I think the early failures are other problems than the flash wearing out; as these things are so price-sensitive, corners are being cut on the controller, controller firmware, and mechanical construction of the PCB etc.
Can't it be both: a floor wax *and* a dessert topping?:)
Yes it has the educational market positioning and takes its inspiration from the BBC primarily, but it's very flexible in its capabilities. You might equally well call it the modern day Amiga, as it has good hardware graphics capabilities.
This got modded insightful? You should *not* have an absolute right to proclaim hatred, because then we can't have public order. Proclaiming hatred in front of people can and does start fights which can result in people being killed or seriously injured. See in the UK the Public Order Act, especially section 5 which is used quite often (sometimes overused, admittedly). That normally results in a moderate fine, but I think this particular case was dealt with under the more severe anti-harrasment law.
Despite being a heavyweight solution, I think it's a great idea. One step closer to disposable computing. It doesn't matter if the software is rubbish if you can throw it away after using it.
The Times used to be a high quality paper; it's now just a side brand of the Daily Mail. All of the Murdoch press have these semi-salacious articles to appeal to women (carefully calibrated for the audience so as to be racy but not actually shocking).
If you have gas as your energy source, you can burn the gas, generate electricity, and use the "waste" heat to heat your water. Then you'd have an appliance which used a negative amount of electricity and could claim it was more than 100% efficient;)
Quite a lot of commercial linux software ships as statically linked binaries, where the dependencies are linked in. Indeed, if you're shipping closed source software this is strongly adviseable, as it avoids lots of dependency trouble.
Or you can go one better and have APT (or similar systems) where I type:
apt-get install openoffice.. and it downloads it and its dependencies, installs them, asks any necessary configuration questions, and integrates itself into the desktop menu system.
Quite a lot of people ship software as source tarballs because that's the preferred form for modification. Ease of use isn't everything to everyone.
That's why it's allowed to be good. These days, no astronomical discovery short of actual interviews with aliens can have any effect on anyone's business or politics.
Biology, chemistry and medicine all affect both huge industries and people's perception of their health and risks to it, and therefore lots of noise is made about those issues which can be reported as science.
I can buy two cheap quartz watches, leave them running for a year, and expect to find no more than a couple of seconds' drift. Yet I can't do this with PCs, which is really irritating for things like NFS that expect synchronised time. Sure, NTP, but that's unreliable software compared to my reliable cheap quartz watch.
My laptop is even worse: It seems to lose several seconds every time it suspends.
As for innovative peripherals, people are suddenly doing a lot with accelerometers as tilt sensors, producing a surprisingly intuitive scrolling system for small devices.
I'd like another laptop like the Toshiba libretto which had a mouse nipple that was on the side of the screen and used with the thumb. It's the only laptop that never gave me RSI, despite the tiny keyboard.
Seriously, people have that kind of problem on anything. Except seemingly MacOS, although with MacOS you still have the "You fool! You didn't try to buy software for your computer? Of course it won't work!" problem.
Have you ever tried to talk someone through IP or email settings in Microsoft software? Never had the "my internet doesn't work" phone call? Or the "why has my home page set itself to a porn site" spyware issue?
90% of this is down to hardware manufacturers refusing to cooperate with the driver developers, let alone develop their own drivers like they do for Windows. It would be wonderful if devices came with Linux drivers on CD; as it is, people have to do terrifying things like NDISwrapper. You're lucky that works at all...
Slashdot Mirror
"No branch prediction" is completely false for modern ARM processors:
http://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-a/cortex-a8.php
There are invitation-only discussion forums, they're private and clearly you've not been invited to one. Sorry.
And in the EU there are data protection and privacy laws that could be used to deter this kind of thing.
I think the early failures are other problems than the flash wearing out; as these things are so price-sensitive, corners are being cut on the controller, controller firmware, and mechanical construction of the PCB etc.
Can't it be both: a floor wax *and* a dessert topping? :)
Yes it has the educational market positioning and takes its inspiration from the BBC primarily, but it's very flexible in its capabilities. You might equally well call it the modern day Amiga, as it has good hardware graphics capabilities.
It's not just the opinion, but the manner and circumstances in which it's expressed. It's not a simple always/never allowed issue.
(Even US law allows the recognition that the person using abusive language can be the "idiot who starts the fight")
This got modded insightful? You should *not* have an absolute right to proclaim hatred, because then we can't have public order. Proclaiming hatred in front of people can and does start fights which can result in people being killed or seriously injured. See in the UK the Public Order Act, especially section 5 which is used quite often (sometimes overused, admittedly). That normally results in a moderate fine, but I think this particular case was dealt with under the more severe anti-harrasment law.
That's not a low UID. This isn't even a low UID.
Ten years ago I was being taught about the attempt to upgrade the London Ambulance Service's systems, as a notorious failure and how it could be avoided. The government has not learned: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/01/auditor_says_firecontrol_a_disaster/
"Storage technology companies propose increasing the amount of storage required on mobile devices"?
Despite being a heavyweight solution, I think it's a great idea. One step closer to disposable computing. It doesn't matter if the software is rubbish if you can throw it away after using it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act
(Parliament has been slowly losing legislative control for years due to the increasing volume of European legislation which it may not override)
The Times used to be a high quality paper; it's now just a side brand of the Daily Mail. All of the Murdoch press have these semi-salacious articles to appeal to women (carefully calibrated for the audience so as to be racy but not actually shocking).
If you have gas as your energy source, you can burn the gas, generate electricity, and use the "waste" heat to heat your water. Then you'd have an appliance which used a negative amount of electricity and could claim it was more than 100% efficient ;)
As a Linux user
Why use it if you hate it so much? Who's holding the gun to your head?
Quite a lot of commercial linux software ships as statically linked binaries, where the dependencies are linked in. Indeed, if you're shipping closed source software this is strongly adviseable, as it avoids lots of dependency trouble.
t ion/instjava.html
.. and it downloads it and its dependencies, installs them, asks any necessary configuration questions, and integrates itself into the desktop menu system.
You can also ship things as a single self-installing file: it's called a shar archive. E.g. Sun ship their JDK this way: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Nvidia-OpenGL-Configura
Or you can go one better and have APT (or similar systems) where I type:
apt-get install openoffice
Quite a lot of people ship software as source tarballs because that's the preferred form for modification. Ease of use isn't everything to everyone.
Showing porn in your car makes it visible to other people not in your car, especially when you're stationary.
If it can be disabled without losing functionality, what's it there for?
(I can't find the Java option in my OOo 1.1.3)
I think you may have missed the point of the Long Now foundation...
That's why it's allowed to be good. These days, no astronomical discovery short of actual interviews with aliens can have any effect on anyone's business or politics.
Biology, chemistry and medicine all affect both huge industries and people's perception of their health and risks to it, and therefore lots of noise is made about those issues which can be reported as science.
I can buy two cheap quartz watches, leave them running for a year, and expect to find no more than a couple of seconds' drift. Yet I can't do this with PCs, which is really irritating for things like NFS that expect synchronised time. Sure, NTP, but that's unreliable software compared to my reliable cheap quartz watch.
My laptop is even worse: It seems to lose several seconds every time it suspends.
As for innovative peripherals, people are suddenly doing a lot with accelerometers as tilt sensors, producing a surprisingly intuitive scrolling system for small devices.
I'd like another laptop like the Toshiba libretto which had a mouse nipple that was on the side of the screen and used with the thumb. It's the only laptop that never gave me RSI, despite the tiny keyboard.
Seriously, people have that kind of problem on anything. Except seemingly MacOS, although with MacOS you still have the "You fool! You didn't try to buy software for your computer? Of course it won't work!" problem.
Have you ever tried to talk someone through IP or email settings in Microsoft software? Never had the "my internet doesn't work" phone call? Or the "why has my home page set itself to a porn site" spyware issue?
90% of this is down to hardware manufacturers refusing to cooperate with the driver developers, let alone develop their own drivers like they do for Windows. It would be wonderful if devices came with Linux drivers on CD; as it is, people have to do terrifying things like NDISwrapper. You're lucky that works at all...
They have been illegal in the UK since the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988, with the first specific testcase in 2002:
n uary/001464.html
t icle.asp?name=../articles/CD%202001%20Part%204%20v 7.htm
http://www.xenoclast.org/free-sklyarov-uk/2002-Ja
http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_ar
.. so it's always going to lag behind in that area, unfortunately.