Interesting. I don't know myself, I just heard something about the tiles like I mentioned.
However, the fact is that NASA still has not historically had any routine procedures in place for inspecting the shuttle for damage, especially since the issue of falling debris at launch was a known issue. The investigation into the Columbia incident clearly established the management faults leading up to that.
I do not think that it was an incident that was inevitible, nor an act of a spiteful deity. NASA has a clear history, now illuminated by two fatal accidents, if not three, of ignoring its engineers' warnings of dangerous issues in favor of the more risky path of forging bravely (but foolishly) ahead.
I do not know if they have done enough to purge the culture of those tendencies, but for future astronauts' sake, I hope so!
First, the article was alluding to the assumption of most people that the astronauts died 'instantly' in the initial 'explosion', NOT when they hit the surface.
Second, they didn't hit the ground, they hit water. Not that there's a lot of difference at those speeds...
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that the shuttle tiles are always being replaced - not all at once, but the underside would be inspected, inch by inch after every flight, and tiles showing any signs of wear or damage are replaced.
I would think that the leading edges of the wings would be areas that would lend themselves to fairly frequent replacements, given the forces those tiles would be subjected to.
I think one thing that clearly came out of the investigation of the Columbia accident is that the failure of NASA to have ANY kind of inspection routine or any ability to replace damaged tiles in flight was a management failure on the order of what caused Challenger's demise. I think that would pretty clearly take it out of the realm of the acts of spiteful deities...
"...consensus in the sense of informed scientists who follow logical processes using the current research."
Ok, yes, that's the ideal. I wish it always were that way. But we all know it isn't. Many prominent scientists (and a lot who aren't) can be pretty egotistical, and can get those egos pretty wrapped up in their own pet theories. Scientific history, again, is rife with such stories, and they can happen today as easily as a hundred years ago, cause people haven't changed that much.
As the previous post said, such consensus IS harmful, especially when "everybody knows"! That's what both of us are saying!
If the ideal you speak of was really something that always happened, we wouldn't be having this discussion, now would we?
Wow! You make the scientific process seem awfully subjective! You even say so.
Sorry, but the observations are I think most often a lot more objective; it's the interpretation that's subjective.
So, really, the only thing that can differentiate between an incorrect and a correct observation is a cold hard fact and that's another, substantiating observation. Now a given interpretation of those observations may be very subjective, and probably always are.
I CAN therefore refute your theory, even if its a majority consensus - by submitting solid, repeatable experimental evidence that it is wrong. And that, my friend, is where your argument falls apart.
Now we get into the realm of consensus, where things get political, and that is my entire point. Because consensus IS political, and subjective, and is not always based upon cold hard facts, at least not always enough of them, it is not a good idea to base public policy on such a consensus. If a consensus is based upon solid evidence, such as, for instance, the science behind the effort to study Mars, then no problem. Everybody pretty much agrees that what we're doing is reasonable. (Mostly, anyway) But if everybody agreed that the climate/warming issue was a slam dunk, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So until we can come to such a consensus, the government is rightly holding back until the scientific community can come to some agreement.
"The IPCC WGI reports are not written by politicians."
Didn't say it was. What I said was that the current state of consensus in the scientific community is political in nature. Being composed of human beings, it has to be. Where you have a hierarchy of indiviuals (in this case ranked by perceived status as published scientists), other scientists who want to be published (thus joining the ranks or raising themselves in those ranks), one must avoid being too contraversial or risk being rejected. (I know that's greatly simplified, but I've heard enough scientists working for my employer complain about it.) It's a matter of either join the consensus or be marginalized. I realize that for the vast majority of issues that's easy. Simple solid scientific evidence, etc. makes it non-controversial. But too many in that community have their egos vested in their pet theories, or stuff they've worked their whole careers on. That's only human, but it contributes to the political nature of the consensus process.
But don't say that the entire community of scientists agree on this issue - I know they don't. Scientists are like cats - they don't get easily herded. If this issue were a slam dunk, like perhaps saying that the sun is a given distance from the earth, that's one thing. But something that's this complex, forget it, that isn't happening, and not because some people have a vested interest in oil! That's just too simple an excuse!
And as for policy, you're right, and that's the way it should be in a free society, expecially for as controversial an issue as this is. That's not a bad thing, it's good. People supporting your apparant side probably don't agree it's good, cause it keeps you from doing what you think is the right thing. But that's better than everybody being dictated to...
Please! Read the post. Nobody said SCIENCE didn't work. My comments, if you had read down to the end of my post, were meant to note that using poorly backed (with real, solid, non-controversial evidence) consensus is a bad way to either do science or set public policy.
No, all consensus' do NOT always come as the result of good evidence; that's the point. Scientific history is rife with examples of theories or hypothyses that were accepted by consensus that turned out to be incorrect, and had been based upon slim evidence. Granted, as you note, such prominent failures are fewer as science gets more mature, but since the consensus process is based upon pure politics within that community, it still is capable of happening.
What alternative? Most large organizations that use Oracle have so much invested in that company, there is no alternative! It's too expensive to switch, even if there was one...
Consensus isn't "the best that we have", it is simply the political way the scientific community works. Period. So its the ONLY thing we have. That doesn't mean it works or not.
"A failing of science, not consensus."
Precisely. Just because there was a consensus didn't make it right, and people doctors worked on based upon that consensus often died because of it! It took people willing to buck the consensus to discover evidence that the consensus was wrong.
"When push comes to shove, the only thing that differentiates between correct and incorrect observations is majority rules perception."
Precisely my point! When a majority so affects what people see scientifically, that really does make for BAD policy (as well as bad science)!
I'm not proposing anything. What I'm saying is that holding up a consensus only means that most people in the argument think a certain way, but that doesn't make it so. Therefore, don't make public policy based upon that consensus unless the evidence to support it is pretty convincing! That's all.
Look two hundred years ago, the consensus among what passed for doctors was that bleeding was good for all kinds of things, and that washing one's hands was for the squeemish. Now we know better.
The point here is that, until we have more evidence, and more is known about weather and climactic systems on this planet, we really won't know for sure whether we are the proximate cause of this apparant warming trend. Are we contributing to it? Probably, but we don't KNOW. Climactic science isn't really an empirically provable thing; we don't have the ability to experiment with hypotheses to see whether they hold up. The only experimental lab we have with all the data points is our own planet!
And, no, we don't have to go with what most people perceive. We have to go with what science objectively can observe, over time.
A consensus can change - they do all the time in the scientific world, as new facts are learned. And as history has proved, a consensus is not necessarily a good thing to base policy on.
Hello from a past resident of Lewisville! Saw it again on google Earth the other day, and Man, has it grown!
Back to topic:
Yeah, I agree; it's dificult to make a solid determination - are we at fault or not? Personnally, I think maybe a bit, and we should reduce emmissions even if only to make the air more breathable. But the Kyoto Accords are gonna be expensive, and if we're going to do something, let's make sure it'll do some good first. Personnaly, I think that if we concentrate on developing cheaper, renewable energy resources that polute less, the emmissions'll drop off by themselves!
Don't you mean INDIRECT costs? A building or toilet paper aren't direct costs - the expense of the assembly line, or a payment to a third party manufacturer is. INdirect costs are called overhead, cause those costs are shared among ALL your products.
I don't think my definitiona are that different, in fact they're pretty much what accounting standards call for, and how companies cost their products. You were talking about a cost analysis based upon manufacturing costs only, I repeated over and over that I was objecting to the article (not the analysis) failing to mention overhead, and you kept misinterpreting the terms I was using.
You're right, in a manufacturing analysis, the overhead isn't important. But the article/. linked to wasn't just talking manufacturing analysis, it was talking about Apple's cost vs how much they were making on each computer. That obviously needs to include the overhead. That is a standard practice when you talk about profit. The terms I used are standard accounting terms, and I was using them in ways that match standard usage.
I'm sorry that you disagree, but you just seem to want to disagree, no matter how much I explain myself. Maybe you should read my sig so you understand my last comment. It means, really that some people just won't listen or try to understand, and I'm wasting my time trying to explain myself.
I really don't think that "their building" was a terrible example. It is exactly the kind of expense I was talking about! I believe that most real estate amortizations take place over 30 years, so they still might be writing that off, plus, I'd assume they've made changes, renovations, etc., over the years. With a large campus, the expenses never stop. They DO have more than one building there, don't they?
Of course, Apple does a lot of marketing - and, guess what? THAT'S an indirect overhead expense, too! All part of what I was saying...
Sorry, but we disagree again. The overhead is NEVER low enough its silly to bring it up. They have, I think someone mentioned on another forum here, tens of thousands of employees? I would doubt that their CFO would call such costs trivial! ALL of those salary costs are recoverable expenses when they set product costs. So is everything else they do that's not production: toilet paper, copy paper, utilties, the list is endless.
I think you're just disagreeing just to disagree. So thanks for validating my sig.
The analysis may have been done right as an analysis, but the article got to the point they were talking about profits. When you talk about profits, overhead must be included or you skew the picture. That was my point, that the article was making it look as if Apple was making over $400 per machine.
Whether Intel funded part of the R&D is something we can't know; neither company is going to enlighten us, now are they?
Well, they did have to pay for it, didn't they? Well, THAT IS an expense, and cannot be recovered in one year, it's amortized over a period of time. the amortization is what gets added into the cost of the product. It's called double entry bookkeeping. The asset is on one side, the expense on the other...
And my point was that the entire article, while being about a production analysis, when they started talking about what Apple was making on each item, should have mentioned the overheads other than production that affects that profit. As soon as you start talking profit, you get away from pure production analysis and get into where the overheads HAVE to be included. They didn't, so the article skewed the picture...
They may not own the manufacturing plant, but you can bet they own the Campus where all that is designed. THAT is a capital expense that is charged off as overhead, which is another thing that throws off these 'analysts' attempts to second-guess Apple.
R&D may not be manufacturing costs directly, but again, they are written off in the overhead, whcih you can bet is part of every product Apple (or any other company) charges their customers.
And in case you didn't notice, they DID mention that Apple may be getting an even better discount than they had figured - these guys aren't stupid.
You sound as if you don't like these analysts work - well, that was part of my point, in case you didn't read! I also think their analysis of Apple's cost is wrong, in the main, as I said, due to the failure of their analysis to include overhead.
And again, it's not just manufacturing costs that are included in the cost of a product. ALL of a company's expenses in producing a product, from conception, design as well as common expenses such as "physical plant" (a term used to describe ALL of a company's buildings, even offices), and the cost of salaries, even of enployees not directly involved in the manufacturing of the product. Otherwide, they get no return on that expense.
The article didn't mention overhead. You can bet that there is a cost associated with the overall organization, plus the physical plant, R&D, etc. that most likely brings the costs way up from where the article puts them!
Magical or not, to 99% of users, IE isn't removable now, and wasn't then. It was that easy availability of a browser already installed that caught most users, and forced other browser makers to almost quit./.er's may kow how to remove it, but my sister didn't know, nor do some of the other older users I know, and many of the younger ones as well. At least some of them were smart enough to have a Mac, and knew enough to use an alternative.
Other OSes don't make the web browser such an integral part of the OS that it cannot be removed. If you try to remove IE, it'll just take you back to the previous version installed. On the Mac or Linux, you just delete the app, and use a different one.
When MS did that, it forced other browser makers out of the market, cause they couldn't compete with free. That was part of the reason they got sued. Unbundling the browser in Vista makes that gripe go away. (If thats what they're going to do...) But MS's focus isn't on the browser wars anymore, so it would be easier for them to let that go.
I work for a Federal agency as an IT tech, desktop support.
You would not believe the crappy stuff we see daily! Most of us use that anti-bacterial hand wipe lotion (Purell Hand Sanitizer) after each stop. Many of us wash our hands regularly, too on top of that! Flu season is not time to get sloppy over this issue, as far as I'm concerned. I've got better things to do with my leave time...
Another point. Alcohol will help your keyboard dry if you get it wet. Since alcohol combines with water, if your keyboard gets water in it (water, NOT juice or another liquid!) you can (while it is UNPLUGGED) pour alcohol into it, swirl it sround to get it in all the little cracks and crevices, then pour the alcohol out. In a couple of minutes, you've got a clean, dry keyboard. Just be sure that ALL the alcohol has evaporated before plugging it in! Using a gentle blow-out with compressed air helps, here.
(Caution: offtopic ahead!) This works with gas tanks, too. If you've got water in your gas tank, pour a quart of isopropyl alcohol into it. It'll burn with the gas, and will combine with the water in the tank, which will burn out along with the alcohol.
I think Slashdot is pretty cool like it is. I like the way the stories are presented, and the occational spelling stuff just makes it better, IMHO. I'm in it at least reading every day, tho I might not actually post...
Keep up the good work - this is a really great site!
Hmmm, just because you lived at the end of a dirt road does not make you an expert on "off-road" sports. Auto manufacturers do not spend millions of dollars designing and building off road vehicles with high centers of gravity , nor spend more millions touting their high clearace just to make status symbols! wheel placement won't help you after you've broken an axel on a rock that happened to be just a bit too high. Sure, a tight turning radius is helpful, as is 4WD - that's why off road vehicles are equipped with such features. And just because 99% (got any sources?) of off roading doesn't require that high center of gravity doesn't mean it's not needed. It's built that way for a reason.
And just because YOU don't know anyone that uses large SUV's for towing doesn't mean it's not done.
My point, if you'd read my posts, is that these vehicles are built the way they are for specific reasons, and a lot of people buy them for just those reasons. Just because you see a "soccer mom" driving a monster SUV to the store for a small bag of groceries doesn't mean that she (or hubby) never uses it for other, heavier loads.
Of course, people buy them cause they think they're cool, or can seat 8, or they can carry balloons for Susie's party in just one load! People do all sorts of things for dumb reasons just cause they've the money to burn.
But don't paint all SUV owners with the same bad brush. Sit by a freeway that goes to a major lake or other off road destination (sports, not your end of the dirt road backyard!) and see the numbers of SUVs that ARE being used for just that reason.
Look at accident stats involving trailers, and I'll bet (tho I don't really know) that a bunch of them involve idiots with small cars pulling loads they weren't designed for. Maybe that's why instructions that come with trailers (rented by uHaul) come with warnings to use the correct class hitch and ball size for different size trailers, depending on the trailer's weight limits!
Living at the end of a dirt road doesn't make you an off road expert! Especially making pronouncements about off roading that SHOW you really don't know your stuff!
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. I don't know myself, I just heard something about the tiles like I mentioned.
However, the fact is that NASA still has not historically had any routine procedures in place for inspecting the shuttle for damage, especially since the issue of falling debris at launch was a known issue. The investigation into the Columbia incident clearly established the management faults leading up to that.
I do not think that it was an incident that was inevitible, nor an act of a spiteful deity. NASA has a clear history, now illuminated by two fatal accidents, if not three, of ignoring its engineers' warnings of dangerous issues in favor of the more risky path of forging bravely (but foolishly) ahead.
I do not know if they have done enough to purge the culture of those tendencies, but for future astronauts' sake, I hope so!
Try explaining, step by step, how to tie your shoe.
Yes, a trivial thing can take a paragraph to explain! D'oh!
First, the article was alluding to the assumption of most people that the astronauts died 'instantly' in the initial 'explosion', NOT when they hit the surface.
Second, they didn't hit the ground, they hit water. Not that there's a lot of difference at those speeds...
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that the shuttle tiles are always being replaced - not all at once, but the underside would be inspected, inch by inch after every flight, and tiles showing any signs of wear or damage are replaced.
I would think that the leading edges of the wings would be areas that would lend themselves to fairly frequent replacements, given the forces those tiles would be subjected to.
I think one thing that clearly came out of the investigation of the Columbia accident is that the failure of NASA to have ANY kind of inspection routine or any ability to replace damaged tiles in flight was a management failure on the order of what caused Challenger's demise. I think that would pretty clearly take it out of the realm of the acts of spiteful deities...
"...consensus in the sense of informed scientists who follow logical processes using the current research."
Ok, yes, that's the ideal. I wish it always were that way. But we all know it isn't. Many prominent scientists (and a lot who aren't) can be pretty egotistical, and can get those egos pretty wrapped up in their own pet theories. Scientific history, again, is rife with such stories, and they can happen today as easily as a hundred years ago, cause people haven't changed that much.
As the previous post said, such consensus IS harmful, especially when "everybody knows"! That's what both of us are saying!
If the ideal you speak of was really something that always happened, we wouldn't be having this discussion, now would we?
Wow! You make the scientific process seem awfully subjective! You even say so.
Sorry, but the observations are I think most often a lot more objective; it's the interpretation that's subjective.
So, really, the only thing that can differentiate between an incorrect and a correct observation is a cold hard fact and that's another, substantiating observation. Now a given interpretation of those observations may be very subjective, and probably always are.
I CAN therefore refute your theory, even if its a majority consensus - by submitting solid, repeatable experimental evidence that it is wrong. And that, my friend, is where your argument falls apart.
Now we get into the realm of consensus, where things get political, and that is my entire point. Because consensus IS political, and subjective, and is not always based upon cold hard facts, at least not always enough of them, it is not a good idea to base public policy on such a consensus. If a consensus is based upon solid evidence, such as, for instance, the science behind the effort to study Mars, then no problem. Everybody pretty much agrees that what we're doing is reasonable. (Mostly, anyway) But if everybody agreed that the climate/warming issue was a slam dunk, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So until we can come to such a consensus, the government is rightly holding back until the scientific community can come to some agreement.
"The IPCC WGI reports are not written by politicians."
Didn't say it was. What I said was that the current state of consensus in the scientific community is political in nature. Being composed of human beings, it has to be. Where you have a hierarchy of indiviuals (in this case ranked by perceived status as published scientists), other scientists who want to be published (thus joining the ranks or raising themselves in those ranks), one must avoid being too contraversial or risk being rejected. (I know that's greatly simplified, but I've heard enough scientists working for my employer complain about it.) It's a matter of either join the consensus or be marginalized. I realize that for the vast majority of issues that's easy. Simple solid scientific evidence, etc. makes it non-controversial. But too many in that community have their egos vested in their pet theories, or stuff they've worked their whole careers on. That's only human, but it contributes to the political nature of the consensus process.
But don't say that the entire community of scientists agree on this issue - I know they don't. Scientists are like cats - they don't get easily herded. If this issue were a slam dunk, like perhaps saying that the sun is a given distance from the earth, that's one thing. But something that's this complex, forget it, that isn't happening, and not because some people have a vested interest in oil! That's just too simple an excuse!
And as for policy, you're right, and that's the way it should be in a free society, expecially for as controversial an issue as this is. That's not a bad thing, it's good. People supporting your apparant side probably don't agree it's good, cause it keeps you from doing what you think is the right thing. But that's better than everybody being dictated to...
Please! Read the post. Nobody said SCIENCE didn't work. My comments, if you had read down to the end of my post, were meant to note that using poorly backed (with real, solid, non-controversial evidence) consensus is a bad way to either do science or set public policy.
No, all consensus' do NOT always come as the result of good evidence; that's the point. Scientific history is rife with examples of theories or hypothyses that were accepted by consensus that turned out to be incorrect, and had been based upon slim evidence. Granted, as you note, such prominent failures are fewer as science gets more mature, but since the consensus process is based upon pure politics within that community, it still is capable of happening.
Look at the present case...
"...or they will go find an alternative."
What alternative? Most large organizations that use Oracle have so much invested in that company, there is no alternative! It's too expensive to switch, even if there was one...
Consensus isn't "the best that we have", it is simply the political way the scientific community works. Period. So its the ONLY thing we have. That doesn't mean it works or not.
"A failing of science, not consensus."
Precisely. Just because there was a consensus didn't make it right, and people doctors worked on based upon that consensus often died because of it! It took people willing to buck the consensus to discover evidence that the consensus was wrong.
"When push comes to shove, the only thing that differentiates between correct and incorrect observations is majority rules perception."
Precisely my point! When a majority so affects what people see scientifically, that really does make for BAD policy (as well as bad science)!
I'm not proposing anything. What I'm saying is that holding up a consensus only means that most people in the argument think a certain way, but that doesn't make it so. Therefore, don't make public policy based upon that consensus unless the evidence to support it is pretty convincing! That's all.
Yeah, consensus! It's gotta be the best!
Look two hundred years ago, the consensus among what passed for doctors was that bleeding was good for all kinds of things, and that washing one's hands was for the squeemish. Now we know better.
The point here is that, until we have more evidence, and more is known about weather and climactic systems on this planet, we really won't know for sure whether we are the proximate cause of this apparant warming trend. Are we contributing to it? Probably, but we don't KNOW. Climactic science isn't really an empirically provable thing; we don't have the ability to experiment with hypotheses to see whether they hold up. The only experimental lab we have with all the data points is our own planet!
And, no, we don't have to go with what most people perceive. We have to go with what science objectively can observe, over time.
A consensus can change - they do all the time in the scientific world, as new facts are learned. And as history has proved, a consensus is not necessarily a good thing to base policy on.
Warning: Offtopic ahead!
Hello from a past resident of Lewisville! Saw it again on google Earth the other day, and Man, has it grown!
Back to topic:
Yeah, I agree; it's dificult to make a solid determination - are we at fault or not? Personnally, I think maybe a bit, and we should reduce emmissions even if only to make the air more breathable. But the Kyoto Accords are gonna be expensive, and if we're going to do something, let's make sure it'll do some good first. Personnaly, I think that if we concentrate on developing cheaper, renewable energy resources that polute less, the emmissions'll drop off by themselves!
(sorry for the misspellings!)
Don't you mean INDIRECT costs? A building or toilet paper aren't direct costs - the expense of the assembly line, or a payment to a third party manufacturer is. INdirect costs are called overhead, cause those costs are shared among ALL your products.
/. linked to wasn't just talking manufacturing analysis, it was talking about Apple's cost vs how much they were making on each computer. That obviously needs to include the overhead. That is a standard practice when you talk about profit. The terms I used are standard accounting terms, and I was using them in ways that match standard usage.
I don't think my definitiona are that different, in fact they're pretty much what accounting standards call for, and how companies cost their products. You were talking about a cost analysis based upon manufacturing costs only, I repeated over and over that I was objecting to the article (not the analysis) failing to mention overhead, and you kept misinterpreting the terms I was using.
You're right, in a manufacturing analysis, the overhead isn't important. But the article
I'm sorry that you disagree, but you just seem to want to disagree, no matter how much I explain myself. Maybe you should read my sig so you understand my last comment. It means, really that some people just won't listen or try to understand, and I'm wasting my time trying to explain myself.
I really don't think that "their building" was a terrible example. It is exactly the kind of expense I was talking about! I believe that most real estate amortizations take place over 30 years, so they still might be writing that off, plus, I'd assume they've made changes, renovations, etc., over the years. With a large campus, the expenses never stop. They DO have more than one building there, don't they?
Of course, Apple does a lot of marketing - and, guess what? THAT'S an indirect overhead expense, too! All part of what I was saying...
Sorry, but we disagree again. The overhead is NEVER low enough its silly to bring it up. They have, I think someone mentioned on another forum here, tens of thousands of employees? I would doubt that their CFO would call such costs trivial! ALL of those salary costs are recoverable expenses when they set product costs. So is everything else they do that's not production: toilet paper, copy paper, utilties, the list is endless.
I think you're just disagreeing just to disagree. So thanks for validating my sig.
The analysis may have been done right as an analysis, but the article got to the point they were talking about profits. When you talk about profits, overhead must be included or you skew the picture. That was my point, that the article was making it look as if Apple was making over $400 per machine.
Whether Intel funded part of the R&D is something we can't know; neither company is going to enlighten us, now are they?
Well, they did have to pay for it, didn't they? Well, THAT IS an expense, and cannot be recovered in one year, it's amortized over a period of time. the amortization is what gets added into the cost of the product. It's called double entry bookkeeping. The asset is on one side, the expense on the other...
And my point was that the entire article, while being about a production analysis, when they started talking about what Apple was making on each item, should have mentioned the overheads other than production that affects that profit. As soon as you start talking profit, you get away from pure production analysis and get into where the overheads HAVE to be included. They didn't, so the article skewed the picture...
They may not own the manufacturing plant, but you can bet they own the Campus where all that is designed. THAT is a capital expense that is charged off as overhead, which is another thing that throws off these 'analysts' attempts to second-guess Apple.
R&D may not be manufacturing costs directly, but again, they are written off in the overhead, whcih you can bet is part of every product Apple (or any other company) charges their customers.
And in case you didn't notice, they DID mention that Apple may be getting an even better discount than they had figured - these guys aren't stupid.
You sound as if you don't like these analysts work - well, that was part of my point, in case you didn't read! I also think their analysis of Apple's cost is wrong, in the main, as I said, due to the failure of their analysis to include overhead.
And again, it's not just manufacturing costs that are included in the cost of a product. ALL of a company's expenses in producing a product, from conception, design as well as common expenses such as "physical plant" (a term used to describe ALL of a company's buildings, even offices), and the cost of salaries, even of enployees not directly involved in the manufacturing of the product. Otherwide, they get no return on that expense.
The article didn't mention overhead. You can bet that there is a cost associated with the overall organization, plus the physical plant, R&D, etc. that most likely brings the costs way up from where the article puts them!
Magical or not, to 99% of users, IE isn't removable now, and wasn't then. It was that easy availability of a browser already installed that caught most users, and forced other browser makers to almost quit. /.er's may kow how to remove it, but my sister didn't know, nor do some of the other older users I know, and many of the younger ones as well. At least some of them were smart enough to have a Mac, and knew enough to use an alternative.
Users!
Other OSes don't make the web browser such an integral part of the OS that it cannot be removed. If you try to remove IE, it'll just take you back to the previous version installed. On the Mac or Linux, you just delete the app, and use a different one.
When MS did that, it forced other browser makers out of the market, cause they couldn't compete with free. That was part of the reason they got sued. Unbundling the browser in Vista makes that gripe go away. (If thats what they're going to do...) But MS's focus isn't on the browser wars anymore, so it would be easier for them to let that go.
I work for a Federal agency as an IT tech, desktop support.
You would not believe the crappy stuff we see daily! Most of us use that anti-bacterial hand wipe lotion (Purell Hand Sanitizer) after each stop. Many of us wash our hands regularly, too on top of that! Flu season is not time to get sloppy over this issue, as far as I'm concerned. I've got better things to do with my leave time...
Another point. Alcohol will help your keyboard dry if you get it wet. Since alcohol combines with water, if your keyboard gets water in it (water, NOT juice or another liquid!) you can (while it is UNPLUGGED) pour alcohol into it, swirl it sround to get it in all the little cracks and crevices, then pour the alcohol out. In a couple of minutes, you've got a clean, dry keyboard. Just be sure that ALL the alcohol has evaporated before plugging it in! Using a gentle blow-out with compressed air helps, here.
(Caution: offtopic ahead!) This works with gas tanks, too. If you've got water in your gas tank, pour a quart of isopropyl alcohol into it. It'll burn with the gas, and will combine with the water in the tank, which will burn out along with the alcohol.
I think Slashdot is pretty cool like it is. I like the way the stories are presented, and the occational spelling stuff just makes it better, IMHO. I'm in it at least reading every day, tho I might not actually post...
Keep up the good work - this is a really great site!
Hmmm, just because you lived at the end of a dirt road does not make you an expert on "off-road" sports. Auto manufacturers do not spend millions of dollars designing and building off road vehicles with high centers of gravity , nor spend more millions touting their high clearace just to make status symbols! wheel placement won't help you after you've broken an axel on a rock that happened to be just a bit too high. Sure, a tight turning radius is helpful, as is 4WD - that's why off road vehicles are equipped with such features. And just because 99% (got any sources?) of off roading doesn't require that high center of gravity doesn't mean it's not needed. It's built that way for a reason.
And just because YOU don't know anyone that uses large SUV's for towing doesn't mean it's not done.
My point, if you'd read my posts, is that these vehicles are built the way they are for specific reasons, and a lot of people buy them for just those reasons. Just because you see a "soccer mom" driving a monster SUV to the store for a small bag of groceries doesn't mean that she (or hubby) never uses it for other, heavier loads.
Of course, people buy them cause they think they're cool, or can seat 8, or they can carry balloons for Susie's party in just one load! People do all sorts of things for dumb reasons just cause they've the money to burn.
But don't paint all SUV owners with the same bad brush. Sit by a freeway that goes to a major lake or other off road destination (sports, not your end of the dirt road backyard!) and see the numbers of SUVs that ARE being used for just that reason.
Look at accident stats involving trailers, and I'll bet (tho I don't really know) that a bunch of them involve idiots with small cars pulling loads they weren't designed for. Maybe that's why instructions that come with trailers (rented by uHaul) come with warnings to use the correct class hitch and ball size for different size trailers, depending on the trailer's weight limits!
Living at the end of a dirt road doesn't make you an off road expert! Especially making pronouncements about off roading that SHOW you really don't know your stuff!