Now this is a great opportunity to sound off about one of the things that I truly care about, without having any kind of hope of getting what I want from a capitalist society that claims "the customers and their wishes are key".
There also is of course the marvelous wonder - to me at least - that a majority of people (or at least it seems that way) often hail very minor advancements as "revolutions". An anecdote, when I was in military hospital (many years ago, in Germany 1 yr. was mandatory - besides it WAS fun I admit) a soldier visiting the guy next to me angrily attacked me with a pillow, cutting off my air, when I patiently explained to him that the latest Mercedes sports car had NOTHING that made it a "paradigm shift" or "revolution" compared to Model-T. Four wheels, carbon fuel burning engine, steering wheel, 100% mechanical and the exact same principles as back then. I told him a "car" would be remarkable and revolutionary only if it DIDN'T have wheels, would NOT require streets (just for a moment, think about the HUGE amount of our human economies that do nothing but lay the foundation for being able to move stuff and ourselves around! and how much beautiful ground is covered with ENORMOUS effort by asphalt!), and would use something other method than "burning stuff" for locomotion. Just imagine all streets gone... I'm not even asking for flying cars which would cause a huge amount of other problems, just hovering a meter above ground... imagine all the neighborhoods and cities with grass instead of asphalt, and next to no noise, most of which comes from the wheels hitting the road and not the engine! Okay, for ONE person in the room I was a little too revolutionary, although from my own point of view I was merely stating the obvious.
So this is just such a topic where I wonder why people keep the discussion going only within the bounds of the existing system. Just yesterday I watched a presentation on the (excellent!) ted.com website where some guy showed off a new screen with multi-touch capabilities, and how that could change how we use computers. Boy was I bored... (even taking into consideration the video was 3 yrs. old)
Look, however you want to twist and turn it, regardless of how many colors you use, how many pixels, if you let me touch the screen directly or if I have to use a mouse, if the screen has "multi-touch", if you add 3d effects on the screen - IT STILL IS THE SAME PARADIGM (to use that nice word). I accept it was a step from text consoles to windows, but I don't see how rotating those windows, for example, or allowing me to touch the screen on more than one point, changes much. Sure it gets nicer and more convenient! But only as much as the latest car is an advancement over the old Ford, not more.
So, what would be a true shift in my opinion?
Well, first I would like something that isn't even that "paradigm shift" I'm talking about. What I would like *right now*, as a replacement for my current monitor (a 24 inch Dell), is a monitor plus glasses that let me see the monitor picture in a distance. Why? What??? Well, many people who look at monitors for years and years in later years (too late to change anything) get trouble with their eyes. Constantly looking at the near is not good! Our eyes are made for moving around, and for looking at distances more often than close, and to do so alternately. Looking at the close picture of the monitor is not good! If you tell me you've no problem, well, let's talk again 10-20 yrs. from now, shall we? Of course this isn't something you'll notice before you turn 40, and maybe you're one of the lucky ones even then. Even so, from an ergonomics point of view I'd prefer to exercise my far sight much more often *without* having to interrupt my work for too long - because it's not enough to switch for a minute every hour (but that's still better than making no pause at all). It can't be so hard to create such optical equipment?
Okay, and the REAL revolution to me still is good old VR. I don't want yet another bad 2d (o
Are the moderators insane, stupid or both? WHy did the parent of the parent get "5-insightful" when his post is so disrespectful of enormous achievements that it can rightly be labeled "stupid", while the parent gets "-1"? Stupidity (of moderators) knows no limits these days.
Related and strange and funny (or not!), why, when I have to meta-moderate, don't ever get any of these idiots? So much trivia gets a "+5 insightful", so much "modding by opinion", statistically it is impossible I didn't get a chance to meta-punch one of those guys...
Not sure why this post is labeled "insightful"... because it does not say anything that would invalidate what the original poster had said. It completely misses that postings point. Sure the purpose of a fusion reactor is to create energy, and yes - this "waste product" COULD be sold. However, there just won't be enough helium output unless selling by the gram is useful for anyone??? How much time (for producing energy) such a reactor would have to run before even a cubic meter of the gas has been produced? And how efficient is it for anyone to care about a side-effect that could, if converted into money, be worth not more than an invisibly small fraction of the income of your real business (producing energy)? So the conclusion from the original authors posting is and remains: using fusion reactors as a source for helium is not worth it, regardless of how you look at it. Remember that earth-based fusion will be based on very little matter, so the output elements also will be few. Just like a nuclear reactor spits out many orders of magnitude less waste than a coal power plant (how poisonous that waste is is a completely unrelated issue, this is just about pure volume). Ergo you would not be very wise to wait for the chemical elements coming out of that reactor - it's just not enough to be used for any kind input into other production processes. The only thing of value you get is the energy.
Why does someone who almost PROUDLY admits not to even have read the article gets a FIVE modding??? There seem to be too many moderators on crack! I think moderator privileges should be tight to IQ.
I'm mad at the moderators, not nearly as much at the guy they moderated. Although (no surprise!) he COMPLETELY misses the point of the article.
Besides, he has no idea about computer science as the last sentence of his post shows. With the same argument one could argue no mechanics should be taught in physics lessons any more - Newton is sooooo hundreds of years ago after all, today we only deal with relativity (ooop,s even that is a hundred years old), quantum physics (not too new too) and string theory (a lot of completely unproven stuff).
I'm not sure why you would call my multimedia learning website - http://letexa.com/ - not useful. Well, sure, the current content there may indeed not be useful to you, but I'd say that is a question of the actual content and not of the concept in general.
Please tell me how YOU would deliver multimedia content on the Internet - and I'm not talking about stupid youtube videos (as someone who doesn't even own a TV I could subscribe to the view such content is indeed useless). In addition to audio/video Flash adds interactive and vector capabilities, which can very nicely be used together with the pixel based stuff. Very nice for elearning indeed. (Yes - you can just read. Yes - you can just walk instead of using a car, more healthy anyway, make your bread yourself, etc etc. and live like a monk, if you want that. This "how useful is it" argument without looking at any given goals, but just for arguments sake, is stupid as it comes down to the "meaning of life" question each time, which each person has to answer for themselves; sorry, I just dread this "but you could just read pure text" argument, because it is no argument reeally - but a CHOICE of any individual and therefore a very bad subject for logical discussion. *I* like multimedia, and so do others, period.)
Why is this article that doesn't explain ANYTHING, gives no references, and shows no hint of KNOWLWEDGE on the part of the author, but only lists stereotypes, labeled "insightful"? I'm missing any insights!
The guy even calls Flash a "protocol"! This is the OPPOSITE of insight!!!
There also are smaller commercial-grade inkjets than this one, usually for up to "A3" (DIN) sizes (roughly 2xletter) with color management tools, mostly for media design businesses that want to print a color proof using color profiles of their offset print publishers to get a simulation of the final output before giving it to them for printing. Or, for anyone who wants to print very good photos up to A3 size and is unwilling to wait for a service provider or to rely on their color management - because often photo printers who serve the mass market have no or no good color management, knowing their customers don't have it or even know what this is anyway.
It comes down to asking "what is the commercial benefit of live"?
This conversation happened and says it all: Q: Why did you climb that mountain? A: Because it is there.
What do you live for? What is "the economy" for? No economist would ask such a question. Because the ENDS of the economy are not subject of that science, only how to best achieve it. What those ends are, what people values in life, is NOT a subject of economic debate - at least not as real economists are concerned (sure there are those who want to impose their values on you but that is their personal issue and not subject of the science called "economics").
It comes down to this: If there are enough people with enough power to get their will then whatever it is they want it gets done. Period. That's how everything works. Democracy too. Only distribution of power is different in different societies.
So, if you don't want that anyone goes to space, convince them or become powerful enough to prevent it. But don't ask for the purpose - there is none. Each person has to decide for themselves what they want from/in life. That is true whether you're an atheist or a devoted catholic (I'm an atheist who ended up on two catholic pilgrimages:-) thus far). For atheists that's clear, but also religion teaches that what you do in life is YOUR choice, god doesn't tell you. (It does say you get judged afterwards but more about HOW and not WHAT you did). So if I decide my purpose is to get to Mars then that's it. If I kill people to get what I want I leave human values behind. If I can convince enough people (with enough resources) to help me (or if they want it themselves anyway) there is no use asking the question "why". Because I want it.
Imagine an intelligence waaaaay beyond human capabilities. Of what use is it? It's a great computer, not more! Without feelings, desires, there is NOTHING to drive it towards some end. There is no logical reason to do ANYTHING. You can ALWAYS ask "why", endlessly! At some point you have to decide you don't give a d..., or you never have a reason to act, ever. That's also why very intelligent people, with IQs far above average, are NOT the most successful ones in life. Sure, *some* intelligence sure helps, but at some point it gets much more important to feel the inner DRIVE to live and so things, and NOT ask questions "why"! That's (the main reason) why a dyslexic Richard Branson is a multi-Billionaire and 180+ IQ writer Stanislaw Lem (one of my favorites) only wrote lots of very thoughtful and philosophic books, with an increasing air of skepticism and melancholy.
So maybe you are too intelligent if you keep asking "why";-)
I don't say you are wrong - I don't know. So what I don't like is not WHAT you say but that you fail to even ATTEMPT to submit any justification for your statement. How do you come to your conclusion? It seems to me it is based only on a vague feeling you developed over the years.
Best: link to statistics that support your claim.
Second-best, but still better than "opinion": add at least ONE sentence that shows what you base your statement on.
"to want" is defined as "willing to pay" in economy terms. Should I start a looooong list of all the things I would like? This is so silly... are you willing to spend an afternoon working my garden in exchange for the small favor you want form me - THAT'S the question, or do you want something from me without doing anything in return?
This is what I HATE about open source. Too many kids grow up with that "I get everything for free" mentality. And don't try to argue they give back to open source - what's the number of people USING open source vs. those actually contributing? Hint: Posting in discussion forums is NOT a contribution (or very very rarely, even most replies to "support questions" are useless).
I'm all for openness and liked Sun's open source Tcl/Tk *a lot* (I wrote a pretty complete and nice looking file manager GUI in ca. 200 lines of code) long before Linux was hot, but I'm against working for free and even more against trying to establish that expectation for SOME people (strange, none of those "free as in free beer" folks expects not to pay for food or their haircut). Has nothing to do with the original./-subject we're posting under, but couldn't resist...
Wrong. Established and proven science does NOT change. Newton's laws remained correct long after proven "wrong". The model you use to describe something depends on WHAT you want to show. Newton is sufficient for "every day physics", there's no need to use cannons (theory of relativity, quantum theory) when calculating movements e.g. of an airplane on earth.
Same with everything else incl. evolution. Evolution HAS been proven. Sure, it IS possible (and likely) that other ideas are found in areas where theory of evolution is weak right now, but that won't invalidate already existing experiments and data!
So yes, you always find something new, but if you successfully used a theory to predict something and it reliably works all the time those experiments continue to work even after new stuff is found. It's just that new theories may be better at explaining MORE, but once proven to work - and that means that predictions made using the theory reliably turn out right each time, whoever does the experiment - continue to do so. Even though Newton is "wrong" he's still right, it only depends on if you want to try to explain more stuff with it than originally intended, which is when it fails and relativity and quantum theories may be better suited. When the airplane was invented the arguments of the nay-sayers who said it's impossible were NOT proven wrong. They simply found another way AROUND the issues they had raised. That doesn't invalidate the physics of the scepticts, it merely extends it!
You never heard of people spreading lies about other people in your workplace, relatives or in your neighborhood? Wow, you must have arrived on earth only recently! And how many people were sent to jail, even death row, because witnesses or even police lied or misrepresented evidence or simply prevented evidence in favor of the defendant to show up?
This is NOT a theoretical issue!!! There even WERE cases where people had been accused of raping children where it (much) later turned out not to be true. Wasn't there a case of a prestigious ivy league university, where some football players were accused of rape, and much of the (US) media and also much of the staff of that university issued one statement after another against those guys - although from the start the case was shaky? When it all fell apart as a BIG lie there were still some who refused to apologize to those guys.
It *is* the same, however you twist it. Of course you try a little harder when lifes are at stake. You also drive more carefully when the road seems dangerous or you are not wearing a seatbelt (on the average). Not sure what you're trying to say. When flying was discovered and aircrafts developed many died. When we went into space the human cost was low ONLY because of the enormous effort - very few people have been up there at all, and many, including those who went to the moon, were just lucky - there was no backup plan (or option) for them. Besides, unlike with those first aircraft we now get better at using computers to pilot those things.
And to your hardware/software comparison, you ARE aware who's piloting the shuttle during the most dangerous parts of a mission, right? Hint: it is not the pilot...
(I welcome the language patrol but this time I'm ahead of you;-) )
I should have said "had been on a horse before", not "have been". I wouldn't add yet another post if I hadn't had relevant experience (with getting corrected) before at./ (but as I said, I don't complain or mind, but maybe some moderators do who - rightly - mod this "offtopic")
Even if we just assume they know so much more (which certainly used to be true in the past when they basically had the monopoly on staying up there long-term), the answer is: depends.
Globally, for the world as a whole, sure. Locally: no. If you never do it yourself but always ask the others they will get better and better, and you'll depend on them more and more. That's specialization all right, and according to economic theory that's a good thing. You just have to make sure you have something of equal or greater value to trade with... because if you don't, and I'd say in the foreseeable future there won't be many things more high tech (and therefore potentially valuable) than space-faring knowhow, you are screwed. Unless you believe that human nature is going to change completely.
So how would you propose these things are done? I mean, things that no one's ever done before, and which you can't really simulate?
An anecdote from my days of working for a huge German company (240000 employees) at Oracle (first job after university): I was part of the 32-64bit porting team. The question came up, are customers going to need additional or larger hard drives for the 64bit version of Oracle?
The answer from the Germans: Well, you've got the source code. Examine all structures in the code that end up on disk and count the bytes. (we know how many Bytes an "int" takes up on 32 vs. 64bit, etc.)
The answer from the Americans: Well, you've got the source code there. Just compile it and see what happens!
You know, while the German approach (I *am* German) sounds a lot more "scientific" and exact I would say the American way was not just better, but the only one that actually WORKS outside a simulated computer environment with a limited number of known-in-advance factors.
So again, how would YOU go about discovering the unknown? *I* would do just what NASA does, and what humans have done for millenia: Try, fail and try again, never approaching any ideal solution but something that works for now, until the next unforeseen thing happens.
Of course, in the western world everything that even LOOKS like risk has to be eliminated: from hot coffee to horses with tourists on them going any faster than a slow walk (I'll NEVER go on any tourist expedition on a horse in the US again, in Germany my friends who've never been on a horse before were forced to "survive" gallop several times in a 2 hour tour - and did so with relative ease).
Wrong. You got waaaay too many modpoints, it's as if no one read the discussion we had just a few hours - not even full days - ago about the Hybrid drive???
You do NOT magically get the best of both worlds by adding a laughably small amount of Flash into an HD, maybe even a lot more wouldn't help - at least not if compared with using that money for buying more RAM. Besides, that Flash in the Hybrid isn't meant to speed thing sup during runtime, but during suspend/boot time (which it fails to do at this point).
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=321435&cid=20903633 (that's my response in that other thread which I think is a good summary - and I'm not claiming the credit since, as I pointed out, I was merely summarizing test results from a comp. magazine)
We just had this discusison only a few days ago, no?
Right now SSDs are NOT interesting for gamers, but only for "toughbooks". I begin to like Dell after I heard they put SSDs into "toughbooks" only right now. It means their engineers are more powerful inside the company than their marketing guys.
I'm not going to repeat the reasons, see the previous article about the Hybrid and what I wrote there (using knowledge just aquired from reading my weekly computer magazine, it's not like I "always knew").
Also, given that the first hybrid hard drive was released some hours ago, did they land a "pre-release copy" to test?
They tested Samsung MH08HHI and MH16HIJ with 256MB Flash memory. The Seagate was not tested. I don't think there will be a significant difference between the two, none of the few remaining disk manufacturers has any significant technological lead over the others I'd venture to say.
For testing SuperFecth they used a robot(!) to move the mouse during testing, which Vista requires because this is how it detects if the user is doing anything, important for SuperFetch optimization.
But SuperFetch has no direct connection with the Flash memory. Only if there is not enough RAM SuperFetch uses the other techniques, especially ReadyBoost. And that does not benefit. So SuperFetch is a good idea, but using Flash memory is not at least right now. Invest the money more wisely by adding RAM. Or wait until they offer Hybrid disks with 5GB Flash and Vista with Service Pack 1.
Yes they did because they couldn't quite believe it was THAT useless themselves...
But I can't post the whole article, which actually is three articles each several pages long (not interrupted by half-page ads as is common in US computer magazines)! There are lots of copyright threads here on this very website lately;-)
I think I pointed out that the suspicion is not so much that the *concept* is bad, but that the implementation in Vista isn't really finished in their rush to get it out, and that retesting after SP1 is available early next year might show different results.
Yes of course they safe some, but not enough to matter in a notebook. Especially when you have a notebook with a graphics card instead of chipset graphics the difference is negligible.
Facts from the c't article (great, I get mod points but all I do is translate from German:-) ): - The Seagate hybrid disk uses 1.1W when doing nothing - it uses 3.5W when reading/writing - spikes of >5W can be seen when starting the disk platters
- The tested SSD uses 0.6W when doing nothing - 0.9W reading/writing
So if the disk would be doing something PERMANENTLY one could save 2.6W.
They tested a Dell D630, which with the CPU doing nothing and the HD not spinning used 11W. The Dell had chipset graphics, the other tested notebook had an Nvidia and used 21W doing nothing (and some notebooks use >30W doing nothing!) - you can already see the disk being MUCH less of an issue! Also, since in a notebook (see my above mentioned response to my own article about server disks) a disk is hardly doing something all the time the gain of using an SSD is negligible.
In a test of the Dell notebook SSD vs. HD they managed to get it to run 40 minutes loger. BUT that was with a test that permanently wrote something (copying 4GB files back and forth). Using a benchmark that tests real-work behavior (office work in this test case, games may differ) the difference in all the many different tests they did was a mere few minutes.
I think I should mention that pure Flash disks (SSDs) have real advantages are are very close, unlike those Hybrids for which no real purpose can be seen at this point. SSDs, if available more cheaply, are interesting not just for some Notebooks but also for servers - they need much less power... am I contradicting myself? no, looking at just the disk that's true, but c't measured real-world performance, and if you get chipset graphics instead of Nvidia in your notebook you safe MUCH more than by inserting an SSD instead of an HD. In c't tests the difference was a few minutes of on-time in a notebook. Also, in servers you have fast power-consuming disks and not notebook disks so the saving is much higher. In a rack with hundreds of servers it's A LOT. Another aspect: for server disks random access times are much more important than for Notebooks/Desktop PCs. So right now the main beneficiary of SSDs would be - servers, not Notebooks! Remains the price issue...
But again, the disk this headline is about is none of the above. It is just useless.
No they will, you just cannot use ReadyDrive technology. no big deal, since Vista itself can't make use of it (see my other response). Basically, that drive doesn't deserve a./ headline at all, nothing new, nothing to be seen here, don't assemble on the Internet, go home and let the authorities take care of this...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Now this is a great opportunity to sound off about one of the things that I truly care about, without having any kind of hope of getting what I want from a capitalist society that claims "the customers and their wishes are key".
There also is of course the marvelous wonder - to me at least - that a majority of people (or at least it seems that way) often hail very minor advancements as "revolutions". An anecdote, when I was in military hospital (many years ago, in Germany 1 yr. was mandatory - besides it WAS fun I admit) a soldier visiting the guy next to me angrily attacked me with a pillow, cutting off my air, when I patiently explained to him that the latest Mercedes sports car had NOTHING that made it a "paradigm shift" or "revolution" compared to Model-T. Four wheels, carbon fuel burning engine, steering wheel, 100% mechanical and the exact same principles as back then. I told him a "car" would be remarkable and revolutionary only if it DIDN'T have wheels, would NOT require streets (just for a moment, think about the HUGE amount of our human economies that do nothing but lay the foundation for being able to move stuff and ourselves around! and how much beautiful ground is covered with ENORMOUS effort by asphalt!), and would use something other method than "burning stuff" for locomotion. Just imagine all streets gone... I'm not even asking for flying cars which would cause a huge amount of other problems, just hovering a meter above ground... imagine all the neighborhoods and cities with grass instead of asphalt, and next to no noise, most of which comes from the wheels hitting the road and not the engine!
Okay, for ONE person in the room I was a little too revolutionary, although from my own point of view I was merely stating the obvious.
So this is just such a topic where I wonder why people keep the discussion going only within the bounds of the existing system. Just yesterday I watched a presentation on the (excellent!) ted.com website where some guy showed off a new screen with multi-touch capabilities, and how that could change how we use computers. Boy was I bored... (even taking into consideration the video was 3 yrs. old)
Look, however you want to twist and turn it, regardless of how many colors you use, how many pixels, if you let me touch the screen directly or if I have to use a mouse, if the screen has "multi-touch", if you add 3d effects on the screen - IT STILL IS THE SAME PARADIGM (to use that nice word). I accept it was a step from text consoles to windows, but I don't see how rotating those windows, for example, or allowing me to touch the screen on more than one point, changes much. Sure it gets nicer and more convenient! But only as much as the latest car is an advancement over the old Ford, not more.
So, what would be a true shift in my opinion?
Well, first I would like something that isn't even that "paradigm shift" I'm talking about. What I would like *right now*, as a replacement for my current monitor (a 24 inch Dell), is a monitor plus glasses that let me see the monitor picture in a distance. Why? What??? Well, many people who look at monitors for years and years in later years (too late to change anything) get trouble with their eyes. Constantly looking at the near is not good! Our eyes are made for moving around, and for looking at distances more often than close, and to do so alternately. Looking at the close picture of the monitor is not good! If you tell me you've no problem, well, let's talk again 10-20 yrs. from now, shall we? Of course this isn't something you'll notice before you turn 40, and maybe you're one of the lucky ones even then. Even so, from an ergonomics point of view I'd prefer to exercise my far sight much more often *without* having to interrupt my work for too long - because it's not enough to switch for a minute every hour (but that's still better than making no pause at all). It can't be so hard to create such optical equipment?
Okay, and the REAL revolution to me still is good old VR. I don't want yet another bad 2d (o
Are the moderators insane, stupid or both? WHy did the parent of the parent get "5-insightful" when his post is so disrespectful of enormous achievements that it can rightly be labeled "stupid", while the parent gets "-1"? Stupidity (of moderators) knows no limits these days.
Related and strange and funny (or not!), why, when I have to meta-moderate, don't ever get any of these idiots? So much trivia gets a "+5 insightful", so much "modding by opinion", statistically it is impossible I didn't get a chance to meta-punch one of those guys...
Not sure why this post is labeled "insightful"... because it does not say anything that would invalidate what the original poster had said. It completely misses that postings point. Sure the purpose of a fusion reactor is to create energy, and yes - this "waste product" COULD be sold. However, there just won't be enough helium output unless selling by the gram is useful for anyone??? How much time (for producing energy) such a reactor would have to run before even a cubic meter of the gas has been produced? And how efficient is it for anyone to care about a side-effect that could, if converted into money, be worth not more than an invisibly small fraction of the income of your real business (producing energy)? So the conclusion from the original authors posting is and remains: using fusion reactors as a source for helium is not worth it, regardless of how you look at it. Remember that earth-based fusion will be based on very little matter, so the output elements also will be few. Just like a nuclear reactor spits out many orders of magnitude less waste than a coal power plant (how poisonous that waste is is a completely unrelated issue, this is just about pure volume). Ergo you would not be very wise to wait for the chemical elements coming out of that reactor - it's just not enough to be used for any kind input into other production processes. The only thing of value you get is the energy.
Why does someone who almost PROUDLY admits not to even have read the article gets a FIVE modding??? There seem to be too many moderators on crack! I think moderator privileges should be tight to IQ.
I'm mad at the moderators, not nearly as much at the guy they moderated. Although (no surprise!) he COMPLETELY misses the point of the article.
Besides, he has no idea about computer science as the last sentence of his post shows. With the same argument one could argue no mechanics should be taught in physics lessons any more - Newton is sooooo hundreds of years ago after all, today we only deal with relativity (ooop,s even that is a hundred years old), quantum physics (not too new too) and string theory (a lot of completely unproven stuff).
I'm not sure why you would call my multimedia learning website - http://letexa.com/ - not useful. Well, sure, the current content there may indeed not be useful to you, but I'd say that is a question of the actual content and not of the concept in general.
Please tell me how YOU would deliver multimedia content on the Internet - and I'm not talking about stupid youtube videos (as someone who doesn't even own a TV I could subscribe to the view such content is indeed useless). In addition to audio/video Flash adds interactive and vector capabilities, which can very nicely be used together with the pixel based stuff. Very nice for elearning indeed. (Yes - you can just read. Yes - you can just walk instead of using a car, more healthy anyway, make your bread yourself, etc etc. and live like a monk, if you want that. This "how useful is it" argument without looking at any given goals, but just for arguments sake, is stupid as it comes down to the "meaning of life" question each time, which each person has to answer for themselves; sorry, I just dread this "but you could just read pure text" argument, because it is no argument reeally - but a CHOICE of any individual and therefore a very bad subject for logical discussion. *I* like multimedia, and so do others, period.)
Why is this article that doesn't explain ANYTHING, gives no references, and shows no hint of KNOWLWEDGE on the part of the author, but only lists stereotypes, labeled "insightful"? I'm missing any insights!
The guy even calls Flash a "protocol"! This is the OPPOSITE of insight!!!
Here's the one I own (in my print business):
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=180&modelid=15835
There also are smaller commercial-grade inkjets than this one, usually for up to "A3" (DIN) sizes (roughly 2xletter) with color management tools, mostly for media design businesses that want to print a color proof using color profiles of their offset print publishers to get a simulation of the final output before giving it to them for printing. Or, for anyone who wants to print very good photos up to A3 size and is unwilling to wait for a service provider or to rely on their color management - because often photo printers who serve the mass market have no or no good color management, knowing their customers don't have it or even know what this is anyway.
This questions is invalid.
:-) thus far). For atheists that's clear, but also religion teaches that what you do in life is YOUR choice, god doesn't tell you. (It does say you get judged afterwards but more about HOW and not WHAT you did). So if I decide my purpose is to get to Mars then that's it. If I kill people to get what I want I leave human values behind. If I can convince enough people (with enough resources) to help me (or if they want it themselves anyway) there is no use asking the question "why". Because I want it.
;-)
It comes down to asking "what is the commercial benefit of live"?
This conversation happened and says it all:
Q: Why did you climb that mountain?
A: Because it is there.
What do you live for? What is "the economy" for? No economist would ask such a question. Because the ENDS of the economy are not subject of that science, only how to best achieve it. What those ends are, what people values in life, is NOT a subject of economic debate - at least not as real economists are concerned (sure there are those who want to impose their values on you but that is their personal issue and not subject of the science called "economics").
It comes down to this: If there are enough people with enough power to get their will then whatever it is they want it gets done. Period. That's how everything works. Democracy too. Only distribution of power is different in different societies.
So, if you don't want that anyone goes to space, convince them or become powerful enough to prevent it. But don't ask for the purpose - there is none. Each person has to decide for themselves what they want from/in life. That is true whether you're an atheist or a devoted catholic (I'm an atheist who ended up on two catholic pilgrimages
Imagine an intelligence waaaaay beyond human capabilities. Of what use is it? It's a great computer, not more! Without feelings, desires, there is NOTHING to drive it towards some end. There is no logical reason to do ANYTHING. You can ALWAYS ask "why", endlessly! At some point you have to decide you don't give a d..., or you never have a reason to act, ever. That's also why very intelligent people, with IQs far above average, are NOT the most successful ones in life. Sure, *some* intelligence sure helps, but at some point it gets much more important to feel the inner DRIVE to live and so things, and NOT ask questions "why"! That's (the main reason) why a dyslexic Richard Branson is a multi-Billionaire and 180+ IQ writer Stanislaw Lem (one of my favorites) only wrote lots of very thoughtful and philosophic books, with an increasing air of skepticism and melancholy.
So maybe you are too intelligent if you keep asking "why"
I am sooooo tired of such statements as yours.
I don't say you are wrong - I don't know. So what I don't like is not WHAT you say but that you fail to even ATTEMPT to submit any justification for your statement. How do you come to your conclusion? It seems to me it is based only on a vague feeling you developed over the years.
Best: link to statistics that support your claim.
Second-best, but still better than "opinion": add at least ONE sentence that shows what you base your statement on.
Thanks.
"to want" is defined as "willing to pay" in economy terms. Should I start a looooong list of all the things I would like? This is so silly... are you willing to spend an afternoon working my garden in exchange for the small favor you want form me - THAT'S the question, or do you want something from me without doing anything in return?
./-subject we're posting under, but couldn't resist...
This is what I HATE about open source. Too many kids grow up with that "I get everything for free" mentality. And don't try to argue they give back to open source - what's the number of people USING open source vs. those actually contributing? Hint: Posting in discussion forums is NOT a contribution (or very very rarely, even most replies to "support questions" are useless).
I'm all for openness and liked Sun's open source Tcl/Tk *a lot* (I wrote a pretty complete and nice looking file manager GUI in ca. 200 lines of code) long before Linux was hot, but I'm against working for free and even more against trying to establish that expectation for SOME people (strange, none of those "free as in free beer" folks expects not to pay for food or their haircut). Has nothing to do with the original
Wrong. Established and proven science does NOT change. Newton's laws remained correct long after proven "wrong". The model you use to describe something depends on WHAT you want to show. Newton is sufficient for "every day physics", there's no need to use cannons (theory of relativity, quantum theory) when calculating movements e.g. of an airplane on earth.
Same with everything else incl. evolution. Evolution HAS been proven. Sure, it IS possible (and likely) that other ideas are found in areas where theory of evolution is weak right now, but that won't invalidate already existing experiments and data!
So yes, you always find something new, but if you successfully used a theory to predict something and it reliably works all the time those experiments continue to work even after new stuff is found. It's just that new theories may be better at explaining MORE, but once proven to work - and that means that predictions made using the theory reliably turn out right each time, whoever does the experiment - continue to do so. Even though Newton is "wrong" he's still right, it only depends on if you want to try to explain more stuff with it than originally intended, which is when it fails and relativity and quantum theories may be better suited. When the airplane was invented the arguments of the nay-sayers who said it's impossible were NOT proven wrong. They simply found another way AROUND the issues they had raised. That doesn't invalidate the physics of the scepticts, it merely extends it!
You never heard of people spreading lies about other people in your workplace, relatives or in your neighborhood? Wow, you must have arrived on earth only recently! And how many people were sent to jail, even death row, because witnesses or even police lied or misrepresented evidence or simply prevented evidence in favor of the defendant to show up?
This is NOT a theoretical issue!!! There even WERE cases where people had been accused of raping children where it (much) later turned out not to be true. Wasn't there a case of a prestigious ivy league university, where some football players were accused of rape, and much of the (US) media and also much of the staff of that university issued one statement after another against those guys - although from the start the case was shaky? When it all fell apart as a BIG lie there were still some who refused to apologize to those guys.
It *is* the same, however you twist it. Of course you try a little harder when lifes are at stake. You also drive more carefully when the road seems dangerous or you are not wearing a seatbelt (on the average). Not sure what you're trying to say. When flying was discovered and aircrafts developed many died. When we went into space the human cost was low ONLY because of the enormous effort - very few people have been up there at all, and many, including those who went to the moon, were just lucky - there was no backup plan (or option) for them. Besides, unlike with those first aircraft we now get better at using computers to pilot those things.
And to your hardware/software comparison, you ARE aware who's piloting the shuttle during the most dangerous parts of a mission, right? Hint: it is not the pilot...
(I welcome the language patrol but this time I'm ahead of you ;-) )
./ (but as I said, I don't complain or mind, but maybe some moderators do who - rightly - mod this "offtopic")
I should have said "had been on a horse before", not "have been". I wouldn't add yet another post if I hadn't had relevant experience (with getting corrected) before at
Even if we just assume they know so much more (which certainly used to be true in the past when they basically had the monopoly on staying up there long-term), the answer is: depends.
Globally, for the world as a whole, sure. Locally: no. If you never do it yourself but always ask the others they will get better and better, and you'll depend on them more and more. That's specialization all right, and according to economic theory that's a good thing. You just have to make sure you have something of equal or greater value to trade with... because if you don't, and I'd say in the foreseeable future there won't be many things more high tech (and therefore potentially valuable) than space-faring knowhow, you are screwed. Unless you believe that human nature is going to change completely.
So how would you propose these things are done? I mean, things that no one's ever done before, and which you can't really simulate?
An anecdote from my days of working for a huge German company (240000 employees) at Oracle (first job after university): I was part of the 32-64bit porting team. The question came up, are customers going to need additional or larger hard drives for the 64bit version of Oracle?
The answer from the Germans: Well, you've got the source code. Examine all structures in the code that end up on disk and count the bytes. (we know how many Bytes an "int" takes up on 32 vs. 64bit, etc.)
The answer from the Americans: Well, you've got the source code there. Just compile it and see what happens!
You know, while the German approach (I *am* German) sounds a lot more "scientific" and exact I would say the American way was not just better, but the only one that actually WORKS outside a simulated computer environment with a limited number of known-in-advance factors.
So again, how would YOU go about discovering the unknown? *I* would do just what NASA does, and what humans have done for millenia: Try, fail and try again, never approaching any ideal solution but something that works for now, until the next unforeseen thing happens.
Of course, in the western world everything that even LOOKS like risk has to be eliminated: from hot coffee to horses with tourists on them going any faster than a slow walk (I'll NEVER go on any tourist expedition on a horse in the US again, in Germany my friends who've never been on a horse before were forced to "survive" gallop several times in a 2 hour tour - and did so with relative ease).
MOD PARENT UP
:-)
Finally a voice of reason and sanity
Wrong. You got waaaay too many modpoints, it's as if no one read the discussion we had just a few hours - not even full days - ago about the Hybrid drive???
You do NOT magically get the best of both worlds by adding a laughably small amount of Flash into an HD, maybe even a lot more wouldn't help - at least not if compared with using that money for buying more RAM. Besides, that Flash in the Hybrid isn't meant to speed thing sup during runtime, but during suspend/boot time (which it fails to do at this point).
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=321435&cid=20903633
(that's my response in that other thread which I think is a good summary - and I'm not claiming the credit since, as I pointed out, I was merely summarizing test results from a comp. magazine)
For gamers?
We just had this discusison only a few days ago, no?
Right now SSDs are NOT interesting for gamers, but only for "toughbooks". I begin to like Dell after I heard they put SSDs into "toughbooks" only right now. It means their engineers are more powerful inside the company than their marketing guys.
I'm not going to repeat the reasons, see the previous article about the Hybrid and what I wrote there (using knowledge just aquired from reading my weekly computer magazine, it's not like I "always knew").
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=321435&cid=20903633
I know and I never said anything different.
They tested Samsung MH08HHI and MH16HIJ with 256MB Flash memory. The Seagate was not tested. I don't think there will be a significant difference between the two, none of the few remaining disk manufacturers has any significant technological lead over the others I'd venture to say.
For testing SuperFecth they used a robot(!) to move the mouse during testing, which Vista requires because this is how it detects if the user is doing anything, important for SuperFetch optimization.
But SuperFetch has no direct connection with the Flash memory. Only if there is not enough RAM SuperFetch uses the other techniques, especially ReadyBoost. And that does not benefit. So SuperFetch is a good idea, but using Flash memory is not at least right now. Invest the money more wisely by adding RAM. Or wait until they offer Hybrid disks with 5GB Flash and Vista with Service Pack 1.
Yes they did because they couldn't quite believe it was THAT useless themselves...
;-)
But I can't post the whole article, which actually is three articles each several pages long (not interrupted by half-page ads as is common in US computer magazines)! There are lots of copyright threads here on this very website lately
I think I pointed out that the suspicion is not so much that the *concept* is bad, but that the implementation in Vista isn't really finished in their rush to get it out, and that retesting after SP1 is available early next year might show different results.
See my response to my response, please :-)
:-) ):
;-)
Yes of course they safe some, but not enough to matter in a notebook. Especially when you have a notebook with a graphics card instead of chipset graphics the difference is negligible.
Facts from the c't article (great, I get mod points but all I do is translate from German
- The Seagate hybrid disk uses 1.1W when doing nothing
- it uses 3.5W when reading/writing
- spikes of >5W can be seen when starting the disk platters
- The tested SSD uses 0.6W when doing nothing
- 0.9W reading/writing
So if the disk would be doing something PERMANENTLY one could save 2.6W.
They tested a Dell D630, which with the CPU doing nothing and the HD not spinning used 11W. The Dell had chipset graphics, the other tested notebook had an Nvidia and used 21W doing nothing (and some notebooks use >30W doing nothing!) - you can already see the disk being MUCH less of an issue! Also, since in a notebook (see my above mentioned response to my own article about server disks) a disk is hardly doing something all the time the gain of using an SSD is negligible.
In a test of the Dell notebook SSD vs. HD they managed to get it to run 40 minutes loger. BUT that was with a test that permanently wrote something (copying 4GB files back and forth). Using a benchmark that tests real-work behavior (office work in this test case, games may differ) the difference in all the many different tests they did was a mere few minutes.
Now go out and learn German and buy that c't
I think I should mention that pure Flash disks (SSDs) have real advantages are are very close, unlike those Hybrids for which no real purpose can be seen at this point. SSDs, if available more cheaply, are interesting not just for some Notebooks but also for servers - they need much less power... am I contradicting myself? no, looking at just the disk that's true, but c't measured real-world performance, and if you get chipset graphics instead of Nvidia in your notebook you safe MUCH more than by inserting an SSD instead of an HD. In c't tests the difference was a few minutes of on-time in a notebook. Also, in servers you have fast power-consuming disks and not notebook disks so the saving is much higher. In a rack with hundreds of servers it's A LOT. Another aspect: for server disks random access times are much more important than for Notebooks/Desktop PCs. So right now the main beneficiary of SSDs would be - servers, not Notebooks! Remains the price issue...
But again, the disk this headline is about is none of the above. It is just useless.
No they will, you just cannot use ReadyDrive technology. no big deal, since Vista itself can't make use of it (see my other response). Basically, that drive doesn't deserve a ./ headline at all, nothing new, nothing to be seen here, don't assemble on the Internet, go home and let the authorities take care of this... :-)