Open source can always use programers who have an itch to scratch. Without knowing your problem I can't really say more, but it would be a good selling point for KSpread to be the only spreadsheet that can do what you need. A good way to take over from Microsoft is to do everything Excell does that people need, and a few other things that they don't do.
Other packages you named are also open source, pick on that is closed to your needs, and make it better for everyone. There are plenty of out of work programers (like me - hint hint) who would love to modify an open source program for money.
Seriously, the only solution is to talk to people around you. Anyone with a cell phone, find out what they use.
Each cell phone plan is different, this is to confuse you, there is no way to compare apples because now two companies offer the same or similear plans. Nation wide no roaming, but does that mean there is no signal where they have no towers (sprint), or agreements to use any tower (AT&T, Verizon)? How many minutes, broken up by weekend, peak time, night. How is the data service? What about voicemail?
Then there is coverage area. I have been in places where there are none of them have service. I don't care who your provider is you can't use the phone, unless satalite ever makes it. My current phone (voicestream) has coverage most of the places I go, but not everywhere. My previous phone (Verizon) had service almost everywhere, but I moved in the city and suddenly I had no service at my house, but down the block has it fine. (that was a few years ago, I suspect it is fixed by now)
The bottom line is you need to figgure out where you have to have service, and where it would just be nice. I don't know anyone in South Dakota, so it doesn't matter that I have little service there. I know people in North Dakota, but decided I can live without a phone when I visit them. I have to have service at my home (I have replaced the land line with my cell phone), others may decide no service at home is acceptable so long as there is service other places. If you don't travel often, then pay $1.00/minute for roaming isn't a big deal, if you travel you need to deal with roaming costs and ability. With GSM (voicestream, but there are others) you can get a dual band phone for Europe use, or just buy a phone in Europe and put the sim card in, at $2.00/minute or more! Other providers make it harder to get service in Europe.
You might consider a no roaming or long distance phone, with a trusted friends address, if you know a lot of people in an area you don't live in anymore. You can then get a phone number that is a local call for them, and you don't pay roaming. So long as you have other means for locals to reach you, (or don't care if they can) this can be a good idea. However if you send the bill to your address they might diconnect you, as happened to one friend of mine.
With a 25 hour day
on
Hacker Survey
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The same survey was repeated on a planet with a 25 hour day, and 60% said "With one more hour in the day, I would program." 70% of the respondents volunteered that lack of sleep was the most significant cost of participation.
Okay, Mr start over guy. Before you can start over you have to either solve the Abortion and Gun control issue, or convince those who care that it your goverment is enough better that it is wroth it despite not solving either issue.
Notice I picked two very controlversial issues? I know many "gun nuts" who will not touch a new goverment without assurance that their guns won't be taken away. (many include full automatics, sawed off shotguns, right to concealed carry, and other now illegal guns in their list). The "Antis" want nothing to do with a socity with guns everywhere. Only those who have a need for them can have one, and they are strict about who has a need. There is of course a range of feelings, some "gun nuts" don't care about full automatics, and some "antis" only want to ban a few types of guns. Don't take the above as a lession in how either side thinks.
Abortion generates more extreem feelings than guns in most people. I don't think I need to touch it. Good luck getting any agereement though.
Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike in The Practice of Programming say:
As a personal choice, we tend not to use debuggers beyond getting a stack trace or the value of a variable or two. One reason is that it is easy to get lost in details of complicated data structures and control flow; we tind stepping through a program less productice than thinking harder and adding output statements and self-checking code at critical plays. Clicking over statements takes longer than scanning the output of judiciously-placed displays. It takes less time to decide where to put print statements than to single-step to the critical section of code, even assuming we know where tht is. More important, debugging statments stay with the program; debugger sessions are transient.
They go on to say that debuggers are valuable, and not to be overlooked. However they don't use them very much.
These are also well respected programers. I would recomend you follow their example unless you know a good reason not to.
Unlikely, airlines give employees a excellent discount. Northwest for instance it is $20 to get on any not full plane. I have a friend who flys to Sweden (from the US) to visit is brother often because it is so cheap to do so.
I'm sure that the guy who flew from LA to Miami actually did that, and likely out of his own pocket. Of course he is presumibly paid to go to parties and tell good stories about the airline, but if you like to travel it is a good deal. Though I suppose finding someone who would be comfortable in an iron maiden, with a mother who can't cook is tough. Still if you meet those requirements, and are socal enough to speak up the airlines want you.
Are you kidding, the target group is now going to be looking for the plants. And when you see a plant you will run up to them to see how much they are making, at which point they demo the phone to you, and convince you to buy it. Sounds like it should work perfectly. I know that I have a perfectly good cell phone right now, and I see no reason to replace (and I'm out of work so I really have to be careful what I spend money on...). However I'll be looking for plants on the rare times I get out, and I will look for an opertunity to use the phone.
Who knows, I might even meet a good looking model too. Nahh, geeks aren't allowed to meet girls.
You can't type with your feet, but you should be able to rig up some foot pedals for the meta keys (meta, alt, control, shift, and perhaps others) that will help in emacs.
I've met coders who prefer a trackball on the floor with foot pedals instead of a mouse, that might help too.
However if you agree before hand to not rat each other out, and the other guy breaks trust and you don't, then you get a long sentence, and cannot get revenge the next time.
In other words, you can't lose by ratting on the other guy. If the other guy rats on you, he would have anyway, and you still get a long sentence. If he doesn't you go free, and he never plays again. If you were properly careful about where you hid the money, you don't have to play again. (Note though that most criminals aren't smart enough to choose a crime that makes them any money, and thus have to play again or turn to an honest life)
I'm glad I re-load my own bullets. A little gun powder (I shake the bottle of gunpowder first so it is well mixed), measured into a shell, some lead (melt it myself) as a tip, and a primer. I know my bullets work, as do many others.
A hash table can be created many ways. A simple way to create a O(1) hash table is to make sure there is a spot for each entry in the table, and there are no collisions. In most cases that means there are many blank spaces in your table, but if searching a structure is very common, (and your hash function is cheap) it might be worth the memory loss. In most cases you use a smaller table, and search a small list. It is also possible to make your hash table expandable, so that if any list gets byond some length you build a new table with more room. and split yoru lists, which costs a lot of time, but again is worth it if searching is done often.
Remember though, pre-mature optimization is the root of all evil. Even if you end up with a O(N^2) search algorythm due to some stupidity, if you don't search very often it is not worth fixing. (It also isn't worth fixing if the search is in the middle of a O(N!) algorythm)
Sure it could work, but how to you get hired in the first place. I've quickly discovered that there are plenty of jobs out there that need fillment (that or there are plenty of reqruiters pretending to have jobs to keep their resume bank filled, I'll bet in the middle). The the problem is they want absurb levels of specialization. As I told a Carpenter friend of mine, he should have never got his last job because he has 5 years expirence using Senco guns, and his new company uses Pasload.
They want to see 5-10 years expirence, but what they really get isn't 5 years of expirence, they get 1 year of expirence repeated 5-10 times.
Any good programer can pick up new languages and envieroments in less than a year. They might not learn all the tricks, but they know most of them. I know people who have been in mainframes for 30 years who still learn a new trick, but they aren't that much better than a 1 year mainframe programer because those new tricks don't apply very often.
Sorry about the rant, I'm looking for a job too, and it didn't take me long to realise there are plenty of jobs out there that I can do, but they won't look at me because my expirence is with something slightly different.
Just get a Seismograph, and return the heigh of the last reading. Sensitive enough to measure footsteps across the room, so you shouldn't have a problem if you place it right.
I live near a freeway, so I have plenty of randomnees avaiable in the traffic going by my house.
Warning, with this, and many other schemes you need to normalize the data. Otherwise you will tend to get larger numbers during rush hour, and smaller ones during the night. Also a big snow fall (shuts down traffic) will change the values received. Be aware of these issues, if someone else finds out what you are using to generate random numbers they may use that to break your scheme. (Even if you numbers are random, just over a smaller range)
When I see an advertisement in the local paper, either online or dead tree, I'm confident that it is someone local to me. I call them up, go see it in person, and if I like it I bring it home. No worrys about that e-bay auction that Atari in mint condition that turns out to be made of cholate mint, no worry about buying a $1000 item from a seller who has been selling cheap stuff to get a good rating, and is now skipping town with my money.
E-bay is okay, but I don't like waiting for that auction to be over (and in the mean time I see a good deal elsewhere, but I still have the high bid)
Local is the key. I won't look at the Boone Iowa classifieds, but I will look at the Buffalo, Minnesota clasifieds. This is also good for advertiseers who need to serve local clients. Most slashdot readers would not take their car to Autoworks in Rockford MN (the owner is a good friend of mine), but if they could reach all the slashdot readers in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis they might advertise on slashdot. However reaching the Asian readers is a waste of their money.
Chevy provides me the means to fix my car for the cost of parts, and I often buy aftermarket parts so they don't even make the money. I have already done that in fact. Even if chevy didn't provide the parts, with the right tools I can make a copy. (Unfortunatly computers I cannot copy, but they rarely break, compared to the mechanical parts I can copy). I expect I can keep my current car running for 30 years if I want to repair it. Eventially I will get sick of it, or the cost of parts will be more than it is worth, but I could keep it. You might argue that Chevy makes a profit on parts, and I wouldn't mind Sony mkaing a profit on replacement disks. (ie $5 for a replacement would be reasonable, $50 is not)
Bananas are a consumable, they have an expiration date. With a game, it appears that you own if forever, but in fact you don't. Try this: go to WalMart, and buy a new copy of Ballblazer cartrage for an Atari 8bit system (and excellent game, I highly recomend it). While your at it pick me up a copy of MULE. At one time I could do that. Now you will be hard pressed to find a legal copy of either game. In 40 years you can get a new banana. You completely failed to address how I can keep games that I love for 40 years. I consider myself luck to keep a CD for 5 years, and I try to take good care of them, but accidents happen. I have started burning copies of all CDs in desperation. Even if I'm willing to pay full price, I can't.
So really I had two points. Not just that I shouldn't have to pay full price for something I own, but also that I should be able to fix it even after the game/software isn't worth putting on shelves anymore.
Yep, a IBM thinkpad 390. It got just over 4 hours from a battery, and I had two. I only used the cdrom drive once in the year I had it, so removing the CD/floppy for a second battery was a good trade off to me. I was also careful to avoid using anything that took power, all the computing was done on the backroom cpu servers, and this was just a display.
If I break my disk I should have to buy a new one? I'll accept that IF the cost is for the new disk, and not for the game that I already paid for. That is I send a broken disk to Sony with a check for $1.00 ($0.30 for the disk, and $0.70 for postage, both of which are high estimates) and 6 weeks latter I get a new disk in the mail. Oh, and this offer is good forever, 40 years from now when I get out my old playstation for nostalgias sake and discover the disk has suffered bit-rot I expect they will still send me a copy. (price adjusted for inflation if nessicary, but still dirt cheap)
Unlike those corporations though, I vote. Congressmen want that money because is makes it easier to get elected. If I can get a few thousand people to vote for the other guy (who otherwise wouldn't have, no getting a repubocrat to vote for his party, but if he votes against it) then I have nullified the worth of all that money. If it becomes clear that congressmen are losing elections of issues like this, they will suddenly become unbought.
Enron spent a lot of money on both parties, and it helped them for a while, but as soon some details became known the Republicans stabed them in the back. The democrats would have done the same if they were in power. Polititions cannot afford be associated with public negatives. In the case of Enron, if they hadn't donated that much money polititions could have done more for them, but because the money was there they had to run even from things they might otherwise have done. (of course Enron benifited greatly from their donations before things came out)
The point is votes are all that counts. Money is useful only for getting more votes. With the exception of the few polititions who retire of course.
I'm a fairly smart guy, and I have a degree in Computer Science. It is reasonable to assume that I can write and OS from scratch, throw a GUI on it, write my own web browser, and word processor. However to do the above all on my own takes too long. I'm not satisfied with with the commercially avaiable equivelents that I can afford so ecconomics suggests that I will do something else. Since it would take me years to write all the above (1 year each for minimal: os, compiler, GUI, gui toolkit, device drivers... working full time).
I can do it though. However by using open source I can get help. Linux/*BSD are good OSes, by starting with them I can take a good network stack, and replace the schedular with one that is better, and have a good OS. In the mean time someone else can fix a bug I haven't seen yet in the network stack... If I don't like my desktop, KDE/GNOME are good starting places to make things better, without spending years getting to where they are first. And they provide things I consider nice but not critical that I would never touch on my own.
Open source makes sense, so long as I have income, and there is something I need that I can't get.
Sorry, but I gotta complain about your definition of desktop replacement. I want a desktop replacement laptop because I can take it to class and meetings. I love taking notes on my laptop for 8 hours without plugging in. Meeting minutes should be sent out within 1 minute of the meeting ending. When someone is in a meeting they should be able to get at the unexpected data they need that is on their desk, without leaving the room (that is the data is on the computer, so any computer can access it), not run back to their desk to price off a hard copy. Sure the batteries are a UPS, but if that is all you use your laptop for, a desktop with a UPS is cheaper and has a better keyboard, and monitor.
When I need more power than is on my laptop, then I ssh over to one of our CPU servers (at my last job we had a couple machines set up for this), and display my apps back to the laptop.
Laptop users should not have a big harddrive. They should have enough room for the OS, a few apps that they run on the road, and a copy of the documents they use often. Note I said copy, the master copy of these documents should be someplace that is always backed up, the laptop just has a copy for quick work until it can be synced with the master (two way sync). Other than that, long battery life, weight (the mass of even a heavey laptop is not enough to make a difference in gravity humans can stand, so weight is the critical), screen, keyboard, and interfaces are key.
Remember laptops are stolen; droped and broke; and forgotten far too often to have the master copy of anything. They should be easially replaceable. Too expensive to be disposable, but too fragile to depend on any one.
When you lock yourself into the desk is where I work, you miss the power that a laptop gives you. Get a laptop that you can use anywhere, wireless networking in the office (warning, security issues need to be addressed here), with a battery that is worth something. Suddenly the laptop goes from an expensive toy that to impress people to a useful tool that does things you couldn't get done otherwise.
But what if the object you need to fit down the manhole is not round? Say a normal skinny persona is asked to get a stove down the hole. (Why is byond the scope of this discussion) Stoves are big, and square. So the ideal shape would be a square hole just biiger then the stove, so it can be lowered into the hole. Nobody in their right mind would carry a stove down the ladder, so they would have to get a tripod to lower it, therefore they just need enough room for the stove to fit, with straps on.
Perhaps they can obtain a court order, but if you ahve alwyers you can fight that order. Indeed if they find a violation, but the court order was incorrectly obtained, you may get off.
The best cooks in the world dump things in until it looks, feels, and tastes right. Their measuring cup is a scoop only. It takes YEARS of practice to get this good, I've managed to do a few meals this way that turned out great, but many that were about what you can get anywhere, and a few disasters.
Good cooking takes time. Be prepared to spend time at it. It is all worth it when you get a compliment from someone you want to impress. (S.O. or clients) However you have to make the mistakes on your own first. (The good S.O. will wait them out, the clients never will)
Note though that there are a few things that tolerate NO variance at all, and you must get them perfect. In those cases make sure you measure by weight, not volumn.
The biggest technical revolutions are not in things that people think they need, they are when one (or a few) smart people come up with things people need and build it. People didn't need a machine that talks until Edison invented one, and now everyone has some decendant of his record player. (Probably the only orginial invention of Edison!)
I agree that my kitchen doesn't need to print my grocery list. However my kitchen should keep track of what I have in it. When I see a sale on juice, it should inform me that I bought a lot of juice at the last sale, and half of it is still left. Then two isles over it should remind me that I'm low on flour as I pass by.
I have no problem making a list of things I need, but I often pass the store and want to combine trips (saves gas and time) as long as I'm nearby, even though I don't have a list.
How my kitchen can inform me of all this when I'm at the store is a different question. Wireless is getting someplace though, and will probably be avaiable long before my kitchen can sense what I have in it.
Not nessicarly. When I run a marathon with a pacemaker, a doctor will be required to monitoring my heart in real time. Worst case he might pull me out, but at the very least he should be making real time adjustments. (Note, currently those with a pacemaker cannot do such exercise, which is why I picked it, at least the first few attempts should be monitored in real time)
I can come up with other examples, but I think it is clear, real time monitoring of someone with health problems is a good idea. However the point that it must degrade gracefully in abuse situations is critical. The mafia better not have a chance to kill me remotely. (or at least they better know that while they can, it is instantly traceable to them, so they won't dare)
Implmentation details are left as an exercise. I am however well aware that they are not trivial.
Slashdot Mirror
Open source can always use programers who have an itch to scratch. Without knowing your problem I can't really say more, but it would be a good selling point for KSpread to be the only spreadsheet that can do what you need. A good way to take over from Microsoft is to do everything Excell does that people need, and a few other things that they don't do.
Other packages you named are also open source, pick on that is closed to your needs, and make it better for everyone. There are plenty of out of work programers (like me - hint hint) who would love to modify an open source program for money.
Seriously, the only solution is to talk to people around you. Anyone with a cell phone, find out what they use.
Each cell phone plan is different, this is to confuse you, there is no way to compare apples because now two companies offer the same or similear plans. Nation wide no roaming, but does that mean there is no signal where they have no towers (sprint), or agreements to use any tower (AT&T, Verizon)? How many minutes, broken up by weekend, peak time, night. How is the data service? What about voicemail?
Then there is coverage area. I have been in places where there are none of them have service. I don't care who your provider is you can't use the phone, unless satalite ever makes it. My current phone (voicestream) has coverage most of the places I go, but not everywhere. My previous phone (Verizon) had service almost everywhere, but I moved in the city and suddenly I had no service at my house, but down the block has it fine. (that was a few years ago, I suspect it is fixed by now)
The bottom line is you need to figgure out where you have to have service, and where it would just be nice. I don't know anyone in South Dakota, so it doesn't matter that I have little service there. I know people in North Dakota, but decided I can live without a phone when I visit them. I have to have service at my home (I have replaced the land line with my cell phone), others may decide no service at home is acceptable so long as there is service other places. If you don't travel often, then pay $1.00/minute for roaming isn't a big deal, if you travel you need to deal with roaming costs and ability. With GSM (voicestream, but there are others) you can get a dual band phone for Europe use, or just buy a phone in Europe and put the sim card in, at $2.00/minute or more! Other providers make it harder to get service in Europe.
You might consider a no roaming or long distance phone, with a trusted friends address, if you know a lot of people in an area you don't live in anymore. You can then get a phone number that is a local call for them, and you don't pay roaming. So long as you have other means for locals to reach you, (or don't care if they can) this can be a good idea. However if you send the bill to your address they might diconnect you, as happened to one friend of mine.
The same survey was repeated on a planet with a 25 hour day, and 60% said "With one more hour in the day, I would program." 70% of the respondents volunteered that lack of sleep was the most significant cost of participation.
Okay, Mr start over guy. Before you can start over you have to either solve the Abortion and Gun control issue, or convince those who care that it your goverment is enough better that it is wroth it despite not solving either issue.
Notice I picked two very controlversial issues? I know many "gun nuts" who will not touch a new goverment without assurance that their guns won't be taken away. (many include full automatics, sawed off shotguns, right to concealed carry, and other now illegal guns in their list). The "Antis" want nothing to do with a socity with guns everywhere. Only those who have a need for them can have one, and they are strict about who has a need. There is of course a range of feelings, some "gun nuts" don't care about full automatics, and some "antis" only want to ban a few types of guns. Don't take the above as a lession in how either side thinks.
Abortion generates more extreem feelings than guns in most people. I don't think I need to touch it. Good luck getting any agereement though.
Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike in The Practice of Programming say:
They go on to say that debuggers are valuable, and not to be overlooked. However they don't use them very much.
These are also well respected programers. I would recomend you follow their example unless you know a good reason not to.
P.S. typos in the above quote are my fault.
Unlikely, airlines give employees a excellent discount. Northwest for instance it is $20 to get on any not full plane. I have a friend who flys to Sweden (from the US) to visit is brother often because it is so cheap to do so.
I'm sure that the guy who flew from LA to Miami actually did that, and likely out of his own pocket. Of course he is presumibly paid to go to parties and tell good stories about the airline, but if you like to travel it is a good deal. Though I suppose finding someone who would be comfortable in an iron maiden, with a mother who can't cook is tough. Still if you meet those requirements, and are socal enough to speak up the airlines want you.
Are you kidding, the target group is now going to be looking for the plants. And when you see a plant you will run up to them to see how much they are making, at which point they demo the phone to you, and convince you to buy it. Sounds like it should work perfectly. I know that I have a perfectly good cell phone right now, and I see no reason to replace (and I'm out of work so I really have to be careful what I spend money on...). However I'll be looking for plants on the rare times I get out, and I will look for an opertunity to use the phone.
Who knows, I might even meet a good looking model too. Nahh, geeks aren't allowed to meet girls.
You can't type with your feet, but you should be able to rig up some foot pedals for the meta keys (meta, alt, control, shift, and perhaps others) that will help in emacs.
I've met coders who prefer a trackball on the floor with foot pedals instead of a mouse, that might help too.
However if you agree before hand to not rat each other out, and the other guy breaks trust and you don't, then you get a long sentence, and cannot get revenge the next time.
In other words, you can't lose by ratting on the other guy. If the other guy rats on you, he would have anyway, and you still get a long sentence. If he doesn't you go free, and he never plays again. If you were properly careful about where you hid the money, you don't have to play again. (Note though that most criminals aren't smart enough to choose a crime that makes them any money, and thus have to play again or turn to an honest life)
I'm glad I re-load my own bullets. A little gun powder (I shake the bottle of gunpowder first so it is well mixed), measured into a shell, some lead (melt it myself) as a tip, and a primer. I know my bullets work, as do many others.
A hash table can be created many ways. A simple way to create a O(1) hash table is to make sure there is a spot for each entry in the table, and there are no collisions. In most cases that means there are many blank spaces in your table, but if searching a structure is very common, (and your hash function is cheap) it might be worth the memory loss. In most cases you use a smaller table, and search a small list. It is also possible to make your hash table expandable, so that if any list gets byond some length you build a new table with more room. and split yoru lists, which costs a lot of time, but again is worth it if searching is done often.
Remember though, pre-mature optimization is the root of all evil. Even if you end up with a O(N^2) search algorythm due to some stupidity, if you don't search very often it is not worth fixing. (It also isn't worth fixing if the search is in the middle of a O(N!) algorythm)
Sure it could work, but how to you get hired in the first place. I've quickly discovered that there are plenty of jobs out there that need fillment (that or there are plenty of reqruiters pretending to have jobs to keep their resume bank filled, I'll bet in the middle). The the problem is they want absurb levels of specialization. As I told a Carpenter friend of mine, he should have never got his last job because he has 5 years expirence using Senco guns, and his new company uses Pasload.
They want to see 5-10 years expirence, but what they really get isn't 5 years of expirence, they get 1 year of expirence repeated 5-10 times.
Any good programer can pick up new languages and envieroments in less than a year. They might not learn all the tricks, but they know most of them. I know people who have been in mainframes for 30 years who still learn a new trick, but they aren't that much better than a 1 year mainframe programer because those new tricks don't apply very often.
Sorry about the rant, I'm looking for a job too, and it didn't take me long to realise there are plenty of jobs out there that I can do, but they won't look at me because my expirence is with something slightly different.
Just get a Seismograph, and return the heigh of the last reading. Sensitive enough to measure footsteps across the room, so you shouldn't have a problem if you place it right.
I live near a freeway, so I have plenty of randomnees avaiable in the traffic going by my house.
Warning, with this, and many other schemes you need to normalize the data. Otherwise you will tend to get larger numbers during rush hour, and smaller ones during the night. Also a big snow fall (shuts down traffic) will change the values received. Be aware of these issues, if someone else finds out what you are using to generate random numbers they may use that to break your scheme. (Even if you numbers are random, just over a smaller range)
When I see an advertisement in the local paper, either online or dead tree, I'm confident that it is someone local to me. I call them up, go see it in person, and if I like it I bring it home. No worrys about that e-bay auction that Atari in mint condition that turns out to be made of cholate mint, no worry about buying a $1000 item from a seller who has been selling cheap stuff to get a good rating, and is now skipping town with my money.
E-bay is okay, but I don't like waiting for that auction to be over (and in the mean time I see a good deal elsewhere, but I still have the high bid)
Local is the key. I won't look at the Boone Iowa classifieds, but I will look at the Buffalo, Minnesota clasifieds. This is also good for advertiseers who need to serve local clients. Most slashdot readers would not take their car to Autoworks in Rockford MN (the owner is a good friend of mine), but if they could reach all the slashdot readers in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis they might advertise on slashdot. However reaching the Asian readers is a waste of their money.
Chevy provides me the means to fix my car for the cost of parts, and I often buy aftermarket parts so they don't even make the money. I have already done that in fact. Even if chevy didn't provide the parts, with the right tools I can make a copy. (Unfortunatly computers I cannot copy, but they rarely break, compared to the mechanical parts I can copy). I expect I can keep my current car running for 30 years if I want to repair it. Eventially I will get sick of it, or the cost of parts will be more than it is worth, but I could keep it. You might argue that Chevy makes a profit on parts, and I wouldn't mind Sony mkaing a profit on replacement disks. (ie $5 for a replacement would be reasonable, $50 is not)
Bananas are a consumable, they have an expiration date. With a game, it appears that you own if forever, but in fact you don't. Try this: go to WalMart, and buy a new copy of Ballblazer cartrage for an Atari 8bit system (and excellent game, I highly recomend it). While your at it pick me up a copy of MULE. At one time I could do that. Now you will be hard pressed to find a legal copy of either game. In 40 years you can get a new banana. You completely failed to address how I can keep games that I love for 40 years. I consider myself luck to keep a CD for 5 years, and I try to take good care of them, but accidents happen. I have started burning copies of all CDs in desperation. Even if I'm willing to pay full price, I can't.
So really I had two points. Not just that I shouldn't have to pay full price for something I own, but also that I should be able to fix it even after the game/software isn't worth putting on shelves anymore.
Yep, a IBM thinkpad 390. It got just over 4 hours from a battery, and I had two. I only used the cdrom drive once in the year I had it, so removing the CD/floppy for a second battery was a good trade off to me. I was also careful to avoid using anything that took power, all the computing was done on the backroom cpu servers, and this was just a display.
If I break my disk I should have to buy a new one? I'll accept that IF the cost is for the new disk, and not for the game that I already paid for. That is I send a broken disk to Sony with a check for $1.00 ($0.30 for the disk, and $0.70 for postage, both of which are high estimates) and 6 weeks latter I get a new disk in the mail. Oh, and this offer is good forever, 40 years from now when I get out my old playstation for nostalgias sake and discover the disk has suffered bit-rot I expect they will still send me a copy. (price adjusted for inflation if nessicary, but still dirt cheap)
Unlike those corporations though, I vote. Congressmen want that money because is makes it easier to get elected. If I can get a few thousand people to vote for the other guy (who otherwise wouldn't have, no getting a repubocrat to vote for his party, but if he votes against it) then I have nullified the worth of all that money. If it becomes clear that congressmen are losing elections of issues like this, they will suddenly become unbought.
Enron spent a lot of money on both parties, and it helped them for a while, but as soon some details became known the Republicans stabed them in the back. The democrats would have done the same if they were in power. Polititions cannot afford be associated with public negatives. In the case of Enron, if they hadn't donated that much money polititions could have done more for them, but because the money was there they had to run even from things they might otherwise have done. (of course Enron benifited greatly from their donations before things came out)
The point is votes are all that counts. Money is useful only for getting more votes. With the exception of the few polititions who retire of course.
I'm a fairly smart guy, and I have a degree in Computer Science. It is reasonable to assume that I can write and OS from scratch, throw a GUI on it, write my own web browser, and word processor. However to do the above all on my own takes too long. I'm not satisfied with with the commercially avaiable equivelents that I can afford so ecconomics suggests that I will do something else. Since it would take me years to write all the above (1 year each for minimal: os, compiler, GUI, gui toolkit, device drivers... working full time).
I can do it though. However by using open source I can get help. Linux/*BSD are good OSes, by starting with them I can take a good network stack, and replace the schedular with one that is better, and have a good OS. In the mean time someone else can fix a bug I haven't seen yet in the network stack... If I don't like my desktop, KDE/GNOME are good starting places to make things better, without spending years getting to where they are first. And they provide things I consider nice but not critical that I would never touch on my own.
Open source makes sense, so long as I have income, and there is something I need that I can't get.
Sorry, but I gotta complain about your definition of desktop replacement. I want a desktop replacement laptop because I can take it to class and meetings. I love taking notes on my laptop for 8 hours without plugging in. Meeting minutes should be sent out within 1 minute of the meeting ending. When someone is in a meeting they should be able to get at the unexpected data they need that is on their desk, without leaving the room (that is the data is on the computer, so any computer can access it), not run back to their desk to price off a hard copy. Sure the batteries are a UPS, but if that is all you use your laptop for, a desktop with a UPS is cheaper and has a better keyboard, and monitor.
When I need more power than is on my laptop, then I ssh over to one of our CPU servers (at my last job we had a couple machines set up for this), and display my apps back to the laptop.
Laptop users should not have a big harddrive. They should have enough room for the OS, a few apps that they run on the road, and a copy of the documents they use often. Note I said copy, the master copy of these documents should be someplace that is always backed up, the laptop just has a copy for quick work until it can be synced with the master (two way sync). Other than that, long battery life, weight (the mass of even a heavey laptop is not enough to make a difference in gravity humans can stand, so weight is the critical), screen, keyboard, and interfaces are key.
Remember laptops are stolen; droped and broke; and forgotten far too often to have the master copy of anything. They should be easially replaceable. Too expensive to be disposable, but too fragile to depend on any one.
When you lock yourself into the desk is where I work, you miss the power that a laptop gives you. Get a laptop that you can use anywhere, wireless networking in the office (warning, security issues need to be addressed here), with a battery that is worth something. Suddenly the laptop goes from an expensive toy that to impress people to a useful tool that does things you couldn't get done otherwise.
But what if the object you need to fit down the manhole is not round? Say a normal skinny persona is asked to get a stove down the hole. (Why is byond the scope of this discussion) Stoves are big, and square. So the ideal shape would be a square hole just biiger then the stove, so it can be lowered into the hole. Nobody in their right mind would carry a stove down the ladder, so they would have to get a tripod to lower it, therefore they just need enough room for the stove to fit, with straps on.
Perhaps they can obtain a court order, but if you ahve alwyers you can fight that order. Indeed if they find a violation, but the court order was incorrectly obtained, you may get off.
Remember, they have alwyers, but so should you.
The best cooks in the world dump things in until it looks, feels, and tastes right. Their measuring cup is a scoop only. It takes YEARS of practice to get this good, I've managed to do a few meals this way that turned out great, but many that were about what you can get anywhere, and a few disasters.
Good cooking takes time. Be prepared to spend time at it. It is all worth it when you get a compliment from someone you want to impress. (S.O. or clients) However you have to make the mistakes on your own first. (The good S.O. will wait them out, the clients never will)
Note though that there are a few things that tolerate NO variance at all, and you must get them perfect. In those cases make sure you measure by weight, not volumn.
The biggest technical revolutions are not in things that people think they need, they are when one (or a few) smart people come up with things people need and build it. People didn't need a machine that talks until Edison invented one, and now everyone has some decendant of his record player. (Probably the only orginial invention of Edison!)
I agree that my kitchen doesn't need to print my grocery list. However my kitchen should keep track of what I have in it. When I see a sale on juice, it should inform me that I bought a lot of juice at the last sale, and half of it is still left. Then two isles over it should remind me that I'm low on flour as I pass by.
I have no problem making a list of things I need, but I often pass the store and want to combine trips (saves gas and time) as long as I'm nearby, even though I don't have a list.
How my kitchen can inform me of all this when I'm at the store is a different question. Wireless is getting someplace though, and will probably be avaiable long before my kitchen can sense what I have in it.
Not nessicarly. When I run a marathon with a pacemaker, a doctor will be required to monitoring my heart in real time. Worst case he might pull me out, but at the very least he should be making real time adjustments. (Note, currently those with a pacemaker cannot do such exercise, which is why I picked it, at least the first few attempts should be monitored in real time)
I can come up with other examples, but I think it is clear, real time monitoring of someone with health problems is a good idea. However the point that it must degrade gracefully in abuse situations is critical. The mafia better not have a chance to kill me remotely. (or at least they better know that while they can, it is instantly traceable to them, so they won't dare)
Implmentation details are left as an exercise. I am however well aware that they are not trivial.