the movie studios are generally better at understanding what it takes to make the experience and packaging the whole thing for the consumer. It makes it a better buy.
Exactly. Mod the above post up. I think for the longest time music publishers had it easy. Record artists tracks, stamp out a cd/record, sell, repeat. I feel that there has been increasingly less engagement between listeners and musicians in the past twenty years. Obviously I don't have anything to back this up.
boxen/bok'sn/ pl.n. [very common; by analogy with VAXen] Fanciful plural of box often encountered in the phrase `Unix boxen', used to describe commodity Unix hardware. The connotation is that any two Unix boxen are interchangeable.
So depending on your geek level, the plural of "box" is "boxen".:)
Wouldn't the box have to be Unix-based or at least associated with Unix to be pronounced "boxen" in plural? The definition above doesn't say that all computers should be called "boxen" when pluralized. Then again, I suppose all computers can run Unix (well, Linux) these days so this is probably a moot argument.
How would you define "good"? I bought an 802.11b card, and it works under win2k/XP w/the manufacturer's drivers. Heck XP even sees that it's a wireless network device and has special functionality [microsoft.com] for it. What more are you looking for?
I run WinXP on my laptop. I also have an AirPort AP and an Orinoco wireless card. When I first booted the laptop I didn't really know what drivers to install for the orinoco card. While I did google searches for XP drivers my roommate was messing around and inserted the orinoco card while the laptop's screen lid was down.
A few frustrated minutes (couldn't find the xp drivers at the time) later I grabbed the laptop to see what pre-loaded software was already on there, only to notice the orinoco card flashing away happily and a 11mbps dialog in the lower right corner.
I'm not the biggest fan of XP, but the brief minute of "holy shit it just....works" made my day.
I've lost track of the humber of technologies that were initially driven by porn.
Some would say this makes a lot of sense biologically. It's a bit of a reduction, but why do anything (read, build technology) unless it helps us survive and procreate? I'd say that porn is a expressional side-effect of the basic human need for sex.
But then again I'm sure all geeks, with better things to do such as recompiling their kernel, are above such simple things as procreation.:)
Programming skills and management skills are mutually-exclusive.
I find it very amusing that you can put a very hard mathematical rule to something as amorphous as skill-set. You might as well make other broad statements: computer geeks can't be athletes, athletes can't be artists, and artists can't be computer geeks -- you get my point.
As another poster mentioned these skill sets can be individually attained with competence. It may be harder to have both deep and broad skill-sets but people have done it. I've seen project managers shoot holes in database schemas then turn around and discuss scoping and business requirements over business lunches with clients.
I'm willing to bet that these project managers are the type that don't believe in arbitrary "rules" based on anecdotes like yours. The really successful people out there don't believe in mutually-exclusivity....they believe in creative navigation around obstacles and hard work to make projects work.
I'm a techie but I too often find that other developers try to reduce the world into neat little data structures and algorithms. This is a great attitude in a technical context such as building software, but when dealing with people and other "soft" things it just doesn't work.
I'd like to be able to _shop_ without having to explain why such material is indecent.
I may sound overly critical here, but it really sounds like you're just avoiding an uncomfortable situation. I guess in the US sex is a very taboo thing, whereas violence seems to be quite acceptable -- look at violence oriented toys/publications.
Now admittedly I am not a parent but I do know parents that have a very open attitude toward sex education. Rather than shielding their kids from racy scenes in movies and media they explain what's going on and talk about how it's something for "adult"s, much like staying up later than bedtime or going to work in the morning. I know this probably sounds like Jimbo's Dad in American Pie, but it's really not that awkward.
Now only the future will tell whether their children will grow up to be emotionally stable and respecting human beings, but I would wager a guess that their practices will help somewhat. Then again, I have no right to tell other people what the best way to raise children are. I imagine this is probably a moot point.
I just personally wish people in the US were less uptight about human sexuality in general. Europe in general is much more allowing in that aspect and I don't think it has had any harmful effects on society, though I have no numbers to back this up.
Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam, and others? Because all those tools have limitations that Ant's original author couldn't live with when developing software across multiple platforms. Make-like tools are inherently shell-based -- they evaluate a set of dependencies, then execute commands not unlike what you would issue in a shell. This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing any program for the OS that you are working on. However, this also means that you limit yourself to the OS, or at least the OS type such as Unix, that you are working on.
Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for any time has run into the dreaded tab problem. "Is my command not executing because I have a space in front of my tab!!!" said the original author of Ant way too many times. Tools like Jam took care of this to a great degree, but still have yet another format to use and remember.
Ant is different. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based commands, Ant is extended using Java classes. Instead of writing shell commands, the configuration files are XML-based, calling out a target tree where various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object that implements a particular Task interface.
Granted, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent by being able to construct a shell command such as `find . -name foo -exec rm {}`, but it gives you the ability to be cross platform -- to work anywhere and everywhere. And hey, if you really need to execute a shell command, Ant has an task that allows different commands to be executed based on the OS that it is executing on.
think making special-purpose distros are a good idea. If I can borrow a disk from a fiend, install it on a box and have everything I need to start creating music, this is a tremendously hassle-free to put their hardware to good use.
...
I just don't see how focusing an effort on specializing a distro has any bad effect on other, more general distros. It takes nothing away, just adds...
Agreed. I might add that people who actually make a living doing music/audio professionally are very used to hardware -- dedicated compressors, fx units, synth modules, etc. They don't want to mess around with a general purpose system (ie. a PC) unless the software does exactly what they want it to do.
I'm confident that musicians/audio-engineers would be happy with a Linux distro that did NOTHING but boot straight to the audio application (single user, etc), and have it do everything in a reliable manner. In a studio environment there's no need to check email or browse the web...the machine just needs to plug in and work with the other components (synth, dats, recording hardware, etc) without fail.
You also have to keep the target user in mind. Is it a high school music teacher or are we focusing on professional producers. Pro producer don't mind a sharp learning curve if there's a huge payoff in the end, such as unlimited control of sound, etc. On the other hand, music teachers and amateurs might want to be able to understand software within an hour of sitting down.
Compare Cubase to say, Sonic Foundry Acid. It takes 15 minutes to put together a rudimentary song in Acid, but it's extremely limited. Cubase, on the other hand, takes some time to learn and get used to.
I agree, but had trouble pinpointing exactly why the new Star Wars movies weren't as good as their predecessors.
...
There is no 'cool' guy to offset all the earnest Jedi assholes -- who are basically divinity students -- and just a little more exciting. It's like Beverly Hills Cop without Eddy Murphy.
I agree with the article you linked to...
I also at first had trouble pinpointing what I didn't like about AotC. After talking about it over a few beers I realized that one main difference between Ep I and II and the original three is that there is no team in the new movies.
In Ep. III to V, we had a constant team: Luke, Han Solo, Leia, Chewie, and the two droids. In story-telling reality it was really the "team" against the Empire -- the Rebellion and characters were just a backdrop. Although the main characters at times were separated and went on their own individually, they consistently re-unified and it was obvious that each character mattered to the other (even c3p0 -- R2 definitely showed a lot of love to that dude).
Now in the newest movies there is some attempt at a consistent team but it's really a movie about individuals. Everyone has their own path and obviously their own destiny, and some of these paths are interwoven, but I still came away from the movie feeling that the characters' relationships with each other weren't cohesive The Jedi are divine know-it-alls who see all but know nothing, Amidala's struggling with work-life balance, Anakin's got growing pains and testosterone surges, and Yoda's been watching too much kung-fu. At no point did I feel like celebrating because as a team they accomplished anything. Everyone's a hero.
A cohesive portrayal of a team isn't a necessary ingredient for a movie, although we do see this in Fellowship of the Rings. But if Katz wants to point out anything that relates to society/culture/humanity he can point to this concept, not the post-9/11 world order.
Did it ever occur to you that Flash isn't the cause of your annoyance, it's the people who make the flash movies?
I agree...
The biggest criticism I have for Flash interfaces is that authors always break the current web UI standards. Flash is more "expressive", therefore designers go all out. Users, on the other hand, get confused whenever a new interface paradigm is presented to them.
The reason that people get repetitive stress injuries is because the way they are taught to type.
I got interested when I read this rather bold statement, and I was ready to see some empirical studies that would prove this.
Then I read the following statement.
I would like to see a study of people who type using the "touch typing method" v.s. people who use the "hunt and peck" method. I think you will find that people who vary how they type have a much lower chance of having repetative stress problems than people who follow the rote dictates of how "you are supposed to type".
No research, no fact, except perhaps anecdotal evidence and self-observation (I assume you're a hunt-and-pecker).
I'm a touch-typist. I've never had any typing problems. I also type in Dvorak. Can I conclude that Dvorak touch-typists are immune to repetitive injuries? No, absolutely not.
If you can afford it, go to college. Listen to everyone else on here that talk about the academic/intellectual benefits.
Another side of it...college will give you a chance to meet some pretty smart people. Networking is important. Additionally, consider the fact that only in college will you be surrounded by thousands of girls. You'll never get this opportunity in any tech job -- TRUST ME.
Right...so go to college, get your learn on, and learn how to talk to girls.
Take a look at Python [python.org]. It doesn't have a large commercial backer, but it is commercial-quality. NASA uses it, Disney uses it, more shops than you probably imagine. Oh, and python simply rocks.
Yeah I posted before I thought about Python. It definitely does rock. Back in college we used it as a scripting language for a VR system, binding python objects to 3D models, etc. The fact that we could dynamically override stuff like model.LeftArm.turn was really cool.
But, although it's a great language I don't see it being used in enterprise scale solutions the way J2EE is. I could be wrong, and would like to be proved wrong. It could just be a marketing thing, since J2EE is such a buzzword now.
I hope more people read this...
on
Bitter Java
·
· Score: 2
...in addition to all those "Learn Java in 21 Amazing Days" books.
Java is often pitched as being a breeze to learn. And it is relatively easy since things like memory management is taken care of for you and the libraries tidily abstract a lot of details for you.
But I've seen a lot of budding Java programmers program away with little awareness for what's going on in terms of efficiency and good system design, and this book seems to address these qualities well. Just because Java's slightly easier to program doesn't mean that programmers can be clueless.
I would love it if someone would replace Java with something that worked. I'd even accept something from Microsoft.
Not to be rude, but if you're so "bitter" about Java why don't you design something better? I agree that Sun overmarkets Java's cross-platform capabilities, but for the most part it DOES work. I don't know of anything else (commercial-quality, that is) that works across as many hardware platforms, especially for server-side apps, which is the area where Java has really done well. Most of the examples in the book seem to revolve around J2EE and Servlets.
Yes, applets suck for the most part. Oh well...big loss there. Then again, most crappy applets I've seen tend to be the ones where someone implements a menu-bar or some retarded visual gimmick.
So Java has it's problems, but there's no more reason to be bitter about Java than any other software platform.
To be honest, I don't think the Drafthouse has ever billed itself as a "cyber-theater," and if they (rather than local geek groups) have promoted their wireless access point, I haven't noticed.
I second this. The Drafthouse (any of the locations) are hardly geek-targetted, although perhaps a few cult films might cater to the geek crowd. If any part of the population is targetted, it's probably the part of the population that likes to have a few bottles of beer or glasses of wine while watching their movie.
I could potentially tolerate other people using their laptops if a) they're quiet typers and b) their laptop screens are dimmed down enough that no backlight is noticeable. Of course, this probably wouldn't make for great computer use, so why bother whipping out your laptop anyway.
It was my girlfriend, who called to see if I was OK.
I've never been so fucking busted.
And how were you busted? Not that I'm condoning dishonesty, but couldn't you have just said a quick "I-am-ok-will-call-you-back-in-a-bit-so-i-can-make -sure-everything-else-is-ok"?
She was probably the kind of kid who hid library books so no one else could get the information she was using so she could blow the curve for the rest of us.
Anyone care to be hilariously evil and start this rumor?
All we need is one piece of information showing that she may have done something similar. Then it's just a matter of "interpreting" the information, embellishing a little, then pass the word on through casual conversations (ie, "did you know...?") while you shake your head just like hilary does.
That will give her a taste of her own medicine. She'll be more unpopular than the piracy she's whining about.
Before long the telephone game will turn her into an urban legend.
Shit, the pre tags didn't seem to have an effect, or maybe I was just careless. Here is the point I was trying to make with the diagram:
[up][sh] [lt][dn][rt]
I really wish they had knocked out one of the windows buttons (why do we need two anyway?) or maybe one of the alt or ctrl-buttons on the right side. Oh well.
Would that be a Fujitsu P2040? Would you care to compare the processor to an Intel? I know it's going to be a bit slower, clock for clock... but does it feel like a PIII 600? 400?
You caught me. I did buy the 2040 I was trying not to sound like an advertisement for any particular make/model. I probably should have been more discreet.
I would say that the machine feels a bit faster than a PIII 600, which was the processor in a Thinkpad provided for me at work. One shortcoming is that I notice distinct periods of slow performance every now and then -- for a few seconds every now and then XP just feels less "snappy". Part of this is probably XP paging stuff to virtual memory, or just XP doing something funky. I plan to throw in another 128 megs of ram so this should alleviate some of the problems.
The only processor-related negative performance I've noticed is when I'm programming JSPs and I hit my app for the first time (thus running the compiler). Since the initial hit compiles, initializes static objects and sets up database connections (dbms on my machine, no less), I definitely see some churning. But the delay is only about 5 to 10 seconds longer than on my p4-1.5 desktop, so maybe about a 1/3 slower. This is all estimation of course...I haven't really done any analysis.
There are some benchmarks out there that really test the 2040, and although I researched them when deciding on the fujitsu, I honestly stopped thinking of pure processor performance in lew of form factor and portability.
The biggest complaint I have with the 2040, however, isn't the processor. It's the the right shift key. Fujitsu crammed the directional arrow keys in the bottom right with shift key to the right of the up-arrow key and above the right-arrow key.
To illustrate:
[up][sh]
[lt][dn][rt]
Since the shift and up keys are right next to each other and the EXACT same size I sometimes hit the wrong one. I've gotten used to it so I don't have problems, but it was annoying the first few days.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. Mod the above post up. I think for the longest time music publishers had it easy. Record artists tracks, stamp out a cd/record, sell, repeat. I feel that there has been increasingly less engagement between listeners and musicians in the past twenty years. Obviously I don't have anything to back this up.
So depending on your geek level, the plural of "box" is "boxen". :)
Wouldn't the box have to be Unix-based or at least associated with Unix to be pronounced "boxen" in plural? The definition above doesn't say that all computers should be called "boxen" when pluralized. Then again, I suppose all computers can run Unix (well, Linux) these days so this is probably a moot argument.
I run WinXP on my laptop. I also have an AirPort AP and an Orinoco wireless card. When I first booted the laptop I didn't really know what drivers to install for the orinoco card. While I did google searches for XP drivers my roommate was messing around and inserted the orinoco card while the laptop's screen lid was down.
A few frustrated minutes (couldn't find the xp drivers at the time) later I grabbed the laptop to see what pre-loaded software was already on there, only to notice the orinoco card flashing away happily and a 11mbps dialog in the lower right corner.
I'm not the biggest fan of XP, but the brief minute of "holy shit it just....works" made my day.
Somehow I doubt that, considering that I don't have a mobile, and I still use the same clunky land-line phone that I've had for the past 3 years.
Not Catholic at all. lol.
Some would say this makes a lot of sense biologically. It's a bit of a reduction, but why do anything (read, build technology) unless it helps us survive and procreate? I'd say that porn is a expressional side-effect of the basic human need for sex.
But then again I'm sure all geeks, with better things to do such as recompiling their kernel, are above such simple things as procreation. :)
No this is not offtopic. Sit down.
Obviously.
I find it very amusing that you can put a very hard mathematical rule to something as amorphous as skill-set. You might as well make other broad statements: computer geeks can't be athletes, athletes can't be artists, and artists can't be computer geeks -- you get my point.
As another poster mentioned these skill sets can be individually attained with competence. It may be harder to have both deep and broad skill-sets but people have done it. I've seen project managers shoot holes in database schemas then turn around and discuss scoping and business requirements over business lunches with clients.
I'm willing to bet that these project managers are the type that don't believe in arbitrary "rules" based on anecdotes like yours. The really successful people out there don't believe in mutually-exclusivity....they believe in creative navigation around obstacles and hard work to make projects work.
I'm a techie but I too often find that other developers try to reduce the world into neat little data structures and algorithms. This is a great attitude in a technical context such as building software, but when dealing with people and other "soft" things it just doesn't work.
I'd like to be able to _shop_ without having to explain why such material is indecent.
I may sound overly critical here, but it really sounds like you're just avoiding an uncomfortable situation. I guess in the US sex is a very taboo thing, whereas violence seems to be quite acceptable -- look at violence oriented toys/publications.
Now admittedly I am not a parent but I do know parents that have a very open attitude toward sex education. Rather than shielding their kids from racy scenes in movies and media they explain what's going on and talk about how it's something for "adult"s, much like staying up later than bedtime or going to work in the morning. I know this probably sounds like Jimbo's Dad in American Pie, but it's really not that awkward.
Now only the future will tell whether their children will grow up to be emotionally stable and respecting human beings, but I would wager a guess that their practices will help somewhat. Then again, I have no right to tell other people what the best way to raise children are. I imagine this is probably a moot point.
I just personally wish people in the US were less uptight about human sexuality in general. Europe in general is much more allowing in that aspect and I don't think it has had any harmful effects on society, though I have no numbers to back this up.
Oh ya, because those arent the Sexy New Tools on the Block.
I know you're trolling a troll, but this question seems to come up a lot.
from http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/...
Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam, and others? Because all those tools have limitations that Ant's original author couldn't live with when developing software across multiple platforms. Make-like tools are inherently shell-based -- they evaluate a set of dependencies, then execute commands not unlike what you would issue in a shell. This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing any program for the OS that you are working on. However, this also means that you limit yourself to the OS, or at least the OS type such as Unix, that you are working on.
Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for any time has run into the dreaded tab problem. "Is my command not executing because I have a space in front of my tab!!!" said the original author of Ant way too many times. Tools like Jam took care of this to a great degree, but still have yet another format to use and remember.
Ant is different. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based commands, Ant is extended using Java classes. Instead of writing shell commands, the configuration files are XML-based, calling out a target tree where various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object that implements a particular Task interface.
Granted, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent by being able to construct a shell command such as `find . -name foo -exec rm {}`, but it gives you the ability to be cross platform -- to work anywhere and everywhere. And hey, if you really need to execute a shell command, Ant has an task that allows different commands to be executed based on the OS that it is executing on.
I just don't see how focusing an effort on specializing a distro has any bad effect on other, more general distros. It takes nothing away, just adds...
Agreed. I might add that people who actually make a living doing music/audio professionally are very used to hardware -- dedicated compressors, fx units, synth modules, etc. They don't want to mess around with a general purpose system (ie. a PC) unless the software does exactly what they want it to do.
I'm confident that musicians/audio-engineers would be happy with a Linux distro that did NOTHING but boot straight to the audio application (single user, etc), and have it do everything in a reliable manner. In a studio environment there's no need to check email or browse the web...the machine just needs to plug in and work with the other components (synth, dats, recording hardware, etc) without fail.
You also have to keep the target user in mind. Is it a high school music teacher or are we focusing on professional producers. Pro producer don't mind a sharp learning curve if there's a huge payoff in the end, such as unlimited control of sound, etc. On the other hand, music teachers and amateurs might want to be able to understand software within an hour of sitting down.
Compare Cubase to say, Sonic Foundry Acid. It takes 15 minutes to put together a rudimentary song in Acid, but it's extremely limited. Cubase, on the other hand, takes some time to learn and get used to.
There is no 'cool' guy to offset all the earnest Jedi assholes -- who are basically divinity students -- and just a little more exciting. It's like Beverly Hills Cop without Eddy Murphy.
I agree with the article you linked to...
I also at first had trouble pinpointing what I didn't like about AotC. After talking about it over a few beers I realized that one main difference between Ep I and II and the original three is that there is no team in the new movies.
In Ep. III to V, we had a constant team: Luke, Han Solo, Leia, Chewie, and the two droids. In story-telling reality it was really the "team" against the Empire -- the Rebellion and characters were just a backdrop. Although the main characters at times were separated and went on their own individually, they consistently re-unified and it was obvious that each character mattered to the other (even c3p0 -- R2 definitely showed a lot of love to that dude).
Now in the newest movies there is some attempt at a consistent team but it's really a movie about individuals. Everyone has their own path and obviously their own destiny, and some of these paths are interwoven, but I still came away from the movie feeling that the characters' relationships with each other weren't cohesive The Jedi are divine know-it-alls who see all but know nothing, Amidala's struggling with work-life balance, Anakin's got growing pains and testosterone surges, and Yoda's been watching too much kung-fu. At no point did I feel like celebrating because as a team they accomplished anything. Everyone's a hero.
A cohesive portrayal of a team isn't a necessary ingredient for a movie, although we do see this in Fellowship of the Rings. But if Katz wants to point out anything that relates to society/culture/humanity he can point to this concept, not the post-9/11 world order.
I agree...
The biggest criticism I have for Flash interfaces is that authors always break the current web UI standards. Flash is more "expressive", therefore designers go all out. Users, on the other hand, get confused whenever a new interface paradigm is presented to them.
I got interested when I read this rather bold statement, and I was ready to see some empirical studies that would prove this.
Then I read the following statement.
I would like to see a study of people who type using the "touch typing method" v.s. people who use the "hunt and peck" method. I think you will find that people who vary how they type have a much lower chance of having repetative stress problems than people who follow the rote dictates of how "you are supposed to type".
No research, no fact, except perhaps anecdotal evidence and self-observation (I assume you're a hunt-and-pecker).
I'm a touch-typist. I've never had any typing problems. I also type in Dvorak. Can I conclude that Dvorak touch-typists are immune to repetitive injuries? No, absolutely not.
Some parallels can be made. Jon, speak up! We need you to explain what this movie is really about.
I mean the parallel is undeniable. Dictatorship, an empire, the rise of a military, genocide, and more.
Palpatine has his Stormtroopers. Hitler had his elite Stoss Truppe.
If you can afford it, go to college. Listen to everyone else on here that talk about the academic/intellectual benefits.
Another side of it...college will give you a chance to meet some pretty smart people. Networking is important. Additionally, consider the fact that only in college will you be surrounded by thousands of girls. You'll never get this opportunity in any tech job -- TRUST ME.
Right...so go to college, get your learn on, and learn how to talk to girls.
Yeah I posted before I thought about Python. It definitely does rock. Back in college we used it as a scripting language for a VR system, binding python objects to 3D models, etc. The fact that we could dynamically override stuff like model.LeftArm.turn was really cool.
But, although it's a great language I don't see it being used in enterprise scale solutions the way J2EE is. I could be wrong, and would like to be proved wrong. It could just be a marketing thing, since J2EE is such a buzzword now.
Java is often pitched as being a breeze to learn. And it is relatively easy since things like memory management is taken care of for you and the libraries tidily abstract a lot of details for you.
But I've seen a lot of budding Java programmers program away with little awareness for what's going on in terms of efficiency and good system design, and this book seems to address these qualities well. Just because Java's slightly easier to program doesn't mean that programmers can be clueless.
Not to be rude, but if you're so "bitter" about Java why don't you design something better? I agree that Sun overmarkets Java's cross-platform capabilities, but for the most part it DOES work. I don't know of anything else (commercial-quality, that is) that works across as many hardware platforms, especially for server-side apps, which is the area where Java has really done well. Most of the examples in the book seem to revolve around J2EE and Servlets.
Yes, applets suck for the most part. Oh well...big loss there. Then again, most crappy applets I've seen tend to be the ones where someone implements a menu-bar or some retarded visual gimmick.
So Java has it's problems, but there's no more reason to be bitter about Java than any other software platform.
I second this. The Drafthouse (any of the locations) are hardly geek-targetted, although perhaps a few cult films might cater to the geek crowd. If any part of the population is targetted, it's probably the part of the population that likes to have a few bottles of beer or glasses of wine while watching their movie.
I could potentially tolerate other people using their laptops if a) they're quiet typers and b) their laptop screens are dimmed down enough that no backlight is noticeable. Of course, this probably wouldn't make for great computer use, so why bother whipping out your laptop anyway.
I've never been so fucking busted.
And how were you busted? Not that I'm condoning dishonesty, but couldn't you have just said a quick "I-am-ok-will-call-you-back-in-a-bit-so-i-can-make -sure-everything-else-is-ok"?
Anyone care to be hilariously evil and start this rumor?
All we need is one piece of information showing that she may have done something similar. Then it's just a matter of "interpreting" the information, embellishing a little, then pass the word on through casual conversations (ie, "did you know...?") while you shake your head just like hilary does.
That will give her a taste of her own medicine. She'll be more unpopular than the piracy she's whining about.
Before long the telephone game will turn her into an urban legend.
Shit, the pre tags didn't seem to have an effect, or maybe I was just careless. Here is the point I was trying to make with the diagram:
[up][sh]
[lt][dn][rt]
I really wish they had knocked out one of the windows buttons (why do we need two anyway?) or maybe one of the alt or ctrl-buttons on the right side. Oh well.
You caught me. I did buy the 2040 I was trying not to sound like an advertisement for any particular make/model. I probably should have been more discreet.
I would say that the machine feels a bit faster than a PIII 600, which was the processor in a Thinkpad provided for me at work. One shortcoming is that I notice distinct periods of slow performance every now and then -- for a few seconds every now and then XP just feels less "snappy". Part of this is probably XP paging stuff to virtual memory, or just XP doing something funky. I plan to throw in another 128 megs of ram so this should alleviate some of the problems.
The only processor-related negative performance I've noticed is when I'm programming JSPs and I hit my app for the first time (thus running the compiler). Since the initial hit compiles, initializes static objects and sets up database connections (dbms on my machine, no less), I definitely see some churning. But the delay is only about 5 to 10 seconds longer than on my p4-1.5 desktop, so maybe about a 1/3 slower. This is all estimation of course...I haven't really done any analysis.
There are some benchmarks out there that really test the 2040, and although I researched them when deciding on the fujitsu, I honestly stopped thinking of pure processor performance in lew of form factor and portability.
The biggest complaint I have with the 2040, however, isn't the processor. It's the the right shift key. Fujitsu crammed the directional arrow keys in the bottom right with shift key to the right of the up-arrow key and above the right-arrow key.
To illustrate:
[up][sh] [lt][dn][rt]
Since the shift and up keys are right next to each other and the EXACT same size I sometimes hit the wrong one. I've gotten used to it so I don't have problems, but it was annoying the first few days.