Slashdot Mirror
Less Might Be More
Quantum Skyline writes "Most of us are running on a newer Pentium 4/Athlon 64 box with lots of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive and a uber-sweet graphics card that pushes 100 FPS in Doom 3. Our parents are probably running an old Athlon 700 with half the RAM and a Rage128 videocard, and some think that's overkill while the parents think its not enough. Why debate this? DevHardware has an opinion piece on 'leaner computing' and the author thinks that less might be more." This reminds me of a modern desktop system I saw sitting in a store, running Windows XP just so that it could connect via a terminal to another server and run the store's application. It would seem that even an old VT100 would have sufficed, but someone was able to sell the store a full blown PC.
...Microsoft taketh away!
We are talking about Apple macs here right? ;)
Jonathanjk.com
yeah maybe a dumb terminal would suffice, but how would the clerk play doom3 while ignoring the customers?! It'd be unfair
... MS Levels of computer terminology?
;)
I'm having hard time understanding this article...
FYI, I still have my first-gen Power Mac G4 from 1999, which has outlasted three of its hard drives, two displays (a sony CRT and an Apple Studio display), the original video card, keyboard and mouse, and hp deskjet printer. This is the least problematic Mac I've owned yet.
Youngster!
AT&ROFLMAO
Personally I'm a fan of the AMD FX-53 with a 10,000 RPM SATA-150 drive GeForce 6800 and 2GB of DDR400* running a 2.6.8 Linux kernel and utilitizing 6+ desktops with at least 1 memory-hog running on each one. But that's me, I just like to leave all my programs running and switch to the desktop that has the one I need.
*the only part I don't have yet
Less is More!
Now who wants to trade my 486 and PII boxes for P4EE and AthlonFX??
Always a great idea to take productivity tips from guys posting on /.
*cough*
No, really.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
Jebus, you'd think they could apply the "less is more" concept to their advertising on that site. I could barely find the article through all the blinky and flashy ads, and the textads, and the banner ads, etc. I realize they need to make money off ads but that is plain overkill... an argument that parallels the one the article tries to make.
(yes, I know how to block them)
501 Not Implemented
on os x, anyway:
/usr/bin/less /usr/bin/more
$ ll -n $(which less; which more;)
-rwxr-xr-x 1 0 0 123204 27 May 16:13
-rwxr-xr-x 1 0 0 123204 27 May 16:13
so you see kids, sometimes less(1) is more(1)!
My windows box is compelte overkill (in theory), but I use every bit of it! Whenever a program freezes up, on a normal computer it would take a fraction of a second for that program to eat up all the available resources, but not on mine! On mine, it takes at least 5 seconds to max out.
Before you mod me funny, think, perhaps I was insightfully funny?
Bloatware -- it's not just for Microsoft anymore. Your typical latest SuSE and RedHats require 64MB of main memory or more, and god forbid you try running OOo on the thing. Still too much!
What to do for your granma's system? You want something with up-to-date kernel, a low-profile windowing system and a nice combination of office apps that don't chew up memory and disk like they were going out of style.
Run Uptodate Linux Everywhere is one place to look.
Vector Linux is another.
subscribe to the less is more principle
/usr/bin
$ ls -li
[...]
69687 -r-xr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96720 Dec 6 2003 less
69687 -r-xr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96720 Dec 6 2003 more
[...]
$ _
Correctamundo!
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
you replace a car every five years? MY GOD MAN! In my family we replace them at most every ten! Except when they are either toataled. Not that there is much difference when we are done with them, the last 3 cars we have replaced had to be TOWED away.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Is your workspace constantly bombarded with gamma radiation? I have a G4 from 99 with all the original hardware still in great shape. In addition, I've got a handfull of PII 266 boxen that were in heavy office use from 1997 to 2002. Now they've retired to miscellaneous server status, but still plug away faithfully on original hard disks/monitors/video cards/keyboards. Maybe you need better cooling in your office, or plug those leaky holes in the roof. Your situation sounds pretty alarming from a hardware point of view.
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
I have a 300MHz system that still runs. It would have been a 100Mhz system but my husband put a screwdriver through the motherboard when he was trying to do something or another and we couldn't find another 100 processor.
The amazing thing about this computer is, I used to smoke about a pack of cigarettes a night sitting in front of this computer with the case cover off. Plus, I was drinking one night and spilled a large rum-and-crystal-light into it (yes, with the case off). I didn't bother shutting it off, since it still seemed to be acting OK. A little while later, the CD-ROM started spitting in and out on its own. The computer still ran, though.
I guess I have upgraded the hard drives in it too...and the memory...and the abovementioned CD-ROM was an upgrade...so I guess this story is completely irrelevant...but I typed it so dammit, it's getting posted!
You have an IBM 704? Wow. That's amazing. Are you doing anything special to celebrate the anniversary?
also, you can't run seti@home on a vt100 :-)
Spending is better than mending.
Waiting for ad.doubleclick.net...
If your tire blows out, do you blame Ford?
Oh, er, umm... bad example.
No relation to Happy Monkey
No, the real geek has a webserver running on a Sega Dreamcast with a SATA hard drive.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
your unsupported anecdote is all the evidence I need.
Whippersnappers!
Now that you mention it -- yes! Yes, it is.
Sincerely,
Bruce Banner
Sucker!
- Signed, Texas!
sentence
I mean, 'Our parents are probably running an old Athlon 700 with half the RAM and a Rage128 videocard, and some think that's overkill while the parents think its not enough'???????????
Double quotation marks are typically used to quote someone, except when nested parenthesis are required. Also, one question mark is enough. If you'd like to indicate that you are shocked to be asking the question, some people like to double up the exclamation mark and the question mark. Didn't you know that?!
the demonic hardware from a 5th dimention paralell to ours?
dimension parallel
And when did all of us stumble across these great uber-machines?
"All of us" never do anything. "Us" is the third person form of "we". "We" can be the subject of a sentence, "us" cannot be the subject of a sentence. I won't even mention the bastardization of "über", the Deutsch which entered the English language with its current meaning as the result of the Nazi propaganda machine.
Cripes, I know journalism isn't Slashdots forte, but how this one even made frontpage in shambled state is an amazing feat in itself.
Amazing indeed. One need only look to the user comments to find helpful and friendly grammar corrections!
I think I need to increase my Soma intake. You people talking about using old things is making me nervous...
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Most Slashdotters probably have $50k in student loans, a mortgage (or equivalent rent, which is actually more expensive than a mortgage even in the short run since there are few tax breaks and no equity) in a major metropolitan area, a car payment and on average .75 kids instead of 2.5, since education and income have an inverse relation to birthrate, but they probably have 30% above average incomes and can write-off their computers as "tools," in effect making them roughly 20% cheaper at the end of the year than for those who buy them like Playstations.
My C64 boots off a Betamax tape drive that's powered by the potato battery I planted in 6th grade. I overclocked it or something to run Oregon Trail V, which totally rules all over Zork. AND it has a display mode that is capable of presenting over 30 colors. I guess that means your apples SUCK! Nyeah.
NYEAH!
"The Borba"
I have a computer desk from the 50's, does that count for anything? It still works great. I was thinking of upgrading it with a keyboard tray as they obviously did not need one back then. Another thought was to use some thermal grease and overclock the side drawer slides but I'd have no way to monitor the drawer opening speed. I'd hate for the drawer to fall victim to thermal runaway and crash to the floor.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Damn straight!
It's all about running out to Fry's every week like a fucking lemming!
And the brethren went away edified.
Really? Let me check this right now.
/bin/more /usr/bin/less /bin/more and /usr/bin/less differ
$ diff
Binary files
So the answer is a resounding "no". "less" is definitely *not* "more".
Hope that helps.
The article's author is an imbecile who doesn't realize that what he is prescribing would severely hurt the industry and the economy. Less money spent on computers would mean less R&D. Less R&D might mean the end of Moore's law. Now, why do you think computers have gotten so powerful and cheap so quickly? Because JOE SIXPACKS are paying for R&D.
By all means, buy the cheap systems for your spare room or whatever, but don't tell people to spend less on computers.
This is a troll, right?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
That proves everything. They have the same inode number -- they *are* the same file. Not identical streams of bits (which is all md5sum would prove) but the exact same magnetic spots on the hard disk.
Bah... I don't believe in inodes. Everyone knows that inodes aren't real. I think they are nothing more than an elaborate farce, concocted by Linus Torvalds to sell more Penguins(tm).
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Was the blinking lights. They were so cool. I know PC rice boxers are putting windows and colored lights, but they have no function. You used to be able single step the program counter and debug your program by looking at the values in the registers.
Ever since clock speeds went north of 1Mhz and computers lost their switches and blinking lights, we have been living in a world of abstractions.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.