My babysitter is a nursing student, [...] She doesn't need anything but a basic word processor...
I suspect you are mistaken. Either that or you have found the only student on the entire planet that has neither a digital camera, nor an ipod. Both of which need a real computer, unless iTunes has a ChromeOS version or she likes uploading 4GB of photos into the cloud at consumer DSL speeds.
She is a self-described techno-idiot, and loves the idea of a cheap computer with limited moving parts.
I do too. They are called netbooks, and they've been around for a few years already.
It will replace terminals (either traditional dumb terminals or Citrix) in call centers, at least at first. These things literally run one and only one application all day long.
The call centers that have reached this point are ALREADY booting off a network image of a locked down OS running that one app in kiosk mode. ChromeOS offers nothing new or compelling here, the PCs they are already using are cheap as dirt and don't have any disk drives.
Plus even call centers run 17" and 19" screens. The staff are staring at that screen all day, they aren't going to use $100 netbooks.
But I do think that the availability of the Google platform and ChromeOS may push applications that have in the past been PC based onto the cloud.
Sure that's generically true. But LOTS of applications can't move to 'the cloud'. That lathe calculation utility I mentioned will NEVER be on the 'cloud'. That VB6 front end to the enterprise SQL will never be on the cloud, etc, etc.
The real story here, though, is that whether Chrome OS wins or loses, the web has reached the point that Bill Gates feared ten years ago: it is now "the platform" for many apps. [...] It will replace desktop PC's...
No. It won't. Desktop PCs will evolve. Some of the 'stuff' that is a "Windows application" today, yes, will become a web app and run in a suitable browser. But some won't. Some can't.
What happens to AppleTV and iTunes store sales when you just stream your movies and music off Amazon when you want to watch them? This technology is already here.
Will amazon let my kids stream Mary Poppin's 40 times for a one time cost? Will they let them do it on a plane? A boat? A minivan? Will it work on a trip to Mexico? And what happens if Amazon goes under?
Seriously, streaming is set to kill the rental video. I agree with that. But replace buying movies? I don't see it. Today we can't stream 1080p, a bluray disc is better than anything you can get streamed. Sure 20 years we'll have more bandwidth... we'll also have ultra-hd. And I bet in 20 years you still won't be able stream 1080p to your laptop in a van in the middle of the rocky mountains.
In medium business to enterprise IT, there are a bunch of really useful abilities that are taken for granted.
In this spare we already have Citrix, Terminal Servers, Roaming Access Profiles, etc. They've got a blackberry enterprise server hooked into their exchange server, and everyone uses outlook to schedule their meetings. The finance people want excel. The marketing group wants powerpoint. The graphic artists want photoshop. The CEO wants an imac on his desk.
Where does gmail and some watered down office apps fit into this? Seriously.
On the small business side, they are lucky if they have real backups to recover from, never mind being able to treat client machines are more or less interchangeable, consumable parts.
On the small business side, everyone has an ipod, and they run simply accounting or quickbooks, or some industry specific accounting/point-of-sale/CRM suite.
. You'd get idiot-proof access to the same client-independent features, and automatic backups, and single sign on stuff that the big guys have, on cheap, common hardware, without any need for much local IT expertise.
Except its missing a key feature: the ability to run the apps they rely on.
If you were starting a new business, and set out to only use stuff that was in chromeos you might make it. But for any established business shoehorning everything you need into whats available from google is outright absurd.
Just today one of my clients needed to download a 2.2GB iso image from a vendor in australia and burn it to DVDs. This is a trivial task most of us would take for granted. Can't do it in ChromeOS. They burned 5 copies and then ran some simple software that came with their printer to print attractive labels for the DVDs they'd just burnt. Can't do that in ChromeOS either.
Another client used some software provided by Fedex Courier to print out a bunch of shipping labels.
Another runs a VB6 app someone wrote to query data from the enterprise SQL server.
Another runs a C# app to decode the lathe parameters for cutting a proprietary contact lens design. Another client.
It goes on and on and on.
Also, since anything you can get on ChromeOS you could also get in your browser on a full machine, there would be nothing preventing businesses from using a mixture of chrome and full computers.
Politics. Nobody likes getting the 'dumb terminal' when somone else got a 'full pc'.
We can't get the IT resources for IT to build us our own system. We can't get IT to let us have a server, or run MSSQL or anything else as a real backend on their servers. We can't even get VB6 installed on my computer so I could develop frontends in something other than Access, due to IT/purchasing and software installation restrictions. I'd like to use VB6 in the short term because we have a couple legacy apps that I'd like to maintain, and I know it better than VB.net right now. Long term they will let me have VB.net express edition and I will eventually work on learning it. But Access still looks like it will have to be the backend.
In light of this,...
This is like saying you work as a carpenter, and you put nails into things with a coffee mug because you can't get your boss to approve purchasing a hammer due to budget constraints, the fact that your approved vendor is a starbucks instead of a tool company, and the fact that someone somewhere has his head up his ass. And then 'in light of this' you've reinforced your mug as best you can and made do...
In my situation, what else would you suggest?
Explain it to someone at your company with the authority to fix it the same way I just explained it to you, and keep on it until it get fixed or you get let go. Ok, ok, nobody wants to get let go, especially right now... so bide your time a bit until you can assure yourself a new job, but utlimately do you really want to work for a company that makes you use a coffee mug when you need a hammer?
But this will be useful in some cases (3rd world education, your grandparents, etc) where all your need are webapps, like Gmail, Google Docs, etc. Not everyone needs a full blown OS and the hardware costs associated with it.
My grandma has an ipod and a digital camera. Most of her friends have at least one of these too. My other grandparents also use their computer to run quickbooks. Now my wife's grandmother is quite a bit older than my grandparents... but she doesn't have a computer, nor any interest in one.
The 3rd world doesn't have reliable web access. The OLPC project is a much better solution there, even with its faults.
So who exactly is the 'etc' you referred to?
Its pretty hard to imagine a niche where this would be useful. Pretty much every household that has a computer has an mp3 player and/or digital camera in it.
it supports audio over the connection (Mini-DP doesn't),
Display port does support audio. I don't know if its actually implemented anywhere though. Are you sure mini-DP doesn't?
Is there something that Mini-DP does that HDMI doesn't?
At the electrical level they work quite differently and displayport is much more better suited for certain tasks like embedded applications, laptop screens, etc. Its like SATA vs PATA in some respects with displayport being SATA. It can use fewer wires.
Displayport is also license free, while HDMI requires a license. That, of course, makes displayport a bit cheaper.
Overall displayport is the superior technology in nearly every respect. But HDMI was out first and is the more established one. If displayport had been out of the gate first, hdmi wouldn't exist.
It is true, some people fail at life despite their best efforts
Right.
If a person doesn't do well in interviews, the problem is they don't do well in interviews. The solution is to get better at doing interviews. I'm not sure why you're having trouble seeing this.
That's not terribly helpful.
If your son walked up to you and said I keep falling off my bike. Do you just tell him, "The solution is to get better at riding a bike. I'm not sure why you're having trouble seeing this." Problem solved.
True? Yes. Helpful? Not so much.
There are so many available opportunities in the world that anyone who is willing to chase them with the same effort it takes to run a marathon can easily achieve them.
Amend to:
"There are so many available opportunities in the world that anyone who is willing to chase them with the same effort it takes to run a marathon can usually achieve many of them."
And I'd agree.
The problem I have with the unmodified statement is it implies that "if you thy hard, you will succeed", and then logically "If you did not succeed, then you did not try hard". And its this latter that I really disagree with. There are a lot of people who did try hard and didn't succeed, or at the very least didn't achieve success proportional to the effort they did put in.
I essentially just dislike the attitude that a lot of successful people have about the poor. "Well, if they tried hard they'd be successful like me. They aren't successful like me, so they didn't try hard. So they don't deserve success." And that's bullshit. A lot of them are trying as hard or harder than "successful people", but have attained much more limited success, if any, despite their efforts.
I'm not saying people shouldn't try. Or that there is no hope of success. I'm just saying its wrong to judge the less successful as "not trying hard enough". Many of them are trying much harder and getting much more limited success than I have had, for example.
Sure its do-able. And if you put in the effort, that will greatly increase your odds of succeeding. But like life itself, you can put in the effort, and still come up empty.
She can start by finding a higher paying job. Higher paying jobs than Walmart are not hard to find for people who are hard working and dependable.
I disagree. They can be very hard to find. Especially for a person who has to rely on public transportation to get to work, and for the job search itself. Moving is a difficult proposition, especially when you are time and cash strapped, and factor in the need to find new suitable affordable daycare... its actually beyond VERY hard.
Hard working, dependable people are hard to find.
Agreed. But the job hiring process doesn't really allow those people to stand out. I know of several people who are hard working, dependable, etc... but they don't interview terribly well for whatever reason, and/or their resumes don't stand out. "no post secondary, 4 years at walmart" isn't really a grabber. Or they bungle the various 'honesty tests' and other claptrap a lot of employers hand out. A lot of people simply aren't good at "looking for work". Its really a skill all its own and it comes much easier to some than others.
Nope, it merely points them in the direction they need to go
This is like armchair quarterbacking with the benefit of hindsight. They don't have the information you are asserting they need. They don't know where to get it; they might not even know they need it.
Your right that if we got it to them, in a manner they could digest, they could use it. But they can't improve themselves past where they are on their own. They are already doing the best they can, and its not working. They don't know how to make it work, nor how to get the knowledge that will let them know how to make it work, nor even the knowledge that they lack the knowledge.
They fix it by getting more knowledge.
Much easier said than done.
What other reasons do you see?
Aside from health issues. Life circumstances... take a single mom with 2 kids, struggling to make ends meet working too much overtime at a low paying Walmart job. Say late twenties... with no post secondary education. Lets throw on some debt too, and no savings to speak of, living paycheque to paycheque.
Now how they got here is immatrial. From this point we're assuming they are doing the best they can. They have cut frivolous expenses, have no credit cards, use public transit, live in a cruddy basement suite, don't eat McFood. But even so, working the job including any OT (usually paid as 'regular' regardless of whether its OT or not... common walmart scenario.) Nearly all funds go towards rent, groceries, and daycare, required clothing, etc. They are barely above water, and one 'accident' away from economic ruin.
How do you turn this person's life around?
Sure if they had more 'knowledge/skills' they could potentially obtain a better job... sure... but they don't and they can't simply 'get more knowledge'... taking classes itself costs money, conflicts with work, and requires even more child care.
Its not easy to escape from this trap.
The problem here isn't really lack of knowledge. Telling her to "go back to school" isn't really a solution.
Talk to them and you will see that every single one of them is held back by their lack of knowledge
Even if this were the only reason, and its not, but it is a significant one, how do you propose they fix it?
They ARE trying their best.
The fact that their best is the wrong approach and their success is undermined by their lack of knowledge doesn't detract from the fact that its still their best. If they knew a better way, then they'd be doing that, and that would be their best.
Do they know they lack the knowledge? Do they know how to obtain the knowledge? No. If they did, they would have.
Concluding they just need more knowledge doesn't somehow get them that knowledge.
No, I said anyone could do what Buffet does. If everyone did what Buffet does,...
So your saying anyone can become rich doing what buffet does, unless everyone does, in which case no one does? Gotcha =)
And if everyone tried their best, being in the bottom two percent would be WAY better than the bottom two percent right now, because of the massive increase in productivity we would have. There would be no more poverty (except in extreme health cases) and we would much greater societal equity.
I disagree. There are people who are impoverished right now who are genuinely trying their best. According to you, due to the relative lack of competition they should quickly rise to the top 2%, or at the very least achieve relative success. Yet this hasn't happened for them.
$50 million and $100 million puts people nowhere near the top couple percent we were talking about.
Er. Fewer than 1% of americans are even millionaires. The "top couple percent" is a somewhat lower bar than you think. $50M - $100 is comfortably in the top couple percent.
Of course I am not saying everyone can get in the top two percent, that is meaningless.
Exactly!!! Thank you. That is EXACTLY what I am saying. Of course its impossible.
You could do that too.....practically anyone could, maybe you won't make billions like he did but you could easily make millions.
You were bang on with the first part, why did you stumble here? Its essentially exactly the same meaningless tautology you correctly debunked, yet now you are appealing to it. "anyone could do what buffet does, and make millions, if not billions".
No they couldn't!! Even if they all tried their very best, most of them won't make millions. A bunch of them will still go broke; a bunch of them will die in car accidents, a bunch of them will get expensive diseases.
Its not merely that "everyone can't be in the top 2%". "Everyone can't succeed". "Everyone can't even be in the top 99%". Someone has to be at the very bottom, even if everyone tries their very best.
You know, if everyone used that excuse as a reason not to work hard toward their goals, zero progress would be made in the world
What the hell are you on about? Its not a reason not to work hard toward goals. I NEVER suggested people shouldn't work hard or use it as an excuse for not trying.
Any given world leader, business pioneer, or great contributor to the sciences could have been hit by a bus instead of going on to live a successful life. That didn't stop them, and it shouldn't stop anyone else.
Right but there are lots of people who did try hard enough, perhaps as hard or even harder than people who did succeed... who did get hit by a bus or otherwise didn't succeed in the end.
My point is that 'trying hard and making good choices' is absolutely the right thing to do. I agree people should do that. But you need to recognize that it still might not work out.
And judging people as 'didn't try hard' and 'made bad choices' simply based on whether or not they succeeded is complete bullshit.
Look at any election for example. Only one candidate wins. Are you saying the one that lost didn't try hard enough? That's absurd. They can both pour their entire being into getting elected, and one of them still has to lose. Life is like that in general. Losing doesn't mean you didn't do your very best.
Even if you do do your very best, you can still lose.
That's not an excuse for not trying.
But the OP essentially said, "look at me, I work hard and I'm doing great. Everyone can be successful like me if they work hard." And that's bullshit. Even if everyone worked hard, not all of them will be successful. And they don't deserve to die poor on the street of treatable health issues simply because life didn't work out for them like it has for the OP.
Now, from what I've read they have $50 million in cash, plus assets on top of that (cars, home, etc). And as former U.S. president, Senator, etc, they are very well connected to the power elite. Not to mention that Bill made 10 Million in paid speeches for 2006 alone, for example.
Yeah, they aren't billionaires, or 'old money', but they are still well beyond what most people realistically hope to ever achieve. And between that and their connections its more than enough to secure privilege for their descendants.
And the 'Kerry' family isn't rich. The 'Heinz' family is the rich one, which Kerry married into. (I'm not disagreeing with you about John Kerry, he will never have to work, I'm just pointing out that 'Kerry' is not a rich family per se.)
Agreed. I should have said Heinz not Kerry, but the point is his family is now part of that...after all Kerry's kids are Heinz kids, right.
Cheney's family wasn't rich either.
Wasn't. Is now. And will probably remain that way for a long time. His estimated worth is between 20 and 100 Million.
They chose to make good choices in life and work hard,...
And what? So far so good? You think that can't change in the blink of an eye? You think you are somehow 'protected' by good choices and hard work? Don't be an idiot.
Any one of them could be impoverished in a heart beat if life throws them the right curve ball.
Just because it hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it can't happen. It does happen. And congratulating yourself on your 'good choices and hard work' will seem pretty hollow then.
What is guaranteed? Does being on top guarantee that you'll stay on top? I'd imagine it's the opposite when people are clamouring to undo you.
Provided they don't do anything colossally stupid: Yes, they will stay on top.
The Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, Kerrys, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts,... they and there families will remain on top for as long they don't do anything catastrophically stupid.
And why do you want to be so rich and powerful anyway? Does that bring you more happiness?
That's really beside the point. One can be happy with life as an impoverished cloistered monk. Happiness is a separate issue entirely.
Wealth and Power don't bring happiness.
However if you are the sort of person who can be happy, then wealth and power gives you more outlets to be happy doing a much larger variety of things. They are also quite effective at removing obstacles to happiness...everything from treating expensive ailments to waiting in lines at night clubs.
Because the top, the top couple percent, the people who make up the 'rich and powerful' is a pretty rarefied group. And its not possible for most people to make it here, no matter how hard they work at it.
It's rare that I've met people who worked hard in a directed way without becoming quite successful
Define 'quite successful'. Per the context of the conversation: it was intended to mean 'got on top', true wealth and power.
It was not 'middle class' and 'able to retire in relative comfort as long as nothing seriously expensive happens to them'. Because you are right, this is certainly generally achievable goal. And I suspect that THIS is what you mean. But it isn't what I was talking about.
And even that isn't a guarantee. If you work hard, save your money, etc most people will get here.
Unless, for example, you worked hard your whole life, got your nestegg and your, your pension, and are living comfortably, and then your pension is wiped out by institutional mismanagement wiping out most of your income, and simultaneously the value of your home plummets as a result of the general economic fallout wiping out your primary asset to borrow against. So you dip into your nest-egg for living expenses while you sell your depreciating home to extract the remaining equity to use as income... and then you fall down the stairs and have a $35,000 hospital stay wiping out a good chunk of your nest egg.
So... you worked hard, saved money, did everything right... and now you are renting, using the remains of your home equity as income, and wondering how you the hell you are ever going to pay for managed care in another few years. "Maybe I could be a walmart greeter!"...
Granted this isn't going to happen to MOST people, but the point stands. Working hard and being fiscally responsible isn't a guarantee.
But don't confuse THIS with the 1000:1 ratio... THAT was in reference to making it to the top. Of the 1000 people who 'fail' to make it to the top; sure, most of them end up 'quite successful'... just nowhere near the top.
Seriously, if you have a small idea that takes a small team less than six months to create, then you better have a really good marketing, a good implementation and sharp execution, otherwise some big company is going to do the same thing and win because they have better visibility and more resources.
Unless its an invention in which case you can patent it for a dozen years. Or a work of 'art' that you can copyright until everyone alive today is dead.
So apparently some small ideas are very well protected, while others... not so much.
In free countries, how did the powerful become powerful? Have they done something you couldn't do (honorably)?
Yes. Most of them were born to powerful families with inherited wealth and have established social networks with other powerful families. I can't 'do' that, that's not something this is 'done'.
The few that have risen to the top from more humble beginnings? Yep, they exist. But being smart, even brilliant, and putting in the hard work... those are all pre-requisites, but they don't guarantee you jack squat. For every one that succeeded in rising there are 1000 more who were just as talented and hard working who didn't make it.
Look in your front drive. If you're like the typical American you have two cars that cost about $60,000 (when you include tax and interest). Your home probably cost $200,000 or more (again with interest and tax).
The typical American doesn't own 60k worth of vehicles in his driveway. The TYPICAL american, makes 25k per year. If he has a 60k car in his driveway its leased. And nearly 1/3rd of American's rent their home. Of the 2/3rds that own it, the vast majority are heavily mortgaged.
Your "typical american" isn't "typical" at all. He's already well above average.
Hell, I'm WELL above average in that I own both my cars outright but my cars are only worth 30k combined. My home is worth $400k+ but I owe more than half that amount. And I'm doing VERY well relative to the typical american. And yes, at this stage in my life, yes, I could absorb a 20k hospital bill.
10 years ago, however, a 20k bill would have damn near ruined me. Even on a 5 year payment plan that would have been $600/month. To get past that 10 years ago, I'd have had to sell my car (worth maybe 2k, but I wouldn't have been able to afford insuring it / maintaining it), I'd have had to sell my home and buy something cheaper closer to public transit/work (for it to be cheaper and closer to work would mean the price goes WAY up for WAY less space. So I'd have dropped from a 1200 sqft townhome to a 500 sqft condo/loft (so much for having a family...) That would have gotten my living expenses down enough that I could afford a $600/month payment, and still eat.
10 years ago, I was a 'typical' american. Meaning AVERAGE. Half of American's make less than the average, and are even worse off.
Two cars in the driveway in your own home... the american dream. The typical american WANTS that. He/she doesn't actually have it. (And a big chunk of the people who have it, are living heavily on borrowed money, and can barely afford it.)
Re:Sorry, what you're asking for is too easy to ab
on
Reusing Old TiVo Hardware?
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· Score: 3, Informative
so why not have discount hardware and subscription _agreement_ for some defined period of time ? the only reasin against this that i can imagine is some law preventing such agreement clauses that disallow customer to cancel subscription but keep the device.
Er, this is how cell phones work in the US. You get a phone at deep discounts or even free and sign a multi-year contract. You cancel early you pay through the nose in 'cancellation fees' and the phone is yours to keep. Or you complete the contract and the phone is yours to keep. Nothing illegal about this sort of arrangement.
However, people don't generally LIKE these contracts and we should hardly cry foul when a company gives you discount hardware without the lock-in, and tries to rely on things like 'good customer service' and 'quality product' to keep its customers.
I guess the difference between you and me is that I don't fear death, and if I was given that bad news about cancer, rather than *waste* 500,000 trying to give myself an extra year of life, [...]
"Insenstive Clod" doesn't begin to do your post justice. My mom had cancer in her 30s. 25 years later she's doing just fine. A friend of ours had cancer a few years ago; another full recovery. My grandfather had cancer in his 60s, he's pushing 80 now. There are a LOT of cancer survivors out there.
The average cost of a hospital stay is only $19,000. Not at all unreasonable...
So $19,000 isn't unreasonable for you? Good for you. 1 in 3 employed people don't make that much in a YEAR. Never mind the unemployed, fixed income disabled, fixed income seniors, etc. 19k isn't reasonable for THEM.
So you think its not worth $500k to give yourself an extra year of life. Fine. That's an extreme case. What about the people who can't afford 19k for what will likely be a full recovery? Should they have to die too?
But once it's been proven possible, the likelihood that somebody else will try it increases.
And they'll still succeed spectacularly because it doesn't take a "19 person cell" to commit large scale acts of destruction. An intelligent individual can do it without much effort, and in any number of places.
Hell, for a paltry million bucks he could buy a small private jet and crash it into a big one in mid-air. Or into an elementary school.
But there *have* been plans that have been stopped.
I don't deny it. But from purely utilitarian point of view, we could have saved a lot more lives doing something else with the money.
If I spend 5 billion dollars and save 1000 lives was that money well spent? What if that 5 billion could have saved 20,000 lives if it had been spent on something else? Was it still well spent saving 1000?
By the by, the
tag... learn it, love it... using quotation marks on somebody else's words doesn't really stand out enough for this medium.:)
I use italics not quotation marks. The blockquote tage is nice too, but longer to type.
If Hassan decides to blow up the coffee shop I frequent, I can't mitigate that risk by just laying down some non-slip texturing on the stair edges or hanging on to the railing.
Whoah cowboy. Are you certified to lay down non-slip texturing? Have you performed studies that validate said texturing is effective? And this railing you are about to grab... have you had it recently inspected and certified as able to support the weight of an adult?
We COULD very well require that each staircase be registered, and we could very well send out certified government inspectors every 6 months to inspect them for non-slip texturing, check the railings, ensure they are in good repair, and oversee all new staircase construction, renovation, and repair.
And you know what, it would probably prevent a few accidents too. That railing down to the basement where the screws were just into the gyprock and have worn loose... that'll get fixed before someone trips, and pulls it out of the wall. And that carpet with out the non-slip backing granny put on the front landing she almost never uses... that'll get removed before someone falls on it. And that rotting staircase in the slum... that'll get repaired too. Oh we'll save a few people a year. And create thousands of jobs in the process.
That's like anti-terrorism efforts. Close to 0 people die in America of terrorism each year. We had one freak incident, and now we're back to close to 0. But we're spending billions on prevention now. And we'd probably actually save more people spending the money fixing stairways. And we'd definitely save tons more people spending the money on vehicle repairs. (even just simple stuff like replace worn tires, check brakes, fix tail lights, etc, etc,...) With the budget we have for 'mitigating terror' we could save a LOT of people's lives.
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My babysitter is a nursing student, [...] She doesn't need anything but a basic word processor...
I suspect you are mistaken. Either that or you have found the only student on the entire planet that has neither a digital camera, nor an ipod. Both of which need a real computer, unless iTunes has a ChromeOS version or she likes uploading 4GB of photos into the cloud at consumer DSL speeds.
She is a self-described techno-idiot, and loves the idea of a cheap computer with limited moving parts.
I do too. They are called netbooks, and they've been around for a few years already.
It will replace terminals (either traditional dumb terminals or Citrix) in call centers, at least at first. These things literally run one and only one application all day long.
The call centers that have reached this point are ALREADY booting off a network image of a locked down OS running that one app in kiosk mode. ChromeOS offers nothing new or compelling here, the PCs they are already using are cheap as dirt and don't have any disk drives.
Plus even call centers run 17" and 19" screens. The staff are staring at that screen all day, they aren't going to use $100 netbooks.
But I do think that the availability of the Google platform and ChromeOS may push applications that have in the past been PC based onto the cloud.
Sure that's generically true. But LOTS of applications can't move to 'the cloud'. That lathe calculation utility I mentioned will NEVER be on the 'cloud'. That VB6 front end to the enterprise SQL will never be on the cloud, etc, etc.
The real story here, though, is that whether Chrome OS wins or loses, the web has reached the point that Bill Gates feared ten years ago: it is now "the platform" for many apps. [...] It will replace desktop PC's...
No. It won't. Desktop PCs will evolve. Some of the 'stuff' that is a "Windows application" today, yes, will become a web app and run in a suitable browser. But some won't. Some can't.
What happens to AppleTV and iTunes store sales when you just stream your movies and music off Amazon when you want to watch them? This technology is already here.
Will amazon let my kids stream Mary Poppin's 40 times for a one time cost? Will they let them do it on a plane? A boat? A minivan? Will it work on a trip to Mexico? And what happens if Amazon goes under?
Seriously, streaming is set to kill the rental video. I agree with that. But replace buying movies? I don't see it. Today we can't stream 1080p, a bluray disc is better than anything you can get streamed. Sure 20 years we'll have more bandwidth... we'll also have ultra-hd. And I bet in 20 years you still won't be able stream 1080p to your laptop in a van in the middle of the rocky mountains.
In medium business to enterprise IT, there are a bunch of really useful abilities that are taken for granted.
In this spare we already have Citrix, Terminal Servers, Roaming Access Profiles, etc. They've got a blackberry enterprise server hooked into their exchange server, and everyone uses outlook to schedule their meetings. The finance people want excel. The marketing group wants powerpoint. The graphic artists want photoshop. The CEO wants an imac on his desk.
Where does gmail and some watered down office apps fit into this? Seriously.
On the small business side, they are lucky if they have real backups to recover from, never mind being able to treat client machines are more or less interchangeable, consumable parts.
On the small business side, everyone has an ipod, and they run simply accounting or quickbooks, or some industry specific accounting/point-of-sale/CRM suite.
. You'd get idiot-proof access to the same client-independent features, and automatic backups, and single sign on stuff that the big guys have, on cheap, common hardware, without any need for much local IT expertise.
Except its missing a key feature: the ability to run the apps they rely on.
If you were starting a new business, and set out to only use stuff that was in chromeos you might make it. But for any established business shoehorning everything you need into whats available from google is outright absurd.
Just today one of my clients needed to download a 2.2GB iso image from a vendor in australia and burn it to DVDs. This is a trivial task most of us would take for granted. Can't do it in ChromeOS. They burned 5 copies and then ran some simple software that came with their printer to print attractive labels for the DVDs they'd just burnt. Can't do that in ChromeOS either.
Another client used some software provided by Fedex Courier to print out a bunch of shipping labels.
Another runs a VB6 app someone wrote to query data from the enterprise SQL server.
Another runs a C# app to decode the lathe parameters for cutting a proprietary contact lens design.
Another client.
It goes on and on and on.
Also, since anything you can get on ChromeOS you could also get in your browser on a full machine, there would be nothing preventing businesses from using a mixture of chrome and full computers.
Politics. Nobody likes getting the 'dumb terminal' when somone else got a 'full pc'.
We can't get the IT resources for IT to build us our own system. We can't get IT to let us have a server, or run MSSQL or anything else as a real backend on their servers. We can't even get VB6 installed on my computer so I could develop frontends in something other than Access, due to IT/purchasing and software installation restrictions. I'd like to use VB6 in the short term because we have a couple legacy apps that I'd like to maintain, and I know it better than VB.net right now. Long term they will let me have VB.net express edition and I will eventually work on learning it. But Access still looks like it will have to be the backend.
In light of this,...
This is like saying you work as a carpenter, and you put nails into things with a coffee mug because you can't get your boss to approve purchasing a hammer due to budget constraints, the fact that your approved vendor is a starbucks instead of a tool company, and the fact that someone somewhere has his head up his ass. And then 'in light of this' you've reinforced your mug as best you can and made do...
In my situation, what else would you suggest?
Explain it to someone at your company with the authority to fix it the same way I just explained it to you, and keep on it until it get fixed or you get let go. Ok, ok, nobody wants to get let go, especially right now... so bide your time a bit until you can assure yourself a new job, but utlimately do you really want to work for a company that makes you use a coffee mug when you need a hammer?
=)
But this will be useful in some cases (3rd world education, your grandparents, etc) where all your need are webapps, like Gmail, Google Docs, etc. Not everyone needs a full blown OS and the hardware costs associated with it.
My grandma has an ipod and a digital camera. Most of her friends have at least one of these too. My other grandparents also use their computer to run quickbooks. Now my wife's grandmother is quite a bit older than my grandparents... but she doesn't have a computer, nor any interest in one.
The 3rd world doesn't have reliable web access. The OLPC project is a much better solution there, even with its faults.
So who exactly is the 'etc' you referred to?
Its pretty hard to imagine a niche where this would be useful. Pretty much every household that has a computer has an mp3 player and/or digital camera in it.
it supports audio over the connection (Mini-DP doesn't),
Display port does support audio. I don't know if its actually implemented anywhere though. Are you sure mini-DP doesn't?
Is there something that Mini-DP does that HDMI doesn't?
At the electrical level they work quite differently and displayport is much more better suited for certain tasks like embedded applications, laptop screens, etc. Its like SATA vs PATA in some respects with displayport being SATA. It can use fewer wires.
Displayport is also license free, while HDMI requires a license. That, of course, makes displayport a bit cheaper.
Overall displayport is the superior technology in nearly every respect. But HDMI was out first and is the more established one. If displayport had been out of the gate first, hdmi wouldn't exist.
It is true, some people fail at life despite their best efforts
Right.
If a person doesn't do well in interviews, the problem is they don't do well in interviews. The solution is to get better at doing interviews. I'm not sure why you're having trouble seeing this.
That's not terribly helpful.
If your son walked up to you and said I keep falling off my bike. Do you just tell him, "The solution is to get better at riding a bike. I'm not sure why you're having trouble seeing this." Problem solved.
True? Yes. Helpful? Not so much.
There are so many available opportunities in the world that anyone who is willing to chase them with the same effort it takes to run a marathon can easily achieve them.
Amend to:
"There are so many available opportunities in the world that anyone who is willing to chase them with the same effort it takes to run a marathon can usually achieve many of them."
And I'd agree.
The problem I have with the unmodified statement is it implies that "if you thy hard, you will succeed", and then logically "If you did not succeed, then you did not try hard". And its this latter that I really disagree with. There are a lot of people who did try hard and didn't succeed, or at the very least didn't achieve success proportional to the effort they did put in.
I essentially just dislike the attitude that a lot of successful people have about the poor. "Well, if they tried hard they'd be successful like me. They aren't successful like me, so they didn't try hard. So they don't deserve success." And that's bullshit. A lot of them are trying as hard or harder than "successful people", but have attained much more limited success, if any, despite their efforts.
I'm not saying people shouldn't try. Or that there is no hope of success. I'm just saying its wrong to judge the less successful as "not trying hard enough". Many of them are trying much harder and getting much more limited success than I have had, for example.
Of course its not easy. But it's doable.
Sure its do-able. And if you put in the effort, that will greatly increase your odds of succeeding. But like life itself, you can put in the effort, and still come up empty.
She can start by finding a higher paying job. Higher paying jobs than Walmart are not hard to find for people who are hard working and dependable.
I disagree. They can be very hard to find. Especially for a person who has to rely on public transportation to get to work, and for the job search itself. Moving is a difficult proposition, especially when you are time and cash strapped, and factor in the need to find new suitable affordable daycare... its actually beyond VERY hard.
Hard working, dependable people are hard to find.
Agreed. But the job hiring process doesn't really allow those people to stand out. I know of several people who are hard working, dependable, etc... but they don't interview terribly well for whatever reason, and/or their resumes don't stand out. "no post secondary, 4 years at walmart" isn't really a grabber. Or they bungle the various 'honesty tests' and other claptrap a lot of employers hand out. A lot of people simply aren't good at "looking for work". Its really a skill all its own and it comes much easier to some than others.
Nope, it merely points them in the direction they need to go
This is like armchair quarterbacking with the benefit of hindsight. They don't have the information you are asserting they need. They don't know where to get it; they might not even know they need it.
Your right that if we got it to them, in a manner they could digest, they could use it. But they can't improve themselves past where they are on their own. They are already doing the best they can, and its not working. They don't know how to make it work, nor how to get the knowledge that will let them know how to make it work, nor even the knowledge that they lack the knowledge.
They fix it by getting more knowledge.
Much easier said than done.
What other reasons do you see?
Aside from health issues. Life circumstances... take a single mom with 2 kids, struggling to make ends meet working too much overtime at a low paying Walmart job. Say late twenties... with no post secondary education. Lets throw on some debt too, and no savings to speak of, living paycheque to paycheque.
Now how they got here is immatrial. From this point we're assuming they are doing the best they can. They have cut frivolous expenses, have no credit cards, use public transit, live in a cruddy basement suite, don't eat McFood. But even so, working the job including any OT (usually paid as 'regular' regardless of whether its OT or not... common walmart scenario.) Nearly all funds go towards rent, groceries, and daycare, required clothing, etc. They are barely above water, and one 'accident' away from economic ruin.
How do you turn this person's life around?
Sure if they had more 'knowledge/skills' they could potentially obtain a better job... sure... but they don't and they can't simply 'get more knowledge'... taking classes itself costs money, conflicts with work, and requires even more child care.
Its not easy to escape from this trap.
The problem here isn't really lack of knowledge. Telling her to "go back to school" isn't really a solution.
Talk to them and you will see that every single one of them is held back by their lack of knowledge
Even if this were the only reason, and its not, but it is a significant one, how do you propose they fix it?
They ARE trying their best.
The fact that their best is the wrong approach and their success is undermined by their lack of knowledge doesn't detract from the fact that its still their best. If they knew a better way, then they'd be doing that, and that would be their best.
Do they know they lack the knowledge? Do they know how to obtain the knowledge? No. If they did, they would have.
Concluding they just need more knowledge doesn't somehow get them that knowledge.
No, I said anyone could do what Buffet does. If everyone did what Buffet does,...
So your saying anyone can become rich doing what buffet does, unless everyone does, in which case no one does? Gotcha =)
And if everyone tried their best, being in the bottom two percent would be WAY better than the bottom two percent right now, because of the massive increase in productivity we would have. There would be no more poverty (except in extreme health cases) and we would much greater societal equity.
I disagree. There are people who are impoverished right now who are genuinely trying their best. According to you, due to the relative lack of competition they should quickly rise to the top 2%, or at the very least achieve relative success. Yet this hasn't happened for them.
$50 million and $100 million puts people nowhere near the top couple percent we were talking about.
Er. Fewer than 1% of americans are even millionaires. The "top couple percent" is a somewhat lower bar than you think. $50M - $100 is comfortably in the top couple percent.
There is no such thing as security. It is always an illusion.
There is no such thing as *complete* security.
But one can certainly be more or less secure than someone else.
You say it as if poverty is some horrible thing to be feared.
In a capitalism... it pretty much is.
At least, assuming you like the security of knowing you can provide food for your next meal, or obtain health care, or have a roof over your head.
Of course I am not saying everyone can get in the top two percent, that is meaningless.
Exactly!!! Thank you. That is EXACTLY what I am saying. Of course its impossible.
You could do that too.....practically anyone could, maybe you won't make billions like he did but you could easily make millions.
You were bang on with the first part, why did you stumble here? Its essentially exactly the same meaningless tautology you correctly debunked, yet now you are appealing to it. "anyone could do what buffet does, and make millions, if not billions".
No they couldn't!! Even if they all tried their very best, most of them won't make millions. A bunch of them will still go broke; a bunch of them will die in car accidents, a bunch of them will get expensive diseases.
Its not merely that "everyone can't be in the top 2%". "Everyone can't succeed". "Everyone can't even be in the top 99%". Someone has to be at the very bottom, even if everyone tries their very best.
You know, if everyone used that excuse as a reason not to work hard toward their goals, zero progress would be made in the world
What the hell are you on about? Its not a reason not to work hard toward goals. I NEVER suggested people shouldn't work hard or use it as an excuse for not trying.
Any given world leader, business pioneer, or great contributor to the sciences could have been hit by a bus instead of going on to live a successful life. That didn't stop them, and it shouldn't stop anyone else.
Right but there are lots of people who did try hard enough, perhaps as hard or even harder than people who did succeed... who did get hit by a bus or otherwise didn't succeed in the end.
My point is that 'trying hard and making good choices' is absolutely the right thing to do. I agree people should do that. But you need to recognize that it still might not work out.
And judging people as 'didn't try hard' and 'made bad choices' simply based on whether or not they succeeded is complete bullshit.
Look at any election for example. Only one candidate wins. Are you saying the one that lost didn't try hard enough? That's absurd. They can both pour their entire being into getting elected, and one of them still has to lose. Life is like that in general. Losing doesn't mean you didn't do your very best.
Even if you do do your very best, you can still lose.
That's not an excuse for not trying.
But the OP essentially said, "look at me, I work hard and I'm doing great. Everyone can be successful like me if they work hard." And that's bullshit. Even if everyone worked hard, not all of them will be successful. And they don't deserve to die poor on the street of treatable health issues simply because life didn't work out for them like it has for the OP.
re: Clintons
His is not a 'wealthy family'.
'wealth and power'
Now, from what I've read they have $50 million in cash, plus assets on top of that (cars, home, etc). And as former U.S. president, Senator, etc, they are very well connected to the power elite. Not to mention that Bill made 10 Million in paid speeches for 2006 alone, for example.
Yeah, they aren't billionaires, or 'old money', but they are still well beyond what most people realistically hope to ever achieve. And between that and their connections its more than enough to secure privilege for their descendants.
And the 'Kerry' family isn't rich. The 'Heinz' family is the rich one, which Kerry married into. (I'm not disagreeing with you about John Kerry, he will never have to work, I'm just pointing out that 'Kerry' is not a rich family per se.)
Agreed. I should have said Heinz not Kerry, but the point is his family is now part of that...after all Kerry's kids are Heinz kids, right.
Cheney's family wasn't rich either.
Wasn't. Is now. And will probably remain that way for a long time. His estimated worth is between 20 and 100 Million.
They chose to make good choices in life and work hard,...
And what? So far so good? You think that can't change in the blink of an eye? You think you are somehow 'protected' by good choices and hard work? Don't be an idiot.
Any one of them could be impoverished in a heart beat if life throws them the right curve ball.
Just because it hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen doesn't mean it can't happen. It does happen. And congratulating yourself on your 'good choices and hard work' will seem pretty hollow then.
What is guaranteed? Does being on top guarantee that you'll stay on top? I'd imagine it's the opposite when people are clamouring to undo you.
Provided they don't do anything colossally stupid: Yes, they will stay on top.
The Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, Kerrys, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, ... they and there families will remain on top for as long they don't do anything catastrophically stupid.
And why do you want to be so rich and powerful anyway? Does that bring you more happiness?
That's really beside the point. One can be happy with life as an impoverished cloistered monk. Happiness is a separate issue entirely.
Wealth and Power don't bring happiness.
However if you are the sort of person who can be happy, then wealth and power gives you more outlets to be happy doing a much larger variety of things. They are also quite effective at removing obstacles to happiness...everything from treating expensive ailments to waiting in lines at night clubs.
I doubt it, why do you think that?
Because the top, the top couple percent, the people who make up the 'rich and powerful' is a pretty rarefied group. And its not possible for most people to make it here, no matter how hard they work at it.
It's rare that I've met people who worked hard in a directed way without becoming quite successful
Define 'quite successful'. Per the context of the conversation: it was intended to mean 'got on top', true wealth and power.
It was not 'middle class' and 'able to retire in relative comfort as long as nothing seriously expensive happens to them'. Because you are right, this is certainly generally achievable goal. And I suspect that THIS is what you mean. But it isn't what I was talking about.
And even that isn't a guarantee. If you work hard, save your money, etc most people will get here.
Unless, for example, you worked hard your whole life, got your nestegg and your, your pension, and are living comfortably, and then your pension is wiped out by institutional mismanagement wiping out most of your income, and simultaneously the value of your home plummets as a result of the general economic fallout wiping out your primary asset to borrow against. So you dip into your nest-egg for living expenses while you sell your depreciating home to extract the remaining equity to use as income... and then you fall down the stairs and have a $35,000 hospital stay wiping out a good chunk of your nest egg.
So... you worked hard, saved money, did everything right... and now you are renting, using the remains of your home equity as income, and wondering how you the hell you are ever going to pay for managed care in another few years. "Maybe I could be a walmart greeter!" ...
Granted this isn't going to happen to MOST people, but the point stands. Working hard and being fiscally responsible isn't a guarantee.
But don't confuse THIS with the 1000:1 ratio... THAT was in reference to making it to the top. Of the 1000 people who 'fail' to make it to the top; sure, most of them end up 'quite successful'... just nowhere near the top.
Seriously, if you have a small idea that takes a small team less than six months to create, then you better have a really good marketing, a good implementation and sharp execution, otherwise some big company is going to do the same thing and win because they have better visibility and more resources.
Unless its an invention in which case you can patent it for a dozen years.
Or a work of 'art' that you can copyright until everyone alive today is dead.
So apparently some small ideas are very well protected, while others ... not so much.
In free countries, how did the powerful become powerful? Have they done something you couldn't do (honorably)?
Yes. Most of them were born to powerful families with inherited wealth and have established social networks with other powerful families. I can't 'do' that, that's not something this is 'done'.
The few that have risen to the top from more humble beginnings? Yep, they exist. But being smart, even brilliant, and putting in the hard work... those are all pre-requisites, but they don't guarantee you jack squat. For every one that succeeded in rising there are 1000 more who were just as talented and hard working who didn't make it.
Look in your front drive. If you're like the typical American you have two cars that cost about $60,000 (when you include tax and interest). Your home probably cost $200,000 or more (again with interest and tax).
The typical American doesn't own 60k worth of vehicles in his driveway. The TYPICAL american, makes 25k per year. If he has a 60k car in his driveway its leased. And nearly 1/3rd of American's rent their home. Of the 2/3rds that own it, the vast majority are heavily mortgaged.
Your "typical american" isn't "typical" at all. He's already well above average.
Hell, I'm WELL above average in that I own both my cars outright but my cars are only worth 30k combined. My home is worth $400k+ but I owe more than half that amount. And I'm doing VERY well relative to the typical american. And yes, at this stage in my life, yes, I could absorb a 20k hospital bill.
10 years ago, however, a 20k bill would have damn near ruined me. Even on a 5 year payment plan that would have been $600/month. To get past that 10 years ago, I'd have had to sell my car (worth maybe 2k, but I wouldn't have been able to afford insuring it / maintaining it), I'd have had to sell my home and buy something cheaper closer to public transit/work (for it to be cheaper and closer to work would mean the price goes WAY up for WAY less space. So I'd have dropped from a 1200 sqft townhome to a 500 sqft condo/loft (so much for having a family...) That would have gotten my living expenses down enough that I could afford a $600/month payment, and still eat.
10 years ago, I was a 'typical' american. Meaning AVERAGE. Half of American's make less than the average, and are even worse off.
Two cars in the driveway in your own home... the american dream. The typical american WANTS that. He/she doesn't actually have it. (And a big chunk of the people who have it, are living heavily on borrowed money, and can barely afford it.)
so why not have discount hardware and subscription _agreement_ for some defined period of time ?
the only reasin against this that i can imagine is some law preventing such agreement clauses that disallow customer to cancel subscription but keep the device.
Er, this is how cell phones work in the US. You get a phone at deep discounts or even free and sign a multi-year contract. You cancel early you pay through the nose in 'cancellation fees' and the phone is yours to keep. Or you complete the contract and the phone is yours to keep. Nothing illegal about this sort of arrangement.
However, people don't generally LIKE these contracts and we should hardly cry foul when a company gives you discount hardware without the lock-in, and tries to rely on things like 'good customer service' and 'quality product' to keep its customers.
I guess the difference between you and me is that I don't fear death, and if I was given that bad news about cancer, rather than *waste* 500,000 trying to give myself an extra year of life, [...]
"Insenstive Clod" doesn't begin to do your post justice. My mom had cancer in her 30s. 25 years later she's doing just fine. A friend of ours had cancer a few years ago; another full recovery. My grandfather had cancer in his 60s, he's pushing 80 now. There are a LOT of cancer survivors out there.
The average cost of a hospital stay is only $19,000. Not at all unreasonable...
So $19,000 isn't unreasonable for you? Good for you. 1 in 3 employed people don't make that much in a YEAR. Never mind the unemployed, fixed income disabled, fixed income seniors, etc. 19k isn't reasonable for THEM.
So you think its not worth $500k to give yourself an extra year of life. Fine. That's an extreme case. What about the people who can't afford 19k for what will likely be a full recovery? Should they have to die too?
But once it's been proven possible, the likelihood that somebody else will try it increases.
And they'll still succeed spectacularly because it doesn't take a "19 person cell" to commit large scale acts of destruction. An intelligent individual can do it without much effort, and in any number of places.
Hell, for a paltry million bucks he could buy a small private jet and crash it into a big one in mid-air. Or into an elementary school.
But there *have* been plans that have been stopped.
I don't deny it. But from purely utilitarian point of view, we could have saved a lot more lives doing something else with the money.
If I spend 5 billion dollars and save 1000 lives was that money well spent? What if that 5 billion could have saved 20,000 lives if it had been spent on something else? Was it still well spent saving 1000?
By the by, the
tag... learn it, love it... using quotation marks on somebody else's words doesn't really stand out enough for this medium. :)
I use italics not quotation marks. The blockquote tage is nice too, but longer to type.
If Hassan decides to blow up the coffee shop I frequent, I can't mitigate that risk by just laying down some non-slip texturing on the stair edges or hanging on to the railing.
Whoah cowboy. Are you certified to lay down non-slip texturing? Have you performed studies that validate said texturing is effective? And this railing you are about to grab... have you had it recently inspected and certified as able to support the weight of an adult?
We COULD very well require that each staircase be registered, and we could very well send out certified government inspectors every 6 months to inspect them for non-slip texturing, check the railings, ensure they are in good repair, and oversee all new staircase construction, renovation, and repair.
And you know what, it would probably prevent a few accidents too. That railing down to the basement where the screws were just into the gyprock and have worn loose... that'll get fixed before someone trips, and pulls it out of the wall. And that carpet with out the non-slip backing granny put on the front landing she almost never uses... that'll get removed before someone falls on it. And that rotting staircase in the slum... that'll get repaired too. Oh we'll save a few people a year. And create thousands of jobs in the process.
That's like anti-terrorism efforts. Close to 0 people die in America of terrorism each year. We had one freak incident, and now we're back to close to 0. But we're spending billions on prevention now. And we'd probably actually save more people spending the money fixing stairways. And we'd definitely save tons more people spending the money on vehicle repairs. (even just simple stuff like replace worn tires, check brakes, fix tail lights, etc, etc, ...) With the budget we have for 'mitigating terror' we could save a LOT of people's lives.