Or you can just not touch it. But the problem isn't not using the trackpad. The problem is finding a laptop that provides an alternative to a trackpad. The only real choice seems to be an IBM-style pointer stick. (Not ideal, but I can't really think of anything better that doesn't rely on psychic powers.) And unfortunately that pretty much limits you to Thinkpads, since other manufacturers seem to be abandoning them (more expensive?). Indeed, I'm afraid that the Thinkpad's new Chinese Overlords will likely follow the trend.
My last laptop (stolen, alas) was a Sony Picturebook with a pointing stick (useful in a clumsy sort of way) and a jog dial (not). Sony still sometimes makes laptops with pointer sticks, but I've been turned off by their high prices, lack of compatibility, and nasty "antipiracy" features. If I can ever afford to replace my Picturebook, I may just abandon the whole laptop concept -- there's no good solution to the pointing problem, and the keyboards are seriously unergonomic. Instead, I'll get a tablet PC. When I don't have a table to work on, I'll use a stylus and an onscreen keyboard. When I do have a table, I'll plug in a USB keyboard and mouse.
Hurdles? The current administration loves mergers.
You know, the Bell System breakup wasn't entirely involuntary. They could have continued to drag out procedings until they became irrelevent -- the usual procedure when the antitrust people go after a company that size. (And at the time, AT&T was the biggest company in human history.) But management wanted to get out of the local phone business. As long as AT&T remain a public utility, there were a lot of businesses they couldn't enter: computers, telecom hardware, wireless communication. They had tons of technology that they had invented (remember where Unix came from; not to mention solid state electronics, satellite communications...) but couldn't profit from directly. They were sure that if they were allowed to compete in an open market, they'd own the world.
Didn't happen, of course. It take more than good technology to be the leading player. It takes basic business skills, skills AT&T's management lost when then were a legal monopoly.
Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display
on
The Hundred-Buck PC
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· Score: 1
I think the issue with copper thieves isn't that the wires are hard to protect, it's that some countries have so many problems with corruption and lawlessness that they can't protect any part of their infrastructure. Iraq is a case in point; during the lawless period following the invasion, so much copper wire was stolen, it actually depressed world prices.
Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display
on
The Hundred-Buck PC
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· Score: 4, Insightful
...if you can't get reliable power, I doubt you can get an internet connection,
You think you need wires to transmit data? Perhaps you've heard of this newfangled invention, the "cell phone"?
There's a well-established thing in poor, developing countries called "technological leapfrogging". It's particular important in telecommunications, where people want phones, internet access, and other forms of communication, but don't have the copper infrastructure we take for granted. Nor can they afford to buy it. But they can afford to put up cell towers and satellite ground stations.
A lot of computer recycling centers already do this. But mostly this doesn't really work, unless you give the computer to somebody who has the knowhow and resources to maintain old systems themselves. That leaves out people in some remote Indian village who could benefit from Internet access (weather reports, direct access to crop markets, selling native crafts) but wouldn't know what to do with an old, flaky 386 box. Better to give them a system designed from the ground up for their environement, with standard components and design so there's actually somebody within 100 miles who knows how to fix it.
Sure, there are billions who can't afford to buy one of these. But somebody in their village or neighborhood will get a micro-loan and pay it back by selling access to their neighbors. This is already happening with other technology.
Re:I'd be happy to pay that without a display
on
The Hundred-Buck PC
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· Score: 1
presumably any computers for the developing world will be low power, because of the problems with actually getting electricity...
Low power is good idea, but no matter how low the power requirements are of a system, it can't function when the power grid is offline! An ideal developing world system would include its own generator, probably spring-driven.
The only downside is it would slow down the rate that they can launch shuttles.
Not the only downside, since it costs a lot of money to keep that extra shuttle on standby. Not a minor issue for the Shuttle program, which has always had a hard time justifying its costs.
Indeed, the philosophical argument is of no interest to anybody except a few geeks. But there are a lot of practical reasons to want alternatives to MS Office. Not just the reasons you mention, but issues of cost, and of problems caused by overdependence on a single notoriously flaky company.
But if you're baffled by people's adherence to MS Office, then you've never used this kind of software in a real-world environment. Being able to pass a file around without interopeability problems is crucial. Given the messy kind of data most people have to deal with, the only way to do this is to standardize on a specific set of tools from a specific vendor. In the past, you had real competition between Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, WordPerfect, and others. It was inevitable that one company would win the desktop application wars, though I wish it wasn't the same company that also won the desktop OS wars.
If you're going to end this monopoly, you're going to have to overcome the same social and economic forces that drove Lotus and WordPerfect into niche status. There's more to doing that than simply coming up with a technicallly supperior or more open product.
In my last job, I made a point of putting in time on my company's single Mac. (A fancy dual-processor beast abandoned by a colo customer who couldn't pay his bill.) I did this because I wanted to be able to switch back and forth between Mac and "Windows" GUIs. (I put "Windows" in quotes because most of the conventions of Windows were invented by IBM, not Microsoft, and are widely copied in the Unix/Linux world.) But I came away with the decision that's I'd avoid using Macs in the future.
No, I didn't decide that the Mac's "usability" was a myth. But on a Mac, everything is different. The lack of "right-click" commands is just one example. File browsing works differently. Switching between applications is completely different. Even ejecting media. Everything!
If I were totally new to computers, I might find the Mac way of doing things easier to learn. But I'm not, and nowadays hardly anybody is. Odds are, somebody trying out a Mac has some experience on a completely different system. And that experience actually makes using a Mac harder, because it gives you a huge body of habits and reflexes that are not just useless when you use a Mac, but actively get in your way.
So when Mac enthusiasts insist that the Mac way is better, I have to say, Maybe so. But it just doesn't matter. To most people it's not a better way, just a different way, and a difference that is too difficult to overcome.
Where's the catch? I mean, there has to be for MS to open up one of the keys to its kingdom.
Not at all. Sure, Microsoft is a monopoly, and their sales and marketing people aren't above screwing people over to maintain their dominance. (As are most sales and marketing people.) But remember, the heart of the company is bunch of aging computer hippies who blundered into their market domination.
These guys have created a bunch of R&D teams that seem to be dominated by MENSA types who are thoroughly convinced of their own brilliance and have little talent for co-operation. These teams don't even play well, with other entities within Microsoft (most, if not all, of Microsoft's famous screwups are obviously the result of miscoordination) so of course they don't get along with external entites.
That's why they've done compatible versions of Kerboros, Java, and a lot of other standards. Not because they want to screw up the standards, but because they're convinced that their way of doing something is the only right way. That's why they totally change file formats and APIs with every release cycle. Not to drive programmers and users crazy, but because they can't stop tweaking their products to make them "better".
I've worked in computing longer than I care to think about, and I've always worked with people who had this mentality. In the normal course of events, they're forced to grow up and accomodate the real-world needs of others. But the situation in Redmond is anything but normal -- they're assured of billions of dollars in software licenses no matter how badly they screw up. This has the effect of re-inforcing their naive faith in their own brilliance and insulating them from any need to learn from their mistakes.
In this light, it's only natural that they'd open up their XML schemas. It allows all us peons to appreciate how brilliant they are, and to "debunk" the "myth" that they don't care about interoperability.
No, it's the greedy corporate interests that are being taken too seriously! Meanwhile, TRUE science is being swept under the rug in favor of profits and votes.
No they don't. There's a cutoff year, resulting in "FORTRAN 77" and "Fortran 90"
OK then, I'd probably put "Fortran" in the style manual and justify by saying its the spelling used in the latest standard. But if my boss said, "No, keep it 'FORTRAN', it's too much trouble to revise all the manuals," I wouldn't accuse him of blasphemy against the language gods. And come to think of it, if the official name of one version of the language is "FORTRAN" and the official name of a later version is "Fortran", it's that much more silly to insist that one spelling is more "correct" than the other.
As I said, language is a matter of convention. So far I've gotten two rebuttals, neither challenging my argument, but both telling me I'm using the "wrong language"! Picking nits is one thing (I do it myself), but isn't it a little silly to pick nits with somebody when their basic argument is that your particular nits are of no importance?
I agree that these infinite copyrights that we've been forced to accept are just plain wrong. Copyright should be a way of rewarding creative people, not a way of rewarding their heirs and asignees until the end of time.
But a violation of our fundamental rights? Not all unfairness reaches that level. We're not talking freedom of speech, we're talking about fair use of other people's speech. If re-using other people creative works is a fundamental right, how can you justify even time-limited copyrights?
I don't think you can claim "Fortran" is more correct than "FORTRAN", or vice versa. The standards people still say "FORTRAN". Then again, it's a natural tendency to say "Fortran", since it's not an acronym. Then again, if IBM still cared about the trademark, you'd get a letter from their lawyers every time you did so. And if I were writing a style manual for a company that sold FORTRAN software, I'd make that the official usage. Not because it's "more correct", but because it'd be easier to enforce consistent usage. Then again (this is the last one), if my fellow employees balked at all those capitals, I'd change the convention without a qualm.
I hear the notion that a particular usage is the usage so often, I should just bite my tongue and let the fallacy go by. But for now, I'll continue to say it: Language is not a cosmic principle handed down by God. Language is a convention arrived at by haphazard consensus.
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My last laptop (stolen, alas) was a Sony Picturebook with a pointing stick (useful in a clumsy sort of way) and a jog dial (not). Sony still sometimes makes laptops with pointer sticks, but I've been turned off by their high prices, lack of compatibility, and nasty "antipiracy" features. If I can ever afford to replace my Picturebook, I may just abandon the whole laptop concept -- there's no good solution to the pointing problem, and the keyboards are seriously unergonomic. Instead, I'll get a tablet PC. When I don't have a table to work on, I'll use a stylus and an onscreen keyboard. When I do have a table, I'll plug in a USB keyboard and mouse.
Works with a Piper Cub. Shuttles are somewhat more expensive to prep for launch. Even moving the vehicle out to the launch pad is a major operation.
You know, the Bell System breakup wasn't entirely involuntary. They could have continued to drag out procedings until they became irrelevent -- the usual procedure when the antitrust people go after a company that size. (And at the time, AT&T was the biggest company in human history.) But management wanted to get out of the local phone business. As long as AT&T remain a public utility, there were a lot of businesses they couldn't enter: computers, telecom hardware, wireless communication. They had tons of technology that they had invented (remember where Unix came from; not to mention solid state electronics, satellite communications...) but couldn't profit from directly. They were sure that if they were allowed to compete in an open market, they'd own the world.
Didn't happen, of course. It take more than good technology to be the leading player. It takes basic business skills, skills AT&T's management lost when then were a legal monopoly.
I think the issue with copper thieves isn't that the wires are hard to protect, it's that some countries have so many problems with corruption and lawlessness that they can't protect any part of their infrastructure. Iraq is a case in point; during the lawless period following the invasion, so much copper wire was stolen, it actually depressed world prices.
Am I waving or drowning? So hard to tell...
There's a well-established thing in poor, developing countries called "technological leapfrogging". It's particular important in telecommunications, where people want phones, internet access, and other forms of communication, but don't have the copper infrastructure we take for granted. Nor can they afford to buy it. But they can afford to put up cell towers and satellite ground stations.
Vice Lord of a Boy's School. Nice thing to put on your resume!
A lot of computer recycling centers already do this. But mostly this doesn't really work, unless you give the computer to somebody who has the knowhow and resources to maintain old systems themselves. That leaves out people in some remote Indian village who could benefit from Internet access (weather reports, direct access to crop markets, selling native crafts) but wouldn't know what to do with an old, flaky 386 box. Better to give them a system designed from the ground up for their environement, with standard components and design so there's actually somebody within 100 miles who knows how to fix it.
Sure, there are billions who can't afford to buy one of these. But somebody in their village or neighborhood will get a micro-loan and pay it back by selling access to their neighbors. This is already happening with other technology.
Not to mention the people who complain about people who complain about people....
And then there are people who login to Slashdot merely to complain about how boring other Slashdotters are.
Isn't it a few hundred years too late for the 1337 news?
But if you're baffled by people's adherence to MS Office, then you've never used this kind of software in a real-world environment. Being able to pass a file around without interopeability problems is crucial. Given the messy kind of data most people have to deal with, the only way to do this is to standardize on a specific set of tools from a specific vendor. In the past, you had real competition between Microsoft, IBM/Lotus, WordPerfect, and others. It was inevitable that one company would win the desktop application wars, though I wish it wasn't the same company that also won the desktop OS wars.
If you're going to end this monopoly, you're going to have to overcome the same social and economic forces that drove Lotus and WordPerfect into niche status. There's more to doing that than simply coming up with a technicallly supperior or more open product.
No, I didn't decide that the Mac's "usability" was a myth. But on a Mac, everything is different. The lack of "right-click" commands is just one example. File browsing works differently. Switching between applications is completely different. Even ejecting media. Everything!
If I were totally new to computers, I might find the Mac way of doing things easier to learn. But I'm not, and nowadays hardly anybody is. Odds are, somebody trying out a Mac has some experience on a completely different system. And that experience actually makes using a Mac harder, because it gives you a huge body of habits and reflexes that are not just useless when you use a Mac, but actively get in your way.
So when Mac enthusiasts insist that the Mac way is better, I have to say, Maybe so. But it just doesn't matter. To most people it's not a better way, just a different way, and a difference that is too difficult to overcome.
These guys have created a bunch of R&D teams that seem to be dominated by MENSA types who are thoroughly convinced of their own brilliance and have little talent for co-operation. These teams don't even play well, with other entities within Microsoft (most, if not all, of Microsoft's famous screwups are obviously the result of miscoordination) so of course they don't get along with external entites.
That's why they've done compatible versions of Kerboros, Java, and a lot of other standards. Not because they want to screw up the standards, but because they're convinced that their way of doing something is the only right way. That's why they totally change file formats and APIs with every release cycle. Not to drive programmers and users crazy, but because they can't stop tweaking their products to make them "better".
I've worked in computing longer than I care to think about, and I've always worked with people who had this mentality. In the normal course of events, they're forced to grow up and accomodate the real-world needs of others. But the situation in Redmond is anything but normal -- they're assured of billions of dollars in software licenses no matter how badly they screw up. This has the effect of re-inforcing their naive faith in their own brilliance and insulating them from any need to learn from their mistakes.
In this light, it's only natural that they'd open up their XML schemas. It allows all us peons to appreciate how brilliant they are, and to "debunk" the "myth" that they don't care about interoperability.
Jeez dude, get a clue. I was making fun of kneejerk rightwing assholes by posing as the (almost identical) kneejerk leftwing asshole.
No, it's the greedy corporate interests that are being taken too seriously! Meanwhile, TRUE science is being swept under the rug in favor of profits and votes.
In other words, he says it's a myth. And the people who say it are obviously liberals. So what exactly are you disagreeing with?
Rush is so 90s! Now, the great Liberal Mythbuster is Michael Chrichton!
As I said, language is a matter of convention. So far I've gotten two rebuttals, neither challenging my argument, but both telling me I'm using the "wrong language"! Picking nits is one thing (I do it myself), but isn't it a little silly to pick nits with somebody when their basic argument is that your particular nits are of no importance?
But a violation of our fundamental rights? Not all unfairness reaches that level. We're not talking freedom of speech, we're talking about fair use of other people's speech. If re-using other people creative works is a fundamental right, how can you justify even time-limited copyrights?
I hear the notion that a particular usage is the usage so often, I should just bite my tongue and let the fallacy go by. But for now, I'll continue to say it: Language is not a cosmic principle handed down by God. Language is a convention arrived at by haphazard consensus.