I'll also add that I believe that the consolidation would have happened on its own, and might have consolidated on a better platform.
Evidence suggests that the market did consolidate. You just didn't like the results.
The smartphones industry sure seem to go this route without a monopolistic overlord to guide it.
What? I guess I'm suppose to ignore the 800 lb gorillas named Apple and Google.
Everything else you describe happened around 1995. This is 2013.
Sorry the MS-DOS thing happened in the 80's and survived the first watershed event where the small home computers couldn't compete with the deluge of 8086 machines. I don't know why you feel that you need to remind me that it's 2013, you appear to be the one with the short-term selective memory.
I am not convinced that Microsoft "set the world back at least a decade."
If anything, Microsoft's dominance in the personal computer market actually was a good thing in the beginning. Microsoft achieved its dominate position by delivering what people wanted during a time when the multitude of IBM PC clone manufacturers were pushing their machines out the door and needed an OS to install on them. The market flooded with cheap clones and the technical support for most of these machines were non-existant. Microsoft saw a market and took the lead by marketing directly to the users as well as the OEMs. At first these machines were marketed as "MS-DOS compatible" later the marketing became "Windows compatible". Consumers considered having Windows installed as a good thing. I think most consumers today still feel that way.
It was Microsoft's methods of maintaining that dominance that had detrimental effects to upstarts and smaller companies I saw the writing on the wall when Microsoft started using its operating system dominance to dominate the office software application market. While I detest the tactics that they used, one product in particular was actually good - Microsoft Excel. It was their bundling of Excel into 'Office Suites' and sabotaging the Windows API in order to give third-pary applications a disadvantage that was pretty "evil". Of course there is more to computing than word processing and spreadsheets and Microsoft's dominance in this area forced independent developers to work on other applications.
Microsoft's ability to unify all the device drivers into a Windows API combined with their work in delivering affordable compilers and development suites made it possible for a lot of independent software vendors to exist. This offsets any damage they may have theoretically caused in the office or OS space.
Because insects produce fewer harmful greenhouse gases than what is produced during the manufacture of fertilizer and the planting and harvesting of the plants themselves. This doesn't include the clear cutting required to grow more plants, fresh water used for irrigation, or run-off pollution from fertilizer.
It's always been cheaper to buy a phone outright and not have a contract
Until recently, this has rarely been the case in the US.
I've been with T-Mobile since the original PCS carrier was purchased. Anyway prior to their no-contracts gimmick I was able to purchase any smart phone for $150 in exchange for staying with them for 2 years. They had the cheapest rates so it was a Win/Win.
Now that T-Mobile has implemented their no-contracts plans, my basic rate hasn't change yet now I must pay more for my phone.
The level of service from pay-as-you-go phones in my region was slightly cheaper but also sub par when compared to the contract carriers.
That's what you get when you farm for items in LFR. Deal with it. If you want "experts" then form your own party otherwise STFU.
Of course nothing is more annoying than people who whine and expect to be carried. I especially love the kids that throw tantrums in random and rated BGs now. Usually they are the lowest performing toons in the bg or spend almost all of their time in mid expecting someone else to do the mundane job of defending for them.
WoW is already consolidating servers with more cross realm content showing up in world. It's not uncommon to see low levels from other realms leveling up.
Since you brought up Automobile deaths vs Firearms death, lets really look at the data.
Number of households in the US: 114,761,359 (2007-2011)
Number of households in the US with at least one automobile: (90.9% 2010): 104,318,076
Number of households in the US with at least one firearm: (47% Gallup 2011): 53,937,839
Number of deaths involving an automobile in the US: (2010) 35,332 (no breakdown of accidental, homicide, or suicide given)
Number of deaths involving a firearm in the US: (2010) 31,672 including 11,078 homicides, 606 accidental discharge, 19,392 suicides, 252 undeterminable intent, 344 other.
Using the above (all from US census with the exception of the gallop poll as indicated which agrees with NRA estimates), lets normalize the mortality rate based on availability within a household:
Number of deaths per 100,000 households with automobiles involving an automobile in US: 33.9
Number of deaths per 100,000 households with firearms involving a firearm in US: 58.7
As you can see the mortality rate from firearms is 24.8 greater than automobiles. The correct method of interpreting these calculations are as follows:
34 out of 100,000 households with an automobile experienced or caused a death with an automobile in 2010.
59 out of 100,000 households with a firearm experienced or caused a death with a firearm in 2010.
(Note: "experienced or caused a death" signifies that the death originated from the item within the household. The death itself can be within a household that doesn't possess the item.)
This exercise highlights the fact that while there were 3,660 more deaths involving automobiles than firearms in 2010, only 47% of the households had access to a firearm versus 90.9% of the households having access to a motor vehicle.
Despite your assertion that "No one is screaming to Congress to ban automobiles", there are quite a large number of governmental regulations related to motor vehicles. Comparing automobile deaths with firearm related deaths actually hurts your argument since it demonstrates that the regulation of manufacture (safety, fuel efficiency, pollution controls), ownership (registration and taxation) and operation (licensing and traffic enforcement) keeps the mortality rate of automobile ownership quite low despite being in almost 91% of households.
Of course this ignores the fact automobiles are designed to transport people and firearms are designed to kill.
You really need to read up on Ma Bell. She innovated one thing used in everything we have today - the transistor. They perfected the laser, and in case you're wondering, most technological wonders take about 20 years from discover to deployment. The same is true of the tech we use today.
I don't see how ATT's monopoly position influenced the creation of the transistor. In fact let me piece together a bunch of google searches (admittedly dominated by wikipedia) to create a "Connections (I miss that show) type" of history leading up to today's "technological wonders".
It was the discovery of semiconductors and band theory of conduction introduced by british mathematician Alan Herries Wilson and the theory by Boris Davydov explaining p-n junctions found within copper-oxide rectifiers that led to the work of both Bell Labs (Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley) and Westinghouse (Matare and Welker) inventing the bipolar point-contact transistor (kudos to Bell labs for being first). This was succeeded by work of an Siemens engineer Werner Jacobi to make a rudimentary integrated circuit which ultimately led to Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments manufacturing his germanium integrated chip. Six months later Robert Noyce using the principles of Kurt Lehovec's p-n junction isolation (via reverse biasing) made a silicon based integrated circuit produced at Fairchild Semiconductors. While working for Fairchild Semiconductors, Federico Faggin created the MOS silicon technology with self-aligned gates. Faggin join Intel in 1970 and helped create the first CPU on a chip the Intel 4004.
To Recap: Wilson -> Davydov -> Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley (ATT Bell labs) & Matare, Welke (Compagnie des Freins et Signaux [Westinghouse]) -> Jacobi (Seimens) -> Kilby (Texas Instruments) -> Noyce (via Lehovec) (Fairchild Semiconductors) -> Faggin (Fairchild) -> Faggin (Intel)
ATT role while significant wasn't the sole path to our current level of technology. In addition I don't see how ATT being a monopoly affected the outcome other than the need to provide communications. This need would still be present if they didn't have a monopoly position and in fact competition may have hastened the technological breakthroughs in order to gain a competitive advantage.
Look at the old Ma Bell - when she was a fully integrate and heavily regulated entity she made tons of money and innovated like all hell. Granted, a lot of the innovation was to maximize profit but it was the research done by them that kind of kicked off all we have today.
One little detail you left out. "Ma Bell" may have innovated but had no reason to pass the innovations to their customers (eg. ISDN was very very slow to roll out and was prohibitively expensive). Deregulation and the subsequent breakup of the telephone monopoly is really what kicked off all we have today. I dance on "Ma Bell's" grave.
I will buy a $54 dongle if it means that I can include it within my embedded devices and not have to worry about the next linux kernel update supporting it.
The republicans have a super majority and the governor's office in my state. The voucher bill passed in a procedural maneuver in committee where at the very last minute of the committee meeting the bill was introduced and forwarded to the house. The super majority and governor took over from there.
Who do you think should set curriculum, then? It's either got to be an elected person or group of people, or a bureaucracy with powers devolved from an elected person or group of people.
I prefer to have the curriculum set by the local school board. My local school board have elected officials. High level educational requirements and recommendation should come from the state's department of education. I certainly don't want curriculum set by house bills introduced by a single state legislator.
... you open the door for another state legislature to dictate what should not be taught in class.
Not when that state legislature violates the First Amendment as extended to the state by the Fourteenth, no.
that was suppose to read Legislator not Legislature. The policy stays within that state's borders.
And that is different than providing the budget for the department that dictates what should be taught in class in what way?
When you provide a budget for the department you delegate all the authority to that department. In theory that department would be less political in nature than the legislature.
In my state the legislature rushed a bill that provides vouchers to send kids to private schools with little or no debate. I much rather have educational recommendations and mandates originate from the state's DOE. In my state very little would prevent a state congress person in a rural county to introduce legislation that dictates certain subjects not to be taught in public schools and have it pass without difficulty. This is how news about evolution being excluded in the curriculum in other states become news.
Besides, this bill was sponsored by the department of eduction through the committee on education.
And there is no possibility for amendments to the bill?
Okay I'll throw a comment in the logic gymnastics, since the double negatives are giving me a headache.
What about:
"I don't believe in fairy tales" therefore "I firmly believe fairy tales are false".
"I firmly believe all fairy tales are false" therefore "I don't believe in fairy tales".
Now what was the point of this exercise?
Of course you could have phrased it a little less derogatory than "fairy tale" when it comes to religious belief or lack thereof. To speak in derogatory terms cements the stereotype that atheists tend to be dicks.
Your point? The reply left off a significant portion of my sentence off. If you revisit the original post you'd see some word association that was left off of his truncated reply. It also makes more sense when taken in context with its parent post.
My point is that once you allow a state legislature dictate what should be taught in class, you open the door for another state legislature to dictate what should not be taught in class.
I agree. At least it should originate from the state's department of education and not from the state's legislature. Regardless of how good of an idea it may be, it sets a bad precedence.
If it's okay for the legislature to pass a bill mandating that all schools teach science fiction then it becomes okay for legislature to pass a bill mandating that evolution should banned from the classroom.
You should never let a camel put his nose in your tent.
This. Google glass (or something similar) would be an excellent HUD device for motorcyclists. Well as long as it just presents enough information not to be distracting.
Outside of that environment, Google glass would be similar to wearing a bluetooth headset in a grocery store except your look even dorkier and act twice as much as a douche bag.
Due to the self centeredness of some of these people, it will be just a matter of time before a video of me taking a piss in a public bathroom and ending with me beating the living shit out of the wearer is posted on YouTube.
Some people believe in the existence of a higher being yet don't participate in an organized religion. It would be inaccurate to call them worshippers.
I'll stand by my statement as being entirely correct.
After a re-read I noticed the word "differential" as in "differential reproductive success" so we were pretty much stating the same thing. I don't know why I glossed over that word earlier and just read "reproductive success". Long day... Just skip the sentence that described the differential part.
Bonus pedantry: similar to "evolution" providing no normative framework, there is also no definition for which direction is "for" or "against" evolutionary forces.
I hoped the smiley face at the end of the sentence was signal enough that it was supposed tongue-in-cheek in nature and once again you are correct that a more accurate description would be "acting against survival". Of course, to-may-to or to-mah-to (tomato) the results are the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Evidence suggests that the market did consolidate. You just didn't like the results.
What? I guess I'm suppose to ignore the 800 lb gorillas named Apple and Google.
Sorry the MS-DOS thing happened in the 80's and survived the first watershed event where the small home computers couldn't compete with the deluge of 8086 machines. I don't know why you feel that you need to remind me that it's 2013, you appear to be the one with the short-term selective memory.
I am not convinced that Microsoft "set the world back at least a decade."
If anything, Microsoft's dominance in the personal computer market actually was a good thing in the beginning. Microsoft achieved its dominate position by delivering what people wanted during a time when the multitude of IBM PC clone manufacturers were pushing their machines out the door and needed an OS to install on them. The market flooded with cheap clones and the technical support for most of these machines were non-existant. Microsoft saw a market and took the lead by marketing directly to the users as well as the OEMs. At first these machines were marketed as "MS-DOS compatible" later the marketing became "Windows compatible". Consumers considered having Windows installed as a good thing. I think most consumers today still feel that way.
It was Microsoft's methods of maintaining that dominance that had detrimental effects to upstarts and smaller companies I saw the writing on the wall when Microsoft started using its operating system dominance to dominate the office software application market. While I detest the tactics that they used, one product in particular was actually good - Microsoft Excel. It was their bundling of Excel into 'Office Suites' and sabotaging the Windows API in order to give third-pary applications a disadvantage that was pretty "evil". Of course there is more to computing than word processing and spreadsheets and Microsoft's dominance in this area forced independent developers to work on other applications.
Microsoft's ability to unify all the device drivers into a Windows API combined with their work in delivering affordable compilers and development suites made it possible for a lot of independent software vendors to exist. This offsets any damage they may have theoretically caused in the office or OS space.
Because insects produce fewer harmful greenhouse gases than what is produced during the manufacture of fertilizer and the planting and harvesting of the plants themselves. This doesn't include the clear cutting required to grow more plants, fresh water used for irrigation, or run-off pollution from fertilizer.
Until recently, this has rarely been the case in the US.
I've been with T-Mobile since the original PCS carrier was purchased. Anyway prior to their no-contracts gimmick I was able to purchase any smart phone for $150 in exchange for staying with them for 2 years. They had the cheapest rates so it was a Win/Win.
Now that T-Mobile has implemented their no-contracts plans, my basic rate hasn't change yet now I must pay more for my phone.
The level of service from pay-as-you-go phones in my region was slightly cheaper but also sub par when compared to the contract carriers.
That's what you get when you farm for items in LFR. Deal with it. If you want "experts" then form your own party otherwise STFU.
Of course nothing is more annoying than people who whine and expect to be carried. I especially love the kids that throw tantrums in random and rated BGs now. Usually they are the lowest performing toons in the bg or spend almost all of their time in mid expecting someone else to do the mundane job of defending for them.
WoW is already consolidating servers with more cross realm content showing up in world. It's not uncommon to see low levels from other realms leveling up.
Since you brought up Automobile deaths vs Firearms death, lets really look at the data.
Number of households in the US: 114,761,359 (2007-2011)
Number of households in the US with at least one automobile: (90.9% 2010): 104,318,076
Number of households in the US with at least one firearm: (47% Gallup 2011): 53,937,839
Number of deaths involving an automobile in the US: (2010) 35,332 (no breakdown of accidental, homicide, or suicide given)
Number of deaths involving a firearm in the US: (2010) 31,672 including 11,078 homicides, 606 accidental discharge, 19,392 suicides, 252 undeterminable intent, 344 other.
Using the above (all from US census with the exception of the gallop poll as indicated which agrees with NRA estimates), lets normalize the mortality rate based on availability within a household:
Number of deaths per 100,000 households with automobiles involving an automobile in US: 33.9
Number of deaths per 100,000 households with firearms involving a firearm in US: 58.7
As you can see the mortality rate from firearms is 24.8 greater than automobiles. The correct method of interpreting these calculations are as follows:
34 out of 100,000 households with an automobile experienced or caused a death with an automobile in 2010.
59 out of 100,000 households with a firearm experienced or caused a death with a firearm in 2010.
(Note: "experienced or caused a death" signifies that the death originated from the item within the household. The death itself can be within a household that doesn't possess the item.)
This exercise highlights the fact that while there were 3,660 more deaths involving automobiles than firearms in 2010, only 47% of the households had access to a firearm versus 90.9% of the households having access to a motor vehicle.
Despite your assertion that "No one is screaming to Congress to ban automobiles", there are quite a large number of governmental regulations related to motor vehicles. Comparing automobile deaths with firearm related deaths actually hurts your argument since it demonstrates that the regulation of manufacture (safety, fuel efficiency, pollution controls), ownership (registration and taxation) and operation (licensing and traffic enforcement) keeps the mortality rate of automobile ownership quite low despite being in almost 91% of households.
Of course this ignores the fact automobiles are designed to transport people and firearms are designed to kill.
I don't see how ATT's monopoly position influenced the creation of the transistor. In fact let me piece together a bunch of google searches (admittedly dominated by wikipedia) to create a "Connections (I miss that show) type" of history leading up to today's "technological wonders".
It was the discovery of semiconductors and band theory of conduction introduced by british mathematician Alan Herries Wilson and the theory by Boris Davydov explaining p-n junctions found within copper-oxide rectifiers that led to the work of both Bell Labs (Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley) and Westinghouse (Matare and Welker) inventing the bipolar point-contact transistor (kudos to Bell labs for being first). This was succeeded by work of an Siemens engineer Werner Jacobi to make a rudimentary integrated circuit which ultimately led to Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments manufacturing his germanium integrated chip. Six months later Robert Noyce using the principles of Kurt Lehovec's p-n junction isolation (via reverse biasing) made a silicon based integrated circuit produced at Fairchild Semiconductors. While working for Fairchild Semiconductors, Federico Faggin created the MOS silicon technology with self-aligned gates. Faggin join Intel in 1970 and helped create the first CPU on a chip the Intel 4004.
To Recap: Wilson -> Davydov -> Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley (ATT Bell labs) & Matare, Welke (Compagnie des Freins et Signaux [Westinghouse]) -> Jacobi (Seimens) -> Kilby (Texas Instruments) -> Noyce (via Lehovec) (Fairchild Semiconductors) -> Faggin (Fairchild) -> Faggin (Intel)
ATT role while significant wasn't the sole path to our current level of technology. In addition I don't see how ATT being a monopoly affected the outcome other than the need to provide communications. This need would still be present if they didn't have a monopoly position and in fact competition may have hastened the technological breakthroughs in order to gain a competitive advantage.
One little detail you left out. "Ma Bell" may have innovated but had no reason to pass the innovations to their customers (eg. ISDN was very very slow to roll out and was prohibitively expensive). Deregulation and the subsequent breakup of the telephone monopoly is really what kicked off all we have today. I dance on "Ma Bell's" grave.
I will buy a $54 dongle if it means that I can include it within my embedded devices and not have to worry about the next linux kernel update supporting it.
The republicans have a super majority and the governor's office in my state. The voucher bill passed in a procedural maneuver in committee where at the very last minute of the committee meeting the bill was introduced and forwarded to the house. The super majority and governor took over from there.
I prefer to have the curriculum set by the local school board. My local school board have elected officials. High level educational requirements and recommendation should come from the state's department of education. I certainly don't want curriculum set by house bills introduced by a single state legislator.
that was suppose to read Legislator not Legislature. The policy stays within that state's borders.
s/legislature/congress person/
When you provide a budget for the department you delegate all the authority to that department. In theory that department would be less political in nature than the legislature.
In my state the legislature rushed a bill that provides vouchers to send kids to private schools with little or no debate. I much rather have educational recommendations and mandates originate from the state's DOE. In my state very little would prevent a state congress person in a rural county to introduce legislation that dictates certain subjects not to be taught in public schools and have it pass without difficulty. This is how news about evolution being excluded in the curriculum in other states become news.
And there is no possibility for amendments to the bill?
Okay I'll throw a comment in the logic gymnastics, since the double negatives are giving me a headache.
What about:
"I don't believe in fairy tales" therefore "I firmly believe fairy tales are false".
"I firmly believe all fairy tales are false" therefore "I don't believe in fairy tales".
Now what was the point of this exercise?
Of course you could have phrased it a little less derogatory than "fairy tale" when it comes to religious belief or lack thereof. To speak in derogatory terms cements the stereotype that atheists tend to be dicks.
Your point? The reply left off a significant portion of my sentence off. If you revisit the original post you'd see some word association that was left off of his truncated reply. It also makes more sense when taken in context with its parent post.
My point is that once you allow a state legislature dictate what should be taught in class, you open the door for another state legislature to dictate what should not be taught in class.
I think Eric Schmidt believes privacy should exist up to the point where Google can monetize it.
I agree. At least it should originate from the state's department of education and not from the state's legislature. Regardless of how good of an idea it may be, it sets a bad precedence.
If it's okay for the legislature to pass a bill mandating that all schools teach science fiction then it becomes okay for legislature to pass a bill mandating that evolution should banned from the classroom.
You should never let a camel put his nose in your tent.
This. Google glass (or something similar) would be an excellent HUD device for motorcyclists. Well as long as it just presents enough information not to be distracting.
Outside of that environment, Google glass would be similar to wearing a bluetooth headset in a grocery store except your look even dorkier and act twice as much as a douche bag.
Due to the self centeredness of some of these people, it will be just a matter of time before a video of me taking a piss in a public bathroom and ending with me beating the living shit out of the wearer is posted on YouTube.
I love how R/C aircraft with cameras mounted on them are now called "personal drones". Ten years ago we called them model aircraft.
People now a days take a label and apply it to everything.
Some people believe in the existence of a higher being yet don't participate in an organized religion. It would be inaccurate to call them worshippers.
One last clarification, We agreed that evolution has no morality. I only stated that morality was a product of evolution.
After a re-read I noticed the word "differential" as in "differential reproductive success" so we were pretty much stating the same thing. I don't know why I glossed over that word earlier and just read "reproductive success". Long day... Just skip the sentence that described the differential part.
I hoped the smiley face at the end of the sentence was signal enough that it was supposed tongue-in-cheek in nature and once again you are correct that a more accurate description would be "acting against survival". Of course, to-may-to or to-mah-to (tomato) the results are the same.
Let me try this again with an example: Polytheism (number of gods > 1), Monotheism (number of gods = 1), and Atheism (number of gods = 0).