Well, I for one am glad that somebody cleared that up. Because it's all about the name, not what you do with it.
My first laptop, a 486, had a screen of slightly over 10" diagonal. It was just a smallish laptop. I used it as my first web server, which is kind of weird, since we all know that a server is a big, ugly box sitting in a dedicated server room. But there's no way that something can be a laptop^Wsubnotebook and a server at the same time.
The VGA port is even more stupid, IMHO. 10/100 Ethernet is still digital. With VGA you have not just an analog connection, but all kinds of complications due to the CRT-based design, while in most cases the display itself is no longer a CRT.
I'm Finnish, and I use a UK keyboard layout. I'm not much of a programmer, but simply using a unix command line is easier without the AltGr combinations. For typing Finnish text I obviously switch the layout.
Specifying the (usually) internal decimal or packed decimal representation of a number, with or without sign, and the rules of how those digits are moved into another area of memory are neat tricks real business languages have that are very useful when dealing with money.
So is this how you can direct the rounding errors from other people's interest earnings into your own Swiss bank account?
Solar power is usually deployed as an alternative to fossil fuels. If you produce the same amount of electric energy via any means, it will end up as the same amount of heat.
But in addition to the direct heat, you will get very different amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, depending on the energy source. Global warming is much more due to these gases than the direct heating, because that single amount of CO2 stays around and keeps warming the climate for a long while.
In Europe (UK at least) Apple computers are taxed more, I've heard the stories of people flying to america to buy their Macs there, even with the plane tickets it still works out less than buying at a local shop! WTF?
Im a big Mac guy,
Not just UK, French people do it too. I heard it from "Le Big Mac guy".
Cell phone companies would come out with that kind of stuff, if people quit buying cell phones from the service providers, and instead bought them from the cell phone manufacturers.
In Finland it's always been the norm to buy your own phone, and get the service separately. It's only recently that you can get a phone (3G only)
as a part of the service. Even then, the phones are rarely sim-locked, and you have the option of buying the phone and service separately for the same total price.
Nevertheless, there's limited market for something as geeky as the grandparent idea. Most people seem to want a cell phone, not a cell computer.
Now let's look at the back of my computers. Count the number of Firewire ports you see and compare them to USB ports. My computers have 0 or 1 fw ports but they all have 3-5 usb ports on the back alone(not including my usb hub for my golden oldie). Then add some usb in front and you know that it is a widespread standard.
Firewire is a network of equal peers, which can be chained together. That's why most computers with Firewire only have 1 or 2 ports, and most devices have 2 ports. There's no differentiation between a host computer and other devices, so it's trivial to network between two computers, or between a camcorder and a hard drive, for example.
This fact actually turns your argument upside down; Firewire can do more with less. Of course, the more intelligent controllers and the network topology are overkill for simple devices like mice and keyboards.
A standard DisplayPort would be great. I hate it when laptops are still coming with ugly analog VGA ports, probably due to the bigger size of DVI. But you'll still need an adapter to get a real DisplayPort out of their proprietary mini version.
Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.
The latest patch is for 2.6.26, but it works cleanly for.27 as well, I'm posting with it right now. You probably also want some userspace stuff to automate undervolting at each boot:
Well, my machine has an 80-watt PSU, enough to keep it fully loaded even without undervolting.
I've noticed that the 'mobile' version of a processor usually consumes roughly half of the power of the 'desktop' equivalent, and I mean with the same processing capabilities. The stupidity is that you usually need a 'mobile' motherboard as well, since the processors are packaged differently. I've been meaning to write a more comprehensive guide on this topic some day.
I have to wonder about all the video stuff. Why can't you set the video mode in the kernel? Is X really the best solution? It always struck me as a little heavyweight for what it is (as far as I can see, a windowing system is essentially a reentrant API for drawing text and overlapping boxes). For most peoples needs I'm sure you could trim it down a lot and maintain all of the functionality that 99% of users expect.
I think kernel modesetting is being developed right now, though I don't have any links handy.
As for the necessity of X, I've used MPlayer without X to watch DivX-quality videos on lower-end systems, such as a 233-MHz G3 and a 400-MHz K6. MPlayer has lots of non-X drivers, and in many cases it can use hardware video scaling (Xvideo equivalent) as well. There isn't much difference in CPU load once you have X running, but of course the overhead of maintaining and starting X is considerable.
What you've described sounds a lot like DirectFB, but I don't really have experience on that one.
I've never understood the 2x rule. The less RAM you have the more swap you should have. If you upgrade the RAM on a system are you supposed to increase your swap size? That's completely counterintuitive and stupid.
You design your machine so that the RAM is good for all practical uses. Swap space is there as a last resort, to let the system fail gracefully. If you're using bigger applications, chances are that the "failures" are bigger.
I've routinely run 128MB embedded systems with 1GB of swap. A little slow at times, but it gets the job done.
I've run 8 MB systems with about 64 MB of swap, and I thought it was a little painful. There's the basic problem that the code/data has to be in actual RAM in order to be used. In these cases, 8/9 of total memory access involves disk activity in addition to the usual memory latency. So again we should worry about the RAM:swap ratio.
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Well, I for one am glad that somebody cleared that up. Because it's all about the name, not what you do with it.
My first laptop, a 486, had a screen of slightly over 10" diagonal. It was just a smallish laptop. I used it as my first web server, which is kind of weird, since we all know that a server is a big, ugly box sitting in a dedicated server room. But there's no way that something can be a laptop^Wsubnotebook and a server at the same time.
The VGA port is even more stupid, IMHO. 10/100 Ethernet is still digital. With VGA you have not just an analog connection, but all kinds of complications due to the CRT-based design, while in most cases the display itself is no longer a CRT.
I'm Finnish, and I use a UK keyboard layout. I'm not much of a programmer, but simply using a unix command line is easier without the AltGr combinations. For typing Finnish text I obviously switch the layout.
They have just started OGR-NG which will search for 26-mark and higher-order rulers. For now you will have to use a prerelease client.
http://n0cgi.distributed.net/cgi/dnet-finger.cgi?user=bovine
http://www.distributed.net/download/prerelease.php
Specifying the (usually) internal decimal or packed decimal representation of a number, with or without sign, and the rules of how those digits are moved into another area of memory are neat tricks real business languages have that are very useful when dealing with money.
So is this how you can direct the rounding errors from other people's interest earnings into your own Swiss bank account?
You are likely to be eaten by a whoosh.
I'm in a software engineering class listening to how to use metrics on code.
No, you're in a software engineering class posting on Slashdot.
You are likely to be eaten by a GNU.
Since the dawn of agriculture we have been doing geoengineering whether we called it that or not.
Ditto with s/geo/genetic /.
Solar power is usually deployed as an alternative to fossil fuels. If you produce the same amount of electric energy via any means, it will end up as the same amount of heat.
But in addition to the direct heat, you will get very different amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, depending on the energy source. Global warming is much more due to these gases than the direct heating, because that single amount of CO2 stays around and keeps warming the climate for a long while.
In Europe (UK at least) Apple computers are taxed more, I've heard the stories of people flying to america to buy their Macs there, even with the plane tickets it still works out less than buying at a local shop! WTF?
Im a big Mac guy,
Not just UK, French people do it too. I heard it from "Le Big Mac guy".
Cell phone companies would come out with that kind of stuff, if people quit buying cell phones from the service providers, and instead bought them from the cell phone manufacturers.
In Finland it's always been the norm to buy your own phone, and get the service separately. It's only recently that you can get a phone (3G only) as a part of the service. Even then, the phones are rarely sim-locked, and you have the option of buying the phone and service separately for the same total price.
Nevertheless, there's limited market for something as geeky as the grandparent idea. Most people seem to want a cell phone, not a cell computer.
Now let's look at the back of my computers. Count the number of Firewire ports you see and compare them to USB ports. My computers have 0 or 1 fw ports but they all have 3-5 usb ports on the back alone(not including my usb hub for my golden oldie). Then add some usb in front and you know that it is a widespread standard.
Firewire is a network of equal peers, which can be chained together. That's why most computers with Firewire only have 1 or 2 ports, and most devices have 2 ports. There's no differentiation between a host computer and other devices, so it's trivial to network between two computers, or between a camcorder and a hard drive, for example.
This fact actually turns your argument upside down; Firewire can do more with less. Of course, the more intelligent controllers and the network topology are overkill for simple devices like mice and keyboards.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200811/airport-security
A standard DisplayPort would be great. I hate it when laptops are still coming with ugly analog VGA ports, probably due to the bigger size of DVI. But you'll still need an adapter to get a real DisplayPort out of their proprietary mini version.
If you want to undervolt your CPU, you can already do it using this:
http://phc.athousandnights.de/
The latest patch is for 2.6.26, but it works cleanly for .27 as well, I'm posting with it right now. You probably also want some userspace stuff to automate undervolting at each boot:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Undervolt_a_Pentium_M_CPU
It's not limited to Pentium M though. I've succesfully undervolted a P-M and a T2300.
Is that an African or a European buzzard?
How about build an energy efficient PC!
Well, my machine has an 80-watt PSU, enough to keep it fully loaded even without undervolting.
I've noticed that the 'mobile' version of a processor usually consumes roughly half of the power of the 'desktop' equivalent, and I mean with the same processing capabilities. The stupidity is that you usually need a 'mobile' motherboard as well, since the processors are packaged differently. I've been meaning to write a more comprehensive guide on this topic some day.
make: *** No rule to make target `day'. Stop.
Use the tried and true metaphors of BEES and FLOWERS. Demonstrate safe practices with a BANANA. But for god's sake, don't try and visualize AIDS.
Yes but it's more biased.
Duh, this was in Washington, DC, what did you expect? I'm sure we'll get a much more balanced result from Washington, AC.
The best definition of temperature that i came across is m*v^2_{rms} = f*k_B*T
You need the concept of temperature to use/derive this equation. For example Boltzmann's constant involves the concept.
And let's not forget it's gnu/rms.
I have to wonder about all the video stuff. Why can't you set the video mode in the kernel? Is X really the best solution? It always struck me as a little heavyweight for what it is (as far as I can see, a windowing system is essentially a reentrant API for drawing text and overlapping boxes). For most peoples needs I'm sure you could trim it down a lot and maintain all of the functionality that 99% of users expect.
I think kernel modesetting is being developed right now, though I don't have any links handy.
As for the necessity of X, I've used MPlayer without X to watch DivX-quality videos on lower-end systems, such as a 233-MHz G3 and a 400-MHz K6. MPlayer has lots of non-X drivers, and in many cases it can use hardware video scaling (Xvideo equivalent) as well. There isn't much difference in CPU load once you have X running, but of course the overhead of maintaining and starting X is considerable.
What you've described sounds a lot like DirectFB, but I don't really have experience on that one.
Seriously though, you can use unused video RAM for a swap faster than disk. http://hedera.linuxnews.pl/_news/2002/09/03/_long/1445.html
I've never understood the 2x rule. The less RAM you have the more swap you should have. If you upgrade the RAM on a system are you supposed to increase your swap size? That's completely counterintuitive and stupid.
You design your machine so that the RAM is good for all practical uses. Swap space is there as a last resort, to let the system fail gracefully. If you're using bigger applications, chances are that the "failures" are bigger.
I've routinely run 128MB embedded systems with 1GB of swap. A little slow at times, but it gets the job done.
I've run 8 MB systems with about 64 MB of swap, and I thought it was a little painful. There's the basic problem that the code/data has to be in actual RAM in order to be used. In these cases, 8/9 of total memory access involves disk activity in addition to the usual memory latency. So again we should worry about the RAM:swap ratio.