Flash -shouldn't- require anything above a Pentium III to play right. In the "dark days" of the internet Flash was about the only way that you could get anything other than -very- basic HTML to show up the same on all platforms. A lot of sites were (and are) using Flash to avoid the pitfalls of CSS and HTML. A site coded for Netscape would look like crap in IE and vice versa. As such Flash was more or less designed to provide A) Multimedia beyond an animated GIF B) Consistent layouts and C) Interactivity.
As such, Flash was/is used to provide access to things that shouldn't require more than the browser to run. With this in mind, Adobe should make sure that Flash runs nicely in all system configurations because it is now a vital part of the web (for good or ill)
But will that ever happen? There are a -large- amount of web sites that aren't updated. A large amount of them use Flash. A large amount of them aren't going to give up Flash anytime soon. Look at how many sites haven't been updated since, say, 2007 or before. There are a lot of them. Now, all it takes is a few more keystrokes to update a site, its a lot harder to update an entire application.
Because it is a good money maker for Google. Release an OS for free with good support, mine user data, boost user stats of Google's programs. Profit.
Plus, it doesn't require much work (basically they can take Linux and Android experience and rework it) and Google has the name that everyone knows (compare how many people know Google's name compared to Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, etc.) so they can market it to device makers.
The netbook market is comprised of about three types of people
A) People who go "Oooohhhhh look a cheap device that runs a real OS for hundreds less than a "real" computer" (this is most people.
B) People who go "Ooooh this is tiny I can take this on vacations/business trips/etc" (this is some people)
C) People who go "Oooh this cheap thing is going to be online 24/7, never going to be offline and I want to run no local apps on its 160 gig HDD!" (just about no one)
Exactly, the three things that make a good netbook are
A) The ability to do -real- tasks without a dumbed down OS
B) -cheap- price
C) Size
Price is paramount. When I can buy a "real" laptop for $300 with a 15 inch screen and a 12 inch netbook costs $500 and is far underpowered, something isn't right. I have a feeling that "netbooks" are now just going to be the new term for ultra-portables which have been around for ages but have historically had too low of power and too low of price for most to be bothered with them.
Um, what are your specs? While OOo was -slightly- sluggish on my first-gen netbook (EEE 701 with a 633 Mhz Celeron M CPU and 512 MB of RAM), it should work just fine on any modern netbook. The thing about a word processor is that its so essential to have a good one for a lot of basic tasks for the older generation. About the only thing I use my word processor for is to write papers, however a lot of older people I know use it to mail physical letters and such.
The thing is, I don't see really any benefit for this. Google docs doesn't exactly offer more features, most netbooks come with at least 20 gigs of storage (even the SSD based ones) and performance is only increasing. It might have made sense for some of the early netbooks, but with faster and faster netbooks, I just don't see the point.
The difference is, Microsoft's monopoly leads to its downfall. Mac OS had a small marketshare, it was and is pretty easy to change some pretty radical things without much problems. Not the same thing with an OS with 90%+ of marketshare.
In any human group, there's going to be dominant ones, and there's going to be outcasts. If you're not strong enough to be dominant and don't fit with the followers, you'll be an outcast.
Exactly. And when kids aren't given any opportunity to not be proven an outcast (by fighting back) the only real way of dealing with it is with a good education system that puts kids who are similar together. Which, if it was done that way, I'd imagine there would be a lot less bullying in schools.
It wouldn't be a caste system, both high, medium and low kids would have the exact same opportunities, it would though allow them to get education that is -useful- to them. We've all had stuff like this happen to us, the guy in an English class who can barely read so the teacher dumbs down the class, or the person struggling with basic math in Calculus so the entire class has to slow down. Its not helping the teachers, the kid who isn't understanding or the class as a whole. This would let that kid learn in an environment more suited to their needs, perhaps allowing several graduation "paths" with differing requirements the guy who may be terrible at biology could be an excellent mechanic, the current system forces him to adapt to biology which he may never need in his life. He gains nothing and drags down the class and annoys the teacher. Having high, medium and low classes would let that student pursue what they are good at, they wouldn't have any reduced opportunities, if they want to go to higher education there isn't anything stopping them, but for a lot of kids, college isn't what they want or need, it is basic vocational training and life skills.
The problem I see with OOo is that it is marketed and used as "hey, there is a free (as in beer) MS Office clone!" rather than "Hey, this is better than MS Office" but the problem is the second statement isn't true. Firefox won out over IE not by "hey, we have a clone of IE" but by being -better- than IE.
Yeah because we all know we (especially as kids) are all little robots who never think anything like that... We are not all equal. Some people are dumber than others, some people look differently, some people are ugly and some aren't. Its the basis for jokes and entire societies. Anything can be taken as an insult, saying "hes black" can be taken as an insult when its a perfectly valid description.
Problem is, how do you know what is bullying and what is not? Its pretty easy for someone to say they were verbally "harassed" by someone and have the backing of 2 or 3 friends to bully someone. A lot of remarks can simply be taken out of context and used against someone. Problem is, bullying is mostly hearsay and very subjective. What one person considers bullying is different than another person. Plus, things are different between friends, I know that some of the remarks I say around friends could be taken to a casual observer as bullying but of course its not. Even worse is when the other person denies it but they think that somehow the "bully" has manipulated the "victim" into not talking.
The problem is with schools these days. At least when I was in high school even if you didn't throw a single punch in a fight, you still got 3 days of out of school suspension. This, of course meant nothing for the bullies (most were drooling idiots simply waiting for the day they could drop out) but of course harmed the record of bullied students. Sadly, the days where fights could happen and let things get resolved permanently has ended.
that didn't ease off till much later when I could take advanced courses they couldn't
That is one of the worst pitfalls of public education and highlights why we need high, medium and low classes or even entire schools. Generally, keeping people who are similar in learning styles and general ability to learn helps kids learn more and be bullied a lot less.
Generally young people have a lot more to look forward too so time seems to go by quickly, older people have really not much to look forward to so time goes slowly. How many times in school did you count down the days till summer? With older people there is less to look forward to because there is generally less things to -do- that is fresh and new. While you might have really enjoyed TV while young, by the time someone is older they begin to see that all of the plots are exactly the same.
Sure, but most schools don't test every child for gifted-ness. They see them doing something and then request them to be tested. Same with special ed. A lot of things overlap and one teacher can be the difference. Until we have high, medium and low classes (which, IMHO is the only way for public education to work) it is based on the whims of the teacher on which students get tested.
Yeah because we all know how often the average person goes through their kernel.... Yeah, Open source is nice, but how many people are -really- going to go through the kernel to find -driver- problems? The average user isn't. Yeah, I might debug a python script that fails, but drivers? Unless you are one of the few core Linux developers or working for a company, you aren't gonna use it.
It doesn't matter. Drivers should be -standard- unless I'm screwing with something seriously experimental, drivers should be expected. The 5000 series has been out since last year, so drivers should be standard on the day they ship.
The current offering doesn't promise 2D (EXA) acceleration or 3D support.
So if it doesn't offer 2D acceleration or 3D support... what does it do? Framebuffer mode? Seriously why would ATI even release a driver in this pathetic of state, at least when I can buy an nVidia card for the same amount and have 100% of features work just fine.
Depends. Basically, these labels can change the entire child. One teacher finds them special ed and they get put in with drooling idiots, the other teacher finds them gifted and they learn more and do cool things. One kid ends up on welfare floating between dead end jobs, the other kid ends up rather successful.
Of course no one wants to bring up politics in an interview. When companies do, or even have speculation about certain political affiliations usually they are boycotted by one group or another.
Slashdot Mirror
Flash -shouldn't- require anything above a Pentium III to play right. In the "dark days" of the internet Flash was about the only way that you could get anything other than -very- basic HTML to show up the same on all platforms. A lot of sites were (and are) using Flash to avoid the pitfalls of CSS and HTML. A site coded for Netscape would look like crap in IE and vice versa. As such Flash was more or less designed to provide A) Multimedia beyond an animated GIF B) Consistent layouts and C) Interactivity.
As such, Flash was/is used to provide access to things that shouldn't require more than the browser to run. With this in mind, Adobe should make sure that Flash runs nicely in all system configurations because it is now a vital part of the web (for good or ill)
But will that ever happen? There are a -large- amount of web sites that aren't updated. A large amount of them use Flash. A large amount of them aren't going to give up Flash anytime soon. Look at how many sites haven't been updated since, say, 2007 or before. There are a lot of them. Now, all it takes is a few more keystrokes to update a site, its a lot harder to update an entire application.
Selling point is (and was). Price, price, price.
Because it is a good money maker for Google. Release an OS for free with good support, mine user data, boost user stats of Google's programs. Profit.
Plus, it doesn't require much work (basically they can take Linux and Android experience and rework it) and Google has the name that everyone knows (compare how many people know Google's name compared to Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, etc.) so they can market it to device makers.
The netbook market is comprised of about three types of people
A) People who go "Oooohhhhh look a cheap device that runs a real OS for hundreds less than a "real" computer" (this is most people.
B) People who go "Ooooh this is tiny I can take this on vacations/business trips/etc" (this is some people)
C) People who go "Oooh this cheap thing is going to be online 24/7, never going to be offline and I want to run no local apps on its 160 gig HDD!" (just about no one)
Exactly, the three things that make a good netbook are
A) The ability to do -real- tasks without a dumbed down OS
B) -cheap- price
C) Size
Price is paramount. When I can buy a "real" laptop for $300 with a 15 inch screen and a 12 inch netbook costs $500 and is far underpowered, something isn't right. I have a feeling that "netbooks" are now just going to be the new term for ultra-portables which have been around for ages but have historically had too low of power and too low of price for most to be bothered with them.
Um, what are your specs? While OOo was -slightly- sluggish on my first-gen netbook (EEE 701 with a 633 Mhz Celeron M CPU and 512 MB of RAM), it should work just fine on any modern netbook. The thing about a word processor is that its so essential to have a good one for a lot of basic tasks for the older generation. About the only thing I use my word processor for is to write papers, however a lot of older people I know use it to mail physical letters and such.
The thing is, I don't see really any benefit for this. Google docs doesn't exactly offer more features, most netbooks come with at least 20 gigs of storage (even the SSD based ones) and performance is only increasing. It might have made sense for some of the early netbooks, but with faster and faster netbooks, I just don't see the point.
The difference is, Microsoft's monopoly leads to its downfall. Mac OS had a small marketshare, it was and is pretty easy to change some pretty radical things without much problems. Not the same thing with an OS with 90%+ of marketshare.
In any human group, there's going to be dominant ones, and there's going to be outcasts. If you're not strong enough to be dominant and don't fit with the followers, you'll be an outcast.
Exactly. And when kids aren't given any opportunity to not be proven an outcast (by fighting back) the only real way of dealing with it is with a good education system that puts kids who are similar together. Which, if it was done that way, I'd imagine there would be a lot less bullying in schools.
It wouldn't be a caste system, both high, medium and low kids would have the exact same opportunities, it would though allow them to get education that is -useful- to them. We've all had stuff like this happen to us, the guy in an English class who can barely read so the teacher dumbs down the class, or the person struggling with basic math in Calculus so the entire class has to slow down. Its not helping the teachers, the kid who isn't understanding or the class as a whole. This would let that kid learn in an environment more suited to their needs, perhaps allowing several graduation "paths" with differing requirements the guy who may be terrible at biology could be an excellent mechanic, the current system forces him to adapt to biology which he may never need in his life. He gains nothing and drags down the class and annoys the teacher. Having high, medium and low classes would let that student pursue what they are good at, they wouldn't have any reduced opportunities, if they want to go to higher education there isn't anything stopping them, but for a lot of kids, college isn't what they want or need, it is basic vocational training and life skills.
The problem I see with OOo is that it is marketed and used as "hey, there is a free (as in beer) MS Office clone!" rather than "Hey, this is better than MS Office" but the problem is the second statement isn't true. Firefox won out over IE not by "hey, we have a clone of IE" but by being -better- than IE.
Yeah because we all know we (especially as kids) are all little robots who never think anything like that... We are not all equal. Some people are dumber than others, some people look differently, some people are ugly and some aren't. Its the basis for jokes and entire societies. Anything can be taken as an insult, saying "hes black" can be taken as an insult when its a perfectly valid description.
Problem is, how do you know what is bullying and what is not? Its pretty easy for someone to say they were verbally "harassed" by someone and have the backing of 2 or 3 friends to bully someone. A lot of remarks can simply be taken out of context and used against someone. Problem is, bullying is mostly hearsay and very subjective. What one person considers bullying is different than another person. Plus, things are different between friends, I know that some of the remarks I say around friends could be taken to a casual observer as bullying but of course its not. Even worse is when the other person denies it but they think that somehow the "bully" has manipulated the "victim" into not talking.
The problem is with schools these days. At least when I was in high school even if you didn't throw a single punch in a fight, you still got 3 days of out of school suspension. This, of course meant nothing for the bullies (most were drooling idiots simply waiting for the day they could drop out) but of course harmed the record of bullied students. Sadly, the days where fights could happen and let things get resolved permanently has ended.
that didn't ease off till much later when I could take advanced courses they couldn't
That is one of the worst pitfalls of public education and highlights why we need high, medium and low classes or even entire schools. Generally, keeping people who are similar in learning styles and general ability to learn helps kids learn more and be bullied a lot less.
No, MLA is preferred, at least for most of my schooling.
Generally young people have a lot more to look forward too so time seems to go by quickly, older people have really not much to look forward to so time goes slowly. How many times in school did you count down the days till summer? With older people there is less to look forward to because there is generally less things to -do- that is fresh and new. While you might have really enjoyed TV while young, by the time someone is older they begin to see that all of the plots are exactly the same.
Sure, but most schools don't test every child for gifted-ness. They see them doing something and then request them to be tested. Same with special ed. A lot of things overlap and one teacher can be the difference. Until we have high, medium and low classes (which, IMHO is the only way for public education to work) it is based on the whims of the teacher on which students get tested.
Yeah because we all know how often the average person goes through their kernel.... Yeah, Open source is nice, but how many people are -really- going to go through the kernel to find -driver- problems? The average user isn't. Yeah, I might debug a python script that fails, but drivers? Unless you are one of the few core Linux developers or working for a company, you aren't gonna use it.
It doesn't matter. Drivers should be -standard- unless I'm screwing with something seriously experimental, drivers should be expected. The 5000 series has been out since last year, so drivers should be standard on the day they ship.
The current offering doesn't promise 2D (EXA) acceleration or 3D support.
So if it doesn't offer 2D acceleration or 3D support... what does it do? Framebuffer mode? Seriously why would ATI even release a driver in this pathetic of state, at least when I can buy an nVidia card for the same amount and have 100% of features work just fine.
Depends. Basically, these labels can change the entire child. One teacher finds them special ed and they get put in with drooling idiots, the other teacher finds them gifted and they learn more and do cool things. One kid ends up on welfare floating between dead end jobs, the other kid ends up rather successful.
Of course no one wants to bring up politics in an interview. When companies do, or even have speculation about certain political affiliations usually they are boycotted by one group or another.
Even with low bandwidth, a simple message of "Hey, I'm still alive down here, send help" shouldn't be too hard.