I'm fairly sure/usr/people is historical Irixism, not a Unixism. Originally it was straight in/usr; see/usr/ken (Ken Thompson's home direcotory) in the first edition Unix manual.
Another backronym. User directories were originally in/usr as well; the early edition Unix manuals refer to things in/usr as "user maintained software".
Sawfish was what I'd consider stupid configurable. Exposing options like exact pixel offsets when warping mouse pointers is not good design.
Metacity might be somewhat of an overcomensation, but I prefer it over both Sawfish and Enlightenment before it.
(By the way, the unwashed masses are pretty damn unlikely to be looking through source code to try and figure out how to change keybindings. Most non-geek users I know ask "how do I do this?", get told how and do that. I can't think of any time off the top of my head where someone non-technical has actually asked how to change a keybinding.)
DVD doesn't look great, its essentially the same quality as broadcast TV.
You should probably get your eyes checked or maybe buy better equipment. DVD's horizontal resolution about 720. Broadcast "quality" is 330 and VHS is 240. Even without a progressive scan display it's pretty far from "essentially the same quality".
The size of a PCI card, perpendicular to a motherboard, will continue to constrain the minimum case size. Until some company gets the bright idea to bring risers back from the dead.
What, like these? Risers never went away. (Though frankly I'm more interested in Expresscard as an expansion form factor in mini-pcs.)
What kind of hard drives are you running? The typical desktop drive is going to pull 10-15W peak. And of course most anything but a media server won't need that kind of space and can use notebook drives with a peak draw of 2-3W. Toss in a mirror pair and you still have a box that can run comfortably on a 30W power supply.
Manufacturers introduce new parts all the time. They usually take over the manufacturing facilities of the parts they're replacing. Accelerometers have been around long enough to where supply shouldn't be that big of a problem.
Manufacturers don't introduce the first single chip three-axis accelerometer every day. We're talking about a new unique single-sourced chip from a manufacturer with relatively limited fab capacity.
Actually, the Wii/GCN optical discs are the exact same technology as DVDs. The only difference is in a firmware update that allows the drive to read discs in Nintendo's custom format. (Nintendo didn't want to pay DVD licensing fees.) The GCN discs are mini-DVD sized, which are very similar to the 3" CDs from days gone by. They're often used in digital video cameras, and should fit in most standard DVD drives. The loading mechanism is probably custom, though. Very few slot-loading designs support the smaller CD/DVD formats. Of course, that's just a matter of mechanical parts.
Mechanical parts need manufacture too, you know.:)
"Broadway" is a pretty straight-forward update to the "Gekko" chip used in the GCN. It's manufactured by IBM, one of the largest chip manufacturers in the world today. Similarly, "Hollywood" is an update to the "Flipper" chip used in the GCN. It's manufactured by ATI, another company with massive manufacturing capabilities.
And just because the companies have fabrication capability doesn't mean they have spare capacity that can be tooled for a temporary production ramp-up for a single client. I'm sure if Nintendo threw a ton of money at them, they'd be willing to do it, but why should they when demand will level off in a matter of months?
If I were to hazard a guess, the problem is not with Nintendo's partners. The problem is getting caught with their pants down, expecting that the Wii would sell only slightly better than the GCN did at launch. As a result, they're months behind on scaling up their manufacturing to meet demand. They may even be cautious about doing so, just in case demand were to suddenly drop off just after Christmas. Now that they know that demand is holding steady, expect Nintendo to get their act together something around... oh... June. Maybe July.
That's assuming demand stays peaked, which is won't. Otherwise it makes no sense to invest in ramping up production to meet demand that will level off by the time the factories have tooled their lines. They currently project six million units in the next fiscal year and have publicly commited to shipping two million in a single quarter. A little math implies their current production capacity outstrips their projected demand with plenty of wiggle room.
The accelerometers they're using were only introduced in November 2005. Not exactly what I'd call "rather old" technology. The drive also has to be custom; remember, it reads GCN disks as well. And the CPU and GPU set, though not designed for speed, are new custom designs. Add all that up, and it's hardly surprising there's a limit to their capacity.
I'd say the Niagra line of SPARC chips do quite well for server-oriented tasks.
"Server-oriented" is entirely too broad a category to recommend a single architecture. An OLTP server has different needs from a file server has different needs from a database server, etc, etc.
FIPS shortens FAT32 partitions. Linux had it in 1999.
Earlier than that, even. There was a version of FIPs that handled FAT32 in 1998, and FAT16 resize stretches back to 1993.
Re:The plan will make or break the iPhone
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I'm sure you could negotiate better than advertised price from Cingular if you really wanted to. I'd still be reticent to switch if you've gotten good service on your current plan though. That really is a sweet price.:)
Personally I'm not as excited about the iPhone as I could. Form factor is bigger than I like, no GPS, and I expect the lack of tactile keyboard would be a lose for me. (Not to say it's not a good fit for other people, of course. I expect a highly competent execution of the style they chose. Apple is deft at detail-oriented design.)
Re:The plan will make or break the iPhone
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So without knowing any of the details of what his service plan is, you're saying it's "more likely" that Cingular will offer it for $100 flat. I think it's more likely that the original poster knows his plan better than you do.
No, they're required to support E911 services, but that doesn't necessarily mean GPS. In the case of Cingular, they use a technology called U-TDOA to triangulate which doesn't require any special equipment in the phone or the towers. The accuracy required for E911 services can be up to 300 meters, which likely isn't good enough for most consumer applications and I'm fairly certain it wouldn't scale to real-time use from handsets rather than one time radiolocation for emergency calls.
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It's been a long while, but if you look back to the old BSD-based SunOS, you'll find /usr/home. FreeBSD and OpenBSD still use it, unless I'm mistaken.
I'm fairly sure /usr/people is historical Irixism, not a Unixism. Originally it was straight in /usr; see /usr/ken (Ken Thompson's home direcotory) in the first edition Unix manual.
Another backronym. User directories were originally in /usr as well; the early edition Unix manuals refer to things in /usr as "user maintained software".
Considering none of the other standard directories are acronyms, I'd have to call bulltish on this one. :)
They made it clear $500 is the price with a contract.
Sawfish was what I'd consider stupid configurable. Exposing options like exact pixel offsets when warping mouse pointers is not good design.
Metacity might be somewhat of an overcomensation, but I prefer it over both Sawfish and Enlightenment before it.
(By the way, the unwashed masses are pretty damn unlikely to be looking through source code to try and figure out how to change keybindings. Most non-geek users I know ask "how do I do this?", get told how and do that. I can't think of any time off the top of my head where someone non-technical has actually asked how to change a keybinding.)
I was refering to broadcast (and cable) transmission, not broadcast production, since that's what is of concern to the consumer in terms of quality.
NTSC is not 720x486. Only vertical scan lines are fixed; horizontal is variable.
That 480 is refering to vertical scanlines, not horizontal resolution. The horizonal resolution for SD DVD is, as I stated, 720.
DVD doesn't look great, its essentially the same quality as broadcast TV.
You should probably get your eyes checked or maybe buy better equipment. DVD's horizontal resolution about 720. Broadcast "quality" is 330 and VHS is 240. Even without a progressive scan display it's pretty far from "essentially the same quality".
Snood is pretty much a remake of Bust-A-Move and "Bust-A-Move Bash!" is scheduled for release in March. :)
That hasn't been entirely true since 1994 when the FCC allowed stations to opt out of must-carry rules in favour of negotiated retransmission.
They've added MPEG-4 and WMV9/VC-1, but I believe it's still only decode support.
The size of a PCI card, perpendicular to a motherboard, will continue to constrain the minimum case size. Until some company gets the bright idea to bring risers back from the dead.
What, like these? Risers never went away. (Though frankly I'm more interested in Expresscard as an expansion form factor in mini-pcs.)
What kind of hard drives are you running? The typical desktop drive is going to pull 10-15W peak. And of course most anything but a media server won't need that kind of space and can use notebook drives with a peak draw of 2-3W. Toss in a mirror pair and you still have a box that can run comfortably on a 30W power supply.
An ATX power supploy doesn't need to be big.
Yes, that's what they mean. All of the EPIA boards have MPEG-2 decode and scaling in the north bridge.
Manufacturers don't introduce the first single chip three-axis accelerometer every day. We're talking about a new unique single-sourced chip from a manufacturer with relatively limited fab capacity.
Mechanical parts need manufacture too, you know.
And just because the companies have fabrication capability doesn't mean they have spare capacity that can be tooled for a temporary production ramp-up for a single client. I'm sure if Nintendo threw a ton of money at them, they'd be willing to do it, but why should they when demand will level off in a matter of months?
That's assuming demand stays peaked, which is won't. Otherwise it makes no sense to invest in ramping up production to meet demand that will level off by the time the factories have tooled their lines. They currently project six million units in the next fiscal year and have publicly commited to shipping two million in a single quarter. A little math implies their current production capacity outstrips their projected demand with plenty of wiggle room.
The accelerometers they're using were only introduced in November 2005. Not exactly what I'd call "rather old" technology. The drive also has to be custom; remember, it reads GCN disks as well. And the CPU and GPU set, though not designed for speed, are new custom designs. Add all that up, and it's hardly surprising there's a limit to their capacity.
And Sun's not exactly buying Intel 965 or nForce chipsets...
Um, yes, they are. The nForce is exactly what's inside the current Sun Fire chipsets.
They're not likely to use the Intel 965, but the 5000 series chipsets are far from unlikely.
I'd say the Niagra line of SPARC chips do quite well for server-oriented tasks.
"Server-oriented" is entirely too broad a category to recommend a single architecture. An OLTP server has different needs from a file server has different needs from a database server, etc, etc.
FIPS shortens FAT32 partitions. Linux had it in 1999.
Earlier than that, even. There was a version of FIPs that handled FAT32 in 1998, and FAT16 resize stretches back to 1993.
I'm sure you could negotiate better than advertised price from Cingular if you really wanted to. I'd still be reticent to switch if you've gotten good service on your current plan though. That really is a sweet price. :)
Personally I'm not as excited about the iPhone as I could. Form factor is bigger than I like, no GPS, and I expect the lack of tactile keyboard would be a lose for me. (Not to say it's not a good fit for other people, of course. I expect a highly competent execution of the style they chose. Apple is deft at detail-oriented design.)
So without knowing any of the details of what his service plan is, you're saying it's "more likely" that Cingular will offer it for $100 flat. I think it's more likely that the original poster knows his plan better than you do.
No, they're required to support E911 services, but that doesn't necessarily mean GPS. In the case of Cingular, they use a technology called U-TDOA to triangulate which doesn't require any special equipment in the phone or the towers. The accuracy required for E911 services can be up to 300 meters, which likely isn't good enough for most consumer applications and I'm fairly certain it wouldn't scale to real-time use from handsets rather than one time radiolocation for emergency calls.
That's what the virtual console is for. ;) Just make sure you put a *big* SD card in before sealing it.