Ok Google, I've resisted getting Chrome up until this point but you've sold me. Until it gets some form of Adblock Plus like functionality it likely will not replace Firefox as my general purpose browser but as a backup browser I am going to give it a try now.
To me the new AMD six core is a little bit of "me too!" from AMD. Not that there won't be people who won't find practical uses, and no buying one to OC it so that you can get a higher folding score does not count imo, for them but it's still as many have pointed out hard to find real world scenarios where people need that type of a CPU on their desktop.
AMD not only has to compete with Intel on the technology front but marketing as well. And again I don't want to take anything away from AMD and the idea behind pushing the envelope on new tech. But when it comes to end users they really don't know and or care what is driving what they do with their computer. I see people's eyes glaze over when I even start to talk about what type of hardware I'm going to set them up with. They simply do not care.
However I have seen where people have been brainwashed by the marketing. People have asked me if their system is Intel Inside. I try to explain to them that at most price points AMD is a better buy and the more brainwashed come back to me with some very clueless lines like, "But if I don't have and Intel I won't be able to run what I need to." I even remember back in the early 2000's walking into a local computer shop, I needed a mobo asap, and one of the sales reps told me that AMD CPU's were, "Garbage. We don't even stock any AMD parts."
I asked if he knew about the, at the time very high end, computing array that was I think setup at GT that was using AMDs and he started to sputter. "Well, I don't know about that." Of course you don't you idiot I felt like saying, but I just left and have since made it a point to make sure that people that I know and do work for look out to be wary of that place.
My main point is that AMD serves many purposes in what our modern computing landscape is. I personally do like them a lot but as someone who deals with many systems I deal with Intel plenty too. And hell I like a lot of Intel's products. They have top notch R&D and blah blah blah. But we would be a poorer group of computer users without AMD even without all of the other reasons to like them.
As someone who has enjoyed using a ultra-mobile device for many years now, starting with Palms and currently a n810, how does an iPad stack up with something like the n810?
Clearly the iPad has a bigger screen but that is the only true advantage I see for it. It is heavier than my n810 which comes in at 226g vs 680/730g for the iPad. However given that it is bigger and thus you can grip it better I'm not seeing that a a huge problem. (However I'd be lying if I said that even at 226g the n810 can get annoying to hold for extended periods of time.)
Furthermore the n810 is almost fully open. Easily open enough for everything I do with it. Ebook reading, watching videos/listening to music, remote connections via SSH/RDC, scanning WiFi, an alarm, etc. It is by no means perfect but it's very very good when I'm on the couch/lazy-boy.
That is the slot that I would see an iPad, or any tablet like device, filling for me. But given that it's closed, save for having to jailbreak it to open it up, and the current price tag it seems like all I'd be getting is a bigger screen with less flexibility. (I can even watch flash when I'm at home via RDCing to one of my main computers!) And don't get me a bigger screen would be nice but if anyone has used something like a n810 and now a tablet how do they stack up?
My 1st Hello World! was done on a Pet. I then got my own 1st computer a TI99 4/a that had of course BASIC which I played around with but only in a very limited fashion. (Again mostly Hello World! type stuff. Hey I was not even 10.)
It was when I got my//e that I really started, and had the capacity to, looking beyond a simple goto loop and did so with that Apple. It was neat because at the time there were all sorts of cool tricks that people would use. Such as poking a small assembly program into $300 to speed up their Applesoft program.
Furthermore the monitor was right there. You could drop into direct assembly mode at any point. I had a friend who could program directly into the monitor and it was very cool to watch. My talents were much more modest and I needed a real assembler to do anything more than the very basics but it did let me cut my teeth on something other than BASIC.
So my point would be that BASIC is ok to start with but it should never be the only thing that people who want to know what programming is all about should see. From those roots I remember looking at Pascal and Forth just to get an idea of what out there. Mind you I am not, and have never really been, a coder other than scripts and whatnot but I have the background to at least sit at a table with programmers and have an intelligent conversation. Gives me nice nitch in being a liaison between the suits and the hardcore geeks.
I've found that most games that play on both a console and PC/Mac suffer when your playing them on anything but a console. It's simply that when designing a game that is going to be run on the console at all your much better off playing to that lower common denominator than the other way around. Or to put it another way you will end up just having a massive kludge of a console game that was designed for the level of complexity that can be done on a real computer.
Even with the Mass Effect series which I have enjoyed I still think how much better the game would be had it been designed as a PC only title. But sadly that is not where the money is at.
And just so you know, I went back and looked at your UID and your not some noobie trolling. Sorry if I was a bit harsh. These days with all the people astoturfing/. and other trolls I go right to the neck in my arguments.
I still stand by what I said but understand that I mean it with respect.
Bzzt, sorry wrong answer. While your point is valid you still have not proposed a solution that is better than what currently happens. As such your argument then boils down to 'do nothing' which fails on many levels.
I fear that the parents of children going to this school district will seek some sort of civil damages for what occurred in this school district. That's probably the worst thing that could happen because where does that money come from? The school district, and that will cause irreparable harm to other programs at the school
Who do you then propose pays for the harm caused by their actions?
I hate to be pedantic but you act as if cache's don't exist. Most of what you cite is solved by caches and then you add OS level cacheing and it's not an issue.
As an admin level user I prefer to keep something like Prefetch/Superfetch off but on and end user computer I load them up with a lot of RAM and let it do it's thing.
So while I'm supportive of your underlying point I'm strained to see how it effects the real world.
Instituting a university level system such that students get a chance to understand it only makes a lot of sense. Yeah some kids won't be as adept at figuring out how best to work a university level credit system. And some will game it to some silly end. But I'm fully of the opinion that letting them have that chance on the public level will only make those who do go on to the higher levels better.
The only big thing I see is that collages/universities need to be aware that discriminating against those who decided to spend 4 years in high school would be illegal. If Sally want's to spend 4 years and graduates with a 3.5 GPA and 1500 SAT she is the same as Jane who does the same in 3 years. Not counting extra-curricular stuff and all that. I'm sure you all see my point.
Consitutional scholars have been debating privacry rights for a long time now. But with our own laws and the added British Commonlaw is there nothing to prevent this type of thing?
If I recall correctly there was a peeping tom case that had some poor smuck who was getting some coffee in the buff, in his own home, and yet he was the one who was charged.
Look, I'm a big fan of jurance prudence. But we need to make our system work because when it's a joke then nobody will respect the laws.
As an American (USAian) I see that what is holding us together is a sense of purpose. We ignore the really stupid stuff that is on our books and really try to do what is correct. But we should make an effort to make sure that the books are correct too. It's not like we don't have the manpower. (Most barristers per capta.)
Brin has already written on this topic multiple times. Harrison, Stainless Steel Rat ftw, also used to talk about how this would happen. I'd like to think Asimov would have seen this but it was before his time. But I bet had you told Issac how the internet and IT was going to work he would have figured it out too.
We are going to lose the privacy wars but I hope that we will win a few things back because of it. Like a bit more transparency at the higher levels. (Yes the higher levels will do more to fight it but having been a part of the hacker sect for a bit I know they will fight the good fight, yo ho ho and bottle of rum.)
Is your political position really *so weak* that you have to engage in a legal battle to prevent someone who honestly feels the opposite way from talking about it for 30 seconds? Seriously, is the pro-choice movement run by 5-year-olds? Adults usually are ok coping with people who have other opinions.
First of all you engage in some serious straw man. Second you seem to misunderstand the point of what happened.
1) CBS allowed a very dogmatic ad to be shown while at the same time censoring another dogmatic (gay) ad. 2) These ads during the Superbowl are not evidence or precedent in any sort of legal standing. They are a means to an end by those who contract them. 3) Via point 2 there is no real battle here, only political points. Since abortion is something that sways a bloc of voters the intent is pretty clear. I honestly think that most people would love to put aside their own political views such that they could watch the Super Bowl with anyone but it was not the Pro-Choice movement that made this a political issue.
Of course everyone should be making backups. I've been dealing with that issue since the 80's. But really do you know how many end users do that?
Now with cheap flash drives it's gotten much better but it's still not enough. Unless I want to get an array of flash drives some end users have 50+ gigs of data that they consider valuable. (Digital video is a hungry mistress.) Hard drives still provide, and again I'm sorry because I was not very good in my OP about making this distinction, the best cost/performance/reliability ratio of all storage currently available.
SSDs are the future I think. I say that because I'm not so confident that by the time they are ready to replace magnetic spinning platters that some optical storage tech won't come along and replace them. Hell reading that WD thing on Tom's was a blast to the past for me becuase I've not been that invovled with hardware tech since I was reading Nibble.
My point is that HDs currently are so damn good that you really have to have a special need to not want to use them. I'm gonna break with/. tradition and go with a gun analogy. You can use an energy weapon sometimes but most of the times a bullet will do.
Tom's used to be great but then they kinda sold out. I mean I think we all understand that it takes money to live but ugh it is indeed painful to go to that site these days.
I read the whole thing but wow was it annoying to do so. Had the article in question not have been so good I doubt I would have lasted past page 2. (The pics and videos were also very good.)
There is a time and a place for keyboard. And what Bill does not get is that it's not always.
Sure if I want to have a mobile computer I want a keyboard. A real freaking keyboard, not some scrunched up thing that I can't touch type on. If I have to hunt'n'peck because the keyboard is so small I'd rather just have a bigger screen.
On a reader I'll take no keyboard thanks. And then if/when I need a keyboard I'll pull out my real laptop or get to a desktop. My reader does not have to do it all.
Slashdot Mirror
I am indeed! I just installed that extension in Chrome and thought to myself, I better let /. know that I'm not a total noob and missed it!
Ok Google, I've resisted getting Chrome up until this point but you've sold me. Until it gets some form of Adblock Plus like functionality it likely will not replace Firefox as my general purpose browser but as a backup browser I am going to give it a try now.
To me the new AMD six core is a little bit of "me too!" from AMD. Not that there won't be people who won't find practical uses, and no buying one to OC it so that you can get a higher folding score does not count imo, for them but it's still as many have pointed out hard to find real world scenarios where people need that type of a CPU on their desktop.
AMD not only has to compete with Intel on the technology front but marketing as well. And again I don't want to take anything away from AMD and the idea behind pushing the envelope on new tech. But when it comes to end users they really don't know and or care what is driving what they do with their computer. I see people's eyes glaze over when I even start to talk about what type of hardware I'm going to set them up with. They simply do not care.
However I have seen where people have been brainwashed by the marketing. People have asked me if their system is Intel Inside. I try to explain to them that at most price points AMD is a better buy and the more brainwashed come back to me with some very clueless lines like, "But if I don't have and Intel I won't be able to run what I need to." I even remember back in the early 2000's walking into a local computer shop, I needed a mobo asap, and one of the sales reps told me that AMD CPU's were, "Garbage. We don't even stock any AMD parts."
I asked if he knew about the, at the time very high end, computing array that was I think setup at GT that was using AMDs and he started to sputter. "Well, I don't know about that." Of course you don't you idiot I felt like saying, but I just left and have since made it a point to make sure that people that I know and do work for look out to be wary of that place.
My main point is that AMD serves many purposes in what our modern computing landscape is. I personally do like them a lot but as someone who deals with many systems I deal with Intel plenty too. And hell I like a lot of Intel's products. They have top notch R&D and blah blah blah. But we would be a poorer group of computer users without AMD even without all of the other reasons to like them.
Arizona is the best test-platform for ultra right-wing policies.
It's a shame we have to play them out in our public space...damn our (very weak) press.
Seriously thou are drugs and guns the same as what amounts to a touchscreen netbook?
What exactly is the issue with the Wifi?
I could have read this story on any news feed.
As someone who has enjoyed using a ultra-mobile device for many years now, starting with Palms and currently a n810, how does an iPad stack up with something like the n810?
Clearly the iPad has a bigger screen but that is the only true advantage I see for it. It is heavier than my n810 which comes in at 226g vs 680/730g for the iPad. However given that it is bigger and thus you can grip it better I'm not seeing that a a huge problem. (However I'd be lying if I said that even at 226g the n810 can get annoying to hold for extended periods of time.)
Furthermore the n810 is almost fully open. Easily open enough for everything I do with it. Ebook reading, watching videos/listening to music, remote connections via SSH/RDC, scanning WiFi, an alarm, etc. It is by no means perfect but it's very very good when I'm on the couch/lazy-boy.
That is the slot that I would see an iPad, or any tablet like device, filling for me. But given that it's closed, save for having to jailbreak it to open it up, and the current price tag it seems like all I'd be getting is a bigger screen with less flexibility. (I can even watch flash when I'm at home via RDCing to one of my main computers!) And don't get me a bigger screen would be nice but if anyone has used something like a n810 and now a tablet how do they stack up?
TFA is written by someone who actually knows how to write. If your reading this instead of it, 'your doing it wrong'.
Bullshit. You are spouting the industry talking point without any facts.
You are a a shill at best. Someone mod this crap down.
My 1st Hello World! was done on a Pet. I then got my own 1st computer a TI99 4/a that had of course BASIC which I played around with but only in a very limited fashion. (Again mostly Hello World! type stuff. Hey I was not even 10.)
It was when I got my //e that I really started, and had the capacity to, looking beyond a simple goto loop and did so with that Apple. It was neat because at the time there were all sorts of cool tricks that people would use. Such as poking a small assembly program into $300 to speed up their Applesoft program.
Furthermore the monitor was right there. You could drop into direct assembly mode at any point. I had a friend who could program directly into the monitor and it was very cool to watch. My talents were much more modest and I needed a real assembler to do anything more than the very basics but it did let me cut my teeth on something other than BASIC.
So my point would be that BASIC is ok to start with but it should never be the only thing that people who want to know what programming is all about should see. From those roots I remember looking at Pascal and Forth just to get an idea of what out there. Mind you I am not, and have never really been, a coder other than scripts and whatnot but I have the background to at least sit at a table with programmers and have an intelligent conversation. Gives me nice nitch in being a liaison between the suits and the hardcore geeks.
I've found that most games that play on both a console and PC/Mac suffer when your playing them on anything but a console. It's simply that when designing a game that is going to be run on the console at all your much better off playing to that lower common denominator than the other way around. Or to put it another way you will end up just having a massive kludge of a console game that was designed for the level of complexity that can be done on a real computer.
Even with the Mass Effect series which I have enjoyed I still think how much better the game would be had it been designed as a PC only title. But sadly that is not where the money is at.
And just so you know, I went back and looked at your UID and your not some noobie trolling. Sorry if I was a bit harsh. These days with all the people astoturfing /. and other trolls I go right to the neck in my arguments.
I still stand by what I said but understand that I mean it with respect.
I don't know...
Bzzt, sorry wrong answer. While your point is valid you still have not proposed a solution that is better than what currently happens. As such your argument then boils down to 'do nothing' which fails on many levels.
I fear that the parents of children going to this school district will seek some sort of civil damages for what occurred in this school district. That's probably the worst thing that could happen because where does that money come from? The school district, and that will cause irreparable harm to other programs at the school
Who do you then propose pays for the harm caused by their actions?
Right out of modern PR 101: When busted on something really really bad 1) Deny Deny Deny, and 2) Spin like mad.
Flash works, not great but it does work, on my n810.
I hate to be pedantic but you act as if cache's don't exist. Most of what you cite is solved by caches and then you add OS level cacheing and it's not an issue.
As an admin level user I prefer to keep something like Prefetch/Superfetch off but on and end user computer I load them up with a lot of RAM and let it do it's thing.
So while I'm supportive of your underlying point I'm strained to see how it effects the real world.
I'm not really sure what to make of your reply. So since your UID is over 1m I'm just going to go with troll unless you can prove otherwise.
Instituting a university level system such that students get a chance to understand it only makes a lot of sense. Yeah some kids won't be as adept at figuring out how best to work a university level credit system. And some will game it to some silly end. But I'm fully of the opinion that letting them have that chance on the public level will only make those who do go on to the higher levels better.
The only big thing I see is that collages/universities need to be aware that discriminating against those who decided to spend 4 years in high school would be illegal. If Sally want's to spend 4 years and graduates with a 3.5 GPA and 1500 SAT she is the same as Jane who does the same in 3 years. Not counting extra-curricular stuff and all that. I'm sure you all see my point.
Consitutional scholars have been debating privacry rights for a long time now. But with our own laws and the added British Commonlaw is there nothing to prevent this type of thing?
If I recall correctly there was a peeping tom case that had some poor smuck who was getting some coffee in the buff, in his own home, and yet he was the one who was charged.
Look, I'm a big fan of jurance prudence. But we need to make our system work because when it's a joke then nobody will respect the laws.
As an American (USAian) I see that what is holding us together is a sense of purpose. We ignore the really stupid stuff that is on our books and really try to do what is correct. But we should make an effort to make sure that the books are correct too. It's not like we don't have the manpower. (Most barristers per capta.)
Brin has already written on this topic multiple times. Harrison, Stainless Steel Rat ftw, also used to talk about how this would happen. I'd like to think Asimov would have seen this but it was before his time. But I bet had you told Issac how the internet and IT was going to work he would have figured it out too.
We are going to lose the privacy wars but I hope that we will win a few things back because of it. Like a bit more transparency at the higher levels. (Yes the higher levels will do more to fight it but having been a part of the hacker sect for a bit I know they will fight the good fight, yo ho ho and bottle of rum.)
I'm sorry for the very delayed reply.
Is your political position really *so weak* that you have to engage in a legal battle to prevent someone who honestly feels the opposite way from talking about it for 30 seconds? Seriously, is the pro-choice movement run by 5-year-olds? Adults usually are ok coping with people who have other opinions.
First of all you engage in some serious straw man. Second you seem to misunderstand the point of what happened.
1) CBS allowed a very dogmatic ad to be shown while at the same time censoring another dogmatic (gay) ad.
2) These ads during the Superbowl are not evidence or precedent in any sort of legal standing. They are a means to an end by those who contract them.
3) Via point 2 there is no real battle here, only political points. Since abortion is something that sways a bloc of voters the intent is pretty clear. I honestly think that most people would love to put aside their own political views such that they could watch the Super Bowl with anyone but it was not the Pro-Choice movement that made this a political issue.
Of course everyone should be making backups. I've been dealing with that issue since the 80's. But really do you know how many end users do that?
Now with cheap flash drives it's gotten much better but it's still not enough. Unless I want to get an array of flash drives some end users have 50+ gigs of data that they consider valuable. (Digital video is a hungry mistress.) Hard drives still provide, and again I'm sorry because I was not very good in my OP about making this distinction, the best cost/performance/reliability ratio of all storage currently available.
SSDs are the future I think. I say that because I'm not so confident that by the time they are ready to replace magnetic spinning platters that some optical storage tech won't come along and replace them. Hell reading that WD thing on Tom's was a blast to the past for me becuase I've not been that invovled with hardware tech since I was reading Nibble.
My point is that HDs currently are so damn good that you really have to have a special need to not want to use them. I'm gonna break with /. tradition and go with a gun analogy. You can use an energy weapon sometimes but most of the times a bullet will do.
Tom's used to be great but then they kinda sold out. I mean I think we all understand that it takes money to live but ugh it is indeed painful to go to that site these days.
I read the whole thing but wow was it annoying to do so. Had the article in question not have been so good I doubt I would have lasted past page 2. (The pics and videos were also very good.)
There is a time and a place for keyboard. And what Bill does not get is that it's not always.
Sure if I want to have a mobile computer I want a keyboard. A real freaking keyboard, not some scrunched up thing that I can't touch type on. If I have to hunt'n'peck because the keyboard is so small I'd rather just have a bigger screen.
On a reader I'll take no keyboard thanks. And then if/when I need a keyboard I'll pull out my real laptop or get to a desktop. My reader does not have to do it all.