Is there something wrong with buying CD's??? I'm not trying to be any kind of smart ass or the like, but am I old fashoned for continueing to buy "entire" albums?
I was under the impression that CD's were still lossless, and were still somewhat portable, and perfectly legal. You can even rip them and load them into your Ipod or fav player without worry...
I also like complete albums. Nothing prevents listening to whole albums in a compressed format on a computer/player, just like nothing prevents listening to individual tracks on a CD.
I'm also somewhat environmentally minded and I think it's dumb that we have to haul little pieces of plastic and metal around the globe, when there are cheaper ways to transfer information.
There's nothing magical about a 'server' or a 'laptop' machine, they are all just computers. I've used laptops as servers for a long time (starting with a web server on a 486-33 with 8MB RAM and Windows 3.1) and I've had no problems with them.
In fact, laptops in my experience are more reliable than desktops. One reason is the limited number of configurations due to lack of expandability. The other is that laptops are somewhat 'premium' products and therefore made with higher quality. The main drawback is that this makes them more expensive, and you'll be paying for a display that gets little use.
It's also my experience that laptop hard drives are not markedly slower than desktop counterparts. People complaining about this should do benchmarks, noting practical usage rather than simply throughput, or shut the hell up. The RPM myth is just like the MHz myth. By simple physical arguments, smaller drives should have better seek times, and I see this every day in practical use.
Of course there's the general lack of expandability, and memory expansion might be a problem. But with light usage, neither HD nor RAM should not pose any problems.
But wouldn't the other 2 be a waste of HD space, if that were to be your attitude?
I interpreted this so that you don't even have to install the other OSes. But you can say you have the possibility of installing/running them. Personally I don't care as long as I can run Gentoo:)
OT - why do people think that these things are "motion" sensors? Such a thing would defy the laws of physics.
They are accelerometers, meaning they can be used to detect relative motion. You can combine acceleration information with timing to infer bulk motion.
So it's only 3 times worse than my ThinkPad? Er, impressive.
Ditto for my Fujitsu and my past Toshiba. Most laptops (even the cheap consumer ones) have an easy access to the hard drive, and it's nice to see Apple catching up.
I'm honestly surprised that the state of optical media has progressed so slowly though. BlueRay and HD may seem very large, but considering the size of our hard drives, I'd be happier if 5 inch CD formfactor media could store on the order of ~100GB.
There's also some advantage in separating the storage medium from the read/write heads. If either part in a hard drive fails, you're literally fscked (except for some really expensive recovery solutions by Ibas or the like). On the other hand, you can always put an optical disc in a brand new drive. And if a disc is scratched beyond readability in your current drive, chances are you can read it with another drive in the future.
Look around. Making a product is SO 1950. Sure, it's a necessary evil, but that's why we get all those countries in the far east to do it for us. Now SELLING a product, THAT's where the action is!
I thought the world economy has been more about services than products for decades now. Software businesses are waking up to this fact, after some time of distortion (mostly due to Microsoft) in which they wanted to sell copies of bits as products. I don't really mind this, as I can save tons of money by serving myself (using Free software).
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The Pepper Pad doesn't come with a cable for syncing to your Windows PC. That is potentiality a problem, because both the Pepper Pad and your PC will have the same USB ports and so you will need a cable with the large USB ports on both ends, which I have never seen in a store.
How ignorant can you get and still be able to post these reviews? USB doesn't do host to host, which is why these cables don't exist. However, there are USB to USB networking dongles with some buffer memory, which both ends see as a network device.
It might be fun for you, but if I have to listen to someone's loud buckling keys for hours while I'm trying to work, it drives me frick'in insane.
Completely agreed. I also happen to like keyboards with very light action. I think it's silly that some keyboards require you to pound the keys as if it were a mechanical typewriter. Laptop keybs are the way I like them.
I wish people would stop staring at the RPM when judging hard drive performance. It's equally informative as the MHz of a processor, just a single factor in a complex performance equation.
As an anecdote, my 4200 RPM laptop drive is much faster than my 7200 RPM desktop drive, both using ATA 100 and disk-bound applications. I think one reason is that the laptop drive has more cache. But there are loads of other factors. Platter size is one interesting point where bigger doesn't always mean faster, especially with regards to seek times.
BTW, the article's point about platter mass is pretty moot IMHO, because it only affects spin-up energy expenditure. Even in a laptop-style usage where the HD turns off now and then, the effect is negligible. The important thing in my experience is the faster spin-up time of laptop drives. I also happen to like quiet computers, and it's one reason why somebody might choose lower RPM in a hard drive.
Of course, brute strength does provide you with some advantage, but I'm pretty sure withstanding G forces is more about power/mass ratio than absolute power. I've noticed that smaller people tend to have the advantage there as well.
Simple scaling arguments tell that smaller people are relatively stronger to their body mass. Other things being equal, muscle strength scales as x^2 and mass scales as x^3, when x is a linear measure. This is why, for example, some insects can jump a distance 100 times their size.
#2, the color rendering sucks. You know how old fluorescents used to made you look undead? LED's suck even more.
I'm also worried about this, based on this sentence from TFA:
To create the new material, the scientists build up ultra-thin layers of plastics coated with green, red and blue dyes.
I've had a closer look at some fluorescents and they have something like 7 or 8 different dyes. You can look at the spectrum by reflection from a CD, for example. There's a clear difference between the continuous spectrum of incandescent bulbs and the discrete one of fluorescents. This three-component LED sounds even worse; on the other hand, the component spectra might be relatively wide.
If you're going to refer to your own authority (which in itself is a questionable practice), at least get your facts right. Slashdot was founded in September of 97. Besides, your ID is not much smaller than mine, and I joined/. sometime in 1999/2000, so I guess you registered in 1999 as well.
Of course, if you mean 10b (binary) years, try to make it clear;)
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I was under the impression that CD's were still lossless, and were still somewhat portable, and perfectly legal. You can even rip them and load them into your Ipod or fav player without worry...
I also like complete albums. Nothing prevents listening to whole albums in a compressed format on a computer/player, just like nothing prevents listening to individual tracks on a CD.
I'm also somewhat environmentally minded and I think it's dumb that we have to haul little pieces of plastic and metal around the globe, when there are cheaper ways to transfer information.
In fact, laptops in my experience are more reliable than desktops. One reason is the limited number of configurations due to lack of expandability. The other is that laptops are somewhat 'premium' products and therefore made with higher quality. The main drawback is that this makes them more expensive, and you'll be paying for a display that gets little use.
It's also my experience that laptop hard drives are not markedly slower than desktop counterparts. People complaining about this should do benchmarks, noting practical usage rather than simply throughput, or shut the hell up. The RPM myth is just like the MHz myth. By simple physical arguments, smaller drives should have better seek times, and I see this every day in practical use.
Of course there's the general lack of expandability, and memory expansion might be a problem. But with light usage, neither HD nor RAM should not pose any problems.
I interpreted this so that you don't even have to install the other OSes. But you can say you have the possibility of installing/running them. Personally I don't care as long as I can run Gentoo :)
OT - why do people think that these things are "motion" sensors? Such a thing would defy the laws of physics.
They are accelerometers, meaning they can be used to detect relative motion. You can combine acceleration information with timing to infer bulk motion.
Also known as the PHB edition.
Ditto for my Fujitsu and my past Toshiba. Most laptops (even the cheap consumer ones) have an easy access to the hard drive, and it's nice to see Apple catching up.
You know, they use Bittorrent, which actually benefits from /.ing.
There's also some advantage in separating the storage medium from the read/write heads. If either part in a hard drive fails, you're literally fscked (except for some really expensive recovery solutions by Ibas or the like). On the other hand, you can always put an optical disc in a brand new drive. And if a disc is scratched beyond readability in your current drive, chances are you can read it with another drive in the future.
More like a win-lin solution...
So when do we see Microsoft renaming itself as 'Innovative'?
Been using FF3 alpha builds for some time now: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nig htly/latest-trunk/
I thought the world economy has been more about services than products for decades now. Software businesses are waking up to this fact, after some time of distortion (mostly due to Microsoft) in which they wanted to sell copies of bits as products. I don't really mind this, as I can save tons of money by serving myself (using Free software).
My Ass K3wl!!!!1
I'm afraid you've just misspelled "Lords of Kobol".
And preferably run it on a spruced up Powerbook.
How ignorant can you get and still be able to post these reviews? USB doesn't do host to host, which is why these cables don't exist. However, there are USB to USB networking dongles with some buffer memory, which both ends see as a network device.
Completely agreed. I also happen to like keyboards with very light action. I think it's silly that some keyboards require you to pound the keys as if it were a mechanical typewriter. Laptop keybs are the way I like them.
As an anecdote, my 4200 RPM laptop drive is much faster than my 7200 RPM desktop drive, both using ATA 100 and disk-bound applications. I think one reason is that the laptop drive has more cache. But there are loads of other factors. Platter size is one interesting point where bigger doesn't always mean faster, especially with regards to seek times.
BTW, the article's point about platter mass is pretty moot IMHO, because it only affects spin-up energy expenditure. Even in a laptop-style usage where the HD turns off now and then, the effect is negligible. The important thing in my experience is the faster spin-up time of laptop drives. I also happen to like quiet computers, and it's one reason why somebody might choose lower RPM in a hard drive.
And #006666 green and the Coliseo font.
This is probably true in English, but in most European languages it is likely pronounced "Wheee!".
Simple scaling arguments tell that smaller people are relatively stronger to their body mass. Other things being equal, muscle strength scales as x^2 and mass scales as x^3, when x is a linear measure. This is why, for example, some insects can jump a distance 100 times their size.
What a relief for the Linux crowd! We no longer have to imagine a Beowulf cluster of Vistas.
Moreover, who on Slashdot has ever had a "date" to transfer?
I'm also worried about this, based on this sentence from TFA:
I've had a closer look at some fluorescents and they have something like 7 or 8 different dyes. You can look at the spectrum by reflection from a CD, for example. There's a clear difference between the continuous spectrum of incandescent bulbs and the discrete one of fluorescents. This three-component LED sounds even worse; on the other hand, the component spectra might be relatively wide.
If you're going to refer to your own authority (which in itself is a questionable practice), at least get your facts right. Slashdot was founded in September of 97. Besides, your ID is not much smaller than mine, and I joined /. sometime in 1999/2000, so I guess you registered in 1999 as well.
Of course, if you mean 10b (binary) years, try to make it clear ;)
...quick Slashdotters found to miss the point of the story/summary after only reading the headline. This film goes to eleven.