The slinky company isn't the one calling you. It's a telemarketing company contracted to SlinkCo. So, if you opt out with that telemarketing company, on their current SlinkCo promotion, nothing stops you from getting another SlinkCo call, placed by a different telemarketer.
Likewise, nothing prevents the first telemarketing company from calling you back about your subscription to Time.
The big problem with giving a list of retailers, is that it is too hard to know who is selling your product. Then reverse the problem; let other online retailers submit their links to your website and "renew" periodically.
most businesses these days implement their websites so poorly
Alas, the bottom line. Why bother doing something if you can't do it right? It took me two hours to find the product of an obscure manufacturer last week, for purposes of specifying them. While that is a hassle, and barely excusable (they manufacture equipment for telcos and networking), I don't expect the same of a fortune 500 company... no matter what their product!
Even if they aren't making money with their website, they need to have a presence. It's kind of like salesmen...
Actually, you should be careful about the benefits of making the servers more and more dense! 1U servers are a pain to deal with for cables, and keeping the things cool. If you have the space, there is almost no real benefit to fitting the equipment into as tight a footprint as possible.
Fair enough, but there is the Capitol Corridor train service. It's probablly a better investment now to focus on the north-south routes because of the overall geography of the state.
Eventually there will be a high speed link from Sacremento to Oakland... maybe not this project, but if the train is viable to LA then something will happen.
The cables are not fire resistive (normally); they are low smoke. (Unless you are british, in which case they could actually be somewhat fire resistive.) Ultimately, given a high enough temperature everything burns. If a fire lasts more than 2 hours, you expect to loose the building.
After 30 minutes or so, all the cases, finishes, rubber will burn, and that will give you the black smoke, but it doesn't indicate the initial source of combustion.
The thing that is odd (knowing absolutely nothing about the building in question) is that there typically aren't sufficient materials of combustion in a data center to create such a substantial fire! (Sparing large printers and paper rolls.)
A fuel vault should have foam or CO2 suppression, neutralizing that risk. The building should have a full sprinkler system, to minimize the risk of spread of fire. Hopefully, the computer and tape rooms have Halon/FM200 to extinguish a fire on the first signs of smoke. It is very rare that a building would be completely lost if these components are working properly.
The flip side of it is that the more things that are done to prevent an accidental sprinkler discharge (pre-action systems, double-interlocked pre-action, abort stations, etc.) increase the time for a system to respond, and consequently increase the size of the fire that has to be put out.
It's all about what businesses decide suits them best. If enough companies have an incentive-- be it open source, community effort, [or] MS monopoly. All of these factors can provide a reason for a company to invest money in an alternative. More importantly, any one of these reasons may make it worth a significant investment to switch.
The last wave will be the US; other countries have much greater reasons to invest both public and private money to refine Linux to serve their own needs. (Namely that Windows and Mac are both American products and money spent on them has almost no ripple effect on the local economy.)
How much would it really take to make Linux viable, given sufficient corporate resources?
Once companies switch, it isn't much of a step for their employees to do the same...
First off, the percieved quality has to have additional value. If this doesn't happen, then everything else is doomed. Case in point is audio: MP3 is "good enough" for most things, and offers benefits (physically small devices that can hold a catalog of music) beyond the traditional media. Better quality audio is nice, but the most ubiquitous use of music is background: people wouldn't pay 10x as much for things that they appreciate more 10% of the time.
The second, and possibly more important issue is that the content cartel wants new distribution means; they want to be able to rent movies to people over their internet connection. The problem is that this will never provide the level of security they feel is necessary.
This is a huge win for the cable companies! They suddenly have full control of your DVR! Plus, you have to pay them even more money each month. The cable companies want to figure out as many ways as possible to increase their average customer bill to $200/month. That's their wet-dream number.
The things that eat into this ability are mainly other things that draw your attention away from the TV set, and competitors for your purchasing dollars. This device could have some of the functionality of a PC, and "save" you the cost of a DVD player, DVR, Set-top box, etc.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really offer the consumer as much as the headline would suggest.
(But then again, how many Paul Allen companies (even with a great product) turn a profit?)
Although it might not be an abuse of monopoly power to have a division that doesn't pull its own weight, some of the things do come out of the financial statement.
The biggest one is that Windows CE doesn't make a profit, after six years! It's way too early to look at XBox, but... what does this say about CE?!
Also, the margins that they have on "commodity" products (OS and office suite) should be pretty revealing as to the long-term effects of sticking with MSFT products.
The way markup usually works in my industry, you would markup 10% of your hourly rate as a FTE, plus 75% for benefits, vacation, etc, plus 75% for overhead and profit.
You shoot for a markup of 3.6, especially for non-repeat work. 3.2 is ok for something that has a repeat value, and 3.0 is the lowest bargaining point. A proper business can't really make money with less than 2.75, when you factor in non-productive time.
There is usually a factor of about 15-20% for profit. If someone needs to make money on top of the work you do, they are going to try and get your rate down to 80-85% of what they charge back hourly. If the function is purley overhead then it falls into an expense category and has different rules.
So, if you made $50k as an employee, you would shoot for $85/hour billable. It is also standard to have a minimum number of hours (I'd say four, or two and the clock starts when you leave your home).
As long as rates are reasonable, and they don't expose the old boss to criticism for not doing their job properly then it isn't usually an issue. If you try and back-charge for 5 months' salary, then the boss can't show that they had a net savings by eliminating your position. Fair game.
My guess is that they are referring to a 3kW cell array. The ROI would be primarily a factor of how much power you use during daylight hours.
Without the tax incentives, it would be hard to see a 10-year simple payback, unless there are significant costs associated with hooking up to the power grid (namely distance).
Compared to a 3kW diesel generator... it has an ROI. Compared to $0.10/kWh... not yet!
The reason in the past that they have not succeded in the past (and so far now) is that it's impossible for any company to follow all the rules for the 7000+ different taxing athorities in the U.S.
While it might be a little much for vlookup, I doubt it is that hard to check zip code and tax rate. The only real issue is creating a clearinghouse for the tax revenue, so you aren't writing checks to 7,000 different jurisdictions.
Actually, the spec sheet indicates that it is 8.9kW per rack (2.2kW for Drive arrays). That is on the high side, but liveable. (6kW is the max for "standard" cooling-- you can accommodate up to 10kW with a high delta-T cooling system. Water cooling comes into play after that.)
The value of shrinking it down is (as you allude to) not a real-estate issue, but more about the computing efficiencies of a denser package.
The HP blades (6U) are about 35kW nameplate per rack, with a real load of about 10-11kW. The energy savings of SGI might actually give it some value in comparison!
The problem is that P2P is an inefficient use of bandwidth. Lots of traffic for little "gain". Furthermore, people don't realize just how much bandwidth it sucks up because they just leave it on in the background.
The solution ultimately is for an ISP to permit P2P within their network (maybe even promote it?), possibly cache some external data or common searches, and block downloads from outside their network.
Is there any proxy server applications to cache P2P data at the perimeter of an ISP?
What are they supposed to do? Here are a few starters:
Focus on core value-- Distribution of content
Keep costs down. Profit is fine, but the margins should be thin enough that real piracy isn't viable. Again, focus on core value, and make an efficient, effective distribution system.
Understand the consumer's needs--
People want to be able to bring music with them on a portable device. MP3's are adequate for that from a quality standpoint.
People want to be able to listen to music in the car, at home, and at work. For effective distribution, this is important... it spreads the message!
People want to be able to have more than 40 minutes of music on physical media. Personally, I like having about 60 hours of music, to manage repeats and moods. Maybe "Random" isn't good for distribution effectiveness, but there are ways to improve identity.
Understand that "renting" the content has much lower value to a consumer, and they may very well realize that they don't need what you offer as badly.
DRM does actually have some interesting applications, but... it just may be too late with audio. Analog audio out and "good enough" quality really makes the digital issues obsolete. The problem for consumers with any "protection" that is provided is that it limits the effectiveness of the labels free promotion.
Re:Jump the fuck off
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Ultimate Sleds?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Honestly, it's amazing that any kids live until adulthood. Simply a case of what you don't know can't kill you.
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The power used by these systems is nothing compared to the reatail lighting in any store, but it serves the same purpose.
If they didn't need to turn them on, they might as well use cardboard cutouts and keep the lights off... people won't be able to tell the difference.
The slinky company isn't the one calling you. It's a telemarketing company contracted to SlinkCo. So, if you opt out with that telemarketing company, on their current SlinkCo promotion, nothing stops you from getting another SlinkCo call, placed by a different telemarketer.
Likewise, nothing prevents the first telemarketing company from calling you back about your subscription to Time.
The big problem with giving a list of retailers, is that it is too hard to know who is selling your product.
Then reverse the problem; let other online retailers submit their links to your website and "renew" periodically.
most businesses these days implement their websites so poorly
Alas, the bottom line. Why bother doing something if you can't do it right? It took me two hours to find the product of an obscure manufacturer last week, for purposes of specifying them. While that is a hassle, and barely excusable (they manufacture equipment for telcos and networking), I don't expect the same of a fortune 500 company... no matter what their product!
Even if they aren't making money with their website, they need to have a presence. It's kind of like salesmen...
...you are forgetting that for all practical purposes, the last mile is a natural monopoly.
It is also different in that they are using a phase-change heat transfer. When most heat pipes boil the water they are completely ineffective.
Also, traditional heat pipes rely on elevation differences to maintain flow.
Actually, you should be careful about the benefits of making the servers more and more dense! 1U servers are a pain to deal with for cables, and keeping the things cool. If you have the space, there is almost no real benefit to fitting the equipment into as tight a footprint as possible.
Fair enough, but there is the Capitol Corridor train service. It's probablly a better investment now to focus on the north-south routes because of the overall geography of the state.
Eventually there will be a high speed link from Sacremento to Oakland... maybe not this project, but if the train is viable to LA then something will happen.
The cables are not fire resistive (normally); they are low smoke. (Unless you are british, in which case they could actually be somewhat fire resistive.) Ultimately, given a high enough temperature everything burns. If a fire lasts more than 2 hours, you expect to loose the building.
After 30 minutes or so, all the cases, finishes, rubber will burn, and that will give you the black smoke, but it doesn't indicate the initial source of combustion.
The thing that is odd (knowing absolutely nothing about the building in question) is that there typically aren't sufficient materials of combustion in a data center to create such a substantial fire! (Sparing large printers and paper rolls.)
A fuel vault should have foam or CO2 suppression, neutralizing that risk. The building should have a full sprinkler system, to minimize the risk of spread of fire. Hopefully, the computer and tape rooms have Halon/FM200 to extinguish a fire on the first signs of smoke. It is very rare that a building would be completely lost if these components are working properly.
The flip side of it is that the more things that are done to prevent an accidental sprinkler discharge (pre-action systems, double-interlocked pre-action, abort stations, etc.) increase the time for a system to respond, and consequently increase the size of the fire that has to be put out.
Give it time. They really aren't ready for prime time yet.
It's all about what businesses decide suits them best. If enough companies have an incentive-- be it open source, community effort, [or] MS monopoly. All of these factors can provide a reason for a company to invest money in an alternative. More importantly, any one of these reasons may make it worth a significant investment to switch.
The last wave will be the US; other countries have much greater reasons to invest both public and private money to refine Linux to serve their own needs. (Namely that Windows and Mac are both American products and money spent on them has almost no ripple effect on the local economy.)
How much would it really take to make Linux viable, given sufficient corporate resources?
Once companies switch, it isn't much of a step for their employees to do the same...
Yes and no.
First off, the percieved quality has to have additional value. If this doesn't happen, then everything else is doomed. Case in point is audio: MP3 is "good enough" for most things, and offers benefits (physically small devices that can hold a catalog of music) beyond the traditional media. Better quality audio is nice, but the most ubiquitous use of music is background: people wouldn't pay 10x as much for things that they appreciate more 10% of the time.
The second, and possibly more important issue is that the content cartel wants new distribution means; they want to be able to rent movies to people over their internet connection. The problem is that this will never provide the level of security they feel is necessary.
This is a huge win for the cable companies! They suddenly have full control of your DVR! Plus, you have to pay them even more money each month. The cable companies want to figure out as many ways as possible to increase their average customer bill to $200/month. That's their wet-dream number.
The things that eat into this ability are mainly other things that draw your attention away from the TV set, and competitors for your purchasing dollars. This device could have some of the functionality of a PC, and "save" you the cost of a DVD player, DVR, Set-top box, etc.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really offer the consumer as much as the headline would suggest.
(But then again, how many Paul Allen companies (even with a great product) turn a profit?)
Windows CE NEW?! At least six years old, and still not turning a profit...
Although it might not be an abuse of monopoly power to have a division that doesn't pull its own weight, some of the things do come out of the financial statement.
The biggest one is that Windows CE doesn't make a profit, after six years! It's way too early to look at XBox, but... what does this say about CE?!
Also, the margins that they have on "commodity" products (OS and office suite) should be pretty revealing as to the long-term effects of sticking with MSFT products.
The way markup usually works in my industry, you would markup 10% of your hourly rate as a FTE, plus 75% for benefits, vacation, etc, plus 75% for overhead and profit.
You shoot for a markup of 3.6, especially for non-repeat work. 3.2 is ok for something that has a repeat value, and 3.0 is the lowest bargaining point. A proper business can't really make money with less than 2.75, when you factor in non-productive time.
There is usually a factor of about 15-20% for profit. If someone needs to make money on top of the work you do, they are going to try and get your rate down to 80-85% of what they charge back hourly. If the function is purley overhead then it falls into an expense category and has different rules.
So, if you made $50k as an employee, you would shoot for $85/hour billable. It is also standard to have a minimum number of hours (I'd say four, or two and the clock starts when you leave your home).
As long as rates are reasonable, and they don't expose the old boss to criticism for not doing their job properly then it isn't usually an issue. If you try and back-charge for 5 months' salary, then the boss can't show that they had a net savings by eliminating your position. Fair game.
"...equal to 87,000 paperback books."
yes, but how many uncompressed hard-cover books?
Good point... Siemens is also a major player here, and I can't imagine that a $3m factory could really do much in the way of production!
My guess is that they are referring to a 3kW cell array. The ROI would be primarily a factor of how much power you use during daylight hours.
Without the tax incentives, it would be hard to see a 10-year simple payback, unless there are significant costs associated with hooking up to the power grid (namely distance).
Compared to a 3kW diesel generator... it has an ROI. Compared to $0.10/kWh... not yet!
The reason in the past that they have not succeded in the past (and so far now) is that it's impossible for any company to follow all the rules for the 7000+ different taxing athorities in the U.S.
While it might be a little much for vlookup, I doubt it is that hard to check zip code and tax rate. The only real issue is creating a clearinghouse for the tax revenue, so you aren't writing checks to 7,000 different jurisdictions.
Actually, the spec sheet indicates that it is 8.9kW per rack (2.2kW for Drive arrays). That is on the high side, but liveable. (6kW is the max for "standard" cooling-- you can accommodate up to 10kW with a high delta-T cooling system. Water cooling comes into play after that.)
The value of shrinking it down is (as you allude to) not a real-estate issue, but more about the computing efficiencies of a denser package.
The HP blades (6U) are about 35kW nameplate per rack, with a real load of about 10-11kW. The energy savings of SGI might actually give it some value in comparison!
The problem is that P2P is an inefficient use of bandwidth. Lots of traffic for little "gain". Furthermore, people don't realize just how much bandwidth it sucks up because they just leave it on in the background.
The solution ultimately is for an ISP to permit P2P within their network (maybe even promote it?), possibly cache some external data or common searches, and block downloads from outside their network.
Is there any proxy server applications to cache P2P data at the perimeter of an ISP?
Focus on core value-- Distribution of content
Keep costs down. Profit is fine, but the margins should be thin enough that real piracy isn't viable. Again, focus on core value, and make an efficient, effective distribution system.
Understand the consumer's needs--
Understand that "renting" the content has much lower value to a consumer, and they may very well realize that they don't need what you offer as badly. DRM does actually have some interesting applications, but... it just may be too late with audio. Analog audio out and "good enough" quality really makes the digital issues obsolete. The problem for consumers with any "protection" that is provided is that it limits the effectiveness of the labels free promotion.
Honestly, it's amazing that any kids live until adulthood.
Simply a case of what you don't know can't kill you.