We weren't talking about the industry as a whole. We were talking about desktops. Try reading the article in that context.
IDC anticipates that desktops will suffer the biggest slowdown with not only a 4.2% downtick this year but also continued, albeit slower, declines through at least 2017
Desktop sales shrinking for that long is not an insignificant shrinking of the market (segment), it's a sign that the market has permanently changed. There will always be a market for desktops but it's in the process of becoming a niche segment.http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3518209&cid=43088747#
I find it strange that I can install a flash blocker that allows me to whitelist certain websites but that similar functionality seems to be missing for Java... the easy answer is to not allow java to run unless the site or even specific URL is in a whitelist.
There is a Firefox feature request to add the ability to block all types of media (Flash, applets, other plugins) by site: bug 94035. It was created in 2001. More than 100 duplicate bugs have been added over the decade since. It's still not been implemented.
Base 12 is actually much easier to "bring calculation...within the arithmetic of every man..."
12 has 6 factors. 10 has 4. Divide 12 into thirds and you get a nice and neat "4" instead of.33333333....
A decimal system does not mean you have to abandon fractions. There is nothing wrong with talking about 1/3 of a meter if you need to be that precise. But multiplying 37 by 12 is harder than multiplying 37 by 10, and 37*12*12 is much harder than 37*10*10.
For the record, all current Intel desktop CPUs are pinless. The pins are on the board. So saying it ships without pins doesn't really say much. That's why I have a sneaking suspicion that the author might just be a clueless dumbass talking out their ass.
If you RTFA, rather than just the summary, you'll see that they are saying that Broadwell will not be available in an LGA package. It Only BGA. Whether they are right or not, time will tell, but they are not confused about how CPUs are connected to motherboards.
I've bult my own PCs for 20+ years, and I can't remeber ever really caring about moving the CPU from one motherboard to another. I shop for them as a matched pair, and assuming they work when I get them, I've alays replace both if problems developed later down the road (because a few years later, when you're on the far side of the failure "bathtub curve", you might as well replace both).
But so far you've done the matching. You could put a cheaper CPU into an expensive motherboard or vice versa. You can pick for any one of say 10 CPUs and match it with any one of say 30 motherboards: 300 combinations. If the CPUs are soldered then there will probably be far fewer combinations available, say 50 in total. Expensive motherboards will be paired with expensive CPUs and cheap motherboards will only be available with cheap CPUs.
Like you I've almost always bought CPUs and motherboards together (primarily because I don't upgrade very often), but this move, if it happens, is clearly going to cut down the options we have.
She was actually referring to *scientists*, something you are obviously not.
How exactly is a biologist's opinion on climate change any more informed or relevant than Sarten-X's? If you want to restrict the field to scientists then you really should go all the way and reduce it to climatologists. They are the scientists who really count. And 99% of climatologists accept the AGW hypothesis as been correct. I've yet to hear of one climatologist who has become a sceptic.
I do believe global warming is happening, however, I am not sure mankind is responsible for a majority of it. However, I do believe we must cut pollution for the sake of pollution regardless of whether it puts a dent into the overall problem of global warming.
If it's not mankind then what is the cause? If there is another cause it should be obvious by now - increased output from the sun, or increased volcanic activity, for example. But no convincing argument for an alternative cause has been presented.
But as things stand the fate of Nokia and Microsoft are intertwined (with more risk to Nokia than Microsoft).
The problem for Nokia is that they've got almost all of their eggs in the phone basket. If people lose interest in Nokia phones then all 3 legs of their strategy will fail, as has happened. Microsoft is in a completely different position. Their 3 legs are mobile software, business software (Windows, Office, Server), and entertainment (Xbox). If the mobile strategy fails it's unlikely to impact the other legs too badly. So Microsoft's fate is not intertwined with Nokia's, only the fate of their latest attempt at the mobile market. Though they might find it harder to find partners in the future.
How do you measure carbon emissions in foreign countries? How do you tax it without breaking WTO rules?
You don't need to measure carbon emissions in foreign countries, you only need to set a tariff equivalent to what the carbon tax would be if the goods were manufactured locally. It doesn't have to be particularly accurate, just close enough to discourage moving production offshore purely to avoid the carbon tax. As for WTO rules, the US has repeatedly violated them in the past. What makes you think they'd be reluctant to this time?
Developed world emissions have leveled off while developing world emissions continue to grow rapidly, and developing nations have no interest in accepting economic constraints to change that dynamic. In this context, the primary effect of unilateral action by the U.S. to impose costs on its own emissions will be to shift industrial activity overseas to nations whose industrial processes are more emissions-intensive and less environmentally friendly. That result may make environmentalists feel better, but it will not better the environment.
Interesting. Imposing a severe carbon tax on America could actually _increase_ global emissions. Unintended consequences.
It's a valid point, but it's also not particularly difficult to avoid those consequences. Simply apply a carbon tax to imported goods as well. Get it right and not only would a carbon tax work to reduce emissions, it would also work to increase domestic manufacturing.
Because 98% of panel production is for HDTVs these days, the smaller ones of which are..... 1366x768. Manufacturers are just taking advantage of volume production to keep costs down.
I don't buy that theory. What's the volume on 15" and 17" HD TVs? Not that large I think. I think the issue is that too many consumers think HD is the gold standard so there is little point in producing anything high res than 1080p. Perhaps the iPad will change that perception though.
Kidding of course, hard to do it with a laptop anyways, but while I was working on a long report recently I decided to rotate my 19" monitor and it was great.
That's why I run 2 19" monitors for my desktop, one landscape, one portrait. The portrait orientation is great for anything involving reading or writing. Landscape is great for games and things like spreadsheets, Photoshop, etc. Best of both worlds...
What is sad? A change in aspect ratio? It is a move towards the 16:9 aspect ratio. The end result is greater horizontal resolution, less vertical resolution, and a greater number of pixels overall than your 4:3 ratio 1600x1200 screen.
What is sad is that 10 years ago the top laptop screen resolution was 2 megapixels and now it's still only 2 megapixels, in a format that's worse for every application except watching video. What's sad is that the 9.7" screen in the new iPad is better than anything you can get in a laptop.
The conspiracy theorist in me would say because they pay for less screen area with the same marketing number. A 15 inch widescreen having less area than a 4:3 style display. More likely is that widescreen LCDs are so much cheaper because they make them for TVs and other media uses.
I don't think the market for 15-17" LCD TVs is that big. So that's not the reason. It's just that most consumers want HD because they naively think that's the gold standard. And HD means widescreen and shitty resolutions. But widescreen doesn't bother me so much for laptops, it's the lack of choice for desktops that pisses me off. High resolution 4:3 monitors are still around, but far fewer than their used to be and they're not cheap.
It's a mistake to assume that the $8 billion drop in music sales is entirely due to piracy. DVDs appeared in 1998 and by 2004 DVD sales were $14 billion. VHS sales were never that high so much of that money must have been coming out of other entertainment spending. I think a lot of people stopped buy so many CDs when they started buying DVDs.
Well, for starters, Apple would have to license using a magnet on their connector from a company that makes kitchen wares. Every other product you'd buy would be the result of lots of seemingly unrelated patents getting licensed.
Broad patents are bad, mmkay. That's why 'on a computer' is patentable. If you think software shouldn't be patented, fine, I don't give a shit, but you should be happy 'on a computer' is enough to be considered non-infringing or you'd really see a grinding halt to innovation.
I don't have any particular problem with requiring narrow patents, but I don't think it makes much difference in this situation as it simply means that the kitchen wares company should/would apply for many magnetic power connector patents on every type of device they can think of.
... the professional poker players who, when pitted against a random bunch of other poker players, tend to win far more often than a random selection would dictate....
But this is only against such a random selection of other poker players and only when they're human. Pitted against a computer, their results suddenly fall well within a bell curve of chance.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about or you wouldn't make such blatantly false statement.
I guess it's hearsay to you and I since we're getting our info from the media rather than the complainant. The FBI, OTOH, have no doubt spoken to the complainant directly so it is not hearsay to them. It may still be a false complaint, of course. Or there may be a record of the threat if it was made by email or a phone call that was recorded.
You could say that New Zealand bribes Warner to get the Hobbits. From TFA: "Mr Key also announced The Hobbit will get a $20million ($15m US) tax rebate - US$7.5m per film" and "The Government will also offset U$10m of Warner Brothers' marketing costs."
The tax rebates don't cost the government anything: that's money they would have lost anyway if the movie was filmed somewhere else. So US$10M to keep hundreds of millions in foreign money in the country. That's not a bribe, that's just common sense.
You are right about the difference the two possibilities makes to the numbers. But you have misstated the two interpretations:
E-books have 6% the sales that printed books have.
E-books make up 6% of book sales.
The headline can't be interpreted as the second of these because the headline says "of printed book sales". Ebooks are not printed, therefore ebooks cannot possibly make up any amount of printed book sales. Only the first interpretation is valid.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you saying the oceans, which are all connected, are as much as a constant 4" different in level, say, between NYC and, oh, Denmark or Japan?
Yes. See, for example, this Straight Dope which mentions that there is a 8" difference between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans at Panama.
IDC anticipates that desktops will suffer the biggest slowdown with not only a 4.2% downtick this year but also continued, albeit slower, declines through at least 2017
Desktop sales shrinking for that long is not an insignificant shrinking of the market (segment), it's a sign that the market has permanently changed. There will always be a market for desktops but it's in the process of becoming a niche segment.http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3518209&cid=43088747#
Which I don't see happening with desktops anytime soon if ever.
It's happening now.
I find it strange that I can install a flash blocker that allows me to whitelist certain websites but that similar functionality seems to be missing for Java... the easy answer is to not allow java to run unless the site or even specific URL is in a whitelist.
There is a Firefox feature request to add the ability to block all types of media (Flash, applets, other plugins) by site: bug 94035. It was created in 2001. More than 100 duplicate bugs have been added over the decade since. It's still not been implemented.
It could probably be used as a hammer to break an iPhone. A Gorilla Glass vs. whatever it is that Apple uses match would be interesting...
That would be Gorilla Glass vs. Gorilla Glass. Which was resurrected and promoted by Corning because Steve Jobs asked them to.
Base 12 is actually much easier to "bring calculation...within the arithmetic of every man..." 12 has 6 factors. 10 has 4. Divide 12 into thirds and you get a nice and neat "4" instead of .33333333....
A decimal system does not mean you have to abandon fractions. There is nothing wrong with talking about 1/3 of a meter if you need to be that precise. But multiplying 37 by 12 is harder than multiplying 37 by 10, and 37*12*12 is much harder than 37*10*10.
For the record, all current Intel desktop CPUs are pinless. The pins are on the board. So saying it ships without pins doesn't really say much. That's why I have a sneaking suspicion that the author might just be a clueless dumbass talking out their ass.
If you RTFA, rather than just the summary, you'll see that they are saying that Broadwell will not be available in an LGA package. It Only BGA. Whether they are right or not, time will tell, but they are not confused about how CPUs are connected to motherboards.
I've bult my own PCs for 20+ years, and I can't remeber ever really caring about moving the CPU from one motherboard to another. I shop for them as a matched pair, and assuming they work when I get them, I've alays replace both if problems developed later down the road (because a few years later, when you're on the far side of the failure "bathtub curve", you might as well replace both).
But so far you've done the matching. You could put a cheaper CPU into an expensive motherboard or vice versa. You can pick for any one of say 10 CPUs and match it with any one of say 30 motherboards: 300 combinations. If the CPUs are soldered then there will probably be far fewer combinations available, say 50 in total. Expensive motherboards will be paired with expensive CPUs and cheap motherboards will only be available with cheap CPUs.
Like you I've almost always bought CPUs and motherboards together (primarily because I don't upgrade very often), but this move, if it happens, is clearly going to cut down the options we have.
She was actually referring to *scientists*, something you are obviously not.
How exactly is a biologist's opinion on climate change any more informed or relevant than Sarten-X's? If you want to restrict the field to scientists then you really should go all the way and reduce it to climatologists. They are the scientists who really count. And 99% of climatologists accept the AGW hypothesis as been correct. I've yet to hear of one climatologist who has become a sceptic.
I do believe global warming is happening, however, I am not sure mankind is responsible for a majority of it. However, I do believe we must cut pollution for the sake of pollution regardless of whether it puts a dent into the overall problem of global warming.
If it's not mankind then what is the cause? If there is another cause it should be obvious by now - increased output from the sun, or increased volcanic activity, for example. But no convincing argument for an alternative cause has been presented.
But as things stand the fate of Nokia and Microsoft are intertwined (with more risk to Nokia than Microsoft).
The problem for Nokia is that they've got almost all of their eggs in the phone basket. If people lose interest in Nokia phones then all 3 legs of their strategy will fail, as has happened. Microsoft is in a completely different position. Their 3 legs are mobile software, business software (Windows, Office, Server), and entertainment (Xbox). If the mobile strategy fails it's unlikely to impact the other legs too badly. So Microsoft's fate is not intertwined with Nokia's, only the fate of their latest attempt at the mobile market. Though they might find it harder to find partners in the future.
How do you measure carbon emissions in foreign countries? How do you tax it without breaking WTO rules?
You don't need to measure carbon emissions in foreign countries, you only need to set a tariff equivalent to what the carbon tax would be if the goods were manufactured locally. It doesn't have to be particularly accurate, just close enough to discourage moving production offshore purely to avoid the carbon tax. As for WTO rules, the US has repeatedly violated them in the past. What makes you think they'd be reluctant to this time?
Interesting. Imposing a severe carbon tax on America could actually _increase_ global emissions. Unintended consequences.
It's a valid point, but it's also not particularly difficult to avoid those consequences. Simply apply a carbon tax to imported goods as well. Get it right and not only would a carbon tax work to reduce emissions, it would also work to increase domestic manufacturing.
Because 98% of panel production is for HDTVs these days, the smaller ones of which are..... 1366x768. Manufacturers are just taking advantage of volume production to keep costs down.
I don't buy that theory. What's the volume on 15" and 17" HD TVs? Not that large I think. I think the issue is that too many consumers think HD is the gold standard so there is little point in producing anything high res than 1080p. Perhaps the iPad will change that perception though.
Turn it to the side...
Kidding of course, hard to do it with a laptop anyways, but while I was working on a long report recently I decided to rotate my 19" monitor and it was great.
That's why I run 2 19" monitors for my desktop, one landscape, one portrait. The portrait orientation is great for anything involving reading or writing. Landscape is great for games and things like spreadsheets, Photoshop, etc. Best of both worlds...
Did you know that there are several IDEs on Linux which can compete with VC++ ?
Why are there so many? It kinda makes me think they must all be deficient in one way or another. Not that I think VC is particularly good...
What is sad? A change in aspect ratio? It is a move towards the 16:9 aspect ratio. The end result is greater horizontal resolution, less vertical resolution, and a greater number of pixels overall than your 4:3 ratio 1600x1200 screen.
What is sad is that 10 years ago the top laptop screen resolution was 2 megapixels and now it's still only 2 megapixels, in a format that's worse for every application except watching video. What's sad is that the 9.7" screen in the new iPad is better than anything you can get in a laptop.
The conspiracy theorist in me would say because they pay for less screen area with the same marketing number. A 15 inch widescreen having less area than a 4:3 style display. More likely is that widescreen LCDs are so much cheaper because they make them for TVs and other media uses.
I don't think the market for 15-17" LCD TVs is that big. So that's not the reason. It's just that most consumers want HD because they naively think that's the gold standard. And HD means widescreen and shitty resolutions. But widescreen doesn't bother me so much for laptops, it's the lack of choice for desktops that pisses me off. High resolution 4:3 monitors are still around, but far fewer than their used to be and they're not cheap.
It's a mistake to assume that the $8 billion drop in music sales is entirely due to piracy. DVDs appeared in 1998 and by 2004 DVD sales were $14 billion. VHS sales were never that high so much of that money must have been coming out of other entertainment spending. I think a lot of people stopped buy so many CDs when they started buying DVDs.
Well, for starters, Apple would have to license using a magnet on their connector from a company that makes kitchen wares. Every other product you'd buy would be the result of lots of seemingly unrelated patents getting licensed.
Broad patents are bad, mmkay. That's why 'on a computer' is patentable. If you think software shouldn't be patented, fine, I don't give a shit, but you should be happy 'on a computer' is enough to be considered non-infringing or you'd really see a grinding halt to innovation.
I don't have any particular problem with requiring narrow patents, but I don't think it makes much difference in this situation as it simply means that the kitchen wares company should/would apply for many magnetic power connector patents on every type of device they can think of.
... the professional poker players who, when pitted against a random bunch of other poker players, tend to win far more often than a random selection would dictate. ...
But this is only against such a random selection of other poker players and only when they're human. Pitted against a computer, their results suddenly fall well within a bell curve of chance.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about or you wouldn't make such blatantly false statement.
I guess it's hearsay to you and I since we're getting our info from the media rather than the complainant. The FBI, OTOH, have no doubt spoken to the complainant directly so it is not hearsay to them. It may still be a false complaint, of course. Or there may be a record of the threat if it was made by email or a phone call that was recorded.
You could say that New Zealand bribes Warner to get the Hobbits. From TFA: "Mr Key also announced The Hobbit will get a $20million ($15m US) tax rebate - US$7.5m per film" and "The Government will also offset U$10m of Warner Brothers' marketing costs."
The tax rebates don't cost the government anything: that's money they would have lost anyway if the movie was filmed somewhere else. So US$10M to keep hundreds of millions in foreign money in the country. That's not a bribe, that's just common sense.
E-books have 6% the sales that printed books have.
E-books make up 6% of book sales.
The headline can't be interpreted as the second of these because the headline says "of printed book sales". Ebooks are not printed, therefore ebooks cannot possibly make up any amount of printed book sales. Only the first interpretation is valid.
If there are two possible meanings and one of them makes no sense then I think it is safe to assume that the other meaning is the intended one.