I find laptops absolutely essential for college. The problem with desktops at school is that you end up working where you sleep. I find it incredibly useful to have one place to work, one place to sleep, and the rest of town to enjoy myself. One coffee shop I frequent (I mean 6 times a week, for several hours at a time), is filled with fellow students just working on their laptops or books & papers. I really can't work nearly as efficiently when my computer's in the same place I relax or sleep -- I've tried!
And for every ten folks that has a laptop, maybe one brings them to class. The ones that do it for solitaire would be unlikely to pay attention in class even if there was no laptop. OTOH, I've got friends that swear to using tablet PCs as notetaking devices.
Because MS's "tool" is actually just a rotting scrotum, flopping mercilessly at those nails, only getting damaged in the process.
Seriously. If the market was empty and all three OSs suddenly came on at the same time, would anyone bother with windows? The only good thing about windows is its user base.
There are a variety of Linux GUIs that don't suck. All of them are great, if you know how to use a computer. You can't drive a car without training; why should a computer be different?
Wow. Just wow. I'm ashamed to ever have used Linux. If our developers and/or users really think with their heads this far up their asses, the platform is dead.
Sorry, I didn't mean to make this personal, but you stated, quite succinctly, one of the core fallacies with the Linux on Desktop argument. It's easy to use if you know how to use it.
Software should be making lives easier and simpler. I've been programming for 18 years and just got into a PhD program in CS, and I still can't reliably get a wifi card to behave under Linux.
And I leave myself open to all kinds of "See! you're too stupid to use computers!" attacks, as they only prove my point.
It's funny how you can always tell the OS a person uses by their mouse-prefs.
Linux: the mouse is only good for click, drag, and select/copy. Users believe the mouse is a useless add-on. On Linux, I agree.
Windows: good for getting those right-click menus. Also the only way to do things that don't have obvious keyboard shortcuts - preference dialogs, toolbar buttons, etc.
Mac: Drag and drop everywhere. Bind the middle button to Expose. Eventually you just keep your hands in the Quake position: left hand on the kb, right on the mouse. You know, a GUI.
Unlike Sony and Nintendo, MS doesn't control the parts in its box - MS isn't in the semiconductor business. The design is exactly the same as the original (unlike, say, the 1-chip PS2 that's currently sold), and the vendors have little motivation to lower prices on those parts. Money's still lost with every unit sold, even though some part prices have gone down.
The PS2 started making profit on each unit sold a few years ago. The GameCube was always sold at a profit.
Before we go down the dual booting line, remember that VMWare/VPC would now be running at native speeds on these boxes. Why dual boot when you can virtualize? And more than a few expert windows users only run windows in virtualization (with a stripped-down version of windows natively on the box, just to run vmware/vpc).
the drawings were JPEGs on a CD. A single CD. And there is such a thing as building popular interest in science. That has a long-term scientific benefit from more researchers down the line.
While I spent much time in Emacs and VI in my younger years, I really can't imagine going back to them. BBEdit and my Logitech MX1000 are just too wonderful together to ever go back.
A mouse is very useful in a text editor that was originally designed to use it. And, of course, the mx1000 kicks all kinds of ridiculous ass.
Earlier posts on/. from folks living in Bangalore priced apartments at 1200 rupees, and dining costs similar to NY, only in rupees, not in $$.
I believe that the index looks at pure-equivalent level of living, instead of class-equivalent. The difference being the comparison of the cost of a honda civic vs the cost of a midrange car. The midrange car used by most folks would cost lots less than the civic.
Costs of living, etc., in India have a similar scale factor to the exchange rate. Despite the textbook definition, the exchange rate indicates a lot more than costs of currency conversion.
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I find laptops absolutely essential for college. The problem with desktops at school is that you end up working where you sleep. I find it incredibly useful to have one place to work, one place to sleep, and the rest of town to enjoy myself. One coffee shop I frequent (I mean 6 times a week, for several hours at a time), is filled with fellow students just working on their laptops or books & papers. I really can't work nearly as efficiently when my computer's in the same place I relax or sleep -- I've tried!
And for every ten folks that has a laptop, maybe one brings them to class. The ones that do it for solitaire would be unlikely to pay attention in class even if there was no laptop. OTOH, I've got friends that swear to using tablet PCs as notetaking devices.
Clearly SpeakEasy and Earthlink don't know how to properly bribe officials to keep themselves in business. It's their own fault, really.
Because MS's "tool" is actually just a rotting scrotum, flopping mercilessly at those nails, only getting damaged in the process.
Seriously. If the market was empty and all three OSs suddenly came on at the same time, would anyone bother with windows? The only good thing about windows is its user base.
Dude, you make me wish I didn't spend all of last week trolling, killing my chances of mod points this week.
Wait until we see the super-secret cheat code that unlocks the 'S&M' room in Bully.
Um, who would be developing it? NASA's been busy with the shuttle. Anyone else doing R&D on space travel?
Here here. Copying bad copies of 25-year old systems isn't the way we should be aiming for.
Wow. Just wow. I'm ashamed to ever have used Linux. If our developers and/or users really think with their heads this far up their asses, the platform is dead.
Sorry, I didn't mean to make this personal, but you stated, quite succinctly, one of the core fallacies with the Linux on Desktop argument. It's easy to use if you know how to use it.
Software should be making lives easier and simpler. I've been programming for 18 years and just got into a PhD program in CS, and I still can't reliably get a wifi card to behave under Linux.
And I leave myself open to all kinds of "See! you're too stupid to use computers!" attacks, as they only prove my point.
I agree. And they're often available on the left side, leaving the right for the mouse :-)
It's funny how you can always tell the OS a person uses by their mouse-prefs.
Linux: the mouse is only good for click, drag, and select/copy. Users believe the mouse is a useless add-on. On Linux, I agree.
Windows: good for getting those right-click menus. Also the only way to do things that don't have obvious keyboard shortcuts - preference dialogs, toolbar buttons, etc.
Mac: Drag and drop everywhere. Bind the middle button to Expose. Eventually you just keep your hands in the Quake position: left hand on the kb, right on the mouse. You know, a GUI.
DARPA provides money to the 20.
Unlike Sony and Nintendo, MS doesn't control the parts in its box - MS isn't in the semiconductor business. The design is exactly the same as the original (unlike, say, the 1-chip PS2 that's currently sold), and the vendors have little motivation to lower prices on those parts. Money's still lost with every unit sold, even though some part prices have gone down.
The PS2 started making profit on each unit sold a few years ago. The GameCube was always sold at a profit.
Losing 1 billion in the first year of a console's introduction is nothing. MS Still loses more than that every year on the XBox.
Hadn't even thought of that. I'm a console person :-)
Before we go down the dual booting line, remember that VMWare/VPC would now be running at native speeds on these boxes. Why dual boot when you can virtualize? And more than a few expert windows users only run windows in virtualization (with a stripped-down version of windows natively on the box, just to run vmware/vpc).
the drawings were JPEGs on a CD. A single CD. And there is such a thing as building popular interest in science. That has a long-term scientific benefit from more researchers down the line.
While I spent much time in Emacs and VI in my younger years, I really can't imagine going back to them. BBEdit and my Logitech MX1000 are just too wonderful together to ever go back.
A mouse is very useful in a text editor that was originally designed to use it. And, of course, the mx1000 kicks all kinds of ridiculous ass.
Ssshhhhh!! Don't give them any ideas!
Earlier posts on /. from folks living in Bangalore priced apartments at 1200 rupees, and dining costs similar to NY, only in rupees, not in $$.
I believe that the index looks at pure-equivalent level of living, instead of class-equivalent. The difference being the comparison of the cost of a honda civic vs the cost of a midrange car. The midrange car used by most folks would cost lots less than the civic.
Costs of living, etc., in India have a similar scale factor to the exchange rate. Despite the textbook definition, the exchange rate indicates a lot more than costs of currency conversion.
The current exchange rate is 43.5 to 1. They won't be outsourcing back anytime soon.
...confused...slashdot...racism...
How much you wanna bet that they're doing this temporarily to prevent a _massive_ akamai bill from all those windows users downloading qt 7?
Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903.
See http://www.twainquotes.com/Copyright.html
And if one of these does kill someone? A whole family? A busload of children? Nuns?