And Enlightenment e17 can boot in under 40MB. Can't have anything open at that memory usage level, but you can have a fully working desktop environment with compositing effects (assuming hardware video acceleration is enabled).
Booting with over 200MB of memory usage is not something I would be bragging about....
Mozart would be the audio analogue to to all those flashy movies that have high sensory demands. What's the point of using a high quality sound system for most rock and hip hop? Might as well use a electric cheese grater.
Not arguing that classical music benefits hugely from having a good sound system set up, but I will argue that *good* rock/hip hop will benefit from a good sound system just as much. Any music that takes advantage of dynamic and acoustic ranges will benefit from a sound system that's capable of reproducing it. The problem with the genre isn't the genre itself, it's the studio execs who have decided to dynamically compress modern recordings. If you can lay your hands on a recording that hasn't been munged up like that, then it will benefit just as much and it will suffer just as much from a shitty stereo.
Actually, I can't think of a single genre that doesn't benefit from a good sound system, as long as you have a *good* recording.
It depends on what you plan on using the tablet for. I bought a cheap chinese knockoff tablet a few months ago, because I was going into hospital for an operation, and I wanted something I could watch Netflix on while recovering. The only deciding factors in my decision to buy that particular tablet were the screen size and the price. I literally bought the cheapest 10" tablet I could lay my hands on. That it runs ICS was a bonus, but not required. It's actually not *that* bad a tablet, in that it does have a a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, but it was not bought for performance.
It is now sitting on a book stand in the living room, acting as a glorified picture frame and sometimes remote control for my stereo (there's an Android app that's better for navigating media server/internet radio than the remote control on a TV screen). I occasionally load up a game like Stupid Zombies or use it to check maps and such. If I could have gotten that tablet priced at $100, I would have. That's the same kind of money you spend on a good digital picture frame. I wouldn't consider doing serious computing on it, though it does have a USB port and does work with an external computer, because I already have a laptop that would work fine for it. But given the choice between buying a $500 laptop and buying a $100 tablet and an external keyboard, I would seriously consider the tablet if all I planned on doing was checking blogs.
Wouldn't happen with Comcast, because they block outgoing 25, and force everything through their mail server where they can implement sanity and outgoing spam checks.
That, I think, is the point of blocking the entire AS.
If you want a low power ARM portable, you could get something like this: http://www.genesi-tech.com/products/smartbook... they're not selling it any more, but when they were selling it, it's less than the low end price you quote, and it's got a much more usable screen.
It's cool what this guy did, but it's not something I would try doing. It seems like a colossal waste of money, especially for something that stands as a nettop on its own.
They are likely afraid of artificial sweeteners to and go for the "good natural stuff!"
Artificial sweeteners are bad for you, and a surprisingly large number of people in the general population are allergic to them. Aspertame gives me a migraine, for example... last time I accidentally consumed it, the headache lasted 3 days and left me barely able to get out of bed for long enough to eat or go to the bathroom.
If you're going to go for a "low calorie" substitute, use a natural one like agave. But avoiding sugars as a method to lose weight is a myth... on its own it will never be enough to lose weight. You need to have the right balance of foods in your intake, and having a certain amount of natural sugar is part of that. The real problem is not getting enough fat (and substituting carbohydrates for the fat intake). The body is *much* more efficient at turning carbs into glucose than it is fat, and excess glucose in your blood is what causes the body to start storing it in fat. Couple that with the fact that fatty foods are more filling than the same number of calories from carbs, and the math *should* be easy....
Bodhi's been using the nightlies from the e17 project, with a couple of patches to the code to add their options to the menu.
If you install the current version of Bodhi (2.1.0) you'll get a build from a couple of months ago. The nightlies from the current lead up to the release are in testing, and Jeff has said he's going to be getting 2.2.0 out (with this official release) before the new year. That being said, Bodhi's using a semi-rolling release, and if you install 2.1 now, and update through synaptic or apt when 2.2.0 comes out, you'll have 2.2.0 installed. Only major version number changes require a full reinstall, because it's based off Ubuntu LTS at the moment.
No... I suggest you try it out in a virtual machine and see for yourself. What you'll realize is that it's current, and everybody else took a decade to catch up to what Enlightenment was doing in the 90's.
I agree that the video isn't a good example of what the system is really capable of. Snow Linux, which he's using for his demo, has some eccentricities in how it works, and e17 is the red-headed step child of their builds. If you want to see what it's really capable of, then your best bet is to download a distro that shows it off (perhaps a distro that doesn't package anything other than e17 like Bodhi) and play around with it in a VM.
I've been using e17 for over a year on my main system, and wouldn't consider going anywhere else. I've used other popular DE's and they're just painfully slow in comparison, and nowhere near as customizable.
The other thing is it's *hugely* customizable. There is no "interface" to e17, per se, but rather a set of tools and widgets that you can use to make your own interface. If you don't like the "interface" it's because you haven't built one you like. Some people do package profiles for it (there's several in Bodhi Linux, for example), but the whole point of e17 is that you can change it if you don't like it.
The lead dev is on xmas vacation at the moment, but Bodhi 2.2.0 is expected to be released before the new year, and it will come with this release. The current release has an earlier dev release, but it is still very stable and functional. I've been using it on my main system for more than a year.
There is demand. The problem is it is too complicated to mix and match. Apple's stuff sorta works because they have are not trying to sell Microsoft. Consumers get that. Consumers already are presented with too many decisions. Dell can't sell GNU/Linux. To the extent they offer it the solutions suck.
... I ordered a Dell laptop with Linux preinstalled on it this afternoon. $319 for a 15" laptop, and the same configuration with Windows 7 on it was $50 more. Dell does sell Linux on hardware that consumers would want, but they put it in the small/medium business section of their website. And to address another point you made, everything that laptop has in it is Intel reference hardware... given how well Intel is supporting/developping for Linux, I think that says Dell understands very well the importance of not relying on proprietary binary blobs for drivers.
They provide their users with a service free of charge. How is that not free?
That the service they provide is to sell your details to advertisers is beside the point... from the users' perspective, they do not pay for the service, therefore it is free.
If the feds were banging on your door and you expected them to give you the time to reboot into memtest, you'd have enough time to simply power off and let the memory drain. Just push the power button and let the system shut itself off. Use hardware-level full disk encryption, and your data will be safe.
Or you could, you know, not do anything with the system that would give the feds a reason to be banging on your door.
You miss the point. The derision with which many atheists treat people who choose to have a religion only serves to establish an adversarial tone to the discussion. They get their backs up, and respond in kind, and the discussion continues to devolve. You only need to look at the current state of the US electoral system for a view of where that line will end up. If you want to actually move the discussion forward, you need to abandon the adversarial tone and discuss the matter as equals.
And think a moment on why I phrase it as "people who choose to have a religion". It's not the first time I've put it that way, and it won't be the last. I'll also point out, since it apparently isn't obvious, that nowhere am I saying that either side of the argument is without fault. Both sides are just as guilty of what I'm talking about. A strange game, really. The only way to win is not to play.
Probably as soon as atheists stop talking about people who choose to follow a religion as though they're stupid misguided children, or living under a delusion, or any of the other rhetoric that gets spouted by the most vocal atheists.
The laptop described has provision for built-in bluetooth. Every laptop I've bought for the last 5 years has had bult-in bluetooth, even when I had to pay an extra $20 to get it, because I was expecting to need it in the future. To date, the only bluetooth I actually *use* is my cell phone pairing with my car's hands free system, but I am still ready for it if I ever buy a BT keyboard or such.
As to the memory stick and the external hard drive, you could invest in something like this (there's many alternatives, that's the one I bought), and be able to connect to it from all of your computers at the same time. Having a memory stick for sneakernet makes sense, but using a USB external drive to move large amounts of data between systems makes less sense.
Though ignoring that particular limitation, actually checking the plugs on the back of my (Dell) laptop, there's an eSATA connector, too. It's probably one of those dual-purpose connectors and can be used for USB as well, but I've never needed it. If I really wanted to connect an external drive rather than a NAS, that's the connector I'd use.
Secondly, surely if the user data was skewed to less-competent users then a more representative sample would should an even quicker rate of acclimitisation?
The headline says people are getting used to it, not that they like it.
Case in point, my mother's got an old laptop that doesn't have a multitouch touchpad. I am able to use it, but I find myself cursing the lack of features like two-finger scrolling. If I use it for any prolonged period of time, I remember how to use edge scrolling instead... I still miss the convenience of two-finger scrolling, etc., but I adapt to what I'm given. As soon as I'm back on my own laptop again, I breathe a sigh of relief.
As to Windows 8 users... the non-technical users are the ones who are least likely to have the option to go back to what they prefer, so they adapt to what they have. That doesn't mean they like it, it means that they don't have a choice in the matter.
The US advertising industry could learn a lot from other countries, that's for sure.... take drug ads, for example. In Canada, it's illegal to mention both the drug name, and what it does in the same ad. One or the other. That's led to some very funny ads.
Still wouldn't work.... at least, not in the US. Most plans in the US don't include unlimited SMS, and with most carriers it's a $20/mo addon. Some carriers, that $20/mo *still* doesn't get you actual unlimited SMS, just a large block like 1000 or 2500 messages. If you block the message at the phone, then the user still gets billed for incoming spam, even if they don't see it. And if you allow the spammers to send as many as they want, how long do you think it'll be before they start sending enough to make a significant dent in the 1000 messages per month you're paying $20 for?
Now, the same thing happens with e-mail that doesn't get blocked at the incoming mail server, but the difference is that an e-mail is a very small amount of data that usually won't make anything approaching a dent in your monthly allotment from the carrier. With SMS, when you're paying $0.15 per incoming message, allowing the spam to come through will make a very obvious difference on your monthly bill.
If you're in that situation, legal aid will probably provide you with a lawyer who can draft a response to their letter. That, in and of itself, will probably be enough to get them to drop the case, since their chances of recouping even their legal fees is quite slim.
Haven't even heard of any of these films, let alone pirated them. Are they as awful as their titles make them sound?
Meh. I'll wait for them to show up on Netflix, and then promptly ignore them like I do half of the content on there. It'll be amusing if these people decide to send me a letter (yes, I am a TekSavvy customer, have been for years). Their scare tactics only work because people are afraid to challenge them in court, at least in the US. You hear about people like Jammie Thomas, and worry that you might get hit for millions of dollars. Around here, despite their claim that they're seeking $10,000 in damages, the maximum allowed by law is $5,000 which is small claims court money. Quite aside from that, it's well known that an IP address does not necessarily equal an individual, and if the IP address is all they have against you, then they don't have a case.
If they decide to send me such a letter, I have two words in response: bring it.
As an aside... I don't actually endorse piracy, I just think they don't have a case. I do believe that content creators have a right to be paid for their work, but I also believe that conumers have a right to tell them they're out to lunch with their pricing, and go somewhere else. There's an enormous amount of entertaining content out there that's legitimately free, and just waiting to be discovered. Anything I've torrented myself is either public domain (copyright expired), or licensed under Creative Commons. Somehow, I don't think that the now-dead director of a Russian propaganda film made 85 years ago is all that worried about recouping his losses to torrenting.... (Battleship Potemkin, if anybody's wondering what film I'm referring to)
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And Enlightenment e17 can boot in under 40MB. Can't have anything open at that memory usage level, but you can have a fully working desktop environment with compositing effects (assuming hardware video acceleration is enabled).
Booting with over 200MB of memory usage is not something I would be bragging about....
Mozart would be the audio analogue to to all those flashy movies that have high sensory demands. What's the point of using a high quality sound system for most rock and hip hop? Might as well use a electric cheese grater.
Not arguing that classical music benefits hugely from having a good sound system set up, but I will argue that *good* rock/hip hop will benefit from a good sound system just as much. Any music that takes advantage of dynamic and acoustic ranges will benefit from a sound system that's capable of reproducing it. The problem with the genre isn't the genre itself, it's the studio execs who have decided to dynamically compress modern recordings. If you can lay your hands on a recording that hasn't been munged up like that, then it will benefit just as much and it will suffer just as much from a shitty stereo.
Actually, I can't think of a single genre that doesn't benefit from a good sound system, as long as you have a *good* recording.
It depends on what you plan on using the tablet for. I bought a cheap chinese knockoff tablet a few months ago, because I was going into hospital for an operation, and I wanted something I could watch Netflix on while recovering. The only deciding factors in my decision to buy that particular tablet were the screen size and the price. I literally bought the cheapest 10" tablet I could lay my hands on. That it runs ICS was a bonus, but not required. It's actually not *that* bad a tablet, in that it does have a a 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, but it was not bought for performance.
It is now sitting on a book stand in the living room, acting as a glorified picture frame and sometimes remote control for my stereo (there's an Android app that's better for navigating media server/internet radio than the remote control on a TV screen). I occasionally load up a game like Stupid Zombies or use it to check maps and such. If I could have gotten that tablet priced at $100, I would have. That's the same kind of money you spend on a good digital picture frame. I wouldn't consider doing serious computing on it, though it does have a USB port and does work with an external computer, because I already have a laptop that would work fine for it. But given the choice between buying a $500 laptop and buying a $100 tablet and an external keyboard, I would seriously consider the tablet if all I planned on doing was checking blogs.
Wouldn't happen with Comcast, because they block outgoing 25, and force everything through their mail server where they can implement sanity and outgoing spam checks.
That, I think, is the point of blocking the entire AS.
If you want a low power ARM portable, you could get something like this: http://www.genesi-tech.com/products/smartbook ... they're not selling it any more, but when they were selling it, it's less than the low end price you quote, and it's got a much more usable screen.
It's cool what this guy did, but it's not something I would try doing. It seems like a colossal waste of money, especially for something that stands as a nettop on its own.
They are likely afraid of artificial sweeteners to and go for the "good natural stuff!"
Artificial sweeteners are bad for you, and a surprisingly large number of people in the general population are allergic to them. Aspertame gives me a migraine, for example... last time I accidentally consumed it, the headache lasted 3 days and left me barely able to get out of bed for long enough to eat or go to the bathroom.
If you're going to go for a "low calorie" substitute, use a natural one like agave. But avoiding sugars as a method to lose weight is a myth... on its own it will never be enough to lose weight. You need to have the right balance of foods in your intake, and having a certain amount of natural sugar is part of that. The real problem is not getting enough fat (and substituting carbohydrates for the fat intake). The body is *much* more efficient at turning carbs into glucose than it is fat, and excess glucose in your blood is what causes the body to start storing it in fat. Couple that with the fact that fatty foods are more filling than the same number of calories from carbs, and the math *should* be easy....
Bodhi's been using the nightlies from the e17 project, with a couple of patches to the code to add their options to the menu.
If you install the current version of Bodhi (2.1.0) you'll get a build from a couple of months ago. The nightlies from the current lead up to the release are in testing, and Jeff has said he's going to be getting 2.2.0 out (with this official release) before the new year. That being said, Bodhi's using a semi-rolling release, and if you install 2.1 now, and update through synaptic or apt when 2.2.0 comes out, you'll have 2.2.0 installed. Only major version number changes require a full reinstall, because it's based off Ubuntu LTS at the moment.
No... I suggest you try it out in a virtual machine and see for yourself. What you'll realize is that it's current, and everybody else took a decade to catch up to what Enlightenment was doing in the 90's.
e17 has a tiling module...
I agree that the video isn't a good example of what the system is really capable of. Snow Linux, which he's using for his demo, has some eccentricities in how it works, and e17 is the red-headed step child of their builds. If you want to see what it's really capable of, then your best bet is to download a distro that shows it off (perhaps a distro that doesn't package anything other than e17 like Bodhi) and play around with it in a VM.
I've been using e17 for over a year on my main system, and wouldn't consider going anywhere else. I've used other popular DE's and they're just painfully slow in comparison, and nowhere near as customizable.
The other thing is it's *hugely* customizable. There is no "interface" to e17, per se, but rather a set of tools and widgets that you can use to make your own interface. If you don't like the "interface" it's because you haven't built one you like. Some people do package profiles for it (there's several in Bodhi Linux, for example), but the whole point of e17 is that you can change it if you don't like it.
http://bodhilinux.com/
The lead dev is on xmas vacation at the moment, but Bodhi 2.2.0 is expected to be released before the new year, and it will come with this release. The current release has an earlier dev release, but it is still very stable and functional. I've been using it on my main system for more than a year.
There is demand. The problem is it is too complicated to mix and match. Apple's stuff sorta works because they have are not trying to sell Microsoft. Consumers get that. Consumers already are presented with too many decisions. Dell can't sell GNU/Linux. To the extent they offer it the solutions suck.
... I ordered a Dell laptop with Linux preinstalled on it this afternoon. $319 for a 15" laptop, and the same configuration with Windows 7 on it was $50 more. Dell does sell Linux on hardware that consumers would want, but they put it in the small/medium business section of their website. And to address another point you made, everything that laptop has in it is Intel reference hardware... given how well Intel is supporting/developping for Linux, I think that says Dell understands very well the importance of not relying on proprietary binary blobs for drivers.
They provide their users with a service free of charge. How is that not free?
That the service they provide is to sell your details to advertisers is beside the point... from the users' perspective, they do not pay for the service, therefore it is free.
If the feds were banging on your door and you expected them to give you the time to reboot into memtest, you'd have enough time to simply power off and let the memory drain. Just push the power button and let the system shut itself off. Use hardware-level full disk encryption, and your data will be safe.
Or you could, you know, not do anything with the system that would give the feds a reason to be banging on your door.
You miss the point. The derision with which many atheists treat people who choose to have a religion only serves to establish an adversarial tone to the discussion. They get their backs up, and respond in kind, and the discussion continues to devolve. You only need to look at the current state of the US electoral system for a view of where that line will end up. If you want to actually move the discussion forward, you need to abandon the adversarial tone and discuss the matter as equals.
And think a moment on why I phrase it as "people who choose to have a religion". It's not the first time I've put it that way, and it won't be the last. I'll also point out, since it apparently isn't obvious, that nowhere am I saying that either side of the argument is without fault. Both sides are just as guilty of what I'm talking about. A strange game, really. The only way to win is not to play.
Video games probably prevent more violence than they cause...
Probably as soon as atheists stop talking about people who choose to follow a religion as though they're stupid misguided children, or living under a delusion, or any of the other rhetoric that gets spouted by the most vocal atheists.
The laptop described has provision for built-in bluetooth. Every laptop I've bought for the last 5 years has had bult-in bluetooth, even when I had to pay an extra $20 to get it, because I was expecting to need it in the future. To date, the only bluetooth I actually *use* is my cell phone pairing with my car's hands free system, but I am still ready for it if I ever buy a BT keyboard or such.
As to the memory stick and the external hard drive, you could invest in something like this (there's many alternatives, that's the one I bought), and be able to connect to it from all of your computers at the same time. Having a memory stick for sneakernet makes sense, but using a USB external drive to move large amounts of data between systems makes less sense.
Though ignoring that particular limitation, actually checking the plugs on the back of my (Dell) laptop, there's an eSATA connector, too. It's probably one of those dual-purpose connectors and can be used for USB as well, but I've never needed it. If I really wanted to connect an external drive rather than a NAS, that's the connector I'd use.
it's a laptop. I don't think I've ever used more than 1 USB at a time on my laptop, because the keyboard and mouse are already there.
Secondly, surely if the user data was skewed to less-competent users then a more representative sample would should an even quicker rate of acclimitisation?
The headline says people are getting used to it, not that they like it.
Case in point, my mother's got an old laptop that doesn't have a multitouch touchpad. I am able to use it, but I find myself cursing the lack of features like two-finger scrolling. If I use it for any prolonged period of time, I remember how to use edge scrolling instead... I still miss the convenience of two-finger scrolling, etc., but I adapt to what I'm given. As soon as I'm back on my own laptop again, I breathe a sigh of relief.
As to Windows 8 users... the non-technical users are the ones who are least likely to have the option to go back to what they prefer, so they adapt to what they have. That doesn't mean they like it, it means that they don't have a choice in the matter.
learn to like the new UI or fork the old one
Let me know how well that works for you on a Windows desktop....
The US advertising industry could learn a lot from other countries, that's for sure.... take drug ads, for example. In Canada, it's illegal to mention both the drug name, and what it does in the same ad. One or the other. That's led to some very funny ads.
Still wouldn't work.... at least, not in the US. Most plans in the US don't include unlimited SMS, and with most carriers it's a $20/mo addon. Some carriers, that $20/mo *still* doesn't get you actual unlimited SMS, just a large block like 1000 or 2500 messages. If you block the message at the phone, then the user still gets billed for incoming spam, even if they don't see it. And if you allow the spammers to send as many as they want, how long do you think it'll be before they start sending enough to make a significant dent in the 1000 messages per month you're paying $20 for?
Now, the same thing happens with e-mail that doesn't get blocked at the incoming mail server, but the difference is that an e-mail is a very small amount of data that usually won't make anything approaching a dent in your monthly allotment from the carrier. With SMS, when you're paying $0.15 per incoming message, allowing the spam to come through will make a very obvious difference on your monthly bill.
If you're in that situation, legal aid will probably provide you with a lawyer who can draft a response to their letter. That, in and of itself, will probably be enough to get them to drop the case, since their chances of recouping even their legal fees is quite slim.
Haven't even heard of any of these films, let alone pirated them. Are they as awful as their titles make them sound?
Meh. I'll wait for them to show up on Netflix, and then promptly ignore them like I do half of the content on there. It'll be amusing if these people decide to send me a letter (yes, I am a TekSavvy customer, have been for years). Their scare tactics only work because people are afraid to challenge them in court, at least in the US. You hear about people like Jammie Thomas, and worry that you might get hit for millions of dollars. Around here, despite their claim that they're seeking $10,000 in damages, the maximum allowed by law is $5,000 which is small claims court money. Quite aside from that, it's well known that an IP address does not necessarily equal an individual, and if the IP address is all they have against you, then they don't have a case.
If they decide to send me such a letter, I have two words in response: bring it.
As an aside... I don't actually endorse piracy, I just think they don't have a case. I do believe that content creators have a right to be paid for their work, but I also believe that conumers have a right to tell them they're out to lunch with their pricing, and go somewhere else. There's an enormous amount of entertaining content out there that's legitimately free, and just waiting to be discovered. Anything I've torrented myself is either public domain (copyright expired), or licensed under Creative Commons. Somehow, I don't think that the now-dead director of a Russian propaganda film made 85 years ago is all that worried about recouping his losses to torrenting.... (Battleship Potemkin, if anybody's wondering what film I'm referring to)