stays stagnant, insurance costs rise, other costs rise as well.
No? Then why do companies get Windows and MS Office when they could obviously save money with Linux/OpenOffice? Why won't they invest on ease of use (real or percieved) in other areas then - like Apple servers or for that matter desktops?
Use of MS Office is based on what everyone else uses, inertia, fears of the unknown (read job security), etc. Not ease of use issues. Don't misinterpret this to mean I like MS Office.
Additionally, there isn't a set in stone standard for servers like there is for desktop apps.
And while it's true that if you have an office that has no existing hardware and no expertise in house you might be able to buy an XServe and be very happy with it and not need any technical help, this is not the typical server customer. Most customers have existing equipment, spare parts, and expertise. They know what works, and the XServe is somewhat of an unknown, and it costs more than altneratives cost.
Good points. I agree much of the gov. can be stripped down. And other should be moved or bulit up - move the bases to meaningful places, use the military to conquer more than just armies, and don't continue the status quo - dictators, subsidized tobacco smoking goats and so on.
I know what you mean about moving the NASA money around, too. And I'm thankful for the help dicoveries from NASA have provided for us all, your father included.
Guess I'm just kind of cheap - I'm still not sure it's a good use of money. But I agree there are worse wastes of money out there, and there is some benefit from what NASA et al does.
The danger I've found in criticising stuff is you get volunteered to improve it. I'd love to see some reviews and just walk throughs. The fairly recent freebsd compared to Linux was a step in the right direction. I'd love to see more.
I'd like to deck my car out with a computer driven dashboard, so I could get data like truckers or mechanics can get.
My AM radio tunes in NPR just fine. I don't need a jukebox or movies or what not. I want data on engine temperature (not that stupid dial), maybe even in different spots, fluid levels, maybe even ways of checking hose, belt and part functioning.
Of course, with modern cars (which for me means anything in the last 10 years or so!) you can do some of this with a palm pilot or pocket pc, the right cable, and software. Not sure to what extent, though.
Historically, betting on things to stay the same hasn't paid off; not in the long term. Which is where the "people like you" line came from. You sound quite certain that the current vested interests will prevent fusion from getting off the ground, that space travel is merely a fantasy of feavered science fiction freaks, etc. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's certainly the impression you've given me in these posts, a cynical "grow up kid, that stuff'll never happen" seems to be the central pillar of your arguments. If I've misunderstood your point, please let me know. And I'll try to stay away from "people like you" speeches.
I'm not saying things should stay the same. I'm all for advances, and I don't think vested interests will keep fusion and space mining and such from happening. I think fusion in various forms will happen, and will be useful, not when exactly that will be is a hard one to say.
And I'm not saying we'll never travel in space. The sci fi comment was on choice of words, nothing else. And my comments on trips to Mars and elsewhere had nothing to do with it being possible. It was about money. It will cost a fortune, tax payer paid (as opposed to many inventions and discoveries which have been private/corporate sponsored or accidental), which I think could be used for a lot better things. Insane number of children die every day for lack of clean water and mosquito nets. I heard on an interview on NPR that the current Mars mission cost $3 per US citizen. That just seems like a huge waste to me.
I do want kids to grow up - not you necessarily, you keep at what you're doing, but I don't like the idea of putting a huge fortune into wild space stuff, think many vested interests will oppose such trips, and I can see better things to do with the money - like letting kids grow up.
Would there be advances to benefit everyone from space travel/exploration/mining? Sure. But it's not enough of a reason for me.
Um, you need to stop using FOX as your sole newssource friend. The number of US launches is about the same as the number of launches worldwide. Look here and see for yourself. True, the US accounts for more launches than any other group (ESA, etc), but the others are hardly sitting around doing nothing. Pleanty of other nations going forth and doing things.
Oh boy. OK, nearly all the launches by anyone other than the US are satellites, and most are by countries or groups of countries with big investments in oil & coal - Russia, France and company, China is on there once or twice. And the most ambitious programs look to be American.
Sneer not that the nerds... OK, simmer. I work in technology, too. No need to get all "we built your world" on me....lunar is a real word meaning real things, not an indication of science ficiton addiction.
Yeah, thanks. I just was saying what it sounded like.
Those of us with a bit of foresight will enjoy large rewards. People like you, those who sneered at the Wright brothers...
oh my. Well, hope you enjoy those fortunes. And don't get all "we're the dreamers that make dreams come true" on me. Because I'm not subscribing to your newsletter doesn't make me a luddite. How nice of you to put yourself in the camp of the geniuses and me on the idiot sideline. "People like you..." wow. Does this little speach have a soundtrack?
I haven't encountered many companies that value their employees time so much to not want them to save a couple of thousand dollars.
Also, there are some fundamental problems with debates on what a value the XServe is:
-it assumes you've had to buy software to do the same. Even using Linux most comparisons I've seen talk about expensive, 'enterprise' versions. Should be compared to free software. -assumes you've had to do make each box one at a time with no copied config files or installers and no knowledge retention (lots of talk on the expense of admin do to difficulty when compared to X's interface) -assumes you like everything about the XServe and OS X. The way you update programs, the proprietary hardware, the admin system, etc.
I'm not saying it's not a swell machine. If you like it go for it. But don't think it's the best value for everyone. Many companies have stacks of Intel boxes, and paid for hardware with lots of spare parts and internal expertise.
True we're not the only nation out there. But there aren't a lot of other nations with the proven ability to get into space and do anything there.
Comparing investment in the moon to investing in Columbus's voyage sure makes it seem way long term. Most people seem to like quarterly results, the patient will wait for yearly returns. This seems quite a bit longer.
OK, so NASA uses the term Lunar. Then again, they are arguably the last holdout of the short sleeve dress shirt and tie look. I guess it sounds a little too sci-fi to me to use the term Lunar for anything not already on the moon.
The coal and oil industries probably don't like it too much. According to the section I quoted below the coal industry alone has an annual production value of about $100 billion. I'm sure oil isn't hurting, either.
It's amazing how much you can make people agree with you if you have billions to spend on campaign donations, advertising and astroturf (corporate run grass roots).
"The size and global reach of the coal industry is unparalleled in the mining sector. Almost 500 million tonnes of coal are shipped annually around the world at a traded value of around US$15bn, but the total amount of coal mined each year amounts to some 3.8 billion tonnes. This puts the total value of annual production at around US$100bn - far higher than the next most important mined commodity, aluminium." http://www.woodhead-publishing.com/fi nance/further info/energy/coal.html
Slashdot Mirror
Have you actually tried...
Yes. Thanks, I'm familiar with the Internet.
Freediag is interesting, but not really easy to understand if you're not familiar with this technology, and hard to tell just how well it works. The project is changing hands, considered alpha, hasn't had a lot of development, etc.
I was hoping to find people who could share experiences, maybe even supply some accounts of their experiences and photos.
...plumbing isn't going to be outsourced to India anytime soon.
Great point. Until paratrooper plumbers fly over the US (any moment now...) it will be local. Have a career or at least a backup that requires you to be there in person!
Excellent point. Sometimes you're better off taking a well paying job you're not in love with, so you don't have to stress over money and you can enjoy your hobbies.
Why is a lawyer who likes to paint silly and a painter who can't sell his work and is poor noble?
Sounds like you're doing awfully well. Wine and cheese, beaches and jungle, etc.
A landline is not a luxury, a cell phone could be argued to be. A laptop is also arguably a luxury.
Living in a big city isn't necessarily a luxury. You may just happen to be there, or that's where you can find a job. Of course, you don't have to live in the best area.
And for some people, money and time are in short supply, so they can't spend the extra time looking for deals.
While what you're proposing may be possible for you, it's not for everyone. As the author you're responding to said, having kids and a family changes everything. You can't have roommates and home-made health plans. You have to worry about living in a good neighborhood. You need lots and lots of time to take care of your kids - you can't work around the clock fixing people's toilets.
It's the "install them" part that takes up more time than would be ideal, and becomes the focus of too many reviews. Have you noticed most reviews of distors focus on installation and breeze over everything else? Seems a little crazy, doesn't it? I mean, even installing Gentoo or something, which can really become an experience to brag about, is generally not something you're doing every day.
Installing the *BSDs has not had the ease that many of the Linux distros have had, so hopefully this will encourage more competition, options, and enjoyment and savings.
I'm afraid that this is going to be the course of all good free/open source software projects. I work in an envioronment that uses Free software for our servers because the schools can't afford others. We've been using Mitel's SME Server (E-Smith for you old-schoolers) for quite a while. Recently Mitel is dropping support for this. This announcement came right after Redhat's shakeup a while back. Free/swan is an excellent tool that we've been using to connect schools and homes. Anyway, I'm afraid that education will suffer, which in turn will lead to everyone's suffering.
While I'm sure this will cause you difficulties, and I sympathize, there are items to consider.
1. forks
Because we're talking about open source it's not only an option, it happens. So you get to use Fedora, or any number of alternatives, if you want a Redhat-ish system and don't like the way Redhat has changed things. Some others have mentioned OpenSwan, which seems like it would be a relatively painless transition.
2. support
I understand the constrainsts your organization is probably under, but while the benefit of open source software is it's price, I believe there's also a certain obligation to participate in projects you rely on. At minimum that means feedback to developers, but this might be an opportunity to support the education of programmers who could take up the baton and keep the race going, or small donations to developers could encourage them to continue.
3. Why do you want it to continue?
May seem like a silly question, but sometimes a product is good enough. I mean, if Microsoft Word had stopped development of their product at say, Office 95, would you be missing out on anything? Maybe FreeSwan is good enough for now. It's not like they're going to discontinue a subscription you had, or support they gave you, right?
True enough. But if you're living off of interest from your well performing mutual fund, why stay in the states? Why not move to someplace cheap and sunny where you can live well for your $34k/yr? Belize, Thailand, etc.
I guess if you move offshore you'll use a Compaq and drink Coke, so you'll still be helping your former coworkers who don't have the $200k you need to live off of interest. They'll still need to work, in the bottling plant, or packing computers into cardboard boxes.
Does that work? Is a more complex, punitive tax system the answer? According to this article http://www.frissell.com/taxpat/FORBES1.HTM when taxes are raised on the rich, they just move.
Also, if you tax them, how is the income distributed? Do less wealthy people pay less in taxes?
When taxes and restrictions are high, some people and companies would prefer to shop/work/have businesses elsewhere to avoid taxes legally or otherwise.
OK. Lets say your job gets sent overseas, but you have enough investment in the stock mareket so you don't have to worry about your job and you can just live off of it.
If you have $200,000 in cash (you do, don't you?), and you can find a mutual fund like the S&P 500 during the '90s, with returns of 17.3% (you can find a fund like that, can't you?). If you do, you'll earn $34,600 in interest a year to live off of. Adjust the amount of cash you put in to reflect the salary you lived off of.
And if you don't have an income, you can't put money into your 401k or pension fund.
Normal, average people may own stock, but not so much that they can live off of mulitnational companies profitting overseas.
True, but I can see the value of listening to books this way all the same. In the last few years I've learned to read things in at least four different ways depending on how interesting or important the material. I don't skim through tech publications or mailing list digests the same way I read an entertaining novel, a relevant article or a manual or book to study.
When I was being overwhelmed with material I found I was wasting my time reading some things too carefully and wasn't enjoying some novels b/c I read them too carefully.
But in the end salaries will balance out just about everywhere.
Wow, I doubt that. First off, there are billions of people earning a lot less than the compartively low paid knowledge workers in countries like India. Some are qualified to take fight for those offshored jobs, others will be - maybe in a year, maybe in 10 years, but they'll be there to compete.
Plus, it's not like these jobs that go offshore go directly to someone at a lower rate. They go to a company that fills those positions. And I guarantee you they keep as much as they can.
So what does this really mean? It means people who want jobs being shipped out of the US will work for much less than it looks like they are now.
The only way you might outperform local salary averages is if your position requires physical proximity, and many don't, nowadays.
What can you do? Buy some stock.
Good advice. Buy stock and if you want real job security, do something that would be really difficult to send overseas.
Who can either reeducate to get a better job, or who can transition into another job (our economy is expanding you know.)
...and Indian laborers gain.
The recovery is considered a jobless one. And whether the economy is improving or not, being out of work stinks, and intangible improvements to the economy do not put food on the table or pay the rent.
Maybe. I'm not necessarily saying there is no merit to offshoring, but keep in mind that other countries don't have the worker protections the US does (minimum wage, work hours, etc). Some might be as good or better, but no guarantee.
And it looks like economies would benefit by higher income jobs, but globalization can do some wild stuff to economies, including making economies dependent on the global economy, rather than self sufficient.
Think about what is lacking out there that you can develop and sell.
Couldn't find the message cubicledrone was quoting on this, but I was amazed to read it. The only person who would say something like that is someone who hasn't been unemployed for long, and who thinks they haven't been because they're such a wonderful asset.
Let me caution you to be modest and wise. Develop your network, keep skills current. There are lots of smart, creative people who have been out of work for months and years. It's not a reflection on their abilities. Getting work can be hard, and being out of work drags you down in just about every way.
Well put. Being a programmer requires a gamblers heart.
You're fighting the clock to stay relevant and productive.
There's always the threat that there will be a way to replace you with an entry level employee, H1-B visa holder or offshore workers.
You have to avoid overcommiting, but not seem difficult.
And long hours, weekend work and being willing to dispose of your vacation time are the sign of committment.
Compensation stays stagnant, insurance costs rise, other costs rise as well.
Like a club in NYC. You can't find it, and if you can, they don't want you there, or at least they act that way.
No? Then why do companies get Windows and MS Office when they could obviously save money with Linux/OpenOffice? Why won't they invest on ease of use (real or percieved) in other areas then - like Apple servers or for that matter desktops?
Use of MS Office is based on what everyone else uses, inertia, fears of the unknown (read job security), etc. Not ease of use issues. Don't misinterpret this to mean I like MS Office.
Additionally, there isn't a set in stone standard for servers like there is for desktop apps.
And while it's true that if you have an office that has no existing hardware and no expertise in house you might be able to buy an XServe and be very happy with it and not need any technical help, this is not the typical server customer. Most customers have existing equipment, spare parts, and expertise. They know what works, and the XServe is somewhat of an unknown, and it costs more than altneratives cost.
Good points. I agree much of the gov. can be stripped down. And other should be moved or bulit up - move the bases to meaningful places, use the military to conquer more than just armies, and don't continue the status quo - dictators, subsidized tobacco smoking goats and so on.
I know what you mean about moving the NASA money around, too. And I'm thankful for the help dicoveries from NASA have provided for us all, your father included.
Guess I'm just kind of cheap - I'm still not sure it's a good use of money. But I agree there are worse wastes of money out there, and there is some benefit from what NASA et al does.
The danger I've found in criticising stuff is you get volunteered to improve it. I'd love to see some reviews and just walk throughs. The fairly recent freebsd compared to Linux was a step in the right direction. I'd love to see more.
I'd like to deck my car out with a computer driven dashboard, so I could get data like truckers or mechanics can get.
My AM radio tunes in NPR just fine. I don't need a jukebox or movies or what not. I want data on engine temperature (not that stupid dial), maybe even in different spots, fluid levels, maybe even ways of checking hose, belt and part functioning.
Of course, with modern cars (which for me means anything in the last 10 years or so!) you can do some of this with a palm pilot or pocket pc, the right cable, and software. Not sure to what extent, though.
Historically, betting on things to stay the same hasn't paid off; not in the long term. Which is where the "people like you" line came from. You sound quite certain that the current vested interests will prevent fusion from getting off the ground, that space travel is merely a fantasy of feavered science fiction freaks, etc. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's certainly the impression you've given me in these posts, a cynical "grow up kid, that stuff'll never happen" seems to be the central pillar of your arguments. If I've misunderstood your point, please let me know. And I'll try to stay away from "people like you" speeches.
I'm not saying things should stay the same. I'm all for advances, and I don't think vested interests will keep fusion and space mining and such from happening. I think fusion in various forms will happen, and will be useful, not when exactly that will be is a hard one to say.
And I'm not saying we'll never travel in space. The sci fi comment was on choice of words, nothing else. And my comments on trips to Mars and elsewhere had nothing to do with it being possible. It was about money. It will cost a fortune, tax payer paid (as opposed to many inventions and discoveries which have been private/corporate sponsored or accidental), which I think could be used for a lot better things. Insane number of children die every day for lack of clean water and mosquito nets. I heard on an interview on NPR that the current Mars mission cost $3 per US citizen. That just seems like a huge waste to me.
I do want kids to grow up - not you necessarily, you keep at what you're doing, but I don't like the idea of putting a huge fortune into wild space stuff, think many vested interests will oppose such trips, and I can see better things to do with the money - like letting kids grow up.
Would there be advances to benefit everyone from space travel/exploration/mining? Sure. But it's not enough of a reason for me.
Um, you need to stop using FOX as your sole newssource friend. The number of US launches is about the same as the number of launches worldwide. Look here and see for yourself. True, the US accounts for more launches than any other group (ESA, etc), but the others are hardly sitting around doing nothing. Pleanty of other nations going forth and doing things.
...lunar is a real word meaning real things, not an indication of science ficiton addiction.
Oh boy. OK, nearly all the launches by anyone other than the US are satellites, and most are by countries or groups of countries with big investments in oil & coal - Russia, France and company, China is on there once or twice. And the most ambitious programs look to be American.
Sneer not that the nerds...
OK, simmer. I work in technology, too. No need to get all "we built your world" on me.
Yeah, thanks. I just was saying what it sounded like.
Those of us with a bit of foresight will enjoy large rewards. People like you, those who sneered at the Wright brothers...
oh my. Well, hope you enjoy those fortunes. And don't get all "we're the dreamers that make dreams come true" on me. Because I'm not subscribing to your newsletter doesn't make me a luddite. How nice of you to put yourself in the camp of the geniuses and me on the idiot sideline. "People like you..." wow. Does this little speach have a soundtrack?
I haven't encountered many companies that value their employees time so much to not want them to save a couple of thousand dollars.
Also, there are some fundamental problems with debates on what a value the XServe is:
-it assumes you've had to buy software to do the same. Even using Linux most comparisons I've seen talk about expensive, 'enterprise' versions. Should be compared to free software.
-assumes you've had to do make each box one at a time with no copied config files or installers and no knowledge retention (lots of talk on the expense of admin do to difficulty when compared to X's interface)
-assumes you like everything about the XServe and OS X. The way you update programs, the proprietary hardware, the admin system, etc.
I'm not saying it's not a swell machine. If you like it go for it. But don't think it's the best value for everyone. Many companies have stacks of Intel boxes, and paid for hardware with lots of spare parts and internal expertise.
True we're not the only nation out there. But there aren't a lot of other nations with the proven ability to get into space and do anything there.
Comparing investment in the moon to investing in Columbus's voyage sure makes it seem way long term. Most people seem to like quarterly results, the patient will wait for yearly returns. This seems quite a bit longer.
OK, so NASA uses the term Lunar. Then again, they are arguably the last holdout of the short sleeve dress shirt and tie look. I guess it sounds a little too sci-fi to me to use the term Lunar for anything not already on the moon.
The coal and oil industries probably don't like it too much. According to the section I quoted below the coal industry alone has an annual production value of about $100 billion. I'm sure oil isn't hurting, either.
i nance/further info/energy/coal.html
It's amazing how much you can make people agree with you if you have billions to spend on campaign donations, advertising and astroturf (corporate run grass roots).
"The size and global reach of the coal industry is unparalleled in the mining sector. Almost 500 million tonnes of coal are shipped annually around the world at a traded value of around US$15bn, but the total amount of coal mined each year amounts to some 3.8 billion tonnes. This puts the total value of annual production at around US$100bn - far higher than the next most important mined commodity, aluminium."
http://www.woodhead-publishing.com/f