Nuclear power is far far more expensive than oil. Not only is it security risk, but the health hazards are enormous in obtaining the fuel, refining the fuel, using the fuel, and disposal of the spent fuel.
Inevitable accidents have world wide affects. To make it worse, nuclear power plants are not the most productive.
I can't recall the study, but the cost benefits of nuclear energy that are quoted never factor in disposal (storage actually) of the spent rods or cleanup of accidents.
Do we need a reminder of 3 mile island or chernobyl?
What other type of company than a monopoly would have the ability to "end-of-life" a product that people wanted and force all downstream vendors to drop that product, that people wanted, for one their customers did not?
The best example is the "Ford Probe." It was supposed to be the replacement Mustang, but the customers said "No we don't want a mazda made mustang!" So Ford had to continue to sell and improve the existing Mustang because their customers would go elsewhere.
If you walk into a best buy, and don't want vista, or even Windows for that matter, what are your choices? Dell, Acer, HP, and all the other commodity P.C. type computers all run Windows. That's a monopoly by any definition.
Competition does not exist. There is no battle between Windows and any other OS on commodity computers in the consumer market.
If I walk into a Best Buy, Microcenter, Staples, or where ever, is there a computer running Linux? Beos?
No, but that is what it would look like if there was real competition in the market place.
A monopoly consists, not of a lack of options, but an inability to access the other options. On commodity P.C. type computers, Microsoft illegally maintains their monopoly. A run of the mill consumer does not have the tech savvy to install their own OS.
Sorry, I couldn't read what you wrote. One word: "paragraph."
You need to break down your writing, not just in to sentences, but in logically formed paragraphs as well. My eyes can not penetrate a huge block of text on the computer screen. Long run on writing like this is almost as a bad as caps lock.
At least for the home PC market that barrier really isn't that high.
Says who? When my mother can walk in to a best buy and get a Linux, Beos, FreeBSD, or some other OS on a commodity system, then we can see "competition."
Right now, if you want something other than Windows on a commodity system, you need the technical savvy to install it yourself. Run of the mill consumers have no viable options.
A monopoly would need that there are no substitutes
That's actually a misconception. The existence of a monopoly has never been about *no* choices, but that the barrier to choice is too high. I.e. it is too difficult to choose another option regardless of the number of options.
"they have to recoup the development and engineering costs to make a line that handles XP Vostro machines."
That is true, of course, but ask yourself why this is an issue? Dell should have known or should have had enough control over their product to have stayed with XP until customer demand warranted a switch.
The problem is that Microsoft dictated that all XP machines be pulled from the shelves and that all machines after a certain point must use vista. Only when people rebelled did they capitulate.
Only a monopoly could have done this. If there were real competition Dell would not have had to upgrade and install vista on machines that couldn't handle it or falsely advertise compatibility that did not exist.
The demand for vista is a negative. People who need windows, want XP. Only a monopoly has the ability to force its customers to a product they do not want and did not ask for. Only a monopoly has the ability to force vendors to follow suit.
The economics of supply and demand do not affect "software." The amortization of NRE expenses over time is the economic mechanism by which software works.
"XP is nearing the end of it's lifecycle."
Any why is that, if people have demonstrated that they wish to buy it. Think about Ford. Ford wanted to end of life the 80s mustang model and replace it with the ford Probe. They couldn't because their customers wanted the original model. So they HAD to continue producing and IMPROVING the popular Mustang and sold a new line, the Probe. The Mustang won.
This is how products work in a competitive environment. If ford were a monopoly, they'd replace the mustang (XP) with Vista (Probe) and say, screw you, you buy what we tell all the dealers to sell, and if you want an old mustang, you'll pay more.
Yet again we see proof that Microsoft has a monopoly. If there were real competition in the market, people would not be forced to bend over and pay more. There would be competition, Dell would have to offer it at the same price or another operating system would win.
Also, if there were competition, Microsoft would not have the economic ability to decide to drop a product that people wanted and force them into something they didn't. If I was a share holder and there was actual competition in the market place, I'd have the board and CEO fired for failing their fiduciary responsibilities.
But since they have a monopoly, there is no economic feedback.
Selling *nothing* to people has a long illustrious history. Bottled water comes to mind.
Selling these cables is no better or worse than selling bottled water, 89 octane gas at 1/2 the difference between 87 and 93 instead of 1/3, "Unlimited" broadband with limits, and so on.
I'm sorry, if you are STUPID, and we are talking about "military grade stupid" here, then you deserve to lose every penny. This isn't convincing someone to send their mortgage check to your P.O. box. You have to LOOK for this, it is not the default in searching. A neophite using google would not find these.
You have to be knowlegable enough to find obscure products AND be stupid enough to buy these. Let's call it darwinian capitalism, i.e. "a fool and his money are soon parted."
OK, yes, water is the result of oxidizing hydrogen. Thus probably *more* energy is required to break apart hydrogen and oxygen than would be returned by re-igniting it.
Now, lets assume what they are saying is "true" (for some value of true) but they are leaving out important information for the reason that they don't want people to copy them just yet.
(I'm not saying I believe them, but this is a thought experiment.)
Their name includes the word "gene" which seems to imply bioengineering. Lets assume that they've engineers a little microbe that eats some substance in the presence of water and fart out hydrogen. Yeast fart CO2 when the produce alcohol.
So, assume aluminum. The little microbes emit a chemical that causes water to bind with aluminum, very quickly and in a very controlled way, that emits O2. Not impossible.
I do not believe it is water alone, but the other consumables may be plentiful, negligible, or biological.
Water injection can improve automobile performance in a couple ways.
(1) Leaning out the mixture. This can be about 10% savings right there. For every cubic inch of air, a properly proportioned amount of gasoline is needed. Too much, and it burns too slow and wastes gas. Too little it burns too fast or detonates. Adding water allows you to reduce the ratio without causing detonation.
(2) Steam. One of the things that water injection does right is convert part of the heat component of the combustion into energy in the form of expanding gas by causing the water to convert to steam and acting as a propellant in addition to the burning gasoline.
*most* of the energy of burning gasoline is in the form of heat. It should be possible to use that heat as well. Steam engines do it.
Yes, your goals are noble, but your claims are invalidated by reality.
Actually reality validates my statement. The is a current crisis in both the public and private sector about digital documents from the 80s not being accessible because the document format is no longer supported and and there are no readers for them.
This may sound odd to you, but "marketshare" is not the answer to every question. All too often, it is a short sighted answer to complex issues.
The "API" is useless without a fully documented format. The API will die over time just as certainly as the applications that use it. The only real answer to long term data storage is full documentation that can be used to create applications, on any platform, free of encumbrances, that can read and format the documents that you create on your systems that you've paid for.
"I have encrypted drug running plans on my laptop"
That confession actually says you abandoned your 5th amendment rights.
Guard: "Let me have the password to your encrypted disk so that I may search for evidence of crime"
You: "No, I have the 5th amendment right to avoid self incrimination."
The 5th amendment neither confirms nor denies any criminal behavior and the police can not use the exercise of your 5th amendment right as evidence of anything suspicious.
The 5th amendment is not about protecting "guilty" people, it is about protecting presumed innocent people from being tricked or forced into admitting or providing evidence for some sort of incriminating situation.
Remember: Cardinal Richlelieu "Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
The power we free software developers wield comes from our personal investment of time, effort, and brain power in creating the software we do. We have specific views on how OUR software is to be used.
Nokia wants to respect intellectual property? OK, respect ours. We say how our software works and what is acceptable or not. If you don't like it, hire and pay a million people to re-write the code. Short of that, screw you.
1st: still applies at customs. What you say will be interpreted carefully and it may increase suspicion, but you still have the right to say what you want.
4th: At entry into the country your personal effects can not be seized unless there is legal cause.
5th: It has already been ruled by the supreme court that the 5th amendment applies to password to encrypted data.
Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear power is far far more expensive than oil. Not only is it security risk, but the health hazards are enormous in obtaining the fuel, refining the fuel, using the fuel, and disposal of the spent fuel.
Inevitable accidents have world wide affects. To make it worse, nuclear power plants are not the most productive.
I can't recall the study, but the cost benefits of nuclear energy that are quoted never factor in disposal (storage actually) of the spent rods or cleanup of accidents.
Do we need a reminder of 3 mile island or chernobyl?
How is it a troll? Seriously?
What other type of company than a monopoly would have the ability to "end-of-life" a product that people wanted and force all downstream vendors to drop that product, that people wanted, for one their customers did not?
The best example is the "Ford Probe." It was supposed to be the replacement Mustang, but the customers said "No we don't want a mazda made mustang!" So Ford had to continue to sell and improve the existing Mustang because their customers would go elsewhere.
If you walk into a best buy, and don't want vista, or even Windows for that matter, what are your choices? Dell, Acer, HP, and all the other commodity P.C. type computers all run Windows. That's a monopoly by any definition.
Competition does not exist. There is no battle between Windows and any other OS on commodity computers in the consumer market.
If I walk into a Best Buy, Microcenter, Staples, or where ever, is there a computer running Linux? Beos?
No, but that is what it would look like if there was real competition in the market place.
A monopoly consists, not of a lack of options, but an inability to access the other options. On commodity P.C. type computers, Microsoft illegally maintains their monopoly. A run of the mill consumer does not have the tech savvy to install their own OS.
Sorry, I couldn't read what you wrote. One word: "paragraph."
You need to break down your writing, not just in to sentences, but in logically formed paragraphs as well. My eyes can not penetrate a huge block of text on the computer screen. Long run on writing like this is almost as a bad as caps lock.
At least for the home PC market that barrier really isn't that high.
Says who? When my mother can walk in to a best buy and get a Linux, Beos, FreeBSD, or some other OS on a commodity system, then we can see "competition."
Right now, if you want something other than Windows on a commodity system, you need the technical savvy to install it yourself. Run of the mill consumers have no viable options.
A monopoly would need that there are no substitutes
That's actually a misconception. The existence of a monopoly has never been about *no* choices, but that the barrier to choice is too high. I.e. it is too difficult to choose another option regardless of the number of options.
"they have to recoup the development and engineering costs to make a line that handles XP Vostro machines."
That is true, of course, but ask yourself why this is an issue? Dell should have known or should have had enough control over their product to have stayed with XP until customer demand warranted a switch.
The problem is that Microsoft dictated that all XP machines be pulled from the shelves and that all machines after a certain point must use vista. Only when people rebelled did they capitulate.
Only a monopoly could have done this. If there were real competition Dell would not have had to upgrade and install vista on machines that couldn't handle it or falsely advertise compatibility that did not exist.
The demand for vista is a negative. People who need windows, want XP. Only a monopoly has the ability to force its customers to a product they do not want and did not ask for. Only a monopoly has the ability to force vendors to follow suit.
"This is about supply and demand."
The economics of supply and demand do not affect "software." The amortization of NRE expenses over time is the economic mechanism by which software works.
"XP is nearing the end of it's lifecycle."
Any why is that, if people have demonstrated that they wish to buy it. Think about Ford. Ford wanted to end of life the 80s mustang model and replace it with the ford Probe. They couldn't because their customers wanted the original model. So they HAD to continue producing and IMPROVING the popular Mustang and sold a new line, the Probe. The Mustang won.
This is how products work in a competitive environment. If ford were a monopoly, they'd replace the mustang (XP) with Vista (Probe) and say, screw you, you buy what we tell all the dealers to sell, and if you want an old mustang, you'll pay more.
Yet again we see proof that Microsoft has a monopoly. If there were real competition in the market, people would not be forced to bend over and pay more. There would be competition, Dell would have to offer it at the same price or another operating system would win.
Also, if there were competition, Microsoft would not have the economic ability to decide to drop a product that people wanted and force them into something they didn't. If I was a share holder and there was actual competition in the market place, I'd have the board and CEO fired for failing their fiduciary responsibilities.
But since they have a monopoly, there is no economic feedback.
Well bottled water does actually have a need. In quite a lot of the world the water in taps is undrinkable.
Fair enough, but I was referring to poland springs, Evian, and the rest taking up space in every store.
Selling *nothing* to people has a long illustrious history. Bottled water comes to mind.
Selling these cables is no better or worse than selling bottled water, 89 octane gas at 1/2 the difference between 87 and 93 instead of 1/3, "Unlimited" broadband with limits, and so on.
I'm sorry, if you are STUPID, and we are talking about "military grade stupid" here, then you deserve to lose every penny. This isn't convincing someone to send their mortgage check to your P.O. box. You have to LOOK for this, it is not the default in searching. A neophite using google would not find these.
You have to be knowlegable enough to find obscure products AND be stupid enough to buy these. Let's call it darwinian capitalism, i.e. "a fool and his money are soon parted."
OK, yes, water is the result of oxidizing hydrogen. Thus probably *more* energy is required to break apart hydrogen and oxygen than would be returned by re-igniting it.
Now, lets assume what they are saying is "true" (for some value of true) but they are leaving out important information for the reason that they don't want people to copy them just yet.
(I'm not saying I believe them, but this is a thought experiment.)
Their name includes the word "gene" which seems to imply bioengineering. Lets assume that they've engineers a little microbe that eats some substance in the presence of water and fart out hydrogen. Yeast fart CO2 when the produce alcohol.
So, assume aluminum. The little microbes emit a chemical that causes water to bind with aluminum, very quickly and in a very controlled way, that emits O2. Not impossible.
I do not believe it is water alone, but the other consumables may be plentiful, negligible, or biological.
Water injection can improve automobile performance in a couple ways.
(1) Leaning out the mixture. This can be about 10% savings right there. For every cubic inch of air, a properly proportioned amount of gasoline is needed. Too much, and it burns too slow and wastes gas. Too little it burns too fast or detonates. Adding water allows you to reduce the ratio without causing detonation.
(2) Steam. One of the things that water injection does right is convert part of the heat component of the combustion into energy in the form of expanding gas by causing the water to convert to steam and acting as a propellant in addition to the burning gasoline.
*most* of the energy of burning gasoline is in the form of heat. It should be possible to use that heat as well. Steam engines do it.
Crisis? Give me $10 and I'll convert any "digital document from the 80s" you throw at me.
Yea, but should we have to pay *you* or someone like you for every instance of a document that can not be read?
An ad-hoc solution for a specific document is not a solution for the over all problem.
Yes, your goals are noble, but your claims are invalidated by reality.
Actually reality validates my statement. The is a current crisis in both the public and private sector about digital documents from the 80s not being accessible because the document format is no longer supported and and there are no readers for them.
This may sound odd to you, but "marketshare" is not the answer to every question. All too often, it is a short sighted answer to complex issues.
The "API" is useless without a fully documented format. The API will die over time just as certainly as the applications that use it. The only real answer to long term data storage is full documentation that can be used to create applications, on any platform, free of encumbrances, that can read and format the documents that you create on your systems that you've paid for.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06132008/news/nationalnews/tim_russert_dies_from_apparent_heart_att_115384.htm
Latvian? That's funny.
Security through obscurity indeed.
THE LIBRARY!!!!
Use the public library as your media collection. There are over 16,000 libraries and branches in the USA, I'm sure one is near you.
Go there, BORROW what you want and return it when you are done. If they do not have what you want, buy one and donate to the library for others.
Published works are important to society, but the copyright cartels MUST be killed. Buying fewer and sharing more is the only way.
Just speak arabic!! We already know the FBI and CIA don't have enough translators.
"I have encrypted drug running plans on my laptop"
That confession actually says you abandoned your 5th amendment rights.
Guard: "Let me have the password to your encrypted disk so that I may search for evidence of crime"
You: "No, I have the 5th amendment right to avoid self incrimination."
The 5th amendment neither confirms nor denies any criminal behavior and the police can not use the exercise of your 5th amendment right as evidence of anything suspicious.
The 5th amendment is not about protecting "guilty" people, it is about protecting presumed innocent people from being tricked or forced into admitting or providing evidence for some sort of incriminating situation.
Remember: Cardinal Richlelieu
"Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
The power we free software developers wield comes from our personal investment of time, effort, and brain power in creating the software we do. We have specific views on how OUR software is to be used.
Nokia wants to respect intellectual property? OK, respect ours. We say how our software works and what is acceptable or not. If you don't like it, hire and pay a million people to re-write the code. Short of that, screw you.
Freedom is not free.
1st: still applies at customs. What you say will be interpreted carefully and it may increase suspicion, but you still have the right to say what you want.
4th: At entry into the country your personal effects can not be seized unless there is legal cause.
5th: It has already been ruled by the supreme court that the 5th amendment applies to password to encrypted data.
Maybe I'm wrong, but to be a practicing attorney, you are legally obligated to be ethical.
1st: I have the right to write/say anything I want short of incitement to riot and cause harm. i.e. yell fire in a crowded movie house.
4th: I have the right to be secure in my papers and personal affects and against search and seizure.
5th: If I encrypt my drive, I have the legal right NOT to tell you my password as, if you find what you are looking for, it may incriminate me.