Yes, but there's the problem that "high alcohol beer" in Alabama is defined fairly broad (IIRC, a standard Pilsner (not of the American kind) is above the limit). Not that you can't make excellent low alcohol beer (most of the common British styles, for instance), but many homebrewers are into tasty IPAs, Trappist style beers, imperial stouts, etc., all of which are high alcohol. After all, one significant advantage to homebrewing is that you easily can produce beer that is otherwise hard to get or expensive.
That runs counter to my own experience. OpenOffice feels sluggish even on fast computers, but not a lot slower on slow computers -- at least not as slow as you'd expect. I used it a lot last summer on a Pentium III 500 MHz with 512 MB RAM, and speed was never an issue. I've also used it on a 266 MHz laptop with 320 MB RAM, running Debian, and even that was acceptable in use (it did load slowly, though).
OpenOffice's sluggishness is mostly an issue of feeling. I don't think I've lost even a minute, in total, from using OpenOffice Writer instead of Word on slow computers. In fact, I might have saved a bit of time, due to OOo's far superior styles implementation.
Then you don't have a recent ATI card. The free driver will hard crash my system when playing video through Xv (this is with an experimental driver pulled from the GIT tree), the proprietary driver will freeze the system on log-out (with K/GDM). An X11 error can easily take down Linux, even if you don't use DRI.
I call bullshit. New monitors support DDC, and are set up correctly and automagically by X.org. You will have to restart you X server, and that's all. Hell, with recent versions of X.org, the config file doesn't even store the modelines and resolution by default, and it still comes up correctly each and every time I start my computer.
Your comment is at least a year behind the times. As for a dual monitor setup, here's what the radeonhd driver's FAQ says about the matter:
9.4. How do I enable / disable an output after a monitor has been plugged in / removed? xrandr --auto
9.5. How do I set up multiple monitors? xrandr --output --right-of
If this fails, the most common reason is the following: The X.org framebuffer cannot be resized after initialization (yet). You have to either configure this statically (see below), or specify the maximum needed size with Virtual
in the "Display" subsection of the "Screen" section.
So that's one line you may have to write in your config file, if you have a dual monitor set-up, but tend to start X11 with only one monitor attached.
Of course, most people don't use dual monitor setups at all.
Just look at the screen from below. If the viewing angle is very poor, it's a TN, if it's great, it's something else. There's a comparison of screens here. As you can see, the difference between TN and the superior IPS isn't subtle at all, especially when it comes to viewing angles.
KDE 3.5.x hardly ever crashes for me. Sometimes, KMail's IMAP sort of hangs so that I have to restart the app to be able to check for new mail in whatever folder it's hung up in, and sometimes Konqueror will crash when browsing the web (it's not significantly less stable than Safari, Opera, Firefox/Iceweasel and IE, though), but I've never noticed any slowdowns. I've had some botched (but fixable) configuration files a couple of years ago (2004, probably), related to KMail's filters. Oh and Kopete has crashed a few times as well, but I use it almost all the time. I use Debian Sid.
Perhaps your problem is using Kubuntu or Fedora. KDE in Debian is solid.
Running a web server documenting how to get a web server running on the hardware the web server runs on isn't useful, it's nerdy. You can do the same on 286s, and some people have done. At that point it's about proving it can be done, not about doing anything useful, and it's a waste of electricity more than anything else: you can rent web space cheaper. Also, running a web server is trivial.
A comparable PC to your Mac (very few Macs from that time support enough RAM for OS X) would be a Pentium Pro, which can easily run XP with no hacks whatsoever.
Bullshit. I have Mac OS X 10.4 running on an 11 year old Power Mac 7300 with a G4 processor upgrade from circa 2000. Sure, they don't allow you to install the OS onto *unsupported* systems out of the box, because if they did, they would be expected to support those systems. But they do not restrict you from getting the hardware to work with modern software if you are willing to do a bit of work. The only reason OS X 10.5 does not run on the system is because this requires some work and nobody is working on it since Ryan Rempel decided to take a break from XPostFacto. Perhaps you ought to take a look at the definition of the word restrict. You can't pretend there's no restriction on installing OS X on an older computer when it fails to install with an "unsupported" message unless you patch the OS first. Hey, that is, in fact, a restriction! You're basically saying that access isn't restricted if you're willing to break in. Wow. I wonder why I called you dishonest.
And yes, the hardware is "more proprietary" than a typical Intel system. Anyone can make a typical Intel system, only Apple can make Apples. They lock you to one provider of basic hardware like motherboards: no one else has the right to make them. The right to make the hardware is their property, making the hardware p-r-o-p-r-i-e-t-a-r-y. You're pretending up is down and out is in. It doesn't make it so, it just makes you dishonest. A typical example as for why people can't stand Apple fanboys.
You're just being intentionally stupid to make the Macs come out better. Or dishonest, if you will. Of course you can get networking and memory sticks with Windows 98. Printing, zip drives and CD burning as well. Don't pretend Macs have better hardware support than Windows. It's an obvious lie.
And anyway, I was on about getting the hardware to work with modern software, which Apple simply restricts you from doing, even when it's technically possible. Yes, proprietary software, again -- and proprietary hardware.
When it comes to mechanical reliability, the PC market is so diverse that of course you will find loads of crap. I've had Macs with loads of mechanical problems as well. Most of them well known.
A bit subjective, but most of Apple's Macs were pretty solid. They last far past their technology (and their tech is goo enough to outlast many PCs. Sorry, but that's just not true. Maybe it was, back in the days, but not now. A 10 year old Mac is useless today, not because it's too slow to run a browser, word processor and email client, but because you can't run modern software on it. You can't update OS X, and new OS X apps almost always need one of the latest versions of OS X, even when there's no technical reason for it. Example. Why? Because Apple wants it that way. Many of the computers that were locked out from upgrading to Panther were far faster with it than with Jaguar, but Apple want people to buy new computers. 10.5 demands a whopping 867 MHz CPU despite the fact that it's obviously not needed for the OS itself.
Meanwhile, any old PC that can make use of more than 256 MB RAM can be very useful with Windows XP for several years to come (XP can actually be made very lean, if you know how to remove stuff). No, it won't run the latest and greatest games, but neither will a brand new MacBook.
No, you're not talking about "power players", you're talking about vain idiots. Of course, it's not uncommon for vain idiots to believe they are power players.
No, the writer is Rob Enderle, the guy who defended SCO against the evil Linux copycats (and praised the VROOM-VROOM start-up sound on his Acer Ferrari). I doubt he wants to use a 'free software scam' like the Eee for anything.
Which raises the question of why a fluff piece by this idiot should be posted to Slashdot (or to Tom's Hardware in the first place).
xorg.conf is becoming easier and easier with each release. I don't think the file is needed at all any more. Everything is automagically configured, as long as your graphics card is properly supported and the monitor returns the correct information. You can still use it to force specific options if you need.
So what? Reviewing such a paper takes at most five minutes, and that's if the waste paper bin is full and you have to leave your office to empty it. The lunatic fringe is about as easily recognisable as any scientific paradigm.
Creating a paper takes many times as much time as rejecting it does. The situation you describe looks more like trolling than actual scientific work; spewing out useless junk in hope that someone somewhere, no matter who, will bite. Is this common practice among physicists?
I've worked for a less prestigious but rather good journal (in the humanities) that would take a look at anything, and even lowlives like us mainly received submissions that the writers at least believed were good enough for us. The most time consuming articles were the ones that were poorly written but well thought out, not the few that just didn't cut it. Dyslexia is far more expensive in man hours than simple trolling for publication.
At any rate, you're talking about some potential situation that you simply don't have empirical evidence for, based on an unfounded faith in human stupidity and greed. You must be an economist.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but there's the problem that "high alcohol beer" in Alabama is defined fairly broad (IIRC, a standard Pilsner (not of the American kind) is above the limit). Not that you can't make excellent low alcohol beer (most of the common British styles, for instance), but many homebrewers are into tasty IPAs, Trappist style beers, imperial stouts, etc., all of which are high alcohol. After all, one significant advantage to homebrewing is that you easily can produce beer that is otherwise hard to get or expensive.
Homebrewing beer is illegal in Alabama, for one. It can even get you into actual trouble.
That runs counter to my own experience. OpenOffice feels sluggish even on fast computers, but not a lot slower on slow computers -- at least not as slow as you'd expect. I used it a lot last summer on a Pentium III 500 MHz with 512 MB RAM, and speed was never an issue. I've also used it on a 266 MHz laptop with 320 MB RAM, running Debian, and even that was acceptable in use (it did load slowly, though).
OpenOffice's sluggishness is mostly an issue of feeling. I don't think I've lost even a minute, in total, from using OpenOffice Writer instead of Word on slow computers. In fact, I might have saved a bit of time, due to OOo's far superior styles implementation.
Libertarians are the kind of people who think comments like the above are "insightful", which means they are not.
That's psychiatry, not psychology.
Then you don't have a recent ATI card. The free driver will hard crash my system when playing video through Xv (this is with an experimental driver pulled from the GIT tree), the proprietary driver will freeze the system on log-out (with K/GDM). An X11 error can easily take down Linux, even if you don't use DRI.
Dude. The data was in a dark place. It was likely to be eaten by a grue.
Your comment is at least a year behind the times. As for a dual monitor setup, here's what the radeonhd driver's FAQ says about the matter:
So that's one line you may have to write in your config file, if you have a dual monitor set-up, but tend to start X11 with only one monitor attached.
Of course, most people don't use dual monitor setups at all.
Just like newspapers.
/. didn't pretend I just posted a comment when I didn't.
Re: misleading, I could have had first post if the fancy new posting thingy worked, or if
Just look at the screen from below. If the viewing angle is very poor, it's a TN, if it's great, it's something else. There's a comparison of screens here. As you can see, the difference between TN and the superior IPS isn't subtle at all, especially when it comes to viewing angles.
KDE 3.5.x hardly ever crashes for me. Sometimes, KMail's IMAP sort of hangs so that I have to restart the app to be able to check for new mail in whatever folder it's hung up in, and sometimes Konqueror will crash when browsing the web (it's not significantly less stable than Safari, Opera, Firefox/Iceweasel and IE, though), but I've never noticed any slowdowns. I've had some botched (but fixable) configuration files a couple of years ago (2004, probably), related to KMail's filters. Oh and Kopete has crashed a few times as well, but I use it almost all the time. I use Debian Sid.
Perhaps your problem is using Kubuntu or Fedora. KDE in Debian is solid.
Running a web server documenting how to get a web server running on the hardware the web server runs on isn't useful, it's nerdy. You can do the same on 286s, and some people have done. At that point it's about proving it can be done, not about doing anything useful, and it's a waste of electricity more than anything else: you can rent web space cheaper. Also, running a web server is trivial.
A comparable PC to your Mac (very few Macs from that time support enough RAM for OS X) would be a Pentium Pro, which can easily run XP with no hacks whatsoever.
Of course someone named Grishnakh would only vote for the greatest evil...
And yes, the hardware is "more proprietary" than a typical Intel system. Anyone can make a typical Intel system, only Apple can make Apples. They lock you to one provider of basic hardware like motherboards: no one else has the right to make them. The right to make the hardware is their property, making the hardware p-r-o-p-r-i-e-t-a-r-y. You're pretending up is down and out is in. It doesn't make it so, it just makes you dishonest. A typical example as for why people can't stand Apple fanboys.
You're just being intentionally stupid to make the Macs come out better. Or dishonest, if you will. Of course you can get networking and memory sticks with Windows 98. Printing, zip drives and CD burning as well. Don't pretend Macs have better hardware support than Windows. It's an obvious lie.
And anyway, I was on about getting the hardware to work with modern software, which Apple simply restricts you from doing, even when it's technically possible. Yes, proprietary software, again -- and proprietary hardware.
When it comes to mechanical reliability, the PC market is so diverse that of course you will find loads of crap. I've had Macs with loads of mechanical problems as well. Most of them well known.
Meanwhile, any old PC that can make use of more than 256 MB RAM can be very useful with Windows XP for several years to come (XP can actually be made very lean, if you know how to remove stuff). No, it won't run the latest and greatest games, but neither will a brand new MacBook.
No, you're not talking about "power players", you're talking about vain idiots. Of course, it's not uncommon for vain idiots to believe they are power players.
No, the writer is Rob Enderle, the guy who defended SCO against the evil Linux copycats (and praised the VROOM-VROOM start-up sound on his Acer Ferrari). I doubt he wants to use a 'free software scam' like the Eee for anything.
Which raises the question of why a fluff piece by this idiot should be posted to Slashdot (or to Tom's Hardware in the first place).
xorg.conf is becoming easier and easier with each release. I don't think the file is needed at all any more. Everything is automagically configured, as long as your graphics card is properly supported and the monitor returns the correct information. You can still use it to force specific options if you need.
So what? Reviewing such a paper takes at most five minutes, and that's if the waste paper bin is full and you have to leave your office to empty it. The lunatic fringe is about as easily recognisable as any scientific paradigm.
Creating a paper takes many times as much time as rejecting it does. The situation you describe looks more like trolling than actual scientific work; spewing out useless junk in hope that someone somewhere, no matter who, will bite. Is this common practice among physicists?
I've worked for a less prestigious but rather good journal (in the humanities) that would take a look at anything, and even lowlives like us mainly received submissions that the writers at least believed were good enough for us. The most time consuming articles were the ones that were poorly written but well thought out, not the few that just didn't cut it. Dyslexia is far more expensive in man hours than simple trolling for publication.
At any rate, you're talking about some potential situation that you simply don't have empirical evidence for, based on an unfounded faith in human stupidity and greed. You must be an economist.
Zero cost? Then certainly your time must be worthless.
At least it was feature complete.
That's not an ad hominem. I'd link to the Wikipedia article on ad hominem attacks, but it's been deleted for irrelevance.[1]
[1]No, it hasn't.
None of that part, of course. Read the sentence before it. Those papers were already leaked.