World: r3wp

[Disclaimer: The above is just an alternative explanation. I haven't 
studied the actual history of floppy disks at all, and I never ran 
a computer store.]

I think many manufacturers choose to lower the quality of their products, 
because they learn how to produce an almost identical product at 
a lower cost. Philips VCRs went from being innovative and high quality 
in the 80s and early 90s and slowly became of poorer and poorer quality 
over the years until they became as unreliable as the cheapest crap 
you could find. But I bet it would cost about 1/10 to produce that 
crap VCR than the old high quality one. Finetuning a production line 
down to the last dime is a science in itself and you can bet they 
take advantage of it.

Maybe you could compare it to floppies. Floppies were a dying technology 
an so the priority for producing good ones was just lowered.

Well, my 2cents, after doing procurement consulting for 9 years now.

Cheaper = worse quality  is an equation that doesn't hold always. 
The main causes for lower prices while keeping the same quality are:

1. productivity gains: You use better machines, less scrap, less 
time -> lower costs per part

2. Learning effects: Suppliers learn how something can be produced 
better, with less effort etc. For example injection molding parts 
are optimized mainly through this.

3. Economy of scale: If I produce a product in 1 shift, but can get 
contracts for a 2nd and 3rd shift I can dramatically lower my costs 
-> lower product price.

Lowering the quality is a very bad option for a supplier. Especially 
you can only do this if you sell directly to the end-market. Otherwise 
your client won't accept lowe quality.

Nevertheless you have scrap out there and the chances are high with 
real no-names. But this comes from a lot of them think, some products 
are easy to manufactor. But this is not the case. Building a real 
good washing machine like a Miele is everything than simple. Even 
if you disassemble the machine you are not able to clone it.

...interesting, why not robert? I never understood
this fact and heard it many times by business owner
when talking about the danger of cloned products.

Robert, I agree that purposely lowering quality of products only 
works with end-users.

TomBon, to clone a Miele, one would need the same materials, production 
processes and suppliers as Miele use. Basically you would need their 
production facilities and engineers. And I know that people's image 
of Miele is of their reliability, not their product design or by 
them having low prices. Reliability is the hardest part to clone, 
so people would naturally be suspicious about a cloned Miele. Cloned, 
cheaper spare parts may be a different matter.

One place where buying a clone might be a serious mistake is the 
case for some Chinese luxury cars. They look like any other luxury 
car, but are built on 30-40 year old chassis frames using substandard 
quality steel and are some of the worst performers in crash tests, 
and many warnings have been issued against buying them. They don't 
yet have the capacity to produce cars that live up to modern safety 
standards. The cars are not directly clones, but it's enough to get 
confused by, if you want a big fancy car.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090101614.html
New google browser ... goodbye Firefox??

New google browser that uses multiple cores and javascript threads 
with sandboxing between tabs.

is this the end of FF?

And new platform to develop applications I guess.

End of FF? Hardly - FF is an established platform already - some 
40% in Europe already - very nice result, when fighting preinstalled 
IE is a problem. FF itself is an extensible platform. Then there 
is also Opera, with its widgets - can you see revolution happening 
here? Google's power is over-estimated imo. Their Android was supposed 
to be a revolution too, but I am not sure they will win much of mobile 
appliances too ....

I like safari that's amazing stable and fast  ^___^. I have installed 
opera and firefox on my computer I  never use IE.

In some Video on demand sites I see a tendancy to use Windows media 
player plugin forcing you to use PCx86  with IE and nothing else 
...

for my LCD monitor I'm screwed ... LOL and that's literally that. 
Ok so I intented to disamble my LCD monitor but there is no screws 
to open it... I still wonder how to open it ...

there is Win media player for FF too (Windows)

Pekr yes but those site implement a javascript with version checking 
that launch the plugin only if the browser answer the right way

pekr try www.m6replay.fr for example

using firefox -> that's a plain and simple no welcome page you can't 
even acces the website content

M6replay is a VOD website to replay the series or emitions from the 
M6 TV channel wich is supposed to be view by a large number of people

yeeeeeeeeeepiiiiiiiii

I managed to open my lcd monitor ^^

it's  locked only by a cliping system and 6 screw hiden behin the 
pedestal

to know the lcd monitor mark I have to disasembly it fully  that's 
a chunghwha ^^

I identified clearly what condensor is dead  that the only 16V 1000 
µF on the board ....

the design is really cheap no redundance fixing it including the 
cost  of the tolls should cost me 9 euros  ^^

compared to the supply CM design of a LCD monitor from HP mine is 
like 10 times with less components

i think I will change the condensor to a 25V /1000µF

but even a regular 16V 1000µF would still do it  ^^ (since the components 
you by in details shop are from far a better quality than those the 
crafter use  ^^)

Google set to introduce its own browser

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSWEN771820080902

Umm... see the top of this page!

google browser is based on netscape design ?

Appears not.

an adaptation of IE ? lol

joke sorry ...

it's derived from lynx

it's doesn't  support REBOL  so i don't give a damn  :P

page 2 of the article Mozilla recently introduced its own upgraded 
browser, Firefox 3, and has collaborated with Google on a variety 
of technical issues, including a system for reporting software crashes 
and to make software browsers more secure.

so based on firefox  :P

well with all those browser on my computer I  will not have any space 
left to install games :P

plus carl who want to turn VID  into a webrowser T____T

It will have Gears built in...

Now only if we could write Gears Apps in rebol than I would use it.

gears apps are written in Java??