Now, if only it could warm your fingers which would be frozen so stiff they'd be useless for typing. :-)

This is all obviously for attention and is merely a token to the public of Toyota's commitment for being 'green'. The actual 'good' done by planting even an infinite number of flowers around their manufacturer facility is infinitely negligible even on a regional scale.

How *ever* do we intend to qualify everyone in the U.S. populace as a terrorist if we can't even keep up with the rate of population growth?

Slackers!

At this rate, I'll take nearly 5 centuries to burn our current citizenry at the stake. I'm sure we'll have many more people by then...

Keep doing that and you'll have some problems soon enough... I've seen a tremendous amount of harm done by these things and I don't care how 'good' it is, it is going to mess up eventually. When it does, you're going to be wondering where your start bar went or why you're getting some nagging error after opening Windows Explorer.

The worst part is reg scanners don't make your system unbootable where you can just system restore your old registry; rather, it just gradually creeps problems into your install that you never notice until you can't go back far enough to fix them. ;)

Navigon. 1.2GB

Yeah, naturally, companies don't want competition. If they *do* have competition, they'll do what they can to 'beat' it. That behavior brings out the best and worst in everything and everyone (the latter is unfortunate, but the prior hopefully makes it worth it).

You see things in a different way no doubt, but I don't have much trouble envisioning a successful MegaCompany in a fresh new market with such an iron hold on goods/services that they simply can't be competed against.

As an example, if MegaCompany has been peddling their stuff for awhile, they already get lots of business, get the best deals, have the most experience, have the most credibility and trust etc... There's a point where that gap becomes so wide that no start up could ever compete with that.

So, if it costs me twice as much to operate, what can I do?

Well, I can try to offer a better product/service. But, it'll be more expensive for me to do that than MegaCompany. Even if I do take a huge risk and spend everything I have to get this off of the ground, MegaCompany will undercut me by offering their own premium service for less. They can do it for less, so why wouldn't they?

I can try to innovate and replace MegaCompany's service/product by offering something that is not only superior, but perhaps a novel alternative. This might work if MegaCompany is resting on their laurels (as many monopolies would do, I'm sure). But any decent, intentional monopoly would still be looking into better ways to do things. As long as the threat of competition exists, this advancement ensures their future. Needless to say, innovation usually costs money though and MegaCompany has plenty of money, so they could already hire the 'best and brightest' who will be R&Ding in cutting edge facilities with plenty of resources. I might have some exceptional ideas, but there is a far greater chance *their* exceptional ideas will come first... and they have the capital to make sure they become reality first too.

I can offer the same or better service or product they do in a different area. Unfortunately, if MegaCompany is already well established, they can just plop down a new store or facility to undercut me if they choose to. I'm at their mercy in this respect.

What's left? Well, I could get lucky and discover something that replaces MegaCompany's product/service that is superior. I don't have as much funding or the best people working on new ideas, but I *might* be able to discover something that MegaCompany has missed with all of their resources.. I really don't like the odds though.

And perhaps, without competition, MegaCompany may be screwing up with enormously high prices or really bad service.. That might give me an 'in' as a startup. However, when I do start competing against MegaCompany, they have the advantage on practically everything. If they want to compete with me based on service or compete me with based on price, then they aren't going to have a problem doing that. Everything in capitalism revolves around money and whoever has the most money CAN offer the best service, the best price and the best products. Not every company does, but they CAN and any MegaCompany with competent leadership will ensure that they do so that no one else is able to compete in that market.

The *threat* of competition may help keep MegaCompany in check. They'll offer reasonable prices and decent products... just enough to undercut competition. But it'll never be as good as if we had real, viable choices. I also suppose a benevolent monopoly probably wouldn't be all that bad. You'd get the best prices and the best service etc... and they would spend their excess on innovation and all that jazz, but we all know that won't happen and what you get is incredibly rich people on top, poor people on the bottom and just enough reasonableness on their pricing, products and service to keep the little guys from competing.

It seems pretty hopeless, IMO. I And sure, know plenty of scenarios aren't like this, but some are... And just one is bad enough. Just imagine if you only had one store (Wal-Mart) or one phone company (AT&T). I *really* don't like the sound of that.

Based on actual history, you speak quite a bit of truth. However, it's not *only* created through government intrusion.

When a company is so successful that it can "get it" and "do it" for less... when a company offers something over an infrastructure that is so expensive and offering a product/service on a huge, national scale is the bar that has been set... That company will be so incredibly entrenched that it will never be rooted out by a startup. Ever.

It's the reason 100% free market capitalism can't work on it's own. It needs a little help from the big G, sometimes.

I totally agree the government effed up in the past and basically made AT&T a monopoly. They also continue to eff up in many ways, but without *some* government regulation, you'd STILL be stuck with AT&T anyway. In fact, their actual goal was to be *the* only telecommunications provider back in the early 1900s as they gobbled up the little companies in buyouts. AT&T would have been able to do it too, even without the government's help. I have no reason to believe AT&T or any other company in that position would feel any differently about the Internet.

Consider NPR a private organization with a (very small) government subsidy. Does everything with a subsidy automatically become public domain?

I think the GP was making the point that some 'evils' are greater than others.

Obviously though, if you want to choose the greatest evil, always go for the option with Cthulhu.

To be fair, MojoRilla's argument was it's one of the "best smartphones out there", not the highest quality and certainly not the most reliable.

The iPhone has managed to put itself in the hands of many people who've never had a very nice phone, so I think the iPhone is far better quality than a large portion of its user base is used to and comparable to other phones in its class.

For what it is worth, I believe Apple's selling points are in this order: Features, quality, price (the last two are very close, for better or worse). On the flip side, I feel many computer manufacturers are price first, features second, quality third. But of course, most companies have 'cheap' and 'expensive' lines of computers, so that varies. One thing I can say though, is Apple support is far superior to any support you'll get from another computer manufacturer these days.

As much sense as that makes and as true as it may be, those who exploit will always be one step ahead of those who patch the exploits.

Har har har....

It's imaginary anyway. If we all pretend it doesn't dilute the economy, it won't. :-)

... and you must be one of those "right wing wackos" that think eliminating spending will force everything to fix itself.

Clinging to ANY political ideology to 'fix' social issues is shortsighted and damaging. The "right" is just as bad as the "left" in many respects. Oddly, even the extremely different view points between both often come full circle.

Example: You verbally chastised the GP for being a left-wing nut because he says problems can be solved with money. What would the right-wing nut solution be? The "free market" doesn't work without money, you know...

Ironically, I think left-wing nut ideals could much more likely be sustained without money... much more so than right-wing nut ideals (eg. communism vs. laissez-faire capitalism). In fact, the very idea that money fixes everyone's problems is deeply ingrained into conservatism because that's what any free (or remotely free) market depends on.

I believe this is very close NASA's budget, if that bears relation.

Since you hate left-winger nutters: ... or better yet, let's lower taxes on everyone's goods (especially companies) and sell more, generating economic prosperity through more private spending. Then, when the government has less money to work with, we'll cut funding to programs that actually regulate those goods and leave that up to the private companies who would never, ever, ever think of giving people hazardous or shoddy goods to turn a quick buck. Right? Of course I'm right. :-)

That's always the question isn't it. I bet "they" would come up with something, like the idea of lotting off, mining and advertising on the moon for profit. It's not feasible now, but eventually, it will be economical. The long-term payoff is very probable with a large enough investment now. Just imagine "Coca-Cola" branded on the face of the moon. ;-)

The "resources" we need go well beyond iron, nickel and rock. :-)

I'm not sure I agree with all of this 'desperation' anyway. We still have *plenty* of resources to work with, IMO. What is it that we're out of that has everyone so scared? It isn't like we are going to run out of food, water or spaces to live in next 20 years or such.

Maybe by 2100 we'll have some problems, but that gives us plenty of time to work on our local and extra-planetary affairs. I mean, I'm sure we'll come up with plenty of better ways to rape the planet by then and squeeze every last bit material and energy we can from it before it implodes in the coming years. ;-)

Although the GP may not realize that they use the same kernels (Even if there are some artificial limitations for lesser versions), I think it is fair to accept the very idea of using XP/Vista *Home* signifies Infoworld's failure to produce a meaningful analysis.

However, Infoworld did in fact use XP Professional and Vista Ultimate, so there isn't much of a discussion to be had. :-(