[quote]I'll bet some horrifying data could be gathered on the speed with which riders' heads impact the pavement after an accident.[/quote]
The head, when falling from an approximate height of six feet, impacts the pavement with a vertical velocity vector of approximately 13 mph. The math is pretty simple.
As a motorcycle rider, it really drives me nuts every time I see a post like this one--posts that assume and/or assert that motorcycles are dangerous objects, though at least *this* one stops short of calling for an outright ban.
Get your head out of your ass and stop furthering the spread of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
# 1 - Dell Digital Jukebox 20GB v. Apple iPod 20GB
The Dell is 50% larger by volume, and 37% heavier. The Dell has a lower resolution display. The Dell doesn't support AIFF files. The Dell has no FireWire. The Dell doesn't support Macintosh. The Dell has no expansion port. Dell lists no specification for skip protection. The Dell doesn't support, and isn't supported by, the *most popular* online music source, Apple's iTunes Music Store. Hmm, I see no world travel adapter kit for the Dell. No remote for the Dell, either. The Dell has only 12 equalizer settings. The Dell is ugly! How about on-device playlist editing? I see nothing about it... PDA features? Song ratings? Multiple languages? Sleep timer? UPGRADEABLE FIRMWARE??? Nope, no info!
Oh, hey, did I mention that I can boot a Mac from my iPod? Can you boot a Windows machine from a Dell DJ?
Oh yeah, then there's that dock thing again. Can you offload your digital camera files to your Dell DJ without a PC? Or your PDA memory card files? No?
I could keep going, but I won't. The Dell is actually the only competitor listed that even comes close to offering similar features to the iPod. It's a good competitor to the *first generation* iPod. Whatever happened to the Philips unit? It has a pretty nice design, unlike the Dell box.
# 2 - Flash-based players? Give me a break. Those things are laughable. Why would I want even a 512MB player when I can have a (minimum) size of at least *thirty* times that? Oh, the skipping thing? Funny, my iPod doesn't skip--and if it did occasionally skip while I was running, I doubt I ever cared enough to notice.
#3 - The iPod is expensive. Yes, it is. Which is why I got mine for $175 instead of $299 (and no, I'm not telling you where--it's new and it's legal). Then again, you get what you pay for! Apple needs to get the entry price down to $199. I think that's what it's really worth, and what they'll be selling for once the glut passes--but Apple's already selling them as fast as they can make them at $299-499, so let's let the market be the judge, shall we? Since Dell is all about low prices, and their 20GB unit is only $70 less than Apple's--the real question is, is the iPod worth the extra $70 given it's additional features over the Dell unit? IMO, unequivocally.
As far as MP3 CD players are concerned, they may in fact be cheap to people who have nothing better to do with their time than arrange and burn MP3 CD's, but to me--my time is expensive. I bought my iPod to reduce the number, size, and weight of the things I carry on a daily basis, not to mention the annoyance of having to swap CD's on the fly when they run out. And they do run out--the amazing thing with having 500-5000 songs in your hand is how often you find you've listened to everything on the drive, and it's back at the beginning!
#4 - No high quality recording. I'm a musician and a sound designer. None of these devices are of acceptable quality for recording, yet, so this is a specious argument. Anybody who has that much invested in vinyl at this point isn't going to bother duping them to an inferior digital format. Cassettes? Who *really* cares? Seriously.
#5 - Choice of online music stores? Why? iTunes Music Store is so far superior to the competition as to invite ridicule on anyone attempting to claim that they would choose Napster, MusicMatch, or anything else over Apple's store at this point. And, BTW, you do know that iTunes (the application) supports more than just the iPod, don't you? If any other players ever support AAC, they should work just fine with the Music Store, too.
The article is just a blatant attempt by CNet to curry favor with the Windows-centric advertisers who pay their salaries that have been feeling a bit piqued over another demonstration of Apple's ability to crush their competition with superior firepower, with a disclaimer added so they don't look like complete and utter fools to their readers, just shills for The Man.
I wouldn't normally rebutt such a facetious article, but this time, my hackles went up...
Is the things you can find out by looking at the whole list.
Like...
The highest rated "classified" computer in the US is only at #44, a Cray with 1900 processors that clocks in at "only" 1166 GFlops. One can assume that it resides at NSA. Does anyone really believe that NSA would be using such a relatively "slow" supercomputer. Piffle. The faster ones are probably so classifed that no one without a very high security clearance even knows they were built.
Avon Products apparently has a supercomputer that can do 277 GFlops (#456 on the list). Just what on God's Green Earth does Avon need with a supercomputer that makes the Top 500? Studying flow patterns in cosmetics? Data mining the Avon Ladies? Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?
BMW apparently spends a whole lot of money on HP super computers, with 12 on the list (unless I missed any--#'s 225, 243, 244, 322, 323, 324, 331, 342, 417, 418, 429, and 485), with a combined processing power of 4188.6 GFlops, and that was all installed in the past three years. With all that power, they still couldn't figure out that an embedded Windows OS for their flagship car was a bad idea...maybe they need to kick the F1 team off the supercomputers for a while and let the production car guys in...
Well, now I'm *definitely* buying a brand new Ernie Ball/Music Man StingRay!
I currently own one 2002 StingRay 4 Unlined Fretless 3EQ in Transparent Gold with Matching Headstock that I bought off of eBay and one 1995 StingRay 4 Unlined Fretless 3EQ in SunBurst that I bought new from an authorized dealer.
I've been lusting after a StingRay 4 Fretted 3EQ in Transparent Red with Matching Headstock and Black Pearloid pickguard with Rosewood fingerboard...
Ernie Ball is a great company that makes products of exceptional quality and offers fantastic customer service (at least, that's my experience with EB/MM).
Glad to see that somebody out there is giving those bastards what they deserve. Fsck MS's strong-arm monopoly tactics!
Eventually, the same thing that has happened, largely, to HTML will happen to all other programming languages--which is to say that eventually all code will be machine written. We are rapdily reaching, and many of us would agree, I'm sure, that we have long since passed, the point where teams of human coders are efficient enough to maintain the vast expanses of code that comprise most modern applications and operating systems.
Young students today should not be studying programming--they should be studying Human-Computer Interface Design and other related subjects. Programming should come later, once the student has figured out *what* to program.
I find that the scariest thing about making felled seams on a Singer is that most Singers have really strong voices and tend to screech very loudly when you stick them with needles...
How many people do you think would bother building bombs if they were empowered enough to live free lives?
My bet is, a whole lot less than there are now--not that you'll ever reduce te number of crazy people, but there are currently a lot of people in the world with legitimate complaints against the current world order that have no "politically correct" means of expressing their position, usually because they lack recognized sovereignty, which only comes through demonstrable military and economic power.
The only lasting way to make war a less viable means of conflict resolution is to make it more expensive, economically, than peaceful means of conflict resolution.
Which, by the way, doesn't mean a communist distribution of resources, but a capitalist system (which provides personal incentive) balanced by socialist checks (which provides a negative feedback loop so that capitalism doesn't eat itself) enough so that every person gets a fair chance at profit/growth/success/freedom.
When a person has things to protect, he generally will spend less time thinking about ways to make his life more unsafe. But when a person has nothing to lose and everything to gain--you'd better watch your back!
Umm, no, the multitronic is not slower. It's quicker than the manual transmission because you never uncouple to engine from the transmission to shift gears.
That would have had a whole lot more effect if you understood that Audi's multitronic CVT is actually quicker than the manual transmission version. It' s not an economy-oriented compromise in any way.
Of course, if you'd stopped running off your mouth to think about it for a second, you'd have realized that a CVT is quicker than a manual because it NEVER UNCOUPLES THE ENGINE from the output shaft, as you must when shifting a manual (even when you shift without (de)clutching, you still momentarily uncouple the transmission).
If anybody, RedHat included, is going to take a stab at unifying the look and feel of the mythical "Linux Desktop", they're going to need to put in a hell of a lot more effort than this.
While the screen shots I have seen so far of the Null desktop themes are a great improvement over previous attempts at a consistent UI for Linux, it would appear that this is Not Ready For Prime Time.
For Ghu's sake, people, pick up a friggin' copy of Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines! All the research has already been done! How much longer is it going to take for you to realize this?
I mean, really, throw me a bone here, people...
The number one thing holding Linux back from more widespread usage is the clunky UI implementations that are available. The people who are working on this stuff are smart enough that they should know when to bring in experts. I know nobody wants to turn over the care and feeding of their baby to someone else, but don't you think it's time that some *real* graphic designers/industrial designers got involved?
I'm sure at least some of you coders out there must know a decent designer or two, or even a bonafide HCI expert. If we could somehow lure a few good ones into working under a Free Software license to produce some artwork for this effort, we'd be going in the right direction.
Well, ranting aside, at least Null seems to have produced a decent font for the menus. IMO, this was one of the biggest problems.
You might be interested in knowing that, in most cases, his proposal of paying the artist at least 20% would be approximately a 100% increase over what labels are paying *now*.
Read, and learn...
http://www.indiecentre.com/info%5Carticle.cfm?Ca te goryID=0&ArticleID=25
Hah... I just pulled up this comment on my brand-spankin' new Kyocera 6035 (Palm OS 3.5/CDMA cell phone), so I just had to respond...
The other day, I went to turn on my MP2100, only to discover that it wouldn't power up. Mainly, I've been carrying it around just to configure routers and such with a serial or telnet connection.
So just a couple of days ago, I was cruising the PC parts at the local CompUSA and BestBuy (ok, I was *really* bored that day), when I noticed that the price on the Kyocera had been dropped from the original $400 to $150. After a double and triple take, I drove over to the Sprint PCS store to see what they were asking for it. Sure enough, $150.
Now, I, being a Newton fanatic, haven't had much use for a Palm device, but after playing with the Kyocera on display in the Sprint PCS store for about an hour, and making a few test calls, it all began to make sense...Palm + Phone = Very Useful Device. Much more useful than any standalone Palm-based PDA I've seen yet.
So that night I hopped over to to check out the specs. Me liked. The next morning I heading over to the Sprint PCS store again with plastic to burn and got one.
Fortunately, I already know Graffiti, since it was originally a Newton product. Now if only this thing ran a *real* OS;), like the poor dead Newton used to. Ah, well, it'll just have to do.
BTW, the cheapest new Palm is $150, so getting one with a phone built-in is a steal. I even managed to score a real Kyocera car charger and real Palm Mac serial adapter off of the CompUSA clearance table for $10 each (saving about $40 in the process).
Oh yeah, this baby has *real* net access, I don't even need a external device to connect, I can connect to any ISP using PPP, and with Sprint's free long distance, I don't even have to reconfig my dial-in number while I'm on the road (Sprint also has a special number for "Wireless Web" customers that I can use, as well.).
I used to despise Palm's, but now, thanks to Kyocera, I'm hooked. The Handspring Treo looks nice, too, but pricey compared to the Kyocera.
The upgrade did come on a CD, but was made available for free at all Apple-authorized retailers. The Mac OS X package was upgraded to contain the full 10.1 installer at the same time.
However, that said, Apple still makes available for free GUI remote access administration software for every client. It has to be custom installed from the Mac OS 9 CD. I believe you do have to pay for the admin package.
Obviously, you don't get out much. You also seem to have a problem understanding the English language.
There are indeed many, many large Macintosh environments out there. If you were a little more worldly, you would know this. They may be a little harder to find in the corporate world, but they still exist. In K-12 or higher education, you can't shake a stick without hitting a Mac.
"Comparative environments" denotes those environments where the number of users and/or machines is similar.
BTW, I'm not a "Mac zealot", as you seem to think. I am a professional consultant supporting Mac, UNIX, Windows, and other platforms. I recommend using the best tool for the job--in most cases, for most people, a Macintosh is that tool. It's about the total efficiency of the package, not just one piece of the system.
Trust me, I have no problem with learning, but my opinion is that if you have to even bother reading a man page to operate a program, then it's somewhat less than easy to use. You simply would sound idiotic trying to argue that using apt is as easy as using Software Update.
This is just typical of the Slashdot/Linux/Windows/What-have-you mentality that demands systems that cannot be operated by anyone other than those that spend countless hours poring over obscure documentation.
Not that I *don't* spend countless hours poring over obscure documentation, of course...but I don't need to do this to boost my ego.
You should really be a bit more objective about the qualities of user experience offered by the different OS's out there.
Obviously, you know very little about the Macintosh. You should learn a bit more before you go spouting off flames.
The software used to accomplish the clustering for AppleSeeds is Mac MPI, which is based upon the *standard* for parallel computing, MPI. The reason that the PDF doesn't talk about programming MPI is that there is no need for redundant documentation. Go find a book on MPI if you want to learn to prgram to that API.
And yes, I will get quite far telling you it's easier to upgrade Mac OS X to its latest version/. Thanks to Apple's Software Upgrade control panel program, this can all take place automatically according to any schedule you desire. Two clicks of a mouse is all it takes to set this up, as opposed to spending quite a lot of time figuring out how to use the incredubly arcane "apt". In fact, AFAIR, Software Update is now set to operate automatically by default.
Gee, I didn't realize that particle physics simulations involving millions of particles wasn't a *real* application...
The fact that your comment has been moderated up to four (so far) is simlply an empiric demonstration of the lack of knowledge of most Slashdot readers.
The problem with ideas like this is, as many others have pointed out, that storage of materials which will present a significant danger many thousands of years later is extremely difficult and costly to consider. Adding to the problem of storage of fissonable materiel as opposed to fission by-products is that a ready cache of such materiel would be *very* hard for human beings to resist using.
The only viable solution, as I see it, is to build a launch vehicle that would accelerate the fissionable mass to a velocity capable of embedding the materiel deep enough into the sun to effectively destroy it. Of course, if it doesn't go deep enough, it might just cause a solar flare that would simply blast a huge wave of highly radioactive particles right back at us along the solar winds. Hopefully, if this were to happen, the cloud would be sufficiently dispersed as to not pose too great a problem.
Perhaps deep space, or even a black hole, is a better answer; not that I want some possible civilisation to find us shooting a large batch of dangerous materiel at them, but the probability of its being found and used against us in anyway is likely less than the probability of its being used against us if we keep it on Earth. Building such a launch vehicle would of course be insanely expensive, but I believe the expense of keeping the stuff here is going to turn out to be far greater.
Misses too much in the details? Do you have an example?
I don't have to do anything to get the Windows crowd to move to a different platform. Microsoft will do it if and when they feel it necessary. Windows users, as in everything else Microsoft, will have no choice but to follow, just as Mac users had no choice but to move to PPC.
I hope for the sake of sanity that Microsoft is as capable of handling the transition as Apple proved to be.
Umm...no., I didn't. I told him where the only source of current PPC motherboards is located, namely, Motorola. While their boards are, admittedly, expensive, they *will* work.
Buying a Power Mac to run Linux is only *one* option. Why would you assume that Apple would advertise a job for someone whose duties would include "making sure Linux runs on all Apple hardware platforms" if they intended to provide "iffy" support?
Hah, I *wish* I had *more* MOT... Nothing like another 52-week high to brighten one's day...
Sorry about the self-righteousness; I got a little annoyed. It seems like all anyone can do these days is blindly follow the crowd.
Isn't SSE otherwise known as MMX2? Isn't it just *more* instructions piled on top of the same core? AltiVec is an entirely separate processing unit, not a replacement for existing instructions. AltiVec (and the Power3 vector unit) provides more functionality without the trade-offs that Intel's schemes demand. If I'm wrong about SSE, I'd like to see documentation of it.
As far as 3DNow goes, I have little doubt that it will be an x86 marketplace failure if it's not supported by Intel. Remember all the complaining when Intel moved to Slot 1? Seems to have died down, doesn't it?
The point of the Xeon price comparison was to point out the extremely low price/performance ratio of the fastest Intel chips currently shipping. Anyone can make a chip faster by throwing lots of expensive cache at it, or reducing the die size. It's much, much harder to actually improve the architecture, something Intel hasn't done in nearly *five years*.
I didn't call AGP and faster RAM "hacks", I was using the term in a vastly different context, one referring to pundits of inferior technologies. I was pointing out that AGP and faster system RAM do not translate into proportional performance increases.
As a good example, many first- and second-generation PCI Power Macs, when upgraded with G3 processor cards are faster than the first-generation G3 systems, which have faster system busses; this is due to the superior architecture of the earlier machines. Unfortunately, the lower cost of the later machines was bought at the price of performance.
I'm not sure I understand the Athlon comparison, but if you look at the power consumption of those Alpha's you'll be shocked. If I threw that much electricity at *any* processor it would be whole truckloads faster.
Backwards compatibility? What for? Are you still running DOS 5.0? (Oh yeah, that's right...MS *still* requires DOS 5.0 for some stuff...) I'd rather have *forwards* compatibility, thank you very much.
I could care less who's "on top". I just hate hearing people bash a platform they don't know well. The original thread of this discussion was from a person seeking PPC components; comments to the effect that the seeking is a waste of time are not helpful.
If you examine the current state of RS/6000 and Power Macintosh machines, you'll find that much of the originally proposed design is there.
PReP and CHRP are not the same thing. IBM created PReP as a counter-offensive/alternative to CHRP. The two were somewhat reconciled in the revised CHRP, otherwise known as PPCP.
Perhaps you are correct that all three specs, as they originally stood, are dead, but that doesn't mean the idea of an open PPC platform is dead.
Slashdot Mirror
[quote]I'll bet some horrifying data could be gathered on the speed with which riders' heads impact the pavement after an accident.[/quote]
The head, when falling from an approximate height of six feet, impacts the pavement with a vertical velocity vector of approximately 13 mph. The math is pretty simple.
As a motorcycle rider, it really drives me nuts every time I see a post like this one--posts that assume and/or assert that motorcycles are dangerous objects, though at least *this* one stops short of calling for an outright ban.
Get your head out of your ass and stop furthering the spread of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
The sender is bluestel!!@*.*? With the !! changing randomly and the domain changing randomly through a list of large ISP's?
# 1 - Dell Digital Jukebox 20GB v. Apple iPod 20GB
The Dell is 50% larger by volume, and 37% heavier. The Dell has a lower resolution display. The Dell doesn't support AIFF files. The Dell has no FireWire. The Dell doesn't support Macintosh. The Dell has no expansion port. Dell lists no specification for skip protection. The Dell doesn't support, and isn't supported by, the *most popular* online music source, Apple's iTunes Music Store. Hmm, I see no world travel adapter kit for the Dell. No remote for the Dell, either. The Dell has only 12 equalizer settings. The Dell is ugly! How about on-device playlist editing? I see nothing about it... PDA features? Song ratings? Multiple languages? Sleep timer? UPGRADEABLE FIRMWARE??? Nope, no info!
Oh, hey, did I mention that I can boot a Mac from my iPod? Can you boot a Windows machine from a Dell DJ?
Oh yeah, then there's that dock thing again. Can you offload your digital camera files to your Dell DJ without a PC? Or your PDA memory card files? No?
I could keep going, but I won't. The Dell is actually the only competitor listed that even comes close to offering similar features to the iPod. It's a good competitor to the *first generation* iPod. Whatever happened to the Philips unit? It has a pretty nice design, unlike the Dell box.
# 2 - Flash-based players? Give me a break. Those things are laughable. Why would I want even a 512MB player when I can have a (minimum) size of at least *thirty* times that? Oh, the skipping thing? Funny, my iPod doesn't skip--and if it did occasionally skip while I was running, I doubt I ever cared enough to notice.
#3 - The iPod is expensive. Yes, it is. Which is why I got mine for $175 instead of $299 (and no, I'm not telling you where--it's new and it's legal). Then again, you get what you pay for! Apple needs to get the entry price down to $199. I think that's what it's really worth, and what they'll be selling for once the glut passes--but Apple's already selling them as fast as they can make them at $299-499, so let's let the market be the judge, shall we? Since Dell is all about low prices, and their 20GB unit is only $70 less than Apple's--the real question is, is the iPod worth the extra $70 given it's additional features over the Dell unit? IMO, unequivocally.
As far as MP3 CD players are concerned, they may in fact be cheap to people who have nothing better to do with their time than arrange and burn MP3 CD's, but to me--my time is expensive. I bought my iPod to reduce the number, size, and weight of the things I carry on a daily basis, not to mention the annoyance of having to swap CD's on the fly when they run out. And they do run out--the amazing thing with having 500-5000 songs in your hand is how often you find you've listened to everything on the drive, and it's back at the beginning!
#4 - No high quality recording. I'm a musician and a sound designer. None of these devices are of acceptable quality for recording, yet, so this is a specious argument. Anybody who has that much invested in vinyl at this point isn't going to bother duping them to an inferior digital format. Cassettes? Who *really* cares? Seriously.
#5 - Choice of online music stores? Why? iTunes Music Store is so far superior to the competition as to invite ridicule on anyone attempting to claim that they would choose Napster, MusicMatch, or anything else over Apple's store at this point. And, BTW, you do know that iTunes (the application) supports more than just the iPod, don't you? If any other players ever support AAC, they should work just fine with the Music Store, too.
The article is just a blatant attempt by CNet to curry favor with the Windows-centric advertisers who pay their salaries that have been feeling a bit piqued over another demonstration of Apple's ability to crush their competition with superior firepower, with a disclaimer added so they don't look like complete and utter fools to their readers, just shills for The Man.
I wouldn't normally rebutt such a facetious article, but this time, my hackles went up...
Is the things you can find out by looking at the whole list.
Like...
The highest rated "classified" computer in the US is only at #44, a Cray with 1900 processors that clocks in at "only" 1166 GFlops. One can assume that it resides at NSA. Does anyone really believe that NSA would be using such a relatively "slow" supercomputer. Piffle. The faster ones are probably so classifed that no one without a very high security clearance even knows they were built.
Avon Products apparently has a supercomputer that can do 277 GFlops (#456 on the list). Just what on God's Green Earth does Avon need with a supercomputer that makes the Top 500? Studying flow patterns in cosmetics? Data mining the Avon Ladies? Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?
BMW apparently spends a whole lot of money on HP super computers, with 12 on the list (unless I missed any--#'s 225, 243, 244, 322, 323, 324, 331, 342, 417, 418, 429, and 485), with a combined processing power of 4188.6 GFlops, and that was all installed in the past three years. With all that power, they still couldn't figure out that an embedded Windows OS for their flagship car was a bad idea...maybe they need to kick the F1 team off the supercomputers for a while and let the production car guys in...
Well, now I'm *definitely* buying a brand new Ernie Ball/Music Man StingRay!
I currently own one 2002 StingRay 4 Unlined Fretless 3EQ in Transparent Gold with Matching Headstock that I bought off of eBay and one 1995 StingRay 4 Unlined Fretless 3EQ in SunBurst that I bought new from an authorized dealer.
I've been lusting after a StingRay 4 Fretted 3EQ in Transparent Red with Matching Headstock and Black Pearloid pickguard with Rosewood fingerboard...
Ernie Ball is a great company that makes products of exceptional quality and offers fantastic customer service (at least, that's my experience with EB/MM).
Glad to see that somebody out there is giving those bastards what they deserve. Fsck MS's strong-arm monopoly tactics!
Eventually, the same thing that has happened, largely, to HTML will happen to all other programming languages--which is to say that eventually all code will be machine written. We are rapdily reaching, and many of us would agree, I'm sure, that we have long since passed, the point where teams of human coders are efficient enough to maintain the vast expanses of code that comprise most modern applications and operating systems.
Young students today should not be studying programming--they should be studying Human-Computer Interface Design and other related subjects. Programming should come later, once the student has figured out *what* to program.
I find that the scariest thing about making felled seams on a Singer is that most Singers have really strong voices and tend to screech very loudly when you stick them with needles...
A better question is...
How many people do you think would bother building bombs if they were empowered enough to live free lives?
My bet is, a whole lot less than there are now--not that you'll ever reduce te number of crazy people, but there are currently a lot of people in the world with legitimate complaints against the current world order that have no "politically correct" means of expressing their position, usually because they lack recognized sovereignty, which only comes through demonstrable military and economic power.
The only lasting way to make war a less viable means of conflict resolution is to make it more expensive, economically, than peaceful means of conflict resolution.
Which, by the way, doesn't mean a communist distribution of resources, but a capitalist system (which provides personal incentive) balanced by socialist checks (which provides a negative feedback loop so that capitalism doesn't eat itself) enough so that every person gets a fair chance at profit/growth/success/freedom.
When a person has things to protect, he generally will spend less time thinking about ways to make his life more unsafe. But when a person has nothing to lose and everything to gain--you'd better watch your back!
Every review of the multitronic I've seen has the multitronic beating out the manual slightly...but hey, like so many other things, YMMV...
Umm, no, the multitronic is not slower. It's quicker than the manual transmission because you never uncouple to engine from the transmission to shift gears.
That would have had a whole lot more effect if you understood that Audi's multitronic CVT is actually quicker than the manual transmission version. It' s not an economy-oriented compromise in any way.
Of course, if you'd stopped running off your mouth to think about it for a second, you'd have realized that a CVT is quicker than a manual because it NEVER UNCOUPLES THE ENGINE from the output shaft, as you must when shifting a manual (even when you shift without (de)clutching, you still momentarily uncouple the transmission).
...until you *do* suck seed...
If anybody, RedHat included, is going to take a stab at unifying the look and feel of the mythical "Linux Desktop", they're going to need to put in a hell of a lot more effort than this.
While the screen shots I have seen so far of the Null desktop themes are a great improvement over previous attempts at a consistent UI for Linux, it would appear that this is Not Ready For Prime Time.
For Ghu's sake, people, pick up a friggin' copy of Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines! All the research has already been done! How much longer is it going to take for you to realize this?
I mean, really, throw me a bone here, people...
The number one thing holding Linux back from more widespread usage is the clunky UI implementations that are available. The people who are working on this stuff are smart enough that they should know when to bring in experts. I know nobody wants to turn over the care and feeding of their baby to someone else, but don't you think it's time that some *real* graphic designers/industrial designers got involved?
I'm sure at least some of you coders out there must know a decent designer or two, or even a bonafide HCI expert. If we could somehow lure a few good ones into working under a Free Software license to produce some artwork for this effort, we'd be going in the right direction.
Well, ranting aside, at least Null seems to have produced a decent font for the menus. IMO, this was one of the biggest problems.
You might be interested in knowing that, in most cases, his proposal of paying the artist at least 20% would be approximately a 100% increase over what labels are paying *now*.
a te goryID=0&ArticleID=25
Read, and learn...
http://www.indiecentre.com/info%5Carticle.cfm?C
Hah... I just pulled up this comment on my brand-spankin' new Kyocera 6035 (Palm OS 3.5/CDMA cell phone), so I just had to respond...
;), like the poor dead Newton used to. Ah, well, it'll just have to do.
The other day, I went to turn on my MP2100, only to discover that it wouldn't power up. Mainly, I've been carrying it around just to configure routers and such with a serial or telnet connection.
So just a couple of days ago, I was cruising the PC parts at the local CompUSA and BestBuy (ok, I was *really* bored that day), when I noticed that the price on the Kyocera had been dropped from the original $400 to $150. After a double and triple take, I drove over to the Sprint PCS store to see what they were asking for it. Sure enough, $150.
Now, I, being a Newton fanatic, haven't had much use for a Palm device, but after playing with the Kyocera on display in the Sprint PCS store for about an hour, and making a few test calls, it all began to make sense...Palm + Phone = Very Useful Device. Much more useful than any standalone Palm-based PDA I've seen yet.
So that night I hopped over to to check out the specs. Me liked. The next morning I heading over to the Sprint PCS store again with plastic to burn and got one.
Fortunately, I already know Graffiti, since it was originally a Newton product. Now if only this thing ran a *real* OS
BTW, the cheapest new Palm is $150, so getting one with a phone built-in is a steal. I even managed to score a real Kyocera car charger and real Palm Mac serial adapter off of the CompUSA clearance table for $10 each (saving about $40 in the process).
Oh yeah, this baby has *real* net access, I don't even need a external device to connect, I can connect to any ISP using PPP, and with Sprint's free long distance, I don't even have to reconfig my dial-in number while I'm on the road (Sprint also has a special number for "Wireless Web" customers that I can use, as well.).
I used to despise Palm's, but now, thanks to Kyocera, I'm hooked. The Handspring Treo looks nice, too, but pricey compared to the Kyocera.
The upgrade did come on a CD, but was made available for free at all Apple-authorized retailers. The Mac OS X package was upgraded to contain the full 10.1 installer at the same time.
However, that said, Apple still makes available for free GUI remote access administration software for every client. It has to be custom installed from the Mac OS 9 CD. I believe you do have to pay for the admin package.
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Obviously, you don't get out much. You also seem to have a problem understanding the English language.
There are indeed many, many large Macintosh environments out there. If you were a little more worldly, you would know this. They may be a little harder to find in the corporate world, but they still exist. In K-12 or higher education, you can't shake a stick without hitting a Mac.
"Comparative environments" denotes those environments where the number of users and/or machines is similar.
BTW, I'm not a "Mac zealot", as you seem to think. I am a professional consultant supporting Mac, UNIX, Windows, and other platforms. I recommend using the best tool for the job--in most cases, for most people, a Macintosh is that tool. It's about the total efficiency of the package, not just one piece of the system.
Open your eyes or go away, foolish troll.
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OH, that's rich..."Mac administration just doesn't scale."
That must be why in any large Macintosh environment you'll find far fewer administrators than in comparative Windows or Linux environments.
Pixar is not Apple, even if they are led by the same person.
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Trust me, I have no problem with learning, but my opinion is that if you have to even bother reading a man page to operate a program, then it's somewhat less than easy to use. You simply would sound idiotic trying to argue that using apt is as easy as using Software Update.
This is just typical of the Slashdot/Linux/Windows/What-have-you mentality that demands systems that cannot be operated by anyone other than those that spend countless hours poring over obscure documentation.
Not that I *don't* spend countless hours poring over obscure documentation, of course...but I don't need to do this to boost my ego.
You should really be a bit more objective about the qualities of user experience offered by the different OS's out there.
Obviously, you know very little about the Macintosh. You should learn a bit more before you go spouting off flames.
The software used to accomplish the clustering for AppleSeeds is Mac MPI, which is based upon the *standard* for parallel computing, MPI. The reason that the PDF doesn't talk about programming MPI is that there is no need for redundant documentation. Go find a book on MPI if you want to learn to prgram to that API.
And yes, I will get quite far telling you it's easier to upgrade Mac OS X to its latest version/. Thanks to Apple's Software Upgrade control panel program, this can all take place automatically according to any schedule you desire. Two clicks of a mouse is all it takes to set this up, as opposed to spending quite a lot of time figuring out how to use the incredubly arcane "apt". In fact, AFAIR, Software Update is now set to operate automatically by default.
Gee, I didn't realize that particle physics simulations involving millions of particles wasn't a *real* application...
The fact that your comment has been moderated up to four (so far) is simlply an empiric demonstration of the lack of knowledge of most Slashdot readers.
The problem with ideas like this is, as many others have pointed out, that storage of materials which will present a significant danger many thousands of years later is extremely difficult and costly to consider. Adding to the problem of storage of fissonable materiel as opposed to fission by-products is that a ready cache of such materiel would be *very* hard for human beings to resist using.
The only viable solution, as I see it, is to build a launch vehicle that would accelerate the fissionable mass to a velocity capable of embedding the materiel deep enough into the sun to effectively destroy it. Of course, if it doesn't go deep enough, it might just cause a solar flare that would simply blast a huge wave of highly radioactive particles right back at us along the solar winds. Hopefully, if this were to happen, the cloud would be sufficiently dispersed as to not pose too great a problem.
Perhaps deep space, or even a black hole, is a better answer; not that I want some possible civilisation to find us shooting a large batch of dangerous materiel at them, but the probability of its being found and used against us in anyway is likely less than the probability of its being used against us if we keep it on Earth. Building such a launch vehicle would of course be insanely expensive, but I believe the expense of keeping the stuff here is going to turn out to be far greater.
The MPC7400, aka the PowerPC "G4", supports the full 5-way MERSI cache coherency protocols.
Misses too much in the details? Do you have an example?
I don't have to do anything to get the Windows crowd to move to a different platform. Microsoft will do it if and when they feel it necessary. Windows users, as in everything else Microsoft, will have no choice but to follow, just as Mac users had no choice but to move to PPC.
I hope for the sake of sanity that Microsoft is as capable of handling the transition as Apple proved to be.
Umm...no., I didn't. I told him where the only source of current PPC motherboards is located, namely, Motorola. While their boards are, admittedly, expensive, they *will* work.
Buying a Power Mac to run Linux is only *one* option. Why would you assume that Apple would advertise a job for someone whose duties would include "making sure Linux runs on all Apple hardware platforms" if they intended to provide "iffy" support?
Hah, I *wish* I had *more* MOT... Nothing like another 52-week high to brighten one's day...
Sorry about the self-righteousness; I got a little annoyed. It seems like all anyone can do these days is blindly follow the crowd.
Isn't SSE otherwise known as MMX2? Isn't it just *more* instructions piled on top of the same core? AltiVec is an entirely separate processing unit, not a replacement for existing instructions. AltiVec (and the Power3 vector unit) provides more functionality without the trade-offs that Intel's schemes demand. If I'm wrong about SSE, I'd like to see documentation of it.
As far as 3DNow goes, I have little doubt that it will be an x86 marketplace failure if it's not supported by Intel. Remember all the complaining when Intel moved to Slot 1? Seems to have died down, doesn't it?
The point of the Xeon price comparison was to point out the extremely low price/performance ratio of the fastest Intel chips currently shipping. Anyone can make a chip faster by throwing lots of expensive cache at it, or reducing the die size. It's much, much harder to actually improve the architecture, something Intel hasn't done in nearly *five years*.
I didn't call AGP and faster RAM "hacks", I was using the term in a vastly different context, one referring to pundits of inferior technologies. I was pointing out that AGP and faster system RAM do not translate into proportional performance increases.
As a good example, many first- and second-generation PCI Power Macs, when upgraded with G3 processor cards are faster than the first-generation G3 systems, which have faster system busses; this is due to the superior architecture of the earlier machines. Unfortunately, the lower cost of the later machines was bought at the price of performance.
I'm not sure I understand the Athlon comparison, but if you look at the power consumption of those Alpha's you'll be shocked. If I threw that much electricity at *any* processor it would be whole truckloads faster.
Backwards compatibility? What for? Are you still running DOS 5.0? (Oh yeah, that's right...MS *still* requires DOS 5.0 for some stuff...) I'd rather have *forwards* compatibility, thank you very much.
I could care less who's "on top". I just hate hearing people bash a platform they don't know well. The original thread of this discussion was from a person seeking PPC components; comments to the effect that the seeking is a waste of time are not helpful.
If you examine the current state of RS/6000 and Power Macintosh machines, you'll find that much of the originally proposed design is there.
PReP and CHRP are not the same thing. IBM created PReP as a counter-offensive/alternative to CHRP. The two were somewhat reconciled in the revised CHRP, otherwise known as PPCP.
Perhaps you are correct that all three specs, as they originally stood, are dead, but that doesn't mean the idea of an open PPC platform is dead.