Read the article. They're not talking about putting a PC on everyone's desk. They're talking about putting a terminal on everyone's desk.
Of course if they put a PC on everyone's desk, those people with administrator or root access will be able to install applications like XMMS, Mathematica, MATLAB, GAIM, anything that comes with RedHat, or a whole host of "Free" applications.
But that has absolutely no relevance to this comparison.
Despite the best efforts of slashdot's "editors" to read this article, they failed to discover that this article is not a comparison of Linux and Windows. This article is a comparison of Terminals and Personal Computers.
Modern personal computers can do all of the things that I described, whether they're running VMS, Solaris, OpenBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, BeOS, or even Windows. Modern terminals still have a difficult time doing any of those things, whether they're connecting to a server running Unix or Windows.
And, of course, it must be said -- of course all of the Scientific Applications I listed have both Unix and Windows versions. That's why I listed those, instead of some cripple-ware like Microsoft Word. However, the Personal Computer versions (whether that's on Linux, Windows, Solaris, or whatever) is often much less expensive than the shared user license (whether that's on Linux, Windows, Solaris, or whatever). Often, they're significantly cheaper -- to the point that the difference in cost for a five year license might be 10% of the total cost savings that they're proposing, just for one application.
Perhaps none of you have ever priced an application more expensive than you can buy at your local Best Buy? Haven't any of you ever purchased software?
And you can't install your own quirky software, without going through 6 months to get approval from the University (like your favorite email program, or word processor, or text editor, or compiler, or database, or whatever else it is you use to get your job done).
In short, it's not a PC. PC's are kind of like automobiles. They're a hell of a lot more expensive than busses. The infrastructure costs everyone at the university more money. But that's what everyone wants to use, because it's certainly more convenient for the user. And, it's what everyone wants to buy, because most of the costs get shifted to someplace where they're easier to ignore or justify.
It would have been nice if they'd compared Linux PC's to Windows PC's, or compared Unix Terminals to Windows Terminals. But they didn't -- they compared Unix Terminals to Windows PC's. It shouln't be a shock that the Terminals are cheaper.
I NEVER wrote windows ANYWHERE. I wrote PC, as in "Personal Computer".
Comparing 500 personal computers to a bunch of X Servers is stupid. Being unable to tell the difference between "Personal Computer" and "Windows" is just moronic.
Nearly everything I wrote requires a Personal Computer. Almost nothing I wrote about requires Windows. Get your head out of your ass.
I don't understand. They're comparing a bunch of X Servers versus a bunch of Dell PC's?
What about the guy who's playing MP3's at his desk?
What about the guy who wants to sync to his Palm Pilot?
What about the guy who's using Messenger?
What about the guy who *NEEDS* a specific piece of software to communicate with his peers?
What about the guy who's burning DVD's of classroom presentations?
What about the guy who wants to run mid-priced shrink wrapped applications like Mathematica or MATLAB or IDL (all probably less than $10,000 for a single user license, but could get expensive for a big machine).
What about the guy who runs small simulations -- the kind of thing a reasonable desktop could do in an evening or a weekend? People who run computer centers often complain about 40 hours of computer time on the big boxes.
In short, what about all the flexibility that the Personal Computer gives the user? Why ins't that included in their "TCO" at all?
But, we all know that the story was really submitted by Cowboy Neal.
Now, if I could only get myself a bacon-powered Segway, I'd be able to eliminate all the walking I have to do from the bacon-cooling-fridge to the baking-cooking-stove to the bacon-eating-table. I'd be the Bacon Man, baybee.
I'm a "real" developer. Frankly, I have no idea what a "scripter" is.
When I decide which language to use for a problem, I very rarely ask "which language will make this problem the easiest to solve."
I almost always ask "which language will make this solution the easiest to support."
Sometimes I reach into my toolbox and find a "scripting language" to do the job at hand. Sometimes I reach into the toolbox and find a "real languages" to do a job at hand. But, the language chosen is hardly ever a barrier to solving a problem.
I have to wonder what a "scripter" is. Is it someone who doesn't think about "supporting solutions" but instead thinks about "solving problems?" Then certainly there would be a difference between the type of job given to a "developer" versus the type of job given to a "scripter", although I can't see how the difference would be negative.
Or, is a "scripter" someone who's so incompentent that they only know one or two languages, and couldn't be bothered to learn more even if the job at hand demanded it? Then, I can't see what good a scripter is at all. I guess they could have the shit jobs that real programmers don't have the time to do, or something.
I wasn't kidding when I said that I believe that they intentionally escalated their terror campaign against the largest democracy in the world (India) just as the Taliban was collapsing.
I honestly believe that Pakistan intentionally created an international nuclear crisis in an attempt to allow as many Taliban to escape as possible.
Of course, I don't think that we should invade Pakistan either. But the majority of ill-informed claims that we should target Iraq apply equally well to Pakistan.
Want to go after weapons of mass destruction? Want to go after non-democratic regimes with a history of supporting terrorists to undermine democracy? Want to go after a governement that supported the Taliban? Want to go after a government some people intentionally provided aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden after the September 11th terror attacks?
Well, that would be Pakistan. Not Iraq.
Of course, its a hell of a lot more complicated than "weapons of mass destruction" or "no war for oil" or whatever people blather about on Fox news. I'm only certain of one thing -- I'm not hearing the real reasons for the war on the news.
Well, its not like we've always been at war with Eurasia. Yet.
If you killed 3000 people, if you helped kill 3000 people... then your dead... And in the case of Mr Saddam Hussien, if I think that your going come into my sandbox and torch the damn place.
Saddam has, by all accounts, killed far, far more than 3,000 people. But, are you trying to imply that Saddam had anything to do with September 11th?
Perhaps you're confusing Iraq with Saudi Arabia. You remember the Saudi's, right? That's the brutal monarchy that executes Christians, treats women as chattel, continues to supply most of the money for the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, and was, by any measure, more responsible as a state for the September 11th suicide bombing than any other state (since they supplied all the money, people, and visas.)
I suppose we're technically invading Saudi Arabia, since we're putting a few hundred thousand soldiers on their soil.
Or, perhaps you're thinking of Qatar. You remember Qatar, right? Another brutal little monarchy with a state run news agency Al-Jazeera that that routinely give Osama bin Laden a pulpit from which to taunt the world.
I suppose that we're technically invading Qatar, if you include putting a command and control center full of officers as "invading."
Or, perhaps you're thinking of Pakistan. There's another non-elected leader flaunting his nuclear arsenal. Do you remember that they were, prior to September 11th, the largest supporters of the Taliban? Do you remember how Pakistan intentionally escalated their terror campaign against the largest democracy in the world, India, and pulled all of their forces off of the border with Afgahnistan just as the Taliban collapsed? Do you remember how they intentionally engineered an international crisis that allowed Osama bin Laden to escape?
I suppose we technically invaded Pakistan, too. If you count one BILLION photos of George Washington printed on fancy green paper as invading.
Maybe I'm being too subtle. I'll be direct. If you think that Saddam is responsible for September 11th, you're a damned moron. If you think that the American government really has any intention to bring justice on those countries that continue to be the biggest direct supporters of the terror cells that created September 11th, you're damned moron.
Go ahead and slaughter a few hundred thousand more human beings in this war. I'll think about their blood every time I drive my SUV to work with a tank full of it.
we should now and for all time look the other way when third-world countries, particularly those with ties to al-Qaida, develop chemical and biological weapons (which are banned by the Geneva Convention)?
You're 100% correct. When do you suggest we invade Pakistan?
Yep. Good versus evil right there, no doubt about it. Well, except for the "good" part.
the neverending saga of Israel & Palestine
Yep, once again it's good versus evil. Well, again, as long as you ignore the requirement for the "good" part.
Why is it that if something or someone is evil (like Palistinian suicide bombers or Saddam Hussien) that makes anyone believe the opposition to those things is morally good?
Iraq is run by a very, very bad man. That does nothing to provide any moral justification for killing another 250,000 iraqis to secure oil rights.
Palistinian suicide bombers are evil. That does nothing to provide any moral justification for imposing martial law on Palistinians in Isreal, and it does not excuse fifty years of condemnable human rights abuses by the Isreali's.
Stop looking at the world as black and white. Because, that point of view forces you to think that anything that's not "quite as evil" must somehow be "good." That way of looking at the world makes you into a moral cripple.
Some of you have complained that the Space Shuttle reference is gratuitous in this article.
To you people, I must point out that in this post-columbine, post-9/11 world, those people who are able to leverage all available datum into a synergetic process are the most likely to accept success in their lives.
It's just like Access? So, it's a form builder and a report generator, with full support for embedding standard platform components, including and compliant script engines? Just like Access does?
So, now I can script Open Office applications using Perl, Python, VBScript, JavaScript, and a slew of of less popular languages, just like Access? And I can bring in components built in any of the standard platform development environment, just like Access can use ActiveX controls?
That's incredibly cool. I'm looking forward to trying that.
Or, do you mean it's another crappy, half assed front end that looks superficially similar to Access to someone who's never bothered to use it?
I guess I'm confused why she would dump it before they had a chance to test it, before they had a chance to pull any files off the hard drive, even before she managed to get anything better than a wild-ass guess repair estimate.
Either we're talking about someone who just had the laptop sitting on their coffee table for show, or we're talking about someone who simply didn't even own the laptop she dumped.
Certainly there are plenty of people in the world who can afford $2,400 laptops without blinking, and many of them might even have a laptop they never use and be totally unconcerned by what gets damaged during a wild party. But there are many more crack-heads out there who steal things without having any idea what they're worth, treat those things badly, and then dump those things once they discover that they're not readily convertible into more drugs.
But it can't be insurance. I mean, she's not going to get insurance on a mac if she just dumps it, without getting an estimate or documentation, at a repair place and says, "oh, I guess I don't want it anymore."
And, she can't just be dumping it and buying a new one -- she walked into the Apple store with a dead mac, and walked out empty handed. Plus, I've never met a human being who wouldn't say, "but what about my files! I need my files!" whenever they lost a computer, and she made no attempt to do that.
So, my guess is that she's a crackhead who stole the Mac at an airport, and hid it in the oven while she was tweaking and afraid the boogey man was coming to get her. She probably brought it into the store with no idea what it was worth, hoping to get $25 or $50 for it so that she could get one more hit without selling her ass down on the blvd.
What other kind of person would collect all the burnt, mangled keys from the bottom of the oven and bring them into the shop?
I'm confused.
on
Baked Apple
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't get it. This is a 15", $2,400.00 powerbook, right? And she dumped it, without explanation, at a repair shop, because fixing it would be $1,000.00 for the new screen?
This story has the stink of "bullshit" written all over it, frankly.
No-one's browser should be able to read "http://freedesktop.org/", since no nameserver returns an A or CNAME record for the domainname "freedesktop.org"
Can someone explain why a browser would be so broken that it would return a page for a domain that simply doesn't exist?
Slashdot Mirror
Your definition of "innovative" is popup blocking? Jesus Christ, you're easy to please.
You know, I understand that Netscape just innovated a new <blink>blink</blink> tag. That should really get your shizzle in a nizzle.
Keep using WinXP. There is a lot of high quality Free software out there, and I have found very little that doesn't work great on Windows.
Plus, you get access to the fastest, most featureful, most standards compliant Web Browser available -- Internet Explorer.
So, the staph antiobitic is antibiotic resistant?
And staph infections occur naturally in rock pools?
Read the article. They're not talking about putting a PC on everyone's desk. They're talking about putting a terminal on everyone's desk.
Of course if they put a PC on everyone's desk, those people with administrator or root access will be able to install applications like XMMS, Mathematica, MATLAB, GAIM, anything that comes with RedHat, or a whole host of "Free" applications.
But that has absolutely no relevance to this comparison.
Despite the best efforts of slashdot's "editors" to read this article, they failed to discover that this article is not a comparison of Linux and Windows. This article is a comparison of Terminals and Personal Computers.
Modern personal computers can do all of the things that I described, whether they're running VMS, Solaris, OpenBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, BeOS, or even Windows. Modern terminals still have a difficult time doing any of those things, whether they're connecting to a server running Unix or Windows.
And, of course, it must be said -- of course all of the Scientific Applications I listed have both Unix and Windows versions. That's why I listed those, instead of some cripple-ware like Microsoft Word. However, the Personal Computer versions (whether that's on Linux, Windows, Solaris, or whatever) is often much less expensive than the shared user license (whether that's on Linux, Windows, Solaris, or whatever). Often, they're significantly cheaper -- to the point that the difference in cost for a five year license might be 10% of the total cost savings that they're proposing, just for one application.
Perhaps none of you have ever priced an application more expensive than you can buy at your local Best Buy? Haven't any of you ever purchased software?
but they could at least put a few standard PCI ports on the mobo so I could slap in my more expensive expansion cards.
If you have expensive expansion cards, you'll be able to find PCI motherboards for a long, long, long time.
Unless, of course, you think that a $150 sound card is "expensive." Then, you're fucked.
You dont buy COTS software for Solaris, HP-UX or any other 'non-standard' system.
Well, perhaps you don't buy shrinkwrapped software for Unix systems. But don't presume to speak for me.
I've already decided my next computer will be a PowerBook, once I can afford it.
Well, one of the first rules of business is "ignore all the losers without money."
I mean, if you work at McDonals and can't afford to buy a new computer, then why should Apple consider your needs at all?
with Graphics and Mouse support!
But very often, no 3D support.
And no sound support.
And no ability to burn a CDs or DVDs.
And it's impossible to edit movies.
And you can't install your own quirky software, without going through 6 months to get approval from the University (like your favorite email program, or word processor, or text editor, or compiler, or database, or whatever else it is you use to get your job done).
In short, it's not a PC. PC's are kind of like automobiles. They're a hell of a lot more expensive than busses. The infrastructure costs everyone at the university more money. But that's what everyone wants to use, because it's certainly more convenient for the user. And, it's what everyone wants to buy, because most of the costs get shifted to someplace where they're easier to ignore or justify.
It would have been nice if they'd compared Linux PC's to Windows PC's, or compared Unix Terminals to Windows Terminals. But they didn't -- they compared Unix Terminals to Windows PC's. It shouln't be a shock that the Terminals are cheaper.
Perhaps you should *READ* anything I wrote.
I NEVER wrote windows ANYWHERE. I wrote PC, as in "Personal Computer".
Comparing 500 personal computers to a bunch of X Servers is stupid. Being unable to tell the difference between "Personal Computer" and "Windows" is just moronic.
Nearly everything I wrote requires a Personal Computer. Almost nothing I wrote about requires Windows. Get your head out of your ass.
I don't understand. They're comparing a bunch of X Servers versus a bunch of Dell PC's?
What about the guy who's playing MP3's at his desk?
What about the guy who wants to sync to his Palm Pilot?
What about the guy who's using Messenger?
What about the guy who *NEEDS* a specific piece of software to communicate with his peers?
What about the guy who's burning DVD's of classroom presentations?
What about the guy who wants to run mid-priced shrink wrapped applications like Mathematica or MATLAB or IDL (all probably less than $10,000 for a single user license, but could get expensive for a big machine).
What about the guy who runs small simulations -- the kind of thing a reasonable desktop could do in an evening or a weekend? People who run computer centers often complain about 40 hours of computer time on the big boxes.
In short, what about all the flexibility that the Personal Computer gives the user? Why ins't that included in their "TCO" at all?
It may say "an anonymous reader writes... Bacon!"
But, we all know that the story was really submitted by Cowboy Neal.
Now, if I could only get myself a bacon-powered Segway, I'd be able to eliminate all the walking I have to do from the bacon-cooling-fridge to the baking-cooking-stove to the bacon-eating-table. I'd be the Bacon Man, baybee.
I'm a "real" developer. Frankly, I have no idea what a "scripter" is.
When I decide which language to use for a problem, I very rarely ask "which language will make this problem the easiest to solve."
I almost always ask "which language will make this solution the easiest to support."
Sometimes I reach into my toolbox and find a "scripting language" to do the job at hand. Sometimes I reach into the toolbox and find a "real languages" to do a job at hand. But, the language chosen is hardly ever a barrier to solving a problem.
I have to wonder what a "scripter" is. Is it someone who doesn't think about "supporting solutions" but instead thinks about "solving problems?" Then certainly there would be a difference between the type of job given to a "developer" versus the type of job given to a "scripter", although I can't see how the difference would be negative.
Or, is a "scripter" someone who's so incompentent that they only know one or two languages, and couldn't be bothered to learn more even if the job at hand demanded it? Then, I can't see what good a scripter is at all. I guess they could have the shit jobs that real programmers don't have the time to do, or something.
I wasn't kidding when I said that I believe that they intentionally escalated their terror campaign against the largest democracy in the world (India) just as the Taliban was collapsing.
I honestly believe that Pakistan intentionally created an international nuclear crisis in an attempt to allow as many Taliban to escape as possible.
Of course, I don't think that we should invade Pakistan either. But the majority of ill-informed claims that we should target Iraq apply equally well to Pakistan.
Want to go after weapons of mass destruction? Want to go after non-democratic regimes with a history of supporting terrorists to undermine democracy? Want to go after a governement that supported the Taliban? Want to go after a government some people intentionally provided aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden after the September 11th terror attacks?
Well, that would be Pakistan. Not Iraq.
Of course, its a hell of a lot more complicated than "weapons of mass destruction" or "no war for oil" or whatever people blather about on Fox news. I'm only certain of one thing -- I'm not hearing the real reasons for the war on the news.
Well, its not like we've always been at war with Eurasia. Yet.
If you killed 3000 people, if you helped kill 3000 people... then your dead... And in the case of Mr Saddam Hussien, if I think that your going come into my sandbox and torch the damn place.
Saddam has, by all accounts, killed far, far more than 3,000 people. But, are you trying to imply that Saddam had anything to do with September 11th?
Perhaps you're confusing Iraq with Saudi Arabia. You remember the Saudi's, right? That's the brutal monarchy that executes Christians, treats women as chattel, continues to supply most of the money for the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, and was, by any measure, more responsible as a state for the September 11th suicide bombing than any other state (since they supplied all the money, people, and visas.)
I suppose we're technically invading Saudi Arabia, since we're putting a few hundred thousand soldiers on their soil.
Or, perhaps you're thinking of Qatar. You remember Qatar, right? Another brutal little monarchy with a state run news agency Al-Jazeera that that routinely give Osama bin Laden a pulpit from which to taunt the world.
I suppose that we're technically invading Qatar, if you include putting a command and control center full of officers as "invading."
Or, perhaps you're thinking of Pakistan. There's another non-elected leader flaunting his nuclear arsenal. Do you remember that they were, prior to September 11th, the largest supporters of the Taliban? Do you remember how Pakistan intentionally escalated their terror campaign against the largest democracy in the world, India, and pulled all of their forces off of the border with Afgahnistan just as the Taliban collapsed? Do you remember how they intentionally engineered an international crisis that allowed Osama bin Laden to escape?
I suppose we technically invaded Pakistan, too. If you count one BILLION photos of George Washington printed on fancy green paper as invading.
Maybe I'm being too subtle. I'll be direct. If you think that Saddam is responsible for September 11th, you're a damned moron. If you think that the American government really has any intention to bring justice on those countries that continue to be the biggest direct supporters of the terror cells that created September 11th, you're damned moron.
Go ahead and slaughter a few hundred thousand more human beings in this war. I'll think about their blood every time I drive my SUV to work with a tank full of it.
we should now and for all time look the other way when third-world countries, particularly those with ties to al-Qaida, develop chemical and biological weapons (which are banned by the Geneva Convention)?
You're 100% correct. When do you suggest we invade Pakistan?
The debate over war in Iraq
Yep. Good versus evil right there, no doubt about it. Well, except for the "good" part.
the neverending saga of Israel & Palestine
Yep, once again it's good versus evil. Well, again, as long as you ignore the requirement for the "good" part.
Why is it that if something or someone is evil (like Palistinian suicide bombers or Saddam Hussien) that makes anyone believe the opposition to those things is morally good?
Iraq is run by a very, very bad man. That does nothing to provide any moral justification for killing another 250,000 iraqis to secure oil rights.
Palistinian suicide bombers are evil. That does nothing to provide any moral justification for imposing martial law on Palistinians in Isreal, and it does not excuse fifty years of condemnable human rights abuses by the Isreali's.
Stop looking at the world as black and white. Because, that point of view forces you to think that anything that's not "quite as evil" must somehow be "good." That way of looking at the world makes you into a moral cripple.
Some of you have complained that the Space Shuttle reference is gratuitous in this article.
To you people, I must point out that in this post-columbine, post-9/11 world, those people who are able to leverage all available datum into a synergetic process are the most likely to accept success in their lives.
It's just like Access? So, it's a form builder and a report generator, with full support for embedding standard platform components, including and compliant script engines? Just like Access does?
So, now I can script Open Office applications using Perl, Python, VBScript, JavaScript, and a slew of of less popular languages, just like Access? And I can bring in components built in any of the standard platform development environment, just like Access can use ActiveX controls?
That's incredibly cool. I'm looking forward to trying that.
Or, do you mean it's another crappy, half assed front end that looks superficially similar to Access to someone who's never bothered to use it?
I guess I'm confused why she would dump it before they had a chance to test it, before they had a chance to pull any files off the hard drive, even before she managed to get anything better than a wild-ass guess repair estimate.
Either we're talking about someone who just had the laptop sitting on their coffee table for show, or we're talking about someone who simply didn't even own the laptop she dumped.
Certainly there are plenty of people in the world who can afford $2,400 laptops without blinking, and many of them might even have a laptop they never use and be totally unconcerned by what gets damaged during a wild party. But there are many more crack-heads out there who steal things without having any idea what they're worth, treat those things badly, and then dump those things once they discover that they're not readily convertible into more drugs.
She may be stupid.
But it can't be insurance. I mean, she's not going to get insurance on a mac if she just dumps it, without getting an estimate or documentation, at a repair place and says, "oh, I guess I don't want it anymore."
And, she can't just be dumping it and buying a new one -- she walked into the Apple store with a dead mac, and walked out empty handed. Plus, I've never met a human being who wouldn't say, "but what about my files! I need my files!" whenever they lost a computer, and she made no attempt to do that.
So, my guess is that she's a crackhead who stole the Mac at an airport, and hid it in the oven while she was tweaking and afraid the boogey man was coming to get her. She probably brought it into the store with no idea what it was worth, hoping to get $25 or $50 for it so that she could get one more hit without selling her ass down on the blvd.
What other kind of person would collect all the burnt, mangled keys from the bottom of the oven and bring them into the shop?
I don't get it. This is a 15", $2,400.00 powerbook, right? And she dumped it, without explanation, at a repair shop, because fixing it would be $1,000.00 for the new screen?
This story has the stink of "bullshit" written all over it, frankly.
Achilles?
Don't you ever read your site, you useless asshat?
Don't be a tool. Only a useless asshat would waste his time reading a shitty website like slashdot.
NOT!
Top ten posts will be:
No-one's browser should be able to read "http://freedesktop.org/", since no nameserver returns an A or CNAME record for the domainname "freedesktop.org"
Can someone explain why a browser would be so broken that it would return a page for a domain that simply doesn't exist?