Well, the trans-Atlantic market only has 3 hubs: New York, London, and Paris. It also has a similar volume of business travel. If the Concorde could not succeed on its own in that market, what's to say that a SST could succeed in the (more distributed) Pacific market?
I do agree about the bit about subsidizing a military/aerospace program. The design process for a SST ought to be much the same as the design process for a supersonic bomber.
In this case, I'd venture that the Concorde got subsidies for the same reasons that Boeing gets subsidies for its ventures. Airbus, like Boeing, is a large corporation with lots of political clout to bring in the pork.
There's a sweet spot around Mach 3 where the drag is really low
The problem is that, to get to Mach 3, you still need to accelerate through the sound barrier. And unless you want to subject passengers to uncomfortable amounts of G-force, your acceleration has to be relatively slow. Its this long slow acceleration at subsonic speeds that will account for most of the drag, not the relatively short period of time that you spend at Mach 3. Unless this aircraft uses some technology to dramatically reduce drag as comapred to the Concorde, I don't see it saving much on fuel.
Some people would rather fly the cheaper, slower, safer plane and use TiVo.
Then those people are welcome to use the slower subsonic planes. Its not like they will be outlawed upon the introduction of this SST. My argument against this idea is that, given the current state of fuel prices, this SST has a very poor chance of acheiving profitability, and will either be subsidized or retired.
The Concorde was sold as a profitable venture. The promoters of the Concorde sold the airplane by projecting a market for supersonic business travel (New York to London in an hour!) that did not exist when the high ticket prices were factored in. When the failure of their business plan became apparent, Airbus lobbied for subsidies to keep the Concorde going, succeeding until the shock of 9/11 and the subsequent Concorde crash sounded the final death knell for the plane.
There was also a very large market for trans-Atlantic business that the Concorde tried to serve. The problem isn't the benefits provided by SSTs, its the costs. Simply put, the Concorde was very expensive to fly and maintain. The carriers (British Airways, and Air France) passed on those high maintenance and fuel costs in the form of exorbitant ticket prices, quashing demand for the Concorde among all but the super-rich elite, who used Concorde flights as a status symbol (much like owning a Ferrari).
If the Concorde's fuel costs were high in the mid-1990's imagine what they are now, with $60/barrel oil prices.
Well, if it never turned a profit, or even broke even, I think "fiscal failure" is a pretty appropriate term. I agree with you in the sense that sometimes fiscal failures are necessary to develop and refine technology, as with the Concorde. But that doesn't change the fact that the venture didn't turn a profit. It also doesn't change the fact that the venture may have had successes in a non-financial sense (i.e. advancement of technology, boost of national prestige, etc.)
Perhaps, instead of fiscal failure, we could use the term "financial nonperformer".
The Atlantic is a very large body of water as well. Yet businesspeople did not beat a path to the old Concorde's doorstep looking for high-speed transatlantic flights. Why will the Pacific market be any different?
As for cargo, the original Concorde only had room enough for 100 or so passengers. That doesn't translate into a whole lot of cargo space. Considering the fact that cargo usually doesn't need to travel as quickly as people (even the most perishable cargo can last a few hours with proper packing), the concept of SST as a cargo hauler is almost a sure bust.
The problem isn't necessarily one of >1 computer/person, its the problem of >1 person/computer. At best the method described would catch and indentify unique computers. But since not every household has 1 computer/person, this method would fail to catch other people using the same computer.
For example, if I went to Site Z while browsing, and someone else within my family goes to Site Z within a reasonably short amount of time, how will the site distinguish among us?
It wouldn't really be a problem for home users with ~4 people, but if you're trying to capture traffic from libraries, schools, or any other place with public terminals, this could represent a serious source of undercount error, especially considering that most of those sites are behind some kind of NAT, and therefore present a single IP to the outside world.
The average consumer does have a choice. At the very least, they can go with Apple.
In addition, Red Hat and SuSE are both sold at Best Buy, and Linux has gotten enough free press that its no longer a complete unknown. If the consumer wants to, he/she can install an alternative OS on their existing hardware.
Just because you view MS as the bane of the software universe doesn't guarantaee that everyone cares, or that anyone will switch operating systems based upon your opinion. The question isn't "Should everyone use Linux?", but instead is, "Should I use Linux?" And the answer to that question is a variable depending on many other factors, not all of which are controllable by the consumer.
Do you have an ATI graphics card? I have an ATI Radeon Mobility U1 in my laptop. ATI doesn't make a Linux driver for it, and I have been unable to find an OSS driver. Without 3d acceleration, my gaming options are severely limited.
Then perhaps they should have named it to be ApplePy. That way, all the patriotic programmers can claim that their programs use ApplePy to get work done, rather than plain ol' CGI, which everybody knows is just for the terrorists.
Who says that lions and tigers have the same adaptations? Also there is more than one breed of tiger. Yes, a Siberian tiger could probably survive in Nebraska. A Bengal tiger? Probably not. Seeing as how (thermally) the lions' habitat is closer to the Bengal tiger I'd say the the same thing about the lions' survival.
Ok. But that fact doesn't really affect Sun too much. As far as I can see, Sun's goal is to (re)position Solaris x86 as a viable alternative to RHEL, Novell/SuSE, and others as a fully supported *nix offering on x86.
If RHEL ran on WiFi routers, that'd be a different matter.
The ancient games don't count simply because the ancient Olympics took place before there was a trademark/copyright system. Therefore, all words and other intellectual property in relation to the ancient games are public domain.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the trans-Atlantic market only has 3 hubs: New York, London, and Paris. It also has a similar volume of business travel. If the Concorde could not succeed on its own in that market, what's to say that a SST could succeed in the (more distributed) Pacific market?
I do agree about the bit about subsidizing a military/aerospace program. The design process for a SST ought to be much the same as the design process for a supersonic bomber.
In this case, I'd venture that the Concorde got subsidies for the same reasons that Boeing gets subsidies for its ventures. Airbus, like Boeing, is a large corporation with lots of political clout to bring in the pork.
The problem is that, to get to Mach 3, you still need to accelerate through the sound barrier. And unless you want to subject passengers to uncomfortable amounts of G-force, your acceleration has to be relatively slow. Its this long slow acceleration at subsonic speeds that will account for most of the drag, not the relatively short period of time that you spend at Mach 3. Unless this aircraft uses some technology to dramatically reduce drag as comapred to the Concorde, I don't see it saving much on fuel.
Then those people are welcome to use the slower subsonic planes. Its not like they will be outlawed upon the introduction of this SST. My argument against this idea is that, given the current state of fuel prices, this SST has a very poor chance of acheiving profitability, and will either be subsidized or retired.
The Concorde was sold as a profitable venture. The promoters of the Concorde sold the airplane by projecting a market for supersonic business travel (New York to London in an hour!) that did not exist when the high ticket prices were factored in. When the failure of their business plan became apparent, Airbus lobbied for subsidies to keep the Concorde going, succeeding until the shock of 9/11 and the subsequent Concorde crash sounded the final death knell for the plane.
There was also a very large market for trans-Atlantic business that the Concorde tried to serve. The problem isn't the benefits provided by SSTs, its the costs. Simply put, the Concorde was very expensive to fly and maintain. The carriers (British Airways, and Air France) passed on those high maintenance and fuel costs in the form of exorbitant ticket prices, quashing demand for the Concorde among all but the super-rich elite, who used Concorde flights as a status symbol (much like owning a Ferrari).
If the Concorde's fuel costs were high in the mid-1990's imagine what they are now, with $60/barrel oil prices.
Well, if it never turned a profit, or even broke even, I think "fiscal failure" is a pretty appropriate term. I agree with you in the sense that sometimes fiscal failures are necessary to develop and refine technology, as with the Concorde. But that doesn't change the fact that the venture didn't turn a profit. It also doesn't change the fact that the venture may have had successes in a non-financial sense (i.e. advancement of technology, boost of national prestige, etc.)
Perhaps, instead of fiscal failure, we could use the term "financial nonperformer".
The Atlantic is a very large body of water as well. Yet businesspeople did not beat a path to the old Concorde's doorstep looking for high-speed transatlantic flights. Why will the Pacific market be any different?
As for cargo, the original Concorde only had room enough for 100 or so passengers. That doesn't translate into a whole lot of cargo space. Considering the fact that cargo usually doesn't need to travel as quickly as people (even the most perishable cargo can last a few hours with proper packing), the concept of SST as a cargo hauler is almost a sure bust.
The problem isn't necessarily one of >1 computer/person, its the problem of >1 person/computer. At best the method described would catch and indentify unique computers. But since not every household has 1 computer/person, this method would fail to catch other people using the same computer.
For example, if I went to Site Z while browsing, and someone else within my family goes to Site Z within a reasonably short amount of time, how will the site distinguish among us?
It wouldn't really be a problem for home users with ~4 people, but if you're trying to capture traffic from libraries, schools, or any other place with public terminals, this could represent a serious source of undercount error, especially considering that most of those sites are behind some kind of NAT, and therefore present a single IP to the outside world.
Whoa. Am I just dumb, or are you skipping a version number? I wasn't aware that there was a Starcraft 2...
The average consumer does have a choice. At the very least, they can go with Apple.
In addition, Red Hat and SuSE are both sold at Best Buy, and Linux has gotten enough free press that its no longer a complete unknown. If the consumer wants to, he/she can install an alternative OS on their existing hardware.
Just because you view MS as the bane of the software universe doesn't guarantaee that everyone cares, or that anyone will switch operating systems based upon your opinion. The question isn't "Should everyone use Linux?", but instead is, "Should I use Linux?" And the answer to that question is a variable depending on many other factors, not all of which are controllable by the consumer.
Do you have an ATI graphics card? I have an ATI Radeon Mobility U1 in my laptop. ATI doesn't make a Linux driver for it, and I have been unable to find an OSS driver. Without 3d acceleration, my gaming options are severely limited.
True enough, but I want when I include a table with my text, I want my friend to be able to print out the table in a non-mangled form.
Also, you have no solution for those who want to include graphics inline with their text.
Then perhaps they should have named it to be ApplePy. That way, all the patriotic programmers can claim that their programs use ApplePy to get work done, rather than plain ol' CGI, which everybody knows is just for the terrorists.
How about City of Heroes? Half Life 2? Evil Genius?
You had me going until the point where you mentioned games. Linux is a drop-in replacement for Windows on most things, but definitely not games.
Because MS word doesn't handle open document formats.
But did they use a flux capacitor?
Who says that lions and tigers have the same adaptations? Also there is more than one breed of tiger. Yes, a Siberian tiger could probably survive in Nebraska. A Bengal tiger? Probably not. Seeing as how (thermally) the lions' habitat is closer to the Bengal tiger I'd say the the same thing about the lions' survival.
RTFA. Even Canada, which has a population density quite similar to the US has faster internet connections for less.
Yes. Well, I was in a hurry, and had no time for strict syntactical correctness.
Good luck booting a desktop with a NFS share if the server is ever down.
Blasphemy!!
The One Good Language is Lisp, everybody knows that...
Ok. But that fact doesn't really affect Sun too much. As far as I can see, Sun's goal is to (re)position Solaris x86 as a viable alternative to RHEL, Novell/SuSE, and others as a fully supported *nix offering on x86.
If RHEL ran on WiFi routers, that'd be a different matter.
No. I shut my computer down when I'm not using it. If you care so much about energy conservation, maybe you should too.
The ancient games don't count simply because the ancient Olympics took place before there was a trademark/copyright system. Therefore, all words and other intellectual property in relation to the ancient games are public domain.