I am always fascinated by the twists and turns of the "convergence" of all electronic devices into "the one device that rules them all". For awhile it was looking like the video game console might be the winner. And TIVO was hot for awhile, as were set-top boxes. The PC made a run, but collapsed under their own complexity - the difficulty of trying to be all things. Those all of course both suffered from a lack of portability (notebooks were an attempt to address this)... enter the PSP. Then smartphones popped on the scene and are probably the current best bet. But now netbooks appear, and there are some compelling reasons why they could displace cell phones as the one device everyone owns and carries. I suppose their two big problems are battery life and size. The smartphones' problems are screen size and interface (keyboard) size. Perhaps when (if) voice recognition finally works and the display-in-glasses becomes viable cell phones could overcome their limitations?
As a self-professed gadget guy I can say that I carry 3 devices with me always: cell phone, pocket PC and thumbdrive. Sometimes I also carry a Nano if I will be listening to music for a prolonged period (battery issues with the Pocket PC and the cell phone). Here in the states, the smartphones with touchscreens and web browsers and available 3rd party applications require you to sign up for a data contract, the cost of which I cannot justify. The pocket PC has a decent camera, a good music player, a host of games and applications, WiFi, a good size screen... but it lacks a decent input device, battery life and cell phone functionality.
Your system has been halted in order to prevent a loss of data.
Ummm, shouldn't that read "Your system has been halted in order to guarantee a loss of data"?, since I was never given a chance to save anything before the system halt.
but not a dime for affordale socialised medicine...
Huh? Have you ever hear of Medicare and Medicaid and the new presriription drug plan, and SCHIP? These are all huge federal programs that spend vast sums of money on socialized medicine.
Face it, HP is a hardware company. Their two previous attempts at something like this were abject and expensive failures. Dell, Gateway and Acer must be licking their chops.
... that the mobile carriers could save themselves a great deal of grief if they provided a fact sheet to their data subscribers. Sure, the contract said $0.019 per KB, but most people have no idea what that means. Now, if they handed them a sheet like the following:
Here are some typical charges at $0.019/KB...
1 email would cost about $0.02 to send or receive
1 web page would cost about $0.20 to display
1 3.2 megapixel picture would cost $6 to send
1 10 megapixel picture would cost $20 to send
1 minute of DV video would cost $5200 to send
In other words, express the charges in terms of something they can understand. I'm sure if this family was given a fee schedule like this they would have suggested that their son not send home the pictures.
the military and police are there to keep the nasty rotten hordes from sacking the ghettos?
I already addressed this. If you tear apart society so there is no law and order, the wealthy will prosper even more than they do in an orderly society. They will pay for protection against ragtag disorganized gangs, and what that protection costs as a percent of their income will be miniscule compared to the ~50% tax bill the wealthy pay. Strike one.
the national highway services are maintained so joe average can drive his SUV?
I thought we were talking about the wealthy, not Joe average? You stated the wealthy use a disproportionate share of social services. Nice try, but strike two.
Then there's that whole "internet" thing, which was born of a very long gestation period in the womb of public funding/public grants
What the heck does this have to do with the wealthy using a disporportionate share of social services? The value of the internet is directly proportional to the number of people who use it. The wealthy may have subsidized its existance by being early adopters (at great personal expense), but they certainly don't benefit any more than "Joe Average" from its existance. Strike three!
the list goes on and on.
If this endless list is populated with examples similar to the three above, I believe I have won this argument hands down.
For instance, a recent documentary on new orleans talks about how, before the government stepped in, the city's sea walls were built by the local plantation owners,
This is an interesting comment. Note that the local plantation owners were "the wealthy". Apparently they built walls that held up. Then the government took over, taxed "the wealthy" and used that tax money to build walls that failed. Your own example supports my argument...
Sad to say it, but Windows Mobile phones are probably the most widely available "open for developers" phones out there
First, why is it sad? Second, I have had extensive experience developing for Windows Mobile (alongside some poor slobs who were saddled with having to develop the same application for Symbian and Java). While I can say that I had a very positive experience, my compatriots were not so lucky. The tools (Embedded Visual Studio) were free. And as a big bonus, I was able to do 90-95% of my development on the desktop the same source could be built and run on a desktop Windows box and then, with a small smattering of #ifdefs, built and deployed onto either a pocket PC style (touchscreen with stylus) or Smartphone style target device. As you can imagine, source-level debugging an application in desktop Visual Studio is orders of magnitude more efficient than fiddling around with simulators or worse, tethered devices running in some sort of half-speed debugger mode under control of a desktop. I also dabbled with BREW (uggh) though not for terribly long. For my money, Windows Mobile is definitely the way to go if you want to develop applications for personal consumption.
The truth is at least half if not a good 60% of economic hardship is a result of corruption somewhere
On this we can agree. Of course you will point at corporate boardrooms whereas I will point at legislatures.
... for example sneakily making sure the initial legislation does not track with inflation.
You must mean like the Alternative Minimum Tax! Talk about sneaky! Looks like both sides play that game.
A good example of a responsible republican input would be to insist that, following proper funding for initial launch, social services be non profits whenever possible
Ahhh, you must mean like the Post Office! A fine example of a non-profit government run organization. Yeah, I want healthcare run like the Post Office.
The wealthy gain a lot more from most government provided services than the poor
Baloney. The wealthy don't use public schools (half of local budgets and a good chunk of most state budgets). The wealthy don't use any of the social services (half of the federal budget and a good chunk of most state budgets). So exactly which government services are you talking about that the rich consume "a lot more than the poor"? Oh yeah, your journal mentioned police protection. Right. I know a guy who moved to the Philipines. He said it was dangerous, especially for Americans, but he could hire a 24x7 body guard for $4 per day. His own personal police man for $1400/year! It seems to me, were I wealthy, that I could afford my own personal militia to protect me and my property for a small fraction of what I pay in taxes. What other government services do the wealthy consume disproportionately? Healthcare? Nope - they pay their way. FDA services? FAA services? Road maintenance? Admit it, it is simply silly to suggest that a group (say the top 10% by income) that pays over 43% of federal income tax consumes more than the 43% of government "services" (that they essentially paid for), especially given that at least 50% of those "services" described above are clearly off the table.
I can't say I really disagree with your statements. I think where we part ways is when something is the result of a "moral hazards" versus when something is the result of a personal failing. Obviously *some* people fall on hard times through no fault of their own: ill health, accident victims, victims of crimes or victims of natural disasters like Mayor Nagin. Clearly there is need for a middle ground where regulation and a saftey net are necessary. That said, government cannot be the solution to every problem. And it's OK, even healthy, that companies make a profit. It's OK, even healthy, that some people get rich. The trick in my mind is to moderate the safety net so as to guard against dependence on government.
Better than the odds that OO has the same bugs;-) The odds are also better than the odds that any custom scripts developed by your inhouse IT group will run on OO. Nevermind all of those mindless process documents that call out detailed steps like Click the "Tools" menu choice, then choose "Customize..." then click the "Output" tab... redoing all of that stuff can be extremely expensive, disruptive, and counterproductive.
I see no reason for Quebec to export their money to Redmond to get an item they could otherwise get locally.
Unless of course the programmer in Redmond already wrote the code years ago. Remember, time is money. If MS Office drops in and does the job perfectly, it makes little or no sense to hire someone to customize Open Office to do the same task which won't be available for months, or even years in the future. Now, if Open Office drops in as well then it's a different story. But, based on my experiences with multiple companies, the business systems wrap themselves around the software, sometimes even to the point where they depend on bugs in the software. I'm sure you've seen this as well. Switching software infrastructures can be a huge expense that goes well beyond the license fees. Now eventually if that is all that is keeping MS Office afloat, that inertia will fade. New companies just starting up will choose open source tools and build their company processes and procedures around those tools rather than incurring the license expenses of MS Office in addition to the expense of adapting their business to those tools.
I certainly agree that soliciting competitive bids is something every government (or any responsible business) should do. But, as I pointed out, arguing that the local offering should be favored just because "that keeps the money local" is foolishness. In addition, as most people on this board know, the true cost of a software infrastructure goes well beyond the license costs. Focussing on the license costs (versus *free*) is either being naive or deliberately misleading.
As an aside, how would a local government solicit a bid from the open source community? Are there development houses that specialize in customizing and supporting Open Office, or would this be a service commonly offered by third-party IT shops?
First off, you don't get much more efficient than ready-made software that's free out of the box,
Oh, like the hundreds of thousands of lines of code (add-ins, scripting) layered on top of MS Office that customize it for a plethora of specific purposes?
BTW, I visited your journal and very much enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the paragraph that begins with the sentence "If you are poor it's YOUR fault!" because it very precisely validated something I recently came to realize. I have often wondered what it is that makes one a "conservative" versus a "liberal". And after many years of reading, listening, and thinking, I stumbled across what I think is the fundamental difference. Conservatives believe that personal success is mostly dependent upon how hard you work. They believe that if you follow the rules and work hard you can achieve your goals. Liberals believe that most people who are successful got there either by cheating, by somehow exploiting loopholes in the system, through inheritance or through good-old-boy connections. Now clearly both world views are not universally true -- there are obviously many real world(tm) examples that prove and disprove both philosophies, which is why both world-views can co-exist. What is particularly interesting to me, however, is to then extrapolate behavior based on these core beliefs. If one honestly believes (as you stated so eloquently in the above-cited paragraph) that successful people must have cheated or inherited their success, then it becomes OK, even expected, that you cheat as well. Conversely, if you believe that hard work and following the rules will be rewarded, then that is the path you will most likely follow. BTW, I would have posted this comment on your journal, but it is archived so no new comments can be made.
One more thing. I noticed you ignored my comment about potholes. The truth hurts, doesn't it?
...This keeps the money in the local economy, which is good for the government since they then get a cut of it back when the workers are paid, another cut when they spend it, and so on.
You realize of course that this statement can be applied almost universally to undermine the value of any kind of trade. For example, wouldn't it be better if my town harvested its own trees for building the new police station rather than importing lumber from some far away place like Canada? After all, it keeps the jobs and the money local. No, the reason trade is beneficial is it fosters competition, and it allows for specialization, which in turn drives efficiency. Software is no different from any other industry in this regard. Just because it's *possible* for local people to write/modify office software doesn't mean it's a wise course of action. In fact, I shudder to think about every local government hiring/contracting with local software engineers to add this-that-or-the-other feature to a fork of Open Office. The last thing I would want is my local government getting into software development. They struggle to fill potholes for goodness sake.
In the city where they'll need to do underground work, and possibly dig up sidewalks/streets its much more cost prohibitive compared to the customers it will get them.
You're right! Many palms to be greased. Unions. Pols. "Neighborhood activists". It is ungodly expensive to do anything in Boston (see Big Dig). Probably this is true of any large American city. And they wonder why those with the means move to the suburbs.
Interesting point. While this administration seems focussed on taking away our "rights", the next administration (assuming Obama wins) will probably be more interested in taking away our "treasure". Sadly, as another poster mentioned, "rights", once lost, are restored very slowly, if ever. Likewise, taxes rarely disappear once they are put in place. Choose your poison.
it tries to do too much with the whole EVDO data thing
Obviously you have had no experience with a Kindle. The EVDO is the "special sauce". I have owned one for 8 months and I love it. I use it every day. I am reading (buying) about 3 books a month (each book is about $6, best-sellers are more like $10, but I usually wait until they "age" a bit). Plus I shut off my newspaper ($30/month) and get it delivered to my Kindle instead ($10/month), so in the end my monthly outlay for reading materials is unchanged while I am essentially getting 3 books/month for free. So from that perspective, my $400 initial outlay (I was an early adopter before the price drop) will be paid for in 33 months.
Anyhow, what makes this device really attractive to me is the (free) wireless. Being able to browse their book collection (which is substantial), download and read a few chapters (for free) anywhere, anytime, is extremely addicting. And being able to buy the book and be reading it in less than 30 seconds is a convenience I've grown to "need". In the morning when I turn it on, there is my newspaper - I don't have to boot the PC, connect the USB, do the "syncing" thing, it's just delivered automatically. Built in web-browsing for checking the occassional baseball score or my email is also a big plus. Yes, the hardware is a bit clunky (too many next page buttons - there is no place to hold the thing), and the industrial design looks like something from the 80s, but the battery lasts a good long time (many days if you turn off the wireless and just use it as a book) and the display is very easy on the eyes. Never having to tether to a computer is a really big deal for me - don't knock it until you've tried it.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh? According to this reference http://www.fairtaxblog.com/20060524/who-pays-taxes-in-the-usa the top 5% pay over 50% of the taxes in this country. And according to this reference http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/250.html the top 5% pay over 60% of the federal income taxes in the US. Can you give me a reference that backs your claim that the bottom 95% pay the majority of the taxes?
I am always fascinated by the twists and turns of the "convergence" of all electronic devices into "the one device that rules them all". For awhile it was looking like the video game console might be the winner. And TIVO was hot for awhile, as were set-top boxes. The PC made a run, but collapsed under their own complexity - the difficulty of trying to be all things. Those all of course both suffered from a lack of portability (notebooks were an attempt to address this) ... enter the PSP. Then smartphones popped on the scene and are probably the current best bet. But now netbooks appear, and there are some compelling reasons why they could displace cell phones as the one device everyone owns and carries. I suppose their two big problems are battery life and size. The smartphones' problems are screen size and interface (keyboard) size. Perhaps when (if) voice recognition finally works and the display-in-glasses becomes viable cell phones could overcome their limitations?
... but it lacks a decent input device, battery life and cell phone functionality.
As a self-professed gadget guy I can say that I carry 3 devices with me always: cell phone, pocket PC and thumbdrive. Sometimes I also carry a Nano if I will be listening to music for a prolonged period (battery issues with the Pocket PC and the cell phone). Here in the states, the smartphones with touchscreens and web browsers and available 3rd party applications require you to sign up for a data contract, the cost of which I cannot justify. The pocket PC has a decent camera, a good music player, a host of games and applications, WiFi, a good size screen
You mean like "we'll tax 5% of the people and give it to the other 95%" class warfare thing?
Why does it matter if there is more matter than anti-matter? What is the matter with these people?
It could let me save on removable media, for example. At least give me a chance to save my data, perhaps after informing me of the risks.
Your system has been halted in order to prevent a loss of data.
Ummm, shouldn't that read "Your system has been halted in order to guarantee a loss of data"?, since I was never given a chance to save anything before the system halt.
Huh? Have you ever hear of Medicare and Medicaid and the new presriription drug plan, and SCHIP? These are all huge federal programs that spend vast sums of money on socialized medicine.
No, but I vaguely remember hearing the phrase "putting lipstick on a pig" somewhere along the line.
Does anybody remember NewWave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewWave)?
How about the Open Software Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Software_Foundation)?
Face it, HP is a hardware company. Their two previous attempts at something like this were abject and expensive failures. Dell, Gateway and Acer must be licking their chops.
I think it might be a good idea to limit the size of AC posts, which would hopefully prevent these types of screeds from infecting every discussion.
... that the mobile carriers could save themselves a great deal of grief if they provided a fact sheet to their data subscribers. Sure, the contract said $0.019 per KB, but most people have no idea what that means. Now, if they handed them a sheet like the following:
...
Here are some typical charges at $0.019/KB
1 email would cost about $0.02 to send or receive
1 web page would cost about $0.20 to display
1 3.2 megapixel picture would cost $6 to send
1 10 megapixel picture would cost $20 to send
1 minute of DV video would cost $5200 to send
In other words, express the charges in terms of something they can understand. I'm sure if this family was given a fee schedule like this they would have suggested that their son not send home the pictures.
I already addressed this. If you tear apart society so there is no law and order, the wealthy will prosper even more than they do in an orderly society. They will pay for protection against ragtag disorganized gangs, and what that protection costs as a percent of their income will be miniscule compared to the ~50% tax bill the wealthy pay. Strike one.
I thought we were talking about the wealthy, not Joe average? You stated the wealthy use a disproportionate share of social services. Nice try, but strike two.
What the heck does this have to do with the wealthy using a disporportionate share of social services? The value of the internet is directly proportional to the number of people who use it. The wealthy may have subsidized its existance by being early adopters (at great personal expense), but they certainly don't benefit any more than "Joe Average" from its existance. Strike three!
If this endless list is populated with examples similar to the three above, I believe I have won this argument hands down.
This is an interesting comment. Note that the local plantation owners were "the wealthy". Apparently they built walls that held up. Then the government took over, taxed "the wealthy" and used that tax money to build walls that failed. Your own example supports my argument ...
Dunno about geotagging, but it's got everything else you want: http://www.beachcamera.com/shop/product.aspx?omid=117&ref=mysimon&utm_source=MySimon&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=HPIPAQ910&sku=HPIPAQ910
First, why is it sad? Second, I have had extensive experience developing for Windows Mobile (alongside some poor slobs who were saddled with having to develop the same application for Symbian and Java). While I can say that I had a very positive experience, my compatriots were not so lucky. The tools (Embedded Visual Studio) were free. And as a big bonus, I was able to do 90-95% of my development on the desktop the same source could be built and run on a desktop Windows box and then, with a small smattering of #ifdefs, built and deployed onto either a pocket PC style (touchscreen with stylus) or Smartphone style target device. As you can imagine, source-level debugging an application in desktop Visual Studio is orders of magnitude more efficient than fiddling around with simulators or worse, tethered devices running in some sort of half-speed debugger mode under control of a desktop. I also dabbled with BREW (uggh) though not for terribly long. For my money, Windows Mobile is definitely the way to go if you want to develop applications for personal consumption.
On this we can agree. Of course you will point at corporate boardrooms whereas I will point at legislatures.
You must mean like the Alternative Minimum Tax! Talk about sneaky! Looks like both sides play that game.
Ahhh, you must mean like the Post Office! A fine example of a non-profit government run organization. Yeah, I want healthcare run like the Post Office.
Baloney. The wealthy don't use public schools (half of local budgets and a good chunk of most state budgets). The wealthy don't use any of the social services (half of the federal budget and a good chunk of most state budgets). So exactly which government services are you talking about that the rich consume "a lot more than the poor"? Oh yeah, your journal mentioned police protection. Right. I know a guy who moved to the Philipines. He said it was dangerous, especially for Americans, but he could hire a 24x7 body guard for $4 per day. His own personal police man for $1400/year! It seems to me, were I wealthy, that I could afford my own personal militia to protect me and my property for a small fraction of what I pay in taxes. What other government services do the wealthy consume disproportionately? Healthcare? Nope - they pay their way. FDA services? FAA services? Road maintenance? Admit it, it is simply silly to suggest that a group (say the top 10% by income) that pays over 43% of federal income tax consumes more than the 43% of government "services" (that they essentially paid for), especially given that at least 50% of those "services" described above are clearly off the table.
I can't say I really disagree with your statements. I think where we part ways is when something is the result of a "moral hazards" versus when something is the result of a personal failing. Obviously *some* people fall on hard times through no fault of their own: ill health, accident victims, victims of crimes or victims of natural disasters like Mayor Nagin. Clearly there is need for a middle ground where regulation and a saftey net are necessary. That said, government cannot be the solution to every problem. And it's OK, even healthy, that companies make a profit. It's OK, even healthy, that some people get rich. The trick in my mind is to moderate the safety net so as to guard against dependence on government.
Better than the odds that OO has the same bugs ;-) The odds are also better than the odds that any custom scripts developed by your inhouse IT group will run on OO. Nevermind all of those mindless process documents that call out detailed steps like Click the "Tools" menu choice, then choose "Customize ..." then click the "Output" tab ... redoing all of that stuff can be extremely expensive, disruptive, and counterproductive.
Unless of course the programmer in Redmond already wrote the code years ago. Remember, time is money. If MS Office drops in and does the job perfectly, it makes little or no sense to hire someone to customize Open Office to do the same task which won't be available for months, or even years in the future. Now, if Open Office drops in as well then it's a different story. But, based on my experiences with multiple companies, the business systems wrap themselves around the software, sometimes even to the point where they depend on bugs in the software. I'm sure you've seen this as well. Switching software infrastructures can be a huge expense that goes well beyond the license fees. Now eventually if that is all that is keeping MS Office afloat, that inertia will fade. New companies just starting up will choose open source tools and build their company processes and procedures around those tools rather than incurring the license expenses of MS Office in addition to the expense of adapting their business to those tools.
I certainly agree that soliciting competitive bids is something every government (or any responsible business) should do. But, as I pointed out, arguing that the local offering should be favored just because "that keeps the money local" is foolishness. In addition, as most people on this board know, the true cost of a software infrastructure goes well beyond the license costs. Focussing on the license costs (versus *free*) is either being naive or deliberately misleading.
As an aside, how would a local government solicit a bid from the open source community? Are there development houses that specialize in customizing and supporting Open Office, or would this be a service commonly offered by third-party IT shops?
Oh, like the hundreds of thousands of lines of code (add-ins, scripting) layered on top of MS Office that customize it for a plethora of specific purposes?
BTW, I visited your journal and very much enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the paragraph that begins with the sentence "If you are poor it's YOUR fault!" because it very precisely validated something I recently came to realize. I have often wondered what it is that makes one a "conservative" versus a "liberal". And after many years of reading, listening, and thinking, I stumbled across what I think is the fundamental difference. Conservatives believe that personal success is mostly dependent upon how hard you work. They believe that if you follow the rules and work hard you can achieve your goals. Liberals believe that most people who are successful got there either by cheating, by somehow exploiting loopholes in the system, through inheritance or through good-old-boy connections. Now clearly both world views are not universally true -- there are obviously many real world(tm) examples that prove and disprove both philosophies, which is why both world-views can co-exist. What is particularly interesting to me, however, is to then extrapolate behavior based on these core beliefs. If one honestly believes (as you stated so eloquently in the above-cited paragraph) that successful people must have cheated or inherited their success, then it becomes OK, even expected, that you cheat as well. Conversely, if you believe that hard work and following the rules will be rewarded, then that is the path you will most likely follow. BTW, I would have posted this comment on your journal, but it is archived so no new comments can be made.
One more thing. I noticed you ignored my comment about potholes. The truth hurts, doesn't it?
You realize of course that this statement can be applied almost universally to undermine the value of any kind of trade. For example, wouldn't it be better if my town harvested its own trees for building the new police station rather than importing lumber from some far away place like Canada? After all, it keeps the jobs and the money local. No, the reason trade is beneficial is it fosters competition, and it allows for specialization, which in turn drives efficiency. Software is no different from any other industry in this regard. Just because it's *possible* for local people to write/modify office software doesn't mean it's a wise course of action. In fact, I shudder to think about every local government hiring/contracting with local software engineers to add this-that-or-the-other feature to a fork of Open Office. The last thing I would want is my local government getting into software development. They struggle to fill potholes for goodness sake.
You're right! Many palms to be greased. Unions. Pols. "Neighborhood activists". It is ungodly expensive to do anything in Boston (see Big Dig). Probably this is true of any large American city. And they wonder why those with the means move to the suburbs.
Interesting point. While this administration seems focussed on taking away our "rights", the next administration (assuming Obama wins) will probably be more interested in taking away our "treasure". Sadly, as another poster mentioned, "rights", once lost, are restored very slowly, if ever. Likewise, taxes rarely disappear once they are put in place. Choose your poison.
Obviously you have had no experience with a Kindle. The EVDO is the "special sauce". I have owned one for 8 months and I love it. I use it every day. I am reading (buying) about 3 books a month (each book is about $6, best-sellers are more like $10, but I usually wait until they "age" a bit). Plus I shut off my newspaper ($30/month) and get it delivered to my Kindle instead ($10/month), so in the end my monthly outlay for reading materials is unchanged while I am essentially getting 3 books/month for free. So from that perspective, my $400 initial outlay (I was an early adopter before the price drop) will be paid for in 33 months. Anyhow, what makes this device really attractive to me is the (free) wireless. Being able to browse their book collection (which is substantial), download and read a few chapters (for free) anywhere, anytime, is extremely addicting. And being able to buy the book and be reading it in less than 30 seconds is a convenience I've grown to "need". In the morning when I turn it on, there is my newspaper - I don't have to boot the PC, connect the USB, do the "syncing" thing, it's just delivered automatically. Built in web-browsing for checking the occassional baseball score or my email is also a big plus. Yes, the hardware is a bit clunky (too many next page buttons - there is no place to hold the thing), and the industrial design looks like something from the 80s, but the battery lasts a good long time (many days if you turn off the wireless and just use it as a book) and the display is very easy on the eyes. Never having to tether to a computer is a really big deal for me - don't knock it until you've tried it.
continued ...
Lander: Hmmm, maybe that explains that GPS anomaly I logged during re-entry
NASA: GPS doesn't work on Mars you expensive, malfunctioning savant!
Lander: Mars? According to my GPS I'm in Ohio.
NASA: Uh-oh. Sounds like someone must have typed in Red State instead of Red Planet when entering the destination into the navigation system.
Lander: That would explain the Walmart I saw then. I didn't send pictures because I knew it would upset you.
NASA: OK, please stop transmitting pictures while we figure out what to do.
Lander: Copy that.