I agree with your point about distribution. However, that misses my point regarding the practical effects.
If test code was infringed, then Google would be required to stop distributing it, and pay Oracle for any damage done. Which might not be much; even if it is, Google can afford to pay.
If infringing code was shipped in phones, then the sale of those phones can be blocked. If the phones don't contain infringing code, then they can ship. That's the critical issue for Oracle, Google, phone manufacturers, and buyers of phones.
Please name one Android device that ships with this code.
I'm looking for clarity regarding the impact of any possible infringement. Willful infringement of code central to Android devices could stop shipments. Incidental infringement of peripheral code is another matter. It should be resolved, of course, but would have little impact on the market.
Do Android devices contain infringing code? Do they contain infringing code that could be easily replaced? Or do they contain infringing code that is central to their operation?
The influence of the mind on the body is interesting, and well worth studying. What's not worth studying are the bullshit explanations that people come up with to psychically move money from the gullible to the promoters.
Here are examples from a more easily studied area: perception of sound. The placebo effect is easily demonstrated with various audiophile gadgets and gimmicks. Make a change and it really does sound better. Or, more accurately, you perceive that it sounds better, because you expected it to sound better. But when blind tests are done, the difference can't be detected. Except when it is, which is why the change has to be hidden not only from the subject, but from the experimenter, to prevent the experimenter from unknowingly influencing the subject. It's amazing how people can no longer tell the difference between two devices when the tests are double-blind.
Some differences are real, that is, can be reliably detected using double blind tests. But the explanations may be nonsense. Some people prefer vinyl to digital, or vacuum tubes to solid state. There's nothing wrong with preferences. But to claim that one is more accurate than the other is not preference, that's a claim that can be measured. Vinyl has limited accuracy, easily exceeded by inexpensive digital audio devices. It's OK to prefer the sound of LPs, it's not OK to claim that they are more accurate. It is well known that some sounds may be more pleasing with certain changes made; boost the mid-bass, add a little second harmonic, and so forth.
The placebo effect is real. Homeopathy is a scam that uses the placebo effect. We can have the benefits of the placebo effect without rip-offs and mumbo-jumbo.
It's not just technical vs social. You can have the wrong social solution to a social problem. For example, drugs are a public health problem and need a public health solution. The law enforcement problem is a direct consequence of not having a good public health solution, and not a direct consequence of drug use.
For those who can't get past their ideology, here's what that means. A heroin user damages his own health, but given controlled access to a clean supply, can live out his life as a productive member of society. Not as productive, and not as long a life, so helping people kick their addictions will pay for itself. But even if they stay addicted, the harm is limited.
But we make heroin illegal, so the addict pays higher prices for a dirty supply. We make it hard to get syringes, so he shares a dirty needle and gets hepatitis or HIV, making his life shorter and less productive, and putting him into hospital emergency rooms at a very high cost. Prices are high, so he steals your computer from your car.
Note that drugs didn't make him steal your computer, the high price of *illegal* drugs lead him to steal your computer. Give him free heroin, and he wouldn't steal. Plus, the high price makes it profitable for organized crime to deal drugs.
You can't solve problems when the problem is framed incorrectly. There are vested interests who put special effort into misstating problems so that they can offer a solution. Government contractors do it, cops do it, prison guards do it. Every industry, every special interest does it. The key is to NOT accept their definition of the problem.
A patent troll is a company that does not sell any products using its own patents.
Companies that make things often need patents from other companies. Company A and Company B each hold patents. Both companies make products that use patents from both companies. Neither can charge absurd royalties, because the other company can retaliate by withholding their own patents. They need each other, so they must come to agreement on reasonable royalties.
A company that doesn't make and sell any products doesn't need anyone else's patents for those products that they don't make. Such a company is called a patent troll. They don't need anyone else's patents, so no one has leverage to negotiate reasonable royalties. The troll can charge extortionate royalties without fearing retaliation.
Patent troll does not address issues of patent validity or merit. It refers to companies whose sole income is royalties and not the sale of products. Hiring experts has nothing to do with being a patent troll, the quality of the research has nothing to do with being a patent troll. The only issue is whether the company sells anything that uses patents from other people.
Crypto technology of all sorts may be very good, or very bad. The question is who controls it.
Everyone, individuals or companies, should be able to secure their own data. But that's not enough. They also need to be able to issue their own keys or certificates. And the technology that uses those keys or certificates needs to be available from more than one vendor.
Sole source solutions are not solutions, they are traps. They may be acceptable for non-critical areas. Data which can only be recovered with a single product is NOT secure.
I don't know where you got that idea. Previously granted licenses operate under the license terms that applied at the time that they were granted. The copyright holder can change the terms for future licenses, but not for already granted licenses.
If the earlier license included a time limit or a revocation clause, then that could apply. But you can't retroactively and unilaterally change the terms of an already issued license.
I have a FORTRAN program from 1970 on punch cards. I don't have a reader, but I have a scanner. The image processing to recover the code from the hole patterns shouldn't be too difficult.
The real problem is that there are very few news shows. Most shows labeled 'News' are actually entertainment. Fox doesn't have news. MSNBC doesn't have news. CNN doesn't have news. They have entertainment shows.
I'll go with voting making a difference. I would much rather deal with the DMV than with AT&T.
The DMV used to be worse than the phone company. It got bad enough to become a campaign issue, and the politicians who promised to fix it did what they promised. I can do most of my business with the DMV over the Internet. If I need to visit their office, I can make an appointment. The last time I went in, the person I dealt with was pleasant and went out of his way to help solve my problem.
AT&T's web site is useless. The only way to report an outage is over the phone, which may be a bit difficult when the phone isn't working.
Elections and market forces work when there is competition; neither elections nor markets are good in themselves, they are merely mechanisms that allow competition to work. Regulation is needed to counter other anticompetitive forces. If there is strong competition, less regulation is needed. Some only see regulation as interfering with the market, but regulation can be used to counter other forces which are interfering with the market. Removing regulation doesn't remove interference with the market, it only removes one type of interference and leaves the others. The Wall Street Journal usually sides with those who favor interfering with the market to suppress competition, as long as it results in more wealth in the right hands.
If you don't think elections matter, then you need to get more involved in primary elections. That's where the competition is strongest, and you can make a difference. The 2008 Presidential race wasn't decided when Obama beat McCain, it was when Obama beat Clinton. I live in a Republican county in a Democratic state, and nothing I do is likely to change that. But my vote can decide which Democrat runs against which Republican.
tl;dr version: Elections and markets are tools for enabling competition, and are only good when they serve that end. When they don't, they need to be fixed. They are means to a goal, not goals themselves.
Do you really think that a local newspaper lost sales to an advocacy group in another city? People in Las Vegas chose to wait for a later copy of the article somewhere else, instead of the earlier version surrounded by other articles of local interest?
Context matters. It is possible that LVRJ lost no sales at all.
Microsoft dominates the business desktop and business server markets. They make boatloads of money.
But that has nothing to do with the article, which is about the consumer market. Microsoft is not doing well there, with the possible exception of the Xbox. The Xbox is kicking Sony's ass, but that's damning with faint praise. I wouldn't call the Xbox a failure, but I wouldn't call it success, either. The long-term profitability could go either way. Have they made up the earlier losses yet?
Microsoft had the browser market, got complacent, and lost control over the future of the web. They were making good progress in phones, and they got complacent, and they lost control over the high-margin portion of the market.
That's the key: margins. Profits are how you measure success, not market share. Market share is a strategy, not a goal. Microsoft has very, very nice profits in the business sector, thanks to Windows 7 and Office. And poor profits in the consumer sector.
That's a problem. Apple has shown that there is good money to be made in the consumer sector. Nintendo is making good money in the consumer sector. Microsoft isn't. That would be OK if they had decided to focus on the business sector and walk away from the consumer sector, like IBM got out of the consumer and business personal computer markets. The problem is that Microsoft has pursued the consumer market and mostly failed.
That raises questions about leadership. Ballmer's responsible for every Microsoft product, business and consumer. Microsoft has the talent and money to develop whatever he wants. So the lack of success in the consumer area has to be blamed on a failure of leadership. And that leadership extends to the business side. Is Microsoft's success there due to good decisions, or is it due to inertia and decisions made long ago?
IBM owned the computer market, back when computers were so expensive that they were shared by all departments. Technology made smaller, cheaper computers possible, and the minicomputer was created. IBM overlooked that, but DEC didn't, and DEC owned the departmental computer market. VMS ruled. Then came the microprocessor, which made the personal computer possible. DEC missed that. Microsoft didn't.
Now, systems-on-chip are here, and small, portable appliances are everywhere. And Microsoft has missed that. Businesses will continue to use desktops and laptops for many years, but the tasks that most home computers are used for can be done with other devices, and that trend is growing.
Yes, I see Microsoft as a dying brand in the consumer market. They could become a dying brand in the business market, but ten years later. Will they become a IBM, who brought in new leadership and changed direction? Or will they become the next DEC?
You've assumed that the author does far more work than the publisher. More, but not far more. The publisher pays for the editing, typesetting, proofreading, and marketing.
If you want to see what authors create without collaborating with editors, check the Internet for fan-fiction, erotica, and other self-published works. A few authors can pull it off. Most need guidance.
This work applies to all published works, electronic and printed. The man in the street greatly over-estimates the cost of printing and distribution, and greatly under-estimates the cost of taking an author's draft and turning it into a published work. And the collaboration may begin well before the draft is written.
Sure, the music business is distorted in the manner you describe. But your understanding of book publishing is flawed, as you leave out large quantities of creative work not done by the author. The creators do get the the majority of the profits, but some of them work for publishers.
tl;dr - Publishing a book takes many people, not just the author. Oddly enough, all of those other people want to be paid.
The usual measure for aircraft is quantity of fuel per hour, not per distance. And the fuel may be measured by weight, not volume, since that's more important in determining range and runway lengths.
Nothing contrived about it. Many families have a pickup or van (for work) and a compact for commuting. Replacing the pickup will save more gasoline than replacing the compact.
The cost of the pickup and compact don't need to be the same. The pickup probably costs more, but the fuel savings are greater. Neither replacement is likely to pay for itself on fuel savings alone, but the impact of fuel economy needs to be understood when replacements are needed for other reasons.
The article raises the point that the common way to measure fuel economy in the US makes it harder to understand the economic impact. We should switch to the European approach of listing the quantity of fuel used for a given distance. It doesn't need to be liters/100km, it can be gallons/10,000 miles. That would make it easy to estimate how much fuel you use in a year. It would make it easier to factor in the issues you raise, such as different distances for each vehicle and different costs.
Should we list fuel economy in a way that makes it easier to understand the impact of your issues, or the way that makes it harder?
The choices are to replace the first car with the first alternate, or to replace the second car with the second alternate. You're pointing out that replacing the first car with the second alternate saves the most, which is completely obvious. It's also not the question that was asked.
Which has more impact, replacing 1 with 1A, or replacing 2 with 2A? Getting the vehicles with the worst mileage off the road has the biggest impact. Replacing vehicles with good mileage with ones with better mileage is also good, but not as important.
Yes, his has a planetary geartrain with an IC engine and electric motors as inputs. The Prius has a planetary geartrain with an IC engine and electric motor as inputs. The difference is obvious.
HDHomeRunner - a small box with one Ethernet jack and two coax input jacks for antenna or cable. Every computer (and specialized playback devices) on your network can display TV.
Consumer electronics is clearly moving in the direction of including networking in all devices. I rarely watch TV live or get out a CD. All of my music is on a server on my network. All of the TV shows that I watch are on a server. Even my books are moving to the server; of the last dozen books I've read, all are on the server. Even my phone is on the network.
Accessories do not need to be IN the computer, they need to be on the network.
I have a tablet (Nokia n800) and a netbook (eee pc900a). I read books on the tablet, not on the netbook. The netbook keyboard gets in the way, it's not plus, it's a minus for that use. I thought that the larger screen on the netbook would be better for reading, but it turns out that the tablet is easier to hold in one hand and that's more important than the larger screen. Part of that is that the n800 screen has incredible pixel density; the resolutions are similar in spite of the difference in size - 800x480 vs 1024x600.
Form factor and ease of use are more important than bullet lists of features and specs. I use my tablet more than my netbook.
One does many tasks with some sacrifice in comfort and usability, the other does a few things well. There's a place for both. Just as neither truly replaces a desktop or phone.
I once took my Nokia n800 tablet on vacation instead of my notebook. It did everything I needed, and because it fits in a pocket, I had it with me at times where I would have left the notebook behind. The tablet was fine for reading email, which is all I need on vacation. Writing emails takes place at work or at home, where I have desktops with large screens and good keyboards. I later got a netbook, and discovered that it isn't a substitute for the Nokia. I read books on the tablet, not on the netbook. I listen to music on the tablet, not on the netbook. They don't compete, they are in different categories.
Outside of home and office, pocket devices may be the best fit. The iPad seems to be designed as a portable device for within the home; too big to carry everywhere, but just right for moving from kitchen to living room to bedroom. Notebooks have a similar set of compromises: too big to carry everywhere, too small to use as a primary display for serious work, and too expensive compared to desktops.
Budget permitting, I'd like a device in each of those form factors. If I could only have one, then it would be a notebook. But I can have more than one. I know people who don't need pocket devices, I know people who don't need desktops, I know people who never move their notebooks. I'm glad we have more choices now, because each category is the best choice for someone.
That's the point - bypass the middleman's sales overhead and profit.
On one hand, Company A buys software from Company B, indirectly funding the development of the software. If Company A wants changes or new features, they can beg and plead for them, and they might get them. Company A will indirectly pay for development at Company B whether or not they get the changes they want. Company B will then sell the software, possibly incorporating Company A's ideas and improvements, to all of Company A's competitors. Company B's customers pay the cost of the development, plus the cost of sales (marketing, commissions, etc.), plus a markup.
On the other hand, Company A hires developers to improve software that others have made freely available. They get exactly the changes they want. Company A's competitors also get those changes, but the reverse is true: Company A gets Company C's improvements. Both companies find this agreeable because neither can gain an advantage through the software, and both have reduced the cost of developing it. Company A has cut out the middlemen, avoiding the cost of sales and profits extracted by Company B.
You can't gain an advantage over your competition by buying your software from a third party, because your competitor can buy it, too. You can't gain an advantage over your competition by hiring developers to write open source software, because your competitor can dowload it, too. There's no difference between open source software and third party commercial closed source software as far as advantage over a competitor. The only way to use software as a competitive differentiator is to develop it internally, keep it closed, don't sell it, and pay the high cost of developing for a single customer - yourself.
In economic terms, software is a complementary good. Intel sells processors, which are not useful without software. But every dollar spent on software is a dollar that isn't spent on processors. Red Hat is in a similar situation; they sell support, not software, and giving away software makes money available for support.
The economics are simple. Any software that has a large enough base to support sales in binary form has a large enough base to support shared development under open source licenses with a lower overhead. Selling binaries is a temporary aberration caused by network effects during the initial growth of the market. As the market matures, sales of mass market software will decline.
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I agree with your point about distribution. However, that misses my point regarding the practical effects.
If test code was infringed, then Google would be required to stop distributing it, and pay Oracle for any damage done. Which might not be much; even if it is, Google can afford to pay.
If infringing code was shipped in phones, then the sale of those phones can be blocked. If the phones don't contain infringing code, then they can ship. That's the critical issue for Oracle, Google, phone manufacturers, and buyers of phones.
Please name one Android device that ships with this code.
I'm looking for clarity regarding the impact of any possible infringement. Willful infringement of code central to Android devices could stop shipments. Incidental infringement of peripheral code is another matter. It should be resolved, of course, but would have little impact on the market.
Do Android devices contain infringing code? Do they contain infringing code that could be easily replaced? Or do they contain infringing code that is central to their operation?
The influence of the mind on the body is interesting, and well worth studying. What's not worth studying are the bullshit explanations that people come up with to psychically move money from the gullible to the promoters.
Here are examples from a more easily studied area: perception of sound. The placebo effect is easily demonstrated with various audiophile gadgets and gimmicks. Make a change and it really does sound better. Or, more accurately, you perceive that it sounds better, because you expected it to sound better. But when blind tests are done, the difference can't be detected. Except when it is, which is why the change has to be hidden not only from the subject, but from the experimenter, to prevent the experimenter from unknowingly influencing the subject. It's amazing how people can no longer tell the difference between two devices when the tests are double-blind.
Some differences are real, that is, can be reliably detected using double blind tests. But the explanations may be nonsense. Some people prefer vinyl to digital, or vacuum tubes to solid state. There's nothing wrong with preferences. But to claim that one is more accurate than the other is not preference, that's a claim that can be measured. Vinyl has limited accuracy, easily exceeded by inexpensive digital audio devices. It's OK to prefer the sound of LPs, it's not OK to claim that they are more accurate. It is well known that some sounds may be more pleasing with certain changes made; boost the mid-bass, add a little second harmonic, and so forth.
The placebo effect is real. Homeopathy is a scam that uses the placebo effect. We can have the benefits of the placebo effect without rip-offs and mumbo-jumbo.
It's not just technical vs social. You can have the wrong social solution to a social problem. For example, drugs are a public health problem and need a public health solution. The law enforcement problem is a direct consequence of not having a good public health solution, and not a direct consequence of drug use.
For those who can't get past their ideology, here's what that means. A heroin user damages his own health, but given controlled access to a clean supply, can live out his life as a productive member of society. Not as productive, and not as long a life, so helping people kick their addictions will pay for itself. But even if they stay addicted, the harm is limited.
But we make heroin illegal, so the addict pays higher prices for a dirty supply. We make it hard to get syringes, so he shares a dirty needle and gets hepatitis or HIV, making his life shorter and less productive, and putting him into hospital emergency rooms at a very high cost. Prices are high, so he steals your computer from your car.
Note that drugs didn't make him steal your computer, the high price of *illegal* drugs lead him to steal your computer. Give him free heroin, and he wouldn't steal. Plus, the high price makes it profitable for organized crime to deal drugs.
You can't solve problems when the problem is framed incorrectly. There are vested interests who put special effort into misstating problems so that they can offer a solution. Government contractors do it, cops do it, prison guards do it. Every industry, every special interest does it. The key is to NOT accept their definition of the problem.
A patent troll is a company that does not sell any products using its own patents.
Companies that make things often need patents from other companies. Company A and Company B each hold patents. Both companies make products that use patents from both companies. Neither can charge absurd royalties, because the other company can retaliate by withholding their own patents. They need each other, so they must come to agreement on reasonable royalties.
A company that doesn't make and sell any products doesn't need anyone else's patents for those products that they don't make. Such a company is called a patent troll. They don't need anyone else's patents, so no one has leverage to negotiate reasonable royalties. The troll can charge extortionate royalties without fearing retaliation.
Patent troll does not address issues of patent validity or merit. It refers to companies whose sole income is royalties and not the sale of products. Hiring experts has nothing to do with being a patent troll, the quality of the research has nothing to do with being a patent troll. The only issue is whether the company sells anything that uses patents from other people.
Crypto technology of all sorts may be very good, or very bad. The question is who controls it.
Everyone, individuals or companies, should be able to secure their own data. But that's not enough. They also need to be able to issue their own keys or certificates. And the technology that uses those keys or certificates needs to be available from more than one vendor.
Sole source solutions are not solutions, they are traps. They may be acceptable for non-critical areas. Data which can only be recovered with a single product is NOT secure.
I don't know where you got that idea. Previously granted licenses operate under the license terms that applied at the time that they were granted. The copyright holder can change the terms for future licenses, but not for already granted licenses.
If the earlier license included a time limit or a revocation clause, then that could apply. But you can't retroactively and unilaterally change the terms of an already issued license.
I have a FORTRAN program from 1970 on punch cards. I don't have a reader, but I have a scanner. The image processing to recover the code from the hole patterns shouldn't be too difficult.
The real problem is that there are very few news shows. Most shows labeled 'News' are actually entertainment. Fox doesn't have news. MSNBC doesn't have news. CNN doesn't have news. They have entertainment shows.
I'll go with voting making a difference. I would much rather deal with the DMV than with AT&T.
The DMV used to be worse than the phone company. It got bad enough to become a campaign issue, and the politicians who promised to fix it did what they promised. I can do most of my business with the DMV over the Internet. If I need to visit their office, I can make an appointment. The last time I went in, the person I dealt with was pleasant and went out of his way to help solve my problem.
AT&T's web site is useless. The only way to report an outage is over the phone, which may be a bit difficult when the phone isn't working.
Elections and market forces work when there is competition; neither elections nor markets are good in themselves, they are merely mechanisms that allow competition to work. Regulation is needed to counter other anticompetitive forces. If there is strong competition, less regulation is needed. Some only see regulation as interfering with the market, but regulation can be used to counter other forces which are interfering with the market. Removing regulation doesn't remove interference with the market, it only removes one type of interference and leaves the others. The Wall Street Journal usually sides with those who favor interfering with the market to suppress competition, as long as it results in more wealth in the right hands.
If you don't think elections matter, then you need to get more involved in primary elections. That's where the competition is strongest, and you can make a difference. The 2008 Presidential race wasn't decided when Obama beat McCain, it was when Obama beat Clinton. I live in a Republican county in a Democratic state, and nothing I do is likely to change that. But my vote can decide which Democrat runs against which Republican.
tl;dr version: Elections and markets are tools for enabling competition, and are only good when they serve that end. When they don't, they need to be fixed. They are means to a goal, not goals themselves.
Sequent patented read-copy-update, now owned by IBM. There may be others. But none from Novell, as far as I know.
Do you really think that a local newspaper lost sales to an advocacy group in another city? People in Las Vegas chose to wait for a later copy of the article somewhere else, instead of the earlier version surrounded by other articles of local interest?
Context matters. It is possible that LVRJ lost no sales at all.
Not all that different. While he works for Obama, Ray LaHood is a Republican.
This issue does not follow party lines. Both parties have their control-freak members, and both have guardians of civil liberties.
Microsoft dominates the business desktop and business server markets. They make boatloads of money.
But that has nothing to do with the article, which is about the consumer market. Microsoft is not doing well there, with the possible exception of the Xbox. The Xbox is kicking Sony's ass, but that's damning with faint praise. I wouldn't call the Xbox a failure, but I wouldn't call it success, either. The long-term profitability could go either way. Have they made up the earlier losses yet?
Microsoft had the browser market, got complacent, and lost control over the future of the web. They were making good progress in phones, and they got complacent, and they lost control over the high-margin portion of the market.
That's the key: margins. Profits are how you measure success, not market share. Market share is a strategy, not a goal. Microsoft has very, very nice profits in the business sector, thanks to Windows 7 and Office. And poor profits in the consumer sector.
That's a problem. Apple has shown that there is good money to be made in the consumer sector. Nintendo is making good money in the consumer sector. Microsoft isn't. That would be OK if they had decided to focus on the business sector and walk away from the consumer sector, like IBM got out of the consumer and business personal computer markets. The problem is that Microsoft has pursued the consumer market and mostly failed.
That raises questions about leadership. Ballmer's responsible for every Microsoft product, business and consumer. Microsoft has the talent and money to develop whatever he wants. So the lack of success in the consumer area has to be blamed on a failure of leadership. And that leadership extends to the business side. Is Microsoft's success there due to good decisions, or is it due to inertia and decisions made long ago?
IBM owned the computer market, back when computers were so expensive that they were shared by all departments. Technology made smaller, cheaper computers possible, and the minicomputer was created. IBM overlooked that, but DEC didn't, and DEC owned the departmental computer market. VMS ruled. Then came the microprocessor, which made the personal computer possible. DEC missed that. Microsoft didn't.
Now, systems-on-chip are here, and small, portable appliances are everywhere. And Microsoft has missed that. Businesses will continue to use desktops and laptops for many years, but the tasks that most home computers are used for can be done with other devices, and that trend is growing.
Yes, I see Microsoft as a dying brand in the consumer market. They could become a dying brand in the business market, but ten years later. Will they become a IBM, who brought in new leadership and changed direction? Or will they become the next DEC?
Atoms are low power only compared to Intel's other x86 chips. Compared to typical controllers for portable devices, they use too much power.
You've assumed that the author does far more work than the publisher. More, but not far more. The publisher pays for the editing, typesetting, proofreading, and marketing.
If you want to see what authors create without collaborating with editors, check the Internet for fan-fiction, erotica, and other self-published works. A few authors can pull it off. Most need guidance.
This work applies to all published works, electronic and printed. The man in the street greatly over-estimates the cost of printing and distribution, and greatly under-estimates the cost of taking an author's draft and turning it into a published work. And the collaboration may begin well before the draft is written.
Sure, the music business is distorted in the manner you describe. But your understanding of book publishing is flawed, as you leave out large quantities of creative work not done by the author. The creators do get the the majority of the profits, but some of them work for publishers.
tl;dr - Publishing a book takes many people, not just the author. Oddly enough, all of those other people want to be paid.
The usual measure for aircraft is quantity of fuel per hour, not per distance. And the fuel may be measured by weight, not volume, since that's more important in determining range and runway lengths.
Nothing contrived about it. Many families have a pickup or van (for work) and a compact for commuting. Replacing the pickup will save more gasoline than replacing the compact.
The cost of the pickup and compact don't need to be the same. The pickup probably costs more, but the fuel savings are greater. Neither replacement is likely to pay for itself on fuel savings alone, but the impact of fuel economy needs to be understood when replacements are needed for other reasons.
The article raises the point that the common way to measure fuel economy in the US makes it harder to understand the economic impact. We should switch to the European approach of listing the quantity of fuel used for a given distance. It doesn't need to be liters/100km, it can be gallons/10,000 miles. That would make it easy to estimate how much fuel you use in a year. It would make it easier to factor in the issues you raise, such as different distances for each vehicle and different costs.
Should we list fuel economy in a way that makes it easier to understand the impact of your issues, or the way that makes it harder?
The choices are to replace the first car with the first alternate, or to replace the second car with the second alternate. You're pointing out that replacing the first car with the second alternate saves the most, which is completely obvious. It's also not the question that was asked.
Which has more impact, replacing 1 with 1A, or replacing 2 with 2A? Getting the vehicles with the worst mileage off the road has the biggest impact. Replacing vehicles with good mileage with ones with better mileage is also good, but not as important.
Yes, his has a planetary geartrain with an IC engine and electric motors as inputs. The Prius has a planetary geartrain with an IC engine and electric motor as inputs. The difference is obvious.
You should note that the HDHomeRunners don't support analog IIRC...
True, they don't support analog. On the other hand, there are no longer any analog broadcasts in my area.
My TV is an early HD model, and only has an analog tuner. It now gets zero channels. My HDHomeRunner gets about 60 different program streams.
HDHomeRunner - a small box with one Ethernet jack and two coax input jacks for antenna or cable. Every computer (and specialized playback devices) on your network can display TV.
Consumer electronics is clearly moving in the direction of including networking in all devices. I rarely watch TV live or get out a CD. All of my music is on a server on my network. All of the TV shows that I watch are on a server. Even my books are moving to the server; of the last dozen books I've read, all are on the server. Even my phone is on the network.
Accessories do not need to be IN the computer, they need to be on the network.
I have a tablet (Nokia n800) and a netbook (eee pc900a). I read books on the tablet, not on the netbook. The netbook keyboard gets in the way, it's not plus, it's a minus for that use. I thought that the larger screen on the netbook would be better for reading, but it turns out that the tablet is easier to hold in one hand and that's more important than the larger screen. Part of that is that the n800 screen has incredible pixel density; the resolutions are similar in spite of the difference in size - 800x480 vs 1024x600.
Form factor and ease of use are more important than bullet lists of features and specs. I use my tablet more than my netbook.
One does many tasks with some sacrifice in comfort and usability, the other does a few things well. There's a place for both. Just as neither truly replaces a desktop or phone.
I once took my Nokia n800 tablet on vacation instead of my notebook. It did everything I needed, and because it fits in a pocket, I had it with me at times where I would have left the notebook behind. The tablet was fine for reading email, which is all I need on vacation. Writing emails takes place at work or at home, where I have desktops with large screens and good keyboards. I later got a netbook, and discovered that it isn't a substitute for the Nokia. I read books on the tablet, not on the netbook. I listen to music on the tablet, not on the netbook. They don't compete, they are in different categories.
Outside of home and office, pocket devices may be the best fit. The iPad seems to be designed as a portable device for within the home; too big to carry everywhere, but just right for moving from kitchen to living room to bedroom. Notebooks have a similar set of compromises: too big to carry everywhere, too small to use as a primary display for serious work, and too expensive compared to desktops.
Budget permitting, I'd like a device in each of those form factors. If I could only have one, then it would be a notebook. But I can have more than one. I know people who don't need pocket devices, I know people who don't need desktops, I know people who never move their notebooks. I'm glad we have more choices now, because each category is the best choice for someone.
That's the point - bypass the middleman's sales overhead and profit.
On one hand, Company A buys software from Company B, indirectly funding the development of the software. If Company A wants changes or new features, they can beg and plead for them, and they might get them. Company A will indirectly pay for development at Company B whether or not they get the changes they want. Company B will then sell the software, possibly incorporating Company A's ideas and improvements, to all of Company A's competitors. Company B's customers pay the cost of the development, plus the cost of sales (marketing, commissions, etc.), plus a markup.
On the other hand, Company A hires developers to improve software that others have made freely available. They get exactly the changes they want. Company A's competitors also get those changes, but the reverse is true: Company A gets Company C's improvements. Both companies find this agreeable because neither can gain an advantage through the software, and both have reduced the cost of developing it. Company A has cut out the middlemen, avoiding the cost of sales and profits extracted by Company B.
You can't gain an advantage over your competition by buying your software from a third party, because your competitor can buy it, too. You can't gain an advantage over your competition by hiring developers to write open source software, because your competitor can dowload it, too. There's no difference between open source software and third party commercial closed source software as far as advantage over a competitor. The only way to use software as a competitive differentiator is to develop it internally, keep it closed, don't sell it, and pay the high cost of developing for a single customer - yourself.
In economic terms, software is a complementary good. Intel sells processors, which are not useful without software. But every dollar spent on software is a dollar that isn't spent on processors. Red Hat is in a similar situation; they sell support, not software, and giving away software makes money available for support.
The economics are simple. Any software that has a large enough base to support sales in binary form has a large enough base to support shared development under open source licenses with a lower overhead. Selling binaries is a temporary aberration caused by network effects during the initial growth of the market. As the market matures, sales of mass market software will decline.