I could not disagree more. I use W2K on it, and every dialog is no higher than 480 pixels, which is the height of the screen.
On UNIX however, KDE unfortunately does not take into account screens only 480 pixels high. A simple windowmanager like afterstep 1.0 doesn't have any problems with the screen, though.
So, I don't really understand you're experience. Especially since Windows installs at 640x480 by default and every dialog fits in that space (except when using some buggy video drivers which screw up the dialog libraries, which is hardly Windows' fault). So either you used something before w2k (which doesn't have the problem either as far as I know, heck the thing comes pre-installed with 98 on the xs and ME on the vn/ve), or you're video driver had some problem.
BTW: CowboyNeal has one too, (the old one with PII 400). Here's his page where you can see a picture that shows the tinyness of the Picturebook, as well as his story about how he installed Linux on it.
It would still be lower power than comparable processors because the frequency is dynamically adjusted realtime (as is the voltage). This is done more fine-grained that something like Intel's SpeedStep, so it still has an advantage.
Some benchmarks have. More specific: the benchmarks that do not take in consideration the fact that the Crusoe gets faster when it's repeating things (because of optimization and caching of instructions).
So, if your testcase consists of a lot of things, each of which is only tested once (the usual case for benchmarks), the results are not flattening.
On the other hand, if you also test repeating things (as in the normal world: like watching DiVX and other things with lots of repeating instrucions), things look a lot better.
The screen is not 'lame'. It's obviously not what suits your needs. But that doesn't mean it lame. The picturebook was designed for ultimate portability, that's why the screen is smaller than on other laptops.
You probably also think carseats are 'lame' because they aren't as comfortable as your couch at home?
Although I like this new device, I don't agree with it being the first major product with a Crusoe.
I have a Sony Picturebook with a 600 MHz Crusoe for months now. I must say, it simply rocks. The thing has a 1024x480 wide screen (perfect for two xterms next to each other), 12 GB HD and 128 MB RAM. Although webpads are a great idea, I just love having a keyboard standard attached to this device.
I run Win2k on it because of the (partly offline) strength of IE and the power management support. But FreeBSD ran on it too (a make world of FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE took only about 4 hours, which doesn't disappoint me at all).
Most DiVX movies I've encountered run great on this little gadget. Only when the highest bitrates were used for encoding, playing is problematic. You should see the faces on the people on the train when I'm watching a movie on my picturebook. I didn't know people could actually physically turn green from jalouzy..;-)
It's hard to give an exact performance indication of the processor, since it's performance increases over time as it caches the optimized VLIW (very long intruction words) into the 16 MB of RAM it uses for that purpose. It's for sure a lot faster than my K6-300 which doesn't play DiVX at all. Some benchmarks have shown the Crusoe 600 to be about comparable to a Celeron 533.
When plugged into the network at home (most of the time) I run an X-server to my FreeBSD box so I can have the joys of UNIX (I like Windows/IE for movie/sound media and browsing, but everything else, incl. mail, I do in UNIX).
There's one drawback to this baby: the price. Other than that it's simply perfect for my needs.
O yeah, battery life is about two hours on full usage. But bear in mind the battery is small. This things weighs 1 kilo including the battery! The extended battery doubles uptime.
Yeah, I was surprised to see that this story brought it as if it was the first detection. I knew about the baths, like in old volcano's with photographic sensitive material to the sides, etc.
Sorry, but you really don't know what you're talking about.
The fact that the neutrino's themselves are undetectable doesn't matter. Have you ever heard of theoretical physics? The (indirect, by detecting the behaviour of the resulting part after a collision) detection just confirms what was already suspected. Please do not make bold statements like this without being actually informed about the subject.
BTW, a nice little fact about neutrino's, just to imagine how small they are. Statistically, you need about a light year of lead to stop one.
And I forgot to add: a most important point is that there are only a few of such open institutes handing out certificates.
This way it will be attractive for browser makers to support these institutes. We do not need numerous mom-and-dad shops handing out proprietary certificates. I'm thinking of a few institutes, just like we have now a couple of 'leading' open software licenses like GNU, BSD-licence.
This will only be positive for acceptance. Think of IBM and other large companies now more or less supporting open software and putting such a license on some of their software. The same thing can be done for security certificates.
I agree. Especially since a secure channel between http client and server becomes more and more important. Not only for e-commerce, but also for other applications where security is important. Think of online access to the results of your academic studies, private websites which do not have a commercial purpose (perhaps for scientific needs), accessing your medical records online, etc.
Of course, the fact that now a handful of commercial companies are the only players in the game is normal. This happens with lot of new technologies. But, also as in a lot of technologies, there comes a time when the technology should be available to more people without having to support a few commercial players.
The idea of trust, which is what the main point is here, can also be handed to an open institute without the goal of profit making.
Just like open source software exists because it fulfills a legitimate goal (slashdot-readers know all about that), the trust needed to secure a website can also be laid in the hands of a trustworthy open institute.
The intellectual property isn't an issue here. A group of people in the know would relatively easy be able to set up such a secure institute for handing out certificates. It's not like this idea is patented. And I expect after a while this will be accepted by the Internet community, including browser makers etc.
Effectively, this will be accepted just like all the Internet protocols are accepted (and are in fact the basis of the complete Internet).
This all wouldn't have been necessary if we'd taken the first spammers and dragged them out into the streets, beat them bloody, tarred them, and rolled them in AOL CDs or something,
I suggest [g|b2]zipping them afterwards, so they will take up as little space as possible.
I'm having serious doubts whether leveraging this technology is the way to go. Considering that Microsoft hasn't a good track record for introducing useful and really open standards, the SOUP-crew might expect too much from.NET.
Wouldn't it be wiser to continue to create new and enhance existing standards. This would garuantee that new concepts will be available to all platforms, without being dependant on a single vendor which has a track record that isn't too rosy-colored (especially in the open source world).
Web technology as it exists (ranging from the simple interaction of web server & client, to databases which are integrated in webplatforms and internal information systems) has a lot to offer right now, and we can expect a lot in the future. I don't see why the direction should be altered towards a single-vendor 'solution'.
The Internet concept is largely the product of inventiveness of academic minds who did not have profit motives. This proofed a wonderful thing. Let's us not part from that now.
While this is an interesting accomplishment, the fact that the port is to a 64-bit processor isn't something new. Linux has been running on 64-bit Alpha processors for a while now.
It does underline IBM's commitment to Linux (again), though. Which is eventually good for entire open source community, which gains from the improved visibility to the public.
My physics is a bit rusty, but if I'm not mistaken these 3-atomic layer thick transistors must have some problems because at this level the predictability of atom movement comes into play.
Every atom has a certain frequent movement. Objects consisting of a large number of atoms stay in one place because the movement of all those atoms combined adds up to zero.
Theoretically, it's not impossible that your dinnertable would suddenly be a couple of meters away from its original place. But it's the statistics that make such an event impossible in practice.
When creating objects very small - consisting of only a few atoms - the movement of every atom get's more important. Chances that the movement of one or more atoms influences the behavior of the object itself (in a way that its behavior is not predictable anymore) are a reality when creating transitors this small.
Therefore I'm amazed by the comment of the Intel scientist that these transistors behave just like other - bigger - devices.
Imagine your university only teaching you things like writing COM objects and SQL queries. Then you would not have learned how a protocol actually fundamentally works, but only specific implementations of protocols. That is not science.
When you've had to code one yourself, you'll actually learn how it works. It doesn't matter if it's TCP/IP or another protocol. You had to build one, therefore you are able to create another one, perhaps one you design yourself.
As for SQL, in my databases class we had three types of query languages: relational algebra, tuple calculus and domain calculus. The SQL chapter was only an informative read because it's just an implementation of a formal query language. When you know about formal languages, you could pick up any real life language in a very short period.
That's the whole point of a university degree. Learning 'real life' things is what you do on the job, but many time faster and better than someone without a formal education.
I'm not sure whether this was a troll or not. Anyway..
There is a big difference between learning programming on the job en being an educated computer scientist.
I don't mean to downplay possible intelligence, speed, intuitiveness, adaptiveness, etc. of self-made programmers, but you just cannot replace a university degree computer science with work experience.
A good computer science curriculum includes mathematics (calculus, linear algebra, algebra, discrete math, logic, formal languages). No matter if you directly use this math after your education or not, you will be trained in logical thinking by having followed these courses. It makes you aware of current problems in computer science and mathematics and enables you to recognize such problems on the job so that you will not try to re-invent the wheel.
Furthermore you'll learn lots about how computers, networks, operating systems etc. actually work. Although you may know a lot about computer without having studied them in university, you'll be surprised how much new stuff you'll learn when studying computer science. I knew a lot about computers before starting my studies, but know I am able to build a 1 or more bit CPU by myself if it was necessary. I would use the book of course, but I know down to the digital logic level every detail of how a modern microprocessor works. As for computer networks: my programming assignment consist of building my own networking stack including ARP/RARP, IP (with fragmenting/assembling), UDP and a TFTP server and client on top of that. The only thing I get is the ethernet driver, I have to build the rest myself.
Even then, programming is maybe 25% of the complete curriculum.
There's no way you'll get this knowledge when just doing programming on the job 5 days a week, without formal studying of the subjects.
Nonsense. The author of the article is making the point that KDE and alikes are merely shells preventing the user from coming into contact with the UNIX that's beneath them. I think that's why he called them 'weenies' (notice the quotes around the word which indicate that you shouldn't take it too seriously).
You are only proving that you do not want to actually take a point in an article, but really want grab a stick and hit for every 'incorrect' word you see. Every sane UNIX user knows that KDE is a Windows look-alike, although it does have it's special features.
You act like if running KDE on UNIX is the most normal thing in the world to do. Which of course is not true because running an twm shell with advanced CLI's on Windows would be just as abnormal. Not that it wouldn't be right, it's just that you try to make a system into something it wasn't designed for.
Instead of cloning Windows' user interface we could ask ourselves if it wouldn't be better to educate users. Learn them how UNIX really works. Don't put a Windows clone on top of something so beautiful, just to hide it because it's not as simple as using a TV remote control.
Slashdot Mirror
On UNIX however, KDE unfortunately does not take into account screens only 480 pixels high. A simple windowmanager like afterstep 1.0 doesn't have any problems with the screen, though.
So, I don't really understand you're experience. Especially since Windows installs at 640x480 by default and every dialog fits in that space (except when using some buggy video drivers which screw up the dialog libraries, which is hardly Windows' fault). So either you used something before w2k (which doesn't have the problem either as far as I know, heck the thing comes pre-installed with 98 on the xs and ME on the vn/ve), or you're video driver had some problem.
BTW: CowboyNeal has one too, (the old one with PII 400). Here's his page where you can see a picture that shows the tinyness of the Picturebook, as well as his story about how he installed Linux on it.
It would still be lower power than comparable processors because the frequency is dynamically adjusted realtime (as is the voltage). This is done more fine-grained that something like Intel's SpeedStep, so it still has an advantage.
So, if your testcase consists of a lot of things, each of which is only tested once (the usual case for benchmarks), the results are not flattening.
On the other hand, if you also test repeating things (as in the normal world: like watching DiVX and other things with lots of repeating instrucions), things look a lot better.
You probably also think carseats are 'lame' because they aren't as comfortable as your couch at home?
I have a Sony Picturebook with a 600 MHz Crusoe for months now. I must say, it simply rocks. The thing has a 1024x480 wide screen (perfect for two xterms next to each other), 12 GB HD and 128 MB RAM. Although webpads are a great idea, I just love having a keyboard standard attached to this device.
I run Win2k on it because of the (partly offline) strength of IE and the power management support. But FreeBSD ran on it too (a make world of FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE took only about 4 hours, which doesn't disappoint me at all).
Most DiVX movies I've encountered run great on this little gadget. Only when the highest bitrates were used for encoding, playing is problematic. You should see the faces on the people on the train when I'm watching a movie on my picturebook. I didn't know people could actually physically turn green from jalouzy.. ;-)
It's hard to give an exact performance indication of the processor, since it's performance increases over time as it caches the optimized VLIW (very long intruction words) into the 16 MB of RAM it uses for that purpose. It's for sure a lot faster than my K6-300 which doesn't play DiVX at all. Some benchmarks have shown the Crusoe 600 to be about comparable to a Celeron 533.
When plugged into the network at home (most of the time) I run an X-server to my FreeBSD box so I can have the joys of UNIX (I like Windows/IE for movie/sound media and browsing, but everything else, incl. mail, I do in UNIX).
There's one drawback to this baby: the price. Other than that it's simply perfect for my needs.
O yeah, battery life is about two hours on full usage. But bear in mind the battery is small. This things weighs 1 kilo including the battery! The extended battery doubles uptime.
Rogier
Yeah, I was surprised to see that this story brought it as if it was the first detection. I knew about the baths, like in old volcano's with photographic sensitive material to the sides, etc.
The fact that the neutrino's themselves are undetectable doesn't matter. Have you ever heard of theoretical physics? The (indirect, by detecting the behaviour of the resulting part after a collision) detection just confirms what was already suspected. Please do not make bold statements like this without being actually informed about the subject.
BTW, a nice little fact about neutrino's, just to imagine how small they are. Statistically, you need about a light year of lead to stop one.
This way it will be attractive for browser makers to support these institutes. We do not need numerous mom-and-dad shops handing out proprietary certificates. I'm thinking of a few institutes, just like we have now a couple of 'leading' open software licenses like GNU, BSD-licence.
This will only be positive for acceptance. Think of IBM and other large companies now more or less supporting open software and putting such a license on some of their software. The same thing can be done for security certificates.
Of course, the fact that now a handful of commercial companies are the only players in the game is normal. This happens with lot of new technologies. But, also as in a lot of technologies, there comes a time when the technology should be available to more people without having to support a few commercial players.
The idea of trust, which is what the main point is here, can also be handed to an open institute without the goal of profit making.
Just like open source software exists because it fulfills a legitimate goal (slashdot-readers know all about that), the trust needed to secure a website can also be laid in the hands of a trustworthy open institute.
The intellectual property isn't an issue here. A group of people in the know would relatively easy be able to set up such a secure institute for handing out certificates. It's not like this idea is patented. And I expect after a while this will be accepted by the Internet community, including browser makers etc.
Effectively, this will be accepted just like all the Internet protocols are accepted (and are in fact the basis of the complete Internet).
I suggest [g|b2]zipping them afterwards, so they will take up as little space as possible.
I'm having serious doubts whether leveraging this technology is the way to go. Considering that Microsoft hasn't a good track record for introducing useful and really open standards, the SOUP-crew might expect too much from .NET.
Wouldn't it be wiser to continue to create new and enhance existing standards. This would garuantee that new concepts will be available to all platforms, without being dependant on a single vendor which has a track record that isn't too rosy-colored (especially in the open source world).
Web technology as it exists (ranging from the simple interaction of web server & client, to databases which are integrated in webplatforms and internal information systems) has a lot to offer right now, and we can expect a lot in the future. I don't see why the direction should be altered towards a single-vendor 'solution'.
The Internet concept is largely the product of inventiveness of academic minds who did not have profit motives. This proofed a wonderful thing. Let's us not part from that now.
While this is an interesting accomplishment, the fact that the port is to a 64-bit processor isn't something new. Linux has been running on 64-bit Alpha processors for a while now.
It does underline IBM's commitment to Linux (again), though. Which is eventually good for entire open source community, which gains from the improved visibility to the public.
My physics is a bit rusty, but if I'm not mistaken these 3-atomic layer thick transistors must have some problems because at this level the predictability of atom movement comes into play.
Every atom has a certain frequent movement. Objects consisting of a large number of atoms stay in one place because the movement of all those atoms combined adds up to zero.
Theoretically, it's not impossible that your dinnertable would suddenly be a couple of meters away from its original place. But it's the statistics that make such an event impossible in practice.
When creating objects very small - consisting of only a few atoms - the movement of every atom get's more important. Chances that the movement of one or more atoms influences the behavior of the object itself (in a way that its behavior is not predictable anymore) are a reality when creating transitors this small.
Therefore I'm amazed by the comment of the Intel scientist that these transistors behave just like other - bigger - devices.
Imagine your university only teaching you things like writing COM objects and SQL queries. Then you would not have learned how a protocol actually fundamentally works, but only specific implementations of protocols. That is not science. When you've had to code one yourself, you'll actually learn how it works. It doesn't matter if it's TCP/IP or another protocol. You had to build one, therefore you are able to create another one, perhaps one you design yourself. As for SQL, in my databases class we had three types of query languages: relational algebra, tuple calculus and domain calculus. The SQL chapter was only an informative read because it's just an implementation of a formal query language. When you know about formal languages, you could pick up any real life language in a very short period. That's the whole point of a university degree. Learning 'real life' things is what you do on the job, but many time faster and better than someone without a formal education.
I'm not sure whether this was a troll or not. Anyway..
There is a big difference between learning programming on the job en being an educated computer scientist.
I don't mean to downplay possible intelligence, speed, intuitiveness, adaptiveness, etc. of self-made programmers, but you just cannot replace a university degree computer science with work experience.
A good computer science curriculum includes mathematics (calculus, linear algebra, algebra, discrete math, logic, formal languages). No matter if you directly use this math after your education or not, you will be trained in logical thinking by having followed these courses. It makes you aware of current problems in computer science and mathematics and enables you to recognize such problems on the job so that you will not try to re-invent the wheel.
Furthermore you'll learn lots about how computers, networks, operating systems etc. actually work. Although you may know a lot about computer without having studied them in university, you'll be surprised how much new stuff you'll learn when studying computer science. I knew a lot about computers before starting my studies, but know I am able to build a 1 or more bit CPU by myself if it was necessary. I would use the book of course, but I know down to the digital logic level every detail of how a modern microprocessor works. As for computer networks: my programming assignment consist of building my own networking stack including ARP/RARP, IP (with fragmenting/assembling), UDP and a TFTP server and client on top of that. The only thing I get is the ethernet driver, I have to build the rest myself.
Even then, programming is maybe 25% of the complete curriculum.
There's no way you'll get this knowledge when just doing programming on the job 5 days a week, without formal studying of the subjects.
apt-get is "better" than rpm,
I'll give you benefit of the doubt here.
vi is "better" than emacs,
Correct.
gnome is "better" than kde,
Incorrect.
linux is "better" than *bsd,
Incorrect!
my car is "better" than your car.
Incorrect.
Unfortunately, you flunk for this test. Nice try, though.. :)
Maybe a minor issue, but it's Petreley and not Peterely as is mentioned in the story (and even the headline). |R
First X-ray machines, now robots. Slashdot is fulfilling all the build-this-advanced-thing-yourself needs I've always had. :)
Nonsense. The author of the article is making the point that KDE and alikes are merely shells preventing the user from coming into contact with the UNIX that's beneath them. I think that's why he called them 'weenies' (notice the quotes around the word which indicate that you shouldn't take it too seriously).
You are only proving that you do not want to actually take a point in an article, but really want grab a stick and hit for every 'incorrect' word you see. Every sane UNIX user knows that KDE is a Windows look-alike, although it does have it's special features.
You act like if running KDE on UNIX is the most normal thing in the world to do. Which of course is not true because running an twm shell with advanced CLI's on Windows would be just as abnormal. Not that it wouldn't be right, it's just that you try to make a system into something it wasn't designed for.
Instead of cloning Windows' user interface we could ask ourselves if it wouldn't be better to educate users. Learn them how UNIX really works. Don't put a Windows clone on top of something so beautiful, just to hide it because it's not as simple as using a TV remote control.
|R