With a ten fold increase in RAM and processor speed, these java applications were almost useable, but still felt slower than equivalent C programs on one's old box.
I wonder if this is a case of too-early-adoption. It strikes me that many things that make it off the development chalkboard build in so much stuff that the current generation of hardware doesn't support well. If the adoption rate is really slow, then hardware has a chance to catch up with it so that when you get to mass-usage performance falls in line with what people expect.
Your laundry machine does not use warm water. It uses cold water and heats it up.
My washing machine has two water inputs, a hot water and a cold water. True, it doesn't use warm water, it mixes cold and hot and to make warm, but if you want to be a smart aleck you could argue that it doesn't use cold water, it uses hot water and cools it off.
At face value what you describe sounds like my dish washer, which IIRC only has a cold water input and actually does heat the water electrically. The disadvantage of this is that my gas hot water heater is more efficient than electrically heating the water, but I guess they want it hotter than my plumbing can deliver and theres no water waste running out the cold in the line to get the actual hot water.
I've never seen a clothes washing machine that heated its own water -- what kind is it? It sounds like an interesting item for locations that don't have a hot water supply.
Amen to that. Snow Crash was, like a lot of SciFi, a bunch of tech concepts wrapped around a narrative that'd earn most high school creative writing students an F.
I fell for the popular buzz surrounding Neuromancer, too, and I found it so dull I couldn't even finish it.
Legal arguments aside, this could be done with upgrade kits for Watchguard Fireboxes back in the day when you could hardware upgrade a Firebox. The upgrade kit was primarily a flash memory drive that plugged into the IDE port. Grab a like motherboard, same model ethernet cards, plug in the flash IDE and you had a firebox.
I haven't used the newer products (we moved to PIX), but I'd be real surprised if the new hardware didn't work the same way, although maybe they've decided to put some queer data in the BIOS flash that the firewall software checks.
I think there's money in it for a firewall companies to market a "firewall kit" of software and optional flash drives for use on whatever boxes are handy.
I'm sure they'd argue that it'd be too hard to support and would threaten the security by running on non-audited hardware (and it would kill off the high-margin hardware they sell, which would be the secret argument), but for a company willing to take a risk it might help them clean up in the low-end or large volume markets. It might be the perfect application for a purpose built BSD firewall distro. Yes, I know you can roll your own now, but there's significant advantages to buying pre-rolled kits.
They make most of their money on hardware. As DVD writable drives become PC, er, mass-market devices their costs are going down. What Apple doesn't want is people bypassing the profit-drenched Apple DVD drives for whitebox DVD drives, at least not yet.
Maybe in a couple of years when DVD writables achieve a more ubiquitous status and can be bought for the same $79-129 price that most whitebox CDR drives can be had for, Apple will modify their stance for upgraders and the like. But if they hold their ground until DVD writable prices are low enough, it will become an included and not extra-cost option in Macs and the bitching about third party drives will be moot, since everyone with a Mac will have an Apple one anyway.
I guess there's tons of reasons that I would think of..
1) NA had access to personal computers early on and associated messaging/email/multimedia with the computer; once the association was made it just seems unnecessary to do that with a phone since my computer already does it. If you begin to do 'advanced' stuff with a cell phone instead of a computer then you associate that stuff with a cell phone and not a computer, a kind of chicken-and-egg situation; the more I can do with my phone the more I *expect* to do with my phone.
2) Phones are cheaper than PCs, explaining why lower disposable income countries (eg, outside of NA) would prefer them to PCs.
3) PCs need space and power. In NA the power grid is good and most people live in really spacious homes. In other countries the power grid varies from highly stable to highly unstable and many people live in small, unsecure shared spaces. A cell phone doesn't need a terribly reliable power source, needs no dedicated space and is mobile.
Add that in with cost advantages in places with weird and expensive landline costs, and I think there's a valid explanation somewhere...
We prefer to use personal computers than cell phones.
No, we prefer subsidized unlimited "local" calling. Many (most? all?) European countries have metered usage for even calling next door. When cell phones begin to offer a basic cost advantage *and* mobility, demand skyrockets.
The vast majority of Americans would be heavier cell phone users if the majority of their local calls were cheaper on the cell than on the landline.
Probably more true of cable than DSL, but some early DSL installs essentially used ethernet bridging with no broadcast filtering, enabling the neighborhood to become a network neighborhood, too.
The DSL providers I've used prevented that; doing a tcpdump on my DSL facing interface never showed any traffic that didn't have a destination address of my machine.
You can promote socialism all you want, but you cannot discredit an economic system that doesn't exist.
Same argument that communists made about the Soviet Union; "it's not communist so it doesn't invalidate communism". I've even heard it made in defense of fascism relative to Nazism -- "The Nazis weren't true to fascism, therefore criticisms of Nazism don't apply to fascism per se."
The crux of this argument is that there is a "pure" form of the given socio-political philosophy that can be established and that the established socio-political arrangement is such a deviation from the pure form that criticism of the philosophy based on the established form is thus invalid.
I think the weakness of such a line of reasoning is the presumption that a pure form of anything can be established and stay pure. Invariably all attempts at establishing a pure form of any theoretical political philosophy get distorted by the previous hegemonic philosophy and the unseen complications of a pure philosophy.
Certainly robber barons, monopolies, abhorrent working conditions and dismal consumer protections were the results of the more pure capitalism of the US 19th century. Arguments by freemarketeers that these things will be self-correcting seem to ignore why they weren't in the past or to discredit the corrections applied at the governmental level (ie, no child labor, you can't sell putrid meat, etc).
But the first time you are working with a clean install of *BSD etcetera on a Helen Keller machine that can't communicate with the outside world
Fortunately I haven't been in that situation in a long time. When HK machines were a likely situation, I always thought it would be nice to build a 'small' joe; no prefs file, no libs, statically linked. I figure it should fit on a floppy and be usable in close system rev it was built in.
I have had to use vi, and its been a bad experience for both of us, me and the keyboard. An incentive to get the net up or at least get the joe binaries I have on the system.
Maybe its a medium issue too. The last batch of media I had was a 100 pack spindle that I just recently got finished with. I think it might have been just in spec for 8x burning. The new spindles are 16x, I should try some 8x audio cds and see.
The thing that frosted me about 4x burning was it seemed like I always wanted a new CD in a hurry (leaving for trip, etc) and with TOC and all the other finishing, it always seemed to take 25 minutes or so for a full disc. 12 minutes I could have lived with.
I hate vi (too weird) and emacs (weird, and bloated). Well, I should say I made a run at emacs once but never bought into the lifestyle so it was just too much overhead for simple edits.
I've instead been a longtime fan of joe. Simple, lightweight and powerful enough for more complicated jobs. AND it's user friendly.
I've noticed that audio CDs burned at 8x on my burners (an HP and a Philips) have a tendency to skip more in my car and fail to mount at all on older audio CD players. CDs burned slower (4x or even 2x) tend to skip less or not at all in my car and are readable on some finicky audio CD players.
I haven't noticed a difference in longevity or usability in data discs, though.
the same set of wires is used for the duration of the connection
The same set of wires is used for every call. The only 'wire' likely is the one between your house and the CO. From the CO to the rest of the network it is very likely optical, unless you live in some stumblefuck rural area.
if a really large number of people became really pissed at corporations in general, and made enforcement of these existing provisions a big deal, there'd be more than enough ground to clean up this mess.
if, if, if. Most people are too eager to support corporations because either (a) they actually believe that corporations are doing them good, or (b) in spite of the bad things that the corporations do, they get a pretty reliable paycheck which pays the rent, buys food, etc or (c) all of the above.
Since anyone who votes Republican chooses (c), and most everyone else chooses (b) or (a), then where will the mandate for change come from?
I'd have done it myself by now if there weren't 10^6 more important things to work on.
You've just illustrated why the linux route is patently stupid. It's time consuming and will actually end up being more expensive than just buying someone's $400 box that requires about an hour to buy, install and use.
Maybe once somebody develops a hi-res colour LCD touchscreen that can be mounted in a double-height drive bay, sells for $50 and can be programmed and driven without X windows the "linux pc as entertainment center" *might* actually be worthwhile.
Until then its something that's only practical for the 18-24 set who have the free time equivilent to that of a man stranded on a desert island.
Really, do you think that there's any legal basis for the government of California to revoke the incorporation status of the RIAA? Even if there was some basis (and it would be weak on a good day), do you think that the elected government of California would have the political will to disband one of the most influential and significant business entities in the state? This would be paramount to the state of Texas doing the same for the oil business, New York state killing off NASD, and so on.
Sorry, but this is about as ignorant and ineffective as anything possibly could be. You might actually get farther writing the military and asking them not to kill people.
What percent of the PATH operating budget is $50 million? Is it like 1% or something significant? (Not that $50M isn't significant by itself).
Do you know what it would cost if fares alone covered the cost of operating the trains?
I heard a press conference the other day by our state's transportation department head talking about building a commuter rail line similar to the PATH trains and he made a comment that I found interesting, that few if any transportation projects ever deliver a return on investment (ie, economic value relative to their cost).
Would the PATH trains even be economically viable if fares paid for the operating costs? I mean, nobody wants to pay $50 each way to work.
You're right, working as a slave sucks rocks, even when the money's good. But when I worked at the Uni I was working a second job to make insurance payments on my used car. My salary made my 1/3rd of the rent in our shared rental house (which was priced below market rate) and little else. I think I was making $16k per year. There were few chances for advancement and little chance for a better salary.
Microsoft is, after all, one of the most vicious hard-ball companies around, or at least has given many that impression.
I think Microsoft's history of raping its business partners for fun and profit is well known. I seriously doubt that Entertainment, Inc. is willing to have any dependency on MS at all, in fact they'd like to force MS to license their systems, software and patents.
Didn't MS even proffer a digital music system to the RIAA a while back (2-3 years ago) that RIAA blew off?
I think "wishing" MS would screw Entertainment, Inc is a little like wishing Stalin would defeat Hitler; it gets rid of one bad guy but it only allows another to roll ahead freely.
Next time major in political science. [...] You get paid for doing work, stop being lazy, and learn to be more political.
I *did* major in political science, and I tried to be as political as possible, but in an administrative department even the justifications we had for better equipment and software weren't popular enough, I guess.
What do you expect at a college campus?
Well, 15 years ago I guess I *could* have expected a previous epoch of computing; mainframes, punch cards, expensive metered access. Maybe we got a break as an administrative department, who knows. I do know that the campus networking people were pretty responsive to us, but that could have been because we just wanted stuff fixed, and didn't want to have a symposium about it.
Once again its a college campus!
I know, but lots of campuses are in bad environments -- too much concrete, too urban, etc. The building I worked in was in an old building on the old part of campus, which had lots of green spaces. It's a lot nicer than the concrete jungle I work in now.
Typical player arent you? Getting laid alot is nothing to brag about unless its with the same woman.
Except I'm not a typical player and its not bragging; I think it illustrates a different mentality/lifestyle/population at Universities. More liberal? More fun? Who knows. The people in the corporate world are, in my experience, far more image/status/suburban-style-success oriented and I work now in about the most liberal type of corporate environment. I'd attribute 25% of the difference to subtle age difference (skews slightly older now), but I do think the University attracted less conventional people.
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With a ten fold increase in RAM and processor speed, these java applications were almost useable, but still felt slower than equivalent C programs on one's old box.
I wonder if this is a case of too-early-adoption. It strikes me that many things that make it off the development chalkboard build in so much stuff that the current generation of hardware doesn't support well. If the adoption rate is really slow, then hardware has a chance to catch up with it so that when you get to mass-usage performance falls in line with what people expect.
Your laundry machine does not use warm water. It uses cold water and heats it up.
My washing machine has two water inputs, a hot water and a cold water. True, it doesn't use warm water, it mixes cold and hot and to make warm, but if you want to be a smart aleck you could argue that it doesn't use cold water, it uses hot water and cools it off.
At face value what you describe sounds like my dish washer, which IIRC only has a cold water input and actually does heat the water electrically. The disadvantage of this is that my gas hot water heater is more efficient than electrically heating the water, but I guess they want it hotter than my plumbing can deliver and theres no water waste running out the cold in the line to get the actual hot water.
I've never seen a clothes washing machine that heated its own water -- what kind is it? It sounds like an interesting item for locations that don't have a hot water supply.
Amen to that. Snow Crash was, like a lot of SciFi, a bunch of tech concepts wrapped around a narrative that'd earn most high school creative writing students an F.
I fell for the popular buzz surrounding Neuromancer, too, and I found it so dull I couldn't even finish it.
Legal arguments aside, this could be done with upgrade kits for Watchguard Fireboxes back in the day when you could hardware upgrade a Firebox. The upgrade kit was primarily a flash memory drive that plugged into the IDE port. Grab a like motherboard, same model ethernet cards, plug in the flash IDE and you had a firebox.
I haven't used the newer products (we moved to PIX), but I'd be real surprised if the new hardware didn't work the same way, although maybe they've decided to put some queer data in the BIOS flash that the firewall software checks.
I think there's money in it for a firewall companies to market a "firewall kit" of software and optional flash drives for use on whatever boxes are handy.
I'm sure they'd argue that it'd be too hard to support and would threaten the security by running on non-audited hardware (and it would kill off the high-margin hardware they sell, which would be the secret argument), but for a company willing to take a risk it might help them clean up in the low-end or large volume markets. It might be the perfect application for a purpose built BSD firewall distro. Yes, I know you can roll your own now, but there's significant advantages to buying pre-rolled kits.
They make most of their money on hardware. As DVD writable drives become PC, er, mass-market devices their costs are going down. What Apple doesn't want is people bypassing the profit-drenched Apple DVD drives for whitebox DVD drives, at least not yet.
Maybe in a couple of years when DVD writables achieve a more ubiquitous status and can be bought for the same $79-129 price that most whitebox CDR drives can be had for, Apple will modify their stance for upgraders and the like. But if they hold their ground until DVD writable prices are low enough, it will become an included and not extra-cost option in Macs and the bitching about third party drives will be moot, since everyone with a Mac will have an Apple one anyway.
In fact, I seem to remember "perfect copy" programs that would copy said disks anyways.
Locksmith!! God, I wish I had back the hours spent staring at the screen as it tediously copied a 120k disk nibble by nibble on a single drive system.
I guess there's tons of reasons that I would think of..
1) NA had access to personal computers early on and associated messaging/email/multimedia with the computer; once the association was made it just seems unnecessary to do that with a phone since my computer already does it. If you begin to do 'advanced' stuff with a cell phone instead of a computer then you associate that stuff with a cell phone and not a computer, a kind of chicken-and-egg situation; the more I can do with my phone the more I *expect* to do with my phone.
2) Phones are cheaper than PCs, explaining why lower disposable income countries (eg, outside of NA) would prefer them to PCs.
3) PCs need space and power. In NA the power grid is good and most people live in really spacious homes. In other countries the power grid varies from highly stable to highly unstable and many people live in small, unsecure shared spaces. A cell phone doesn't need a terribly reliable power source, needs no dedicated space and is mobile.
Add that in with cost advantages in places with weird and expensive landline costs, and I think there's a valid explanation somewhere...
We prefer to use personal computers than cell phones.
No, we prefer subsidized unlimited "local" calling. Many (most? all?) European countries have metered usage for even calling next door. When cell phones begin to offer a basic cost advantage *and* mobility, demand skyrockets.
The vast majority of Americans would be heavier cell phone users if the majority of their local calls were cheaper on the cell than on the landline.
Probably more true of cable than DSL, but some early DSL installs essentially used ethernet bridging with no broadcast filtering, enabling the neighborhood to become a network neighborhood, too.
The DSL providers I've used prevented that; doing a tcpdump on my DSL facing interface never showed any traffic that didn't have a destination address of my machine.
You can promote socialism all you want, but you cannot discredit an economic system that doesn't exist.
Same argument that communists made about the Soviet Union; "it's not communist so it doesn't invalidate communism". I've even heard it made in defense of fascism relative to Nazism -- "The Nazis weren't true to fascism, therefore criticisms of Nazism don't apply to fascism per se."
The crux of this argument is that there is a "pure" form of the given socio-political philosophy that can be established and that the established socio-political arrangement is such a deviation from the pure form that criticism of the philosophy based on the established form is thus invalid.
I think the weakness of such a line of reasoning is the presumption that a pure form of anything can be established and stay pure. Invariably all attempts at establishing a pure form of any theoretical political philosophy get distorted by the previous hegemonic philosophy and the unseen complications of a pure philosophy.
Certainly robber barons, monopolies, abhorrent working conditions and dismal consumer protections were the results of the more pure capitalism of the US 19th century. Arguments by freemarketeers that these things will be self-correcting seem to ignore why they weren't in the past or to discredit the corrections applied at the governmental level (ie, no child labor, you can't sell putrid meat, etc).
Amen to that. I shit my pants every time my wife says "lets just do xyz to the room..."
Invariably it costs us at least $2k and a couple of months of Sundays.
But the first time you are working with a clean install of *BSD etcetera on a Helen Keller machine that can't communicate with the outside world
Fortunately I haven't been in that situation in a long time. When HK machines were a likely situation, I always thought it would be nice to build a 'small' joe; no prefs file, no libs, statically linked. I figure it should fit on a floppy and be usable in close system rev it was built in.
I have had to use vi, and its been a bad experience for both of us, me and the keyboard. An incentive to get the net up or at least get the joe binaries I have on the system.
Maybe its a medium issue too. The last batch of media I had was a 100 pack spindle that I just recently got finished with. I think it might have been just in spec for 8x burning. The new spindles are 16x, I should try some 8x audio cds and see.
The thing that frosted me about 4x burning was it seemed like I always wanted a new CD in a hurry (leaving for trip, etc) and with TOC and all the other finishing, it always seemed to take 25 minutes or so for a full disc. 12 minutes I could have lived with.
I hate vi (too weird) and emacs (weird, and bloated). Well, I should say I made a run at emacs once but never bought into the lifestyle so it was just too much overhead for simple edits.
I've instead been a longtime fan of joe. Simple, lightweight and powerful enough for more complicated jobs. AND it's user friendly.
I've noticed that audio CDs burned at 8x on my burners (an HP and a Philips) have a tendency to skip more in my car and fail to mount at all on older audio CD players. CDs burned slower (4x or even 2x) tend to skip less or not at all in my car and are readable on some finicky audio CD players.
I haven't noticed a difference in longevity or usability in data discs, though.
the same set of wires is used for the duration of the connection
The same set of wires is used for every call. The only 'wire' likely is the one between your house and the CO. From the CO to the rest of the network it is very likely optical, unless you live in some stumblefuck rural area.
if a really large number of people became really pissed at corporations in general, and made enforcement of these existing provisions a big deal, there'd be more than enough ground to clean up this mess.
if, if, if. Most people are too eager to support corporations because either (a) they actually believe that corporations are doing them good, or (b) in spite of the bad things that the corporations do, they get a pretty reliable paycheck which pays the rent, buys food, etc or (c) all of the above.
Since anyone who votes Republican chooses (c), and most everyone else chooses (b) or (a), then where will the mandate for change come from?
Flown NWA lately? I get frightened thinking about the flight attendants, nevermind how they might feel.
I'd have done it myself by now if there weren't 10^6 more important things to work on.
You've just illustrated why the linux route is patently stupid. It's time consuming and will actually end up being more expensive than just buying someone's $400 box that requires about an hour to buy, install and use.
Maybe once somebody develops a hi-res colour LCD touchscreen that can be mounted in a double-height drive bay, sells for $50 and can be programmed and driven without X windows the "linux pc as entertainment center" *might* actually be worthwhile.
Until then its something that's only practical for the 18-24 set who have the free time equivilent to that of a man stranded on a desert island.
Really, do you think that there's any legal basis for the government of California to revoke the incorporation status of the RIAA? Even if there was some basis (and it would be weak on a good day), do you think that the elected government of California would have the political will to disband one of the most influential and significant business entities in the state? This would be paramount to the state of Texas doing the same for the oil business, New York state killing off NASD, and so on.
Sorry, but this is about as ignorant and ineffective as anything possibly could be. You might actually get farther writing the military and asking them not to kill people.
I find subway riding in NYC fun, but the other passengers are enough entertainment for my small-minded midwest mind.
What percent of the PATH operating budget is $50 million? Is it like 1% or something significant? (Not that $50M isn't significant by itself).
Do you know what it would cost if fares alone covered the cost of operating the trains?
I heard a press conference the other day by our state's transportation department head talking about building a commuter rail line similar to the PATH trains and he made a comment that I found interesting, that few if any transportation projects ever deliver a return on investment (ie, economic value relative to their cost).
Would the PATH trains even be economically viable if fares paid for the operating costs? I mean, nobody wants to pay $50 each way to work.
You're right, working as a slave sucks rocks, even when the money's good. But when I worked at the Uni I was working a second job to make insurance payments on my used car. My salary made my 1/3rd of the rent in our shared rental house (which was priced below market rate) and little else. I think I was making $16k per year. There were few chances for advancement and little chance for a better salary.
Microsoft is, after all, one of the most vicious hard-ball companies around, or at least has given many that impression.
I think Microsoft's history of raping its business partners for fun and profit is well known. I seriously doubt that Entertainment, Inc. is willing to have any dependency on MS at all, in fact they'd like to force MS to license their systems, software and patents.
Didn't MS even proffer a digital music system to the RIAA a while back (2-3 years ago) that RIAA blew off?
I think "wishing" MS would screw Entertainment, Inc is a little like wishing Stalin would defeat Hitler; it gets rid of one bad guy but it only allows another to roll ahead freely.
Next time major in political science. [...]
You get paid for doing work, stop being lazy, and learn to be more political.
I *did* major in political science, and I tried to be as political as possible, but in an administrative department even the justifications we had for better equipment and software weren't popular enough, I guess.
What do you expect at a college campus?
Well, 15 years ago I guess I *could* have expected a previous epoch of computing; mainframes, punch cards, expensive metered access. Maybe we got a break as an administrative department, who knows. I do know that the campus networking people were pretty responsive to us, but that could have been because we just wanted stuff fixed, and didn't want to have a symposium about it.
Once again its a college campus!
I know, but lots of campuses are in bad environments -- too much concrete, too urban, etc. The building I worked in was in an old building on the old part of campus, which had lots of green spaces. It's a lot nicer than the concrete jungle I work in now.
Typical player arent you? Getting laid alot is nothing to brag about unless its with the same woman.
Except I'm not a typical player and its not bragging; I think it illustrates a different mentality/lifestyle/population at Universities. More liberal? More fun? Who knows. The people in the corporate world are, in my experience, far more image/status/suburban-style-success oriented and I work now in about the most liberal type of corporate environment. I'd attribute 25% of the difference to subtle age difference (skews slightly older now), but I do think the University attracted less conventional people.