The reason I see Desktops as we know them going away is a combination of wifi, improved battery life, and the simple fact that notebooks have became fast enough and cheap enough. Personally I use a desktop at work, with a reasonable size quality Viewsonic CRT, Northgate OmniKey Keyboard and good logitech mouse, and while I have my collection of various desktop systems at home, I find I most often use a notebook (Currently a 1 year old Core Duo system), with wifi I can pick it up and move from room to room, or even take it outside and sit on the deck in the evening, while browsing the web, checking email, or even playing movies. In fact I find I use my notebook so much at home I don't even remember the last time I booted one of my desktops at home. In fact I find I also keep another small light weight (under 4 pound) P3 generation Compaq Armada in my car as a grab and go computer, the fact that an 8 year old computer is fast enough for daily uses, (web browsing, email, and even playing movies) again shows just how overpowered todays notebooks are for everything except serious gaming.
My first PC was over $1,500 with no hard drive and 256K of ram
My second was a loaded 486-33 with a 212 Meg HD and 8 megs of ram at just under $4,000......
Last year I bought a 2.4 Ghz P4 desktop system (no monitor) from Dell Outlet for under $200 with shipping
Last month I bought a sub 5 pound used (like new) P3 Compaq Aramada for $130.
Talk on slashdot keeps revolving around a $99 laptop coming soon.
Combine the ever dropping price, with 20+ years of production (i386 and newer) of all the hand me down systems out there, and the 1,000,000,000 is inevitable.
I have read many of the replies so far, and as a person that lives in the U.S. and has traveled to so called developing countries a handful of times, I feel that I can comfortably say a few things. First not everyone in developing countries live in mud shacks and are covered with flies like you see in the "save the children" tv spots. There are many towns and villages that have at least some electricity, the problem is this electricity is often inconsistant and will go out for minutes or hours at a time. A 2 hour battery life while not perfect is certainly enough to keep things running during a typical 3rd world middle of the afternoon power outage. People that think these computers will be sent home with the students any time in the next few decades are in for a surprise, they will be locked away in the school house next to the 40 year old textbooks and will be shared between at least 6 students. There are also many countries that fall between the so called Western standard of living and stereotypical developing world that could utilize a cheap rugged notebook computer.
It would certainly be nice if those "trailers" would go away, I went to see a movie earlier this year and it had 54 minutes worth of trailers and commercials before the opening credits.
One more thing, make the pricing sane. Really does anyone think $40-$50 per season is sane for box sets of old TV shows, some of which air currently on basic cable?
It is because of their employees that I try to avoid Circuit City, its much like the reason I try to avoid going new car shopping at car lots. None is this with Circuit City is new, I have been shopping at Circuit City stores for almost 20 years, and in that time they have reinvented themselves time and time again. When I first saw one of their stores in the late 1980's it was layed out in a Hub fasion with with check out at the center and high dollar items behind the counter, they were basicly an appliance/home/car electronics store ( I bought a small chest freezer there, it is still running 18 years later). Later (at least in the stores I have seen) they moved away from the household appliance business and towards distributed check out counters and then became heavily involved in computers and computer components, and added front check out. Most recently at least in the local store most of the computer stuff is gone and is replaced with more games, videos and music.
The underlying problem is there are different types of driving conditions, and this type of legislation treats them as all the same. Driving in 8 lanes of bumper to bumper freeway traffic is different than driving on a remote interstate highway in the American southwest where you may see only a handful of oncoming cars per hour. I can even see where there could even be benefits to talking on a cell phone, etc. while driving, for example on these extremely remote highways where driver boredom is a prime cause of accidents.
They did not use the Sol naming system for us (the public) they use it for their own internal scheduling. Probably for both personel and onboard events. It is a simple one sylible word that is hard to confuse with anything else.
Even if there were not issues about cost shifting, and excess paperwork/processing overhead. When it comes to home electronics, there is one big arguement against this. Namely they keep getting smaller and lighter all on their own, go compare that 20 year old 40+ pound IBM AT against a modern Dell in its case weighing in around 10-15 pounds most of which is the cheap sheet metal case. Or that 10 year old 20 inch CRT weighing in at a hefty 100 pounds vs. the 20 inch LCD flat panel you are using that likely weighs in around 15-20 pounds with half the weight being a counter weight in the base to keep it upright. Combine this with the ever increasing effective service life and you will find that we are talking about an ever decreasing volume of waste, with an ever decreasing initial purchase price.
Just look at the IRIX software licensing model, it was highly modular and keyed to the serial number of a specific machine. That kind of product lock in does not fit will with linux.
WAAS requires that geosync be visible from the GPS receiver there are many instances where this can be a problem, for one thing it generaly means the GPS antenna be mounted at the highest point on the vehicle (a potential problem with ships as by law lights must be mounted at their highest point) also terain and even trees, may be an issue for trucks, etc particularly in more northern states where geosync appears low on the horizon.
The difference is WAAS depends on a clear view to a satelite in geosync, all fine and good for the FAA that developed it for aircraft use where the GPS antenna can be on the top of a plane, not so good when you have mounted your antenna on a ship or a truck where either other parts of the vehicle or the terrain might block the signal.
p.s. On the topic of cockfighting, it is a Cajun cultural issue. Louisiana has a long history of political extremism, and part of the dark history of this extermeism was the near extermination of the Cajun culture in the first half of the 20th century. Beginning in the early 20th century all children in the state of Louisiana were required to attend school, the school system required students to speak english, there are many stories of cajun children being severely beaten for speaking cajun french while at school. The result was the near extinction of Cajun French as a language, by about 1970 the extremism pendulum had swung back the other way with a massive save the cajun culture iniative that included required french classes for all public school students in the state grades 2-5, even though only about 1/5th of these students were of cajun heritige. Of course there were not enough speakers of Cajun French that were qualified teachers, so the state brought in massive numbers of native french speakers on exchange programs from France and Belgium to teach "French" a language that only remotely resembles the "Cajun French" that was spoken by decendants of people that left Europe hundreds of years ago.
The law is almost a moot point as there was only one abortion Clinic in Louisiana, it was in New Orleans of course, and very few doctors that offer abortion services in their offices. From most parts of the state it was already closer driving distance to go cities out of state (such as Houston TX) for abortions
As much as I dislike it, I think the best chance for survival is a "1984" like Big Brother society that monitors everything. Otherwise when we cross that technological line where a small group of people could do something to end life was we know it (biowarfare in your basement, planet cracking bomb, etc.), some group somewhere will.
Sounds like my gas oven, it has digital controls, whenever there is the slightest voltage sag it goes into power failure mode and shuts off (A/C, washing machine, dryer, etc starting up). The fix was simple, add a small (250 VA) UPS.
The problem with United 191 was improper servicing of the engine. The technicians used a common forklift to mount the engine onto the airplane, started to bolt it into place, had a shift change walked away from the plane, hours later the next shift finished the job. However while no one was working on it during those hours the hydraulics on the fork lift leaked down leaving the engine supported by only a couple of bolts, therefore bending the engine mount and causing stress cracks.
99%+ of consumers could not tell a Conroe series processor from a Coppermine series processor, in fact 99%+ of consumers could not tell a Conroe from a Katmai if you hit them in the head with it.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason I see Desktops as we know them going away is a combination of wifi, improved battery life, and the simple fact that notebooks have became fast enough and cheap enough. Personally I use a desktop at work, with a reasonable size quality Viewsonic CRT, Northgate OmniKey Keyboard and good logitech mouse, and while I have my collection of various desktop systems at home, I find I most often use a notebook (Currently a 1 year old Core Duo system), with wifi I can pick it up and move from room to room, or even take it outside and sit on the deck in the evening, while browsing the web, checking email, or even playing movies. In fact I find I use my notebook so much at home I don't even remember the last time I booted one of my desktops at home. In fact I find I also keep another small light weight (under 4 pound) P3 generation Compaq Armada in my car as a grab and go computer, the fact that an 8 year old computer is fast enough for daily uses, (web browsing, email, and even playing movies) again shows just how overpowered todays notebooks are for everything except serious gaming.
Ike
Have you seen modern office Desktops lately, they are the size of a phone book and there is nothing to upgrade.
Ike
Such a wonderful idea until they are mandated to always be used, then blow into passing traffic during a wind storm.
A lot is about the price
......
My first PC was over $1,500 with no hard drive and 256K of ram
My second was a loaded 486-33 with a 212 Meg HD and 8 megs of ram at just under $4,000
Last year I bought a 2.4 Ghz P4 desktop system (no monitor) from Dell Outlet for under $200 with shipping
Last month I bought a sub 5 pound used (like new) P3 Compaq Aramada for $130.
Talk on slashdot keeps revolving around a $99 laptop coming soon.
Combine the ever dropping price, with 20+ years of production (i386 and newer) of all the hand me down systems out there, and the 1,000,000,000 is inevitable.
Ike
I have read many of the replies so far, and as a person that lives in the U.S. and has traveled to so called developing countries a handful of times, I feel that I can comfortably say a few things. First not everyone in developing countries live in mud shacks and are covered with flies like you see in the "save the children" tv spots. There are many towns and villages that have at least some electricity, the problem is this electricity is often inconsistant and will go out for minutes or hours at a time. A 2 hour battery life while not perfect is certainly enough to keep things running during a typical 3rd world middle of the afternoon power outage. People that think these computers will be sent home with the students any time in the next few decades are in for a surprise, they will be locked away in the school house next to the 40 year old textbooks and will be shared between at least 6 students. There are also many countries that fall between the so called Western standard of living and stereotypical developing world that could utilize a cheap rugged notebook computer.
Ike
The same can be said if you have a custom restore CD for linux, someone else has already done all the tweaking.
It would certainly be nice if those "trailers" would go away, I went to see a movie earlier this year and it had 54 minutes worth of trailers and commercials before the opening credits.
And if any/more of the victims would have had guns of there own it might have turned out differently.
One more thing, make the pricing sane. Really does anyone think $40-$50 per season is sane for box sets of old TV shows, some of which air currently on basic cable?
Why should we care about the bundleware backup software?
It is because of their employees that I try to avoid Circuit City, its much like the reason I try to avoid going new car shopping at car lots. None is this with Circuit City is new, I have been shopping at Circuit City stores for almost 20 years, and in that time they have reinvented themselves time and time again. When I first saw one of their stores in the late 1980's it was layed out in a Hub fasion with with check out at the center and high dollar items behind the counter, they were basicly an appliance/home/car electronics store ( I bought a small chest freezer there, it is still running 18 years later). Later (at least in the stores I have seen) they moved away from the household appliance business and towards distributed check out counters and then became heavily involved in computers and computer components, and added front check out. Most recently at least in the local store most of the computer stuff is gone and is replaced with more games, videos and music.
The underlying problem is there are different types of driving conditions, and this type of legislation treats them as all the same. Driving in 8 lanes of bumper to bumper freeway traffic is different than driving on a remote interstate highway in the American southwest where you may see only a handful of oncoming cars per hour. I can even see where there could even be benefits to talking on a cell phone, etc. while driving, for example on these extremely remote highways where driver boredom is a prime cause of accidents.
They did not use the Sol naming system for us (the public) they use it for their own internal scheduling. Probably for both personel and onboard events. It is a simple one sylible word that is hard to confuse with anything else.
Lets see other things most people find it hard to avoid for days.
Checking Mail
Paying Bills
Doing their jobs
Keeping up with their Childrens school work
Watching the News and/or Weather reports
Shopping
Just add the word online to the above and suddeny they become an addication.
Even if there were not issues about cost shifting, and excess paperwork/processing overhead. When it comes to home electronics, there is one big arguement against this. Namely they keep getting smaller and lighter all on their own, go compare that 20 year old 40+ pound IBM AT against a modern Dell in its case weighing in around 10-15 pounds most of which is the cheap sheet metal case. Or that 10 year old 20 inch CRT weighing in at a hefty 100 pounds vs. the 20 inch LCD flat panel you are using that likely weighs in around 15-20 pounds with half the weight being a counter weight in the base to keep it upright. Combine this with the ever increasing effective service life and you will find that we are talking about an ever decreasing volume of waste, with an ever decreasing initial purchase price.
Just look at the IRIX software licensing model, it was highly modular and keyed to the serial number of a specific machine. That kind of product lock in does not fit will with linux.
WAAS requires that geosync be visible from the GPS receiver there are many instances where this can be a problem, for one thing it generaly means the GPS antenna be mounted at the highest point on the vehicle (a potential problem with ships as by law lights must be mounted at their highest point) also terain and even trees, may be an issue for trucks, etc particularly in more northern states where geosync appears low on the horizon.
The difference is WAAS depends on a clear view to a satelite in geosync, all fine and good for the FAA that developed it for aircraft use where the GPS antenna can be on the top of a plane, not so good when you have mounted your antenna on a ship or a truck where either other parts of the vehicle or the terrain might block the signal.
p.s. On the topic of cockfighting, it is a Cajun cultural issue. Louisiana has a long history of political extremism, and part of the dark history of this extermeism was the near extermination of the Cajun culture in the first half of the 20th century. Beginning in the early 20th century all children in the state of Louisiana were required to attend school, the school system required students to speak english, there are many stories of cajun children being severely beaten for speaking cajun french while at school. The result was the near extinction of Cajun French as a language, by about 1970 the extremism pendulum had swung back the other way with a massive save the cajun culture iniative that included required french classes for all public school students in the state grades 2-5, even though only about 1/5th of these students were of cajun heritige. Of course there were not enough speakers of Cajun French that were qualified teachers, so the state brought in massive numbers of native french speakers on exchange programs from France and Belgium to teach "French" a language that only remotely resembles the "Cajun French" that was spoken by decendants of people that left Europe hundreds of years ago.
The law is almost a moot point as there was only one abortion Clinic in Louisiana, it was in New Orleans of course, and very few doctors that offer abortion services in their offices. From most parts of the state it was already closer driving distance to go cities out of state (such as Houston TX) for abortions
As much as I dislike it, I think the best chance for survival is a "1984" like Big Brother society that monitors everything. Otherwise when we cross that technological line where a small group of people could do something to end life was we know it (biowarfare in your basement, planet cracking bomb, etc.), some group somewhere will.
Sounds like my gas oven, it has digital controls, whenever there is the slightest voltage sag it goes into power failure mode and shuts off (A/C, washing machine, dryer, etc starting up). The fix was simple, add a small (250 VA) UPS.
Ike
Northgate Omni Key 101, similar feel to the IBM model M, but a bit quieter.
Ike
The problem with United 191 was improper servicing of the engine. The technicians used a common forklift to mount the engine onto the airplane, started to bolt it into place, had a shift change walked away from the plane, hours later the next shift finished the job. However while no one was working on it during those hours the hydraulics on the fork lift leaked down leaving the engine supported by only a couple of bolts, therefore bending the engine mount and causing stress cracks.
99%+ of consumers could not tell a Conroe series processor from a Coppermine series processor, in fact 99%+ of consumers could not tell a Conroe from a Katmai if you hit them in the head with it.
Ike