I like the idea, but it's never going to happen. Unless, maybe, our new Obamoid Overlords decide to revive the antitrust action that the Bushians killed.
First of all, with Moore's law this means that a few months later, netbooks *will* be powerful enough.
It says no such thing.
Basically, Moore's observation is that the density of ICs doubles every 18 months, even though the components themselves don't get more expensive. You can extend that to say things like "computers double in crunching power every 18 months." You cannot say that computers will get better in every way!
And in some ways they get worse. More transistors means more electricity and shorter battery life. Batteries are getting better, but not in the exponential way ICs do.
ARM chips are fundamentally less powerful than the Intel chips used in most PCs. That's not a defect — they're designed that way. Moore's law may make them smaller and more cost-effective, but it can't make them more powerful. Because that would mean more transitors, which would mean more electricity, which would mean shorter battery life. And that defeats the purpose of using ARM instead of Intel in the first place.
I'm kind of oversimplifying with my comparison of ARM and Intel. Intel also makes low-power Atom chips. But these chips make the same tradeoff that ARM does: less processing power for longer battery life. Chips that want to conserve power will always be less powerful than those that don't, and Moore's Law doesn't change that.
Don't remember the Heinlein bit. But one of the intriguing little details of Sam Stirling "Draka" alternate history is that machine tooling to fine tolerances developed much faster than in our timeline. One of the consequences of this is that pneumatic technology is used not just for delivering stuff, but also for distributing power, not just for industrial uses, but for home appliances. Electricity doesn't displace pneumatic power until the middle of the 20th century.
Stirling doesn't actually write any fiction about this period: it's all part of an elaborate backstory for a series of stories that begin in 1942. The dude puts more work into the background for his fiction than any SF writer I know of. I don't always agree with his assumptions (in fact, I usually don't) but that only adds to the fun of reading his work.
Here's an interesting discussion of Stirling's alternate universe:
In that case, I think you owe an apology to CarbonShell for sneering at his "consequence of speaking your opinion" quote. That's the standard argument for sanctioning government officials who act intrusively.
My mistake. I neglected to follow the thread far enough, and thought you were still on the main topic. (Offtopic! Oh, never mind.)
Then again, I was accidentally correct, at least partially. Because most of Joe's grief didn't come from private individuals. It came from a state official who saw Joe on the news and took it upon himself to look up Joe's tax records, and publicize the less savory elements of same.
That's definitely a misuse of public power to suppress Joe's First Amendment Rights, and as such is disallowed by The Cereal Box. It's every bit as bad as when the FBI tried to discredit Dr. King with some of his private data. The fact that King is a national hero and Joe is a national asshole is neither here nor there. The constitution protects heroes and assholes equally.
I think it's the cereal box that says that when the Emperor is able to punish folks that say he's naked, nobody's going to say he's naked. You know, the Bill of Rights.
But I guess it's not surprising you're on the wrong side of this issue, given the way you misuse your administrative privileges at Slashdot.
Yeah really. Even if Java browser plugins still had much of a user base, what's the point of running them 64-bit? Tiny applications that run inside browsers are not to going to benefit from the extra power of the x64 world.
The web actually is a decent way to deliver Java applications. Provide your users a Java Web Start link, and with one click they can download the application code and runtime (both kept up to date automatically) that they need to run the app. And of course, you can use a 64-bit runtime.
That said, I'm afraid this was inevitable. I used to work in the Java SE group at Sun, and all the time I was there, the demand for a 64-bit browser plugin was incessant. It was inevitable that Sun would give in on this, even though it means them spending money they can't spare for no real benefit to anybody.
(BTW, your sig and my sig need to get together and have a talk.)
Why? Because pneumatic infosystems are "obviously" a silly idea? If you think that, you need to crack a book now and then. If you did, you'd know that pneumatic mail delivery was widely used in Europe from the late 19th century well into the 20th. (The Paris system didn't shut down until 1984!)
They were also widely used in the U.S. for internal business mail and similar stuff. Many large department stores used pneumatic systems instead of cash registers. The clerk put your money and bill into a tube, where it got sent up to the bookkeeping department, which sent back a receipt and your change. That's more cost effective than totaling out dozens of registers at the end of the day, and also minimized the amount of cash in places where it could be ripped off. Back in the 70s, there were still a few stores that used this system; it took the rise of networked POS systems and credit cards to kill it completely.
So the folks that wanted to build a national pneumatic system had some solid technology and experience to build on. Sure, they failed — but their failure is worth studying now that we're busy arguing about the best way to install a telecom infrastructure that's half as good as the ones in Asia.
Oh, come on. We have this weird, kludgy way of electing the most powerful official in the world, and it creaked through its 56th cycle yesterday. Of course that's "news for nerds". I'll be every single slashdotter thinks they know a better way to do it.
Ever since I learned about the Electoral College, I've wondered "WTF were they thinking?" And I've read several books on the Constitutional Convention without coming up with a good answer. My best guess is that they didn't want direct election because it was "too democratic" (the d word had connotation of mob rule in those days) and gave too much power to the big states. They didn't want to have the states do it, because then the established powers in the state governments would turn themselves into an oligarchy. So they came up with this weird assembly that isn't even allowed to meet in one place or debate their choice. They probably figured that after the dust settled and people were more amenable to compromise, somebody would come up with something better.
But nobody has. Changing the system is too politically difficult. Except for a quick amendment to separate the two races (preventing a repeat of the 1800 fiasco) we still have the same system. It's more democratic than it was originally, but that's pretty ad hoc.
More serious than the ability of the states to go to a lottery system of choosing electors (probably not political feasible, but you never know!) is the potential for not electing a president at all. In 1876, some states actually submitted two sets of ballots, and sorting them out was not easy. We still face the possibility of a minority President (both of the last two Presidents actually got less than half of the popular vote in their first term), or of a three-way race throwing the whole thing into the House of Representatives, which is simply not set up to handle things right. This could even happen with a two-way race, because there's an even number of electors.
Don't even think about it. The thought of miss Africa-is-too-a-country being anywhere near the line of succession gives me the willies. Fortunately, that's not going to happen. Her destiny is the same as that for all opinionated idiots who run past their 15 minutes — cable TV pundit.
But you know, it's not really correct to say that Obama got elected yesterday. The ballots were cast, but they don't get counted until January 5. And you know who the Constitution designates to count these ballots? The VP, Mr. Dick Cheney. Let's hope he's more careful with his record keeping this time!
I got curious about this post, which has already attracted some attention in the blogosphere. ("Solaris at Microsoft?") Some googling reveals that WebTV was originally developed on BSDi, then moved to Solaris. At that point (1997) they were acquired by Microsoft.
I seem to recall read that many of Microsoft's Unix-based acquisitions have had trouble moving to NT, despite the obvious pressure to do so. So there were probably Solaris servers at Microsoft's Mountain View campus (where WebTV is located) for some years. But it's been 11 years, and I'm sure those Solaris servers are long gone. You'll notice that J refers to them in the past tense.
Thus the "waste issue" is largely a smoke screen thrown up by people who are ideologically opposed to nuclear power, aided and abetted by those who are financially threatened by it.
OK, when you start using words like "smokescreen" we're back into Big Conspiracy Territory. The problem of disposing of nuclear waste is not some hypothetical construct. It's a immediate real problem that the nuclear industry is grappling with even as we speak. The fact that there is a potential way to turn that dangerous waste into useful product doesn't change that.
Before you try this, make sure that whoever's sponsoring this program is OK with your installing abandonware. Although this is not strictly in accordance with copyright law, abandonware sites (at least the ones that don't like getting sued) only provide abandoned games that their owners don't object to being made available. In many cases, the owner has gone out of business and there's really in a position to object — but verifying this is impractical.
Now then, go to an abandonware site and download every DOS game that looks at all fun. By modern standards, these games have tiny footprints, so you might as well go crazy. These will mostly not run directly under XP, so you should install an x86 emulator to use with them. (Yes, running an x86 emulator on an x86 system is weird, but it's the best way to deal with the low-level compatibility issues you get with DOS software.) The one I use is DOSBox, and there seems to be broad agreement that it's the best. Even emulates old sound cards!
Being a grammar or spelling Nazi is pretty obnoxious, even when your "corrections" aren't wrong. But I don't see anything witty about it. Quite the opposite.
But you did remind me of a real candidate for #5: "There, fixed that for you."
You deserve points for having the moral courage to admit a mistake. But what a mistake! The waste issue has been a big part of the nuclear debate as long as there's been a debate.
I'm the sort of person who's always getting asked to help people with their computers. (I guess all geeks have this experience, but I think I do it more than most, because I'm good at explaining things, which is also what I do for a living.) My experience with this is that most people who use computers outside their jobs use them three things, and three things only: web surfing, email, word processing. Unless they become interested in the technology for its own sake and are in danger of turning into computer geeks (and that's certainly a growing demographic!), they're not interested in expanding their skill set much past this point. Indeed, they tend to resist getting in deeper than they actually have to.
Now, I could be mistaken, but it's my perception that these are the people who are driving the growing popularity of Linux-based netbooks. It's hard to see who else could be driving it — previous attempt to get people to adopt Linux as an alternative to Windows have failed miserably. We all know why: there's too much application lockin on this platform. But if the only applications you're running are the three I just mentioned, application lockin ceases to be an issue.
Maybe I'm wrong, and it is all about the form factor and battery life. But I don't think so.
Let's see, use cases: PDA-type applications? For that you want a device that fits in your pocket. Games? Ditto for small scale gaming; for serious gaming you want serious hardware.
I guess netbooks would be handy for people who are into "casual games". But most casual games are web applications, so their developers don't need to target netbooks as such.
The problem is not that people can't install software, it's that people won't. Netbooks are purchased by people who see regular laptops as overkill. People who plan to run serious applications will buy regular laptops.
Hackers, as always, are an exceptions. But they're a small part of the marketplace. And many of them will still prefer regular laptops, even if they run Linux on them.
Yes, this does help to make web apps less IE-centric. But that trend was already underway. Even MS is helping with it, but giving in to demands for better standards compliance in IE. But a more heterogeneous browser software base does not mean a more heterogeneous desktop software base. All the leading browser engines run on Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
I like the idea, but it's never going to happen. Unless, maybe, our new Obamoid Overlords decide to revive the antitrust action that the Bushians killed.
First of all, with Moore's law this means that a few months later, netbooks *will* be powerful enough.
It says no such thing.
Basically, Moore's observation is that the density of ICs doubles every 18 months, even though the components themselves don't get more expensive. You can extend that to say things like "computers double in crunching power every 18 months." You cannot say that computers will get better in every way!
And in some ways they get worse. More transistors means more electricity and shorter battery life. Batteries are getting better, but not in the exponential way ICs do.
ARM chips are fundamentally less powerful than the Intel chips used in most PCs. That's not a defect — they're designed that way. Moore's law may make them smaller and more cost-effective, but it can't make them more powerful. Because that would mean more transitors, which would mean more electricity, which would mean shorter battery life. And that defeats the purpose of using ARM instead of Intel in the first place.
I'm kind of oversimplifying with my comparison of ARM and Intel. Intel also makes low-power Atom chips. But these chips make the same tradeoff that ARM does: less processing power for longer battery life. Chips that want to conserve power will always be less powerful than those that don't, and Moore's Law doesn't change that.
Don't remember the Heinlein bit. But one of the intriguing little details of Sam Stirling "Draka" alternate history is that machine tooling to fine tolerances developed much faster than in our timeline. One of the consequences of this is that pneumatic technology is used not just for delivering stuff, but also for distributing power, not just for industrial uses, but for home appliances. Electricity doesn't displace pneumatic power until the middle of the 20th century.
Stirling doesn't actually write any fiction about this period: it's all part of an elaborate backstory for a series of stories that begin in 1942. The dude puts more work into the background for his fiction than any SF writer I know of. I don't always agree with his assumptions (in fact, I usually don't) but that only adds to the fun of reading his work.
Here's an interesting discussion of Stirling's alternate universe:
http://www.americanheritage.com/blog/200712_21_1354.shtml
In that case, I think you owe an apology to CarbonShell for sneering at his "consequence of speaking your opinion" quote. That's the standard argument for sanctioning government officials who act intrusively.
My mistake. I neglected to follow the thread far enough, and thought you were still on the main topic. (Offtopic! Oh, never mind.)
Then again, I was accidentally correct, at least partially. Because most of Joe's grief didn't come from private individuals. It came from a state official who saw Joe on the news and took it upon himself to look up Joe's tax records, and publicize the less savory elements of same.
That's definitely a misuse of public power to suppress Joe's First Amendment Rights, and as such is disallowed by The Cereal Box. It's every bit as bad as when the FBI tried to discredit Dr. King with some of his private data. The fact that King is a national hero and Joe is a national asshole is neither here nor there. The constitution protects heroes and assholes equally.
I think it's the cereal box that says that when the Emperor is able to punish folks that say he's naked, nobody's going to say he's naked. You know, the Bill of Rights.
But I guess it's not surprising you're on the wrong side of this issue, given the way you misuse your administrative privileges at Slashdot.
Yeah really. Even if Java browser plugins still had much of a user base, what's the point of running them 64-bit? Tiny applications that run inside browsers are not to going to benefit from the extra power of the x64 world.
The web actually is a decent way to deliver Java applications. Provide your users a Java Web Start link, and with one click they can download the application code and runtime (both kept up to date automatically) that they need to run the app. And of course, you can use a 64-bit runtime.
That said, I'm afraid this was inevitable. I used to work in the Java SE group at Sun, and all the time I was there, the demand for a 64-bit browser plugin was incessant. It was inevitable that Sun would give in on this, even though it means them spending money they can't spare for no real benefit to anybody.
(BTW, your sig and my sig need to get together and have a talk.)
Why? Because pneumatic infosystems are "obviously" a silly idea? If you think that, you need to crack a book now and then. If you did, you'd know that pneumatic mail delivery was widely used in Europe from the late 19th century well into the 20th. (The Paris system didn't shut down until 1984!)
They were also widely used in the U.S. for internal business mail and similar stuff. Many large department stores used pneumatic systems instead of cash registers. The clerk put your money and bill into a tube, where it got sent up to the bookkeeping department, which sent back a receipt and your change. That's more cost effective than totaling out dozens of registers at the end of the day, and also minimized the amount of cash in places where it could be ripped off. Back in the 70s, there were still a few stores that used this system; it took the rise of networked POS systems and credit cards to kill it completely.
So the folks that wanted to build a national pneumatic system had some solid technology and experience to build on. Sure, they failed — but their failure is worth studying now that we're busy arguing about the best way to install a telecom infrastructure that's half as good as the ones in Asia.
Oh, come on. We have this weird, kludgy way of electing the most powerful official in the world, and it creaked through its 56th cycle yesterday. Of course that's "news for nerds". I'll be every single slashdotter thinks they know a better way to do it.
Ever since I learned about the Electoral College, I've wondered "WTF were they thinking?" And I've read several books on the Constitutional Convention without coming up with a good answer. My best guess is that they didn't want direct election because it was "too democratic" (the d word had connotation of mob rule in those days) and gave too much power to the big states. They didn't want to have the states do it, because then the established powers in the state governments would turn themselves into an oligarchy. So they came up with this weird assembly that isn't even allowed to meet in one place or debate their choice. They probably figured that after the dust settled and people were more amenable to compromise, somebody would come up with something better.
But nobody has. Changing the system is too politically difficult. Except for a quick amendment to separate the two races (preventing a repeat of the 1800 fiasco) we still have the same system. It's more democratic than it was originally, but that's pretty ad hoc.
More serious than the ability of the states to go to a lottery system of choosing electors (probably not political feasible, but you never know!) is the potential for not electing a president at all. In 1876, some states actually submitted two sets of ballots, and sorting them out was not easy. We still face the possibility of a minority President (both of the last two Presidents actually got less than half of the popular vote in their first term), or of a three-way race throwing the whole thing into the House of Representatives, which is simply not set up to handle things right. This could even happen with a two-way race, because there's an even number of electors.
There's got to be a better way.
Don't even think about it. The thought of miss Africa-is-too-a-country being anywhere near the line of succession gives me the willies. Fortunately, that's not going to happen. Her destiny is the same as that for all opinionated idiots who run past their 15 minutes — cable TV pundit.
But you know, it's not really correct to say that Obama got elected yesterday. The ballots were cast, but they don't get counted until January 5. And you know who the Constitution designates to count these ballots? The VP, Mr. Dick Cheney. Let's hope he's more careful with his record keeping this time!
I got curious about this post, which has already attracted some attention in the blogosphere. ("Solaris at Microsoft?") Some googling reveals that WebTV was originally developed on BSDi, then moved to Solaris. At that point (1997) they were acquired by Microsoft.
I seem to recall read that many of Microsoft's Unix-based acquisitions have had trouble moving to NT, despite the obvious pressure to do so. So there were probably Solaris servers at Microsoft's Mountain View campus (where WebTV is located) for some years. But it's been 11 years, and I'm sure those Solaris servers are long gone. You'll notice that J refers to them in the past tense.
Thus the "waste issue" is largely a smoke screen thrown up by people who are ideologically opposed to nuclear power, aided and abetted by those who are financially threatened by it.
OK, when you start using words like "smokescreen" we're back into Big Conspiracy Territory. The problem of disposing of nuclear waste is not some hypothetical construct. It's a immediate real problem that the nuclear industry is grappling with even as we speak. The fact that there is a potential way to turn that dangerous waste into useful product doesn't change that.
Before you try this, make sure that whoever's sponsoring this program is OK with your installing abandonware. Although this is not strictly in accordance with copyright law, abandonware sites (at least the ones that don't like getting sued) only provide abandoned games that their owners don't object to being made available. In many cases, the owner has gone out of business and there's really in a position to object — but verifying this is impractical.
Now then, go to an abandonware site and download every DOS game that looks at all fun. By modern standards, these games have tiny footprints, so you might as well go crazy. These will mostly not run directly under XP, so you should install an x86 emulator to use with them. (Yes, running an x86 emulator on an x86 system is weird, but it's the best way to deal with the low-level compatibility issues you get with DOS software.) The one I use is DOSBox, and there seems to be broad agreement that it's the best. Even emulates old sound cards!
Being a grammar or spelling Nazi is pretty obnoxious, even when your "corrections" aren't wrong. But I don't see anything witty about it. Quite the opposite.
But you did remind me of a real candidate for #5: "There, fixed that for you."
Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit...
Never, never begin a submission with a clever aside. You're absolutely begging to be contradicted!
Here's the kind of wit that's lowest in my esteem, in rough order of lowness. Oddly enough, they're all popular on Slashdot!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/huh
You deserve points for having the moral courage to admit a mistake. But what a mistake! The waste issue has been a big part of the nuclear debate as long as there's been a debate.
Maybe because your stereotyping of "enviros" is pure BS.
Ebooks come with web browsers. No development potential there. You might have a point with ebook readers.
I'm the sort of person who's always getting asked to help people with their computers. (I guess all geeks have this experience, but I think I do it more than most, because I'm good at explaining things, which is also what I do for a living.) My experience with this is that most people who use computers outside their jobs use them three things, and three things only: web surfing, email, word processing. Unless they become interested in the technology for its own sake and are in danger of turning into computer geeks (and that's certainly a growing demographic!), they're not interested in expanding their skill set much past this point. Indeed, they tend to resist getting in deeper than they actually have to.
Now, I could be mistaken, but it's my perception that these are the people who are driving the growing popularity of Linux-based netbooks. It's hard to see who else could be driving it — previous attempt to get people to adopt Linux as an alternative to Windows have failed miserably. We all know why: there's too much application lockin on this platform. But if the only applications you're running are the three I just mentioned, application lockin ceases to be an issue.
Maybe I'm wrong, and it is all about the form factor and battery life. But I don't think so.
Let's see, use cases: PDA-type applications? For that you want a device that fits in your pocket. Games? Ditto for small scale gaming; for serious gaming you want serious hardware.
I guess netbooks would be handy for people who are into "casual games". But most casual games are web applications, so their developers don't need to target netbooks as such.
That's all the use cases I can think of. You?
The problem is not that people can't install software, it's that people won't. Netbooks are purchased by people who see regular laptops as overkill. People who plan to run serious applications will buy regular laptops.
Hackers, as always, are an exceptions. But they're a small part of the marketplace. And many of them will still prefer regular laptops, even if they run Linux on them.
Photoshop? Turbotax? Why would you want to run these things on a netbook? For those, you'd want a proper laptop.
Yes, this does help to make web apps less IE-centric. But that trend was already underway. Even MS is helping with it, but giving in to demands for better standards compliance in IE. But a more heterogeneous browser software base does not mean a more heterogeneous desktop software base. All the leading browser engines run on Windows.
You do know that the iPod touch is not a netbook, right?