Because truth is something malleable. The higher up you look, the more malleable it becomes. Go all the way to the top and the concept of truth becomes so malleable as to lose all meaning.
You would not use Android to directly control the hardware, that is handled by native code running on Linux. Android does make it possible to create good-looking user interfaces with minimum effort and - like you said - good portability. Since Android runs on top of Linux you can have both at the same time.
Which smartphones even approach that level of battery life - even with minimal use?
I get 4 to 6 days of regular (for me - about 1.5 hours of screen time per day) use on a single charge. This is on a Motorola Defy+ running Jelly Bean. I'm in the process of tracing down some bugs which cause the battery to drain faster than it should, once found I'd expect the battery to hold for about a week.
The Defy is a smartphone. It runs Android, Gingerbread by default but ICS and Jelly Bean are also available. There is an initial port of the Mozilla OS for this phone. Being an Android phone, it also runs Debian (and Ubuntu and Fedora and Arch and many more) if so wanted. Using LXDE on the smallish (3.7" 854*480) screen is possible but rather futile. Of course you don't need to use X - just use the command line.
Python might be a pleasant language to work with, but where it still lacks is performance and memory management. In more mundane language it is a memory hog (not that JavaScript is much better in that respect).
To publish Linux-based programs (and Windows-based ones which run fine on Wine) you might want to have a look at x2go, a project based on NX. I've used it for a few years without problems over all sorts of networks. Clients are available for 'the big three' (Linux, Windows, OSX), the server runs on Linux. Performance is good over a wide range of networks, all the way down to GPRS/dial-up.
How about hooking up the fan to the bike? The faster you 'ride', the more you're cooled. Use a large-bladed fan, maybe one of those ceiling-mounted head choppers, and you'll have to ride pretty fast before sound becomes an issue...
Why? While it is certainly a good idea to get rid of the JVM plugin to whatever browser you happen to be using I don't see the need to remove the JVM itself. Yes, there are bugs there, I know. That is why I don't run just anything I find on the 'net. Just like I don't run just anything I find on the 'net on my Linux machines or Android phones/tablets.
Cycle to work. Anything up to ~20 km should be doable. If you can not cycle, try the combination of public transport and inline skates, I did that for years whenI lived 160 km from my job. Skate to station, take train(s) to work, skate from station to office (and through it to my desk:-). In general I tend to combine these things, no sports school or fitness needed that way...
because some start up paid Google to front their site
That is not the way Google works... and you actually know it isn't so why say it in the first place?
most of the sheep will simply use the sites willing to pay the blood money to Google
You are seriously starting to show your colours here...
You know what? If all what you say is true there is an easy way out. Just search for those things on Bing. Or Yahoo. Or DuckDuckGo. Or Baidu. Or any of the other search sites - there are plenty after all.
What? You get the same scam sites listed first there? Then surely those scammers have paid off Microsoft, Yahoo/Microsoft, those idealists behind the Duck site and even the Chinese government as well. Ghee, I never knew there was so much money to be made in selling Heirloom seeds...
Of course the *real* story here is that you came to this site with a mission. That mission was to spew garbage about Google. Someone paid you to do that, yes? Might that someone be connected to, say, that other search engine I mentioned? The one with the funny 4-letter name? Run by a company well-known for the shenanigans you accuse others off?
Just use 3D printing to produce injection molds, and use those molds to produce the parts. In this sense the evolution of manufacturing seems to follow the evolution of (book/newspaper) printing, from hand-set to Linotype to offset to laser. 3D-printed molds place manufacturing at the Linotype stage...
I'm fairly certain touch will become a stock feature on any display once the cost of adding it has become marginal. That does not mean it will be the only input source, or even the main input source. It does not need to be as long as it does not cost (much) more to have a touch-enabled screen - which it won't once the feature is embedded in the actual display panel/controller combination.
Somalia is what you end up with in the absence of a functional criminal justice system. It is there that lawyers do the 'good' work - apart from the sleezebags which get off clearly guilty crooks on technicalities of course. Civil justice on the other hand is where the real vermin amongst lawyers can be found. From ambulance chasers to patent troll scum, take your pick.
A society without a functional civil justice system would end up somewhat unbalanced, but it would be no Somalia. As to whether it would be preferable over the current situation is debatable - probably the excesses are still outweighed by the benefits.
A smaller inhibition to giving up privacy and/or a larger urge to 'belong'? I only registered here when they started penalizing anonymous posters, until that time I was happy to discuss shop without having to show any ID.
Did it occur to anyone to LIE about their personal information? Make up a paper man? Eliminate personal snooping as a barrier?
While that would work for a supermarket loyalty card, it is rather hard to do when you actually want to use the tickets you buy through them since the data on the tickets would not match that on your passport. As you know you have to show a passport (or similar ID token) before you board an airplane to ward off the evil terrorists. That this also happens to make it impossible to resell tickets is of course nothing but an 'unlucky' side-effect...
So, umm, what valid reason did these guys have then?
The same reason as many other religious fanatics. They just so happened to have replaced the usual god-image by that of Stalin. Or did you think that Soviet communism was a textbook example of an atheist society?
And, for the record, I've never seen a TSA agent on an Amtrak train or at an Amtrak station. Not saying they don't show up, more as a muscle flexing exercise and trial balloon, but is is extremely unusual. Pretty hard to hijack a train and take down a sky scraper with it.
That is not what terrorists do with trains. This is what they do with them, amongst other things. Fortunately for us Europeans there is no TSA here so we still can travel in freedom without the risk of being harassed by state-ordained goons - even though there are numbskulls out there who do things like the above.
Whenever I get hold of a new drive I run it first through the SMART conveyance test (which usually comes up clean) followed by an extended test. The latter has shown errors in a surprising number of drives, if I'd have to give a rough estimate I'd say around 5%. These are usually read errors, which usually can be 'fixed' by overwriting the sectors in question, but it generally forebodes problems with the drive later on. If a drive shows errors in any of these tests I RMA it. The replacement drive gets a similar treatment.
Imagine what they'd have found in my room back in the '80s... Chemicals of all sorts, the more boom the more fun after all... electronic components disassembled from old broken unrepairable stuff and sorted into categories, ready to be assembled in new things. This including 'scary' stuff like CTV line transformers etc. Half-repaired electronics. A charged tractor battery under the bed with some carbon rods (from old batteries) to be used in carbon arc light experiments. A functional pulse jet engine, scarily-looking, cobbled together with moped parts to be auto-starting. An air gun. An electric guitar made from more moped parts and some pay phone speakers for pick-ups. Need I go on?
And to think that I've never even had so much as a speeding ticket...
Of course I lived in the Netherlands, and it was 30 years ago...
Open source has won the battle for the server, but is in a losing battle for the client, with walled gardens springing up all over.
Android is the biggest mobile platform at the moment. It has eclipsed Microsoft in the number of installed systems. Although these typically are not traditional desktop/laptop PC installations, the market seems to be heading more in the direction of Android (and similar systems) than it does towards those 'traditional' PC configurations.
In other words, the biggest platform at the moment is open source. Never mind that are several closed markets which serve this platform, you are not bound to them.
A quick look around the farm here shows that the advent of Android has pushed the last stronghold of closed source - mobile - off the cliff. All our PC's, servers and laptops run Linux in some form or other. All our phones run Android in some form or other. All our tablets run Android in some form or other. There is a television in the house somewhere, served by a DVB-T receiver/decoder. The thing runs Linux. The DSL modem? Linux. The router? Linux (OpenWRT). There is only one remaining 'closed' box attached to the network here: the (HP Laserjet 2200) printer. Guess which of all these devices is the most troublesome?
In contrary to what you state, gaining software freedom has never been as easy as it is now. Even better: it looks like it will become easier still with the advent of open hardware.
There is no question: anyone who spends more than a few minutes/day reading will agree reading books on LCD is really tiring.
Says whom? I've been reading on LCD screens since I started using my original Nokia 'Taco' N-Gage as an ebook reader, and I've never - ever - felt tired from it. From the N-Gate I went to an HTC Prophet, from there to the current Motorola Defy. LCD screens all, not a tired moment, and many books have passed under my thumb. I use a tablet (Ainol Novo 8 with an 8" 1280x800 LCD screen) for reading more complex documents (PDF's etc), no problems there either.
My parents both have e-ink book readers. Nice things they are, sure, but since I tend to read in dark places I'd need a light. My phone has one built in... Also rather slow to update the screen, and less than ideal for paging through large volumes because of the way the screen updates.
Don't project your personal feelings/beliefs on other people. While you might not be able to read from backlit screens, others have no problems doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
Because truth is something malleable. The higher up you look, the more malleable it becomes. Go all the way to the top and the concept of truth becomes so malleable as to lose all meaning.
The first hit on 'polyetherketoneketone' on a well-known search engine reads as follows:
You would not use Android to directly control the hardware, that is handled by native code running on Linux. Android does make it possible to create good-looking user interfaces with minimum effort and - like you said - good portability. Since Android runs on top of Linux you can have both at the same time.
I get 4 to 6 days of regular (for me - about 1.5 hours of screen time per day) use on a single charge. This is on a Motorola Defy+ running Jelly Bean. I'm in the process of tracing down some bugs which cause the battery to drain faster than it should, once found I'd expect the battery to hold for about a week.
The Defy is a smartphone. It runs Android, Gingerbread by default but ICS and Jelly Bean are also available. There is an initial port of the Mozilla OS for this phone. Being an Android phone, it also runs Debian (and Ubuntu and Fedora and Arch and many more) if so wanted. Using LXDE on the smallish (3.7" 854*480) screen is possible but rather futile. Of course you don't need to use X - just use the command line.
I did not realise Facebook created an operating system.
It has one disadvantage: I have to click away a popup which asks me to use the new site, time and again...
Python might be a pleasant language to work with, but where it still lacks is performance and memory management. In more mundane language it is a memory hog (not that JavaScript is much better in that respect).
To publish Linux-based programs (and Windows-based ones which run fine on Wine) you might want to have a look at x2go, a project based on NX. I've used it for a few years without problems over all sorts of networks. Clients are available for 'the big three' (Linux, Windows, OSX), the server runs on Linux. Performance is good over a wide range of networks, all the way down to GPRS/dial-up.
If everyone had a gnu, this would not be a problem.
How about hooking up the fan to the bike? The faster you 'ride', the more you're cooled. Use a large-bladed fan, maybe one of those ceiling-mounted head choppers, and you'll have to ride pretty fast before sound becomes an issue...
Why? While it is certainly a good idea to get rid of the JVM plugin to whatever browser you happen to be using I don't see the need to remove the JVM itself. Yes, there are bugs there, I know. That is why I don't run just anything I find on the 'net. Just like I don't run just anything I find on the 'net on my Linux machines or Android phones/tablets.
Cycle to work. Anything up to ~20 km should be doable. If you can not cycle, try the combination of public transport and inline skates, I did that for years whenI lived 160 km from my job. Skate to station, take train(s) to work, skate from station to office (and through it to my desk :-). In general I tend to combine these things, no sports school or fitness needed that way...
Uh, nice try but no cigar.
A few things:
That is not the way Google works... and you actually know it isn't so why say it in the first place?
You are seriously starting to show your colours here...
You know what? If all what you say is true there is an easy way out. Just search for those things on Bing. Or Yahoo. Or DuckDuckGo. Or Baidu. Or any of the other search sites - there are plenty after all.
What? You get the same scam sites listed first there? Then surely those scammers have paid off Microsoft, Yahoo/Microsoft, those idealists behind the Duck site and even the Chinese government as well. Ghee, I never knew there was so much money to be made in selling Heirloom seeds...
Of course the *real* story here is that you came to this site with a mission. That mission was to spew garbage about Google. Someone paid you to do that, yes? Might that someone be connected to, say, that other search engine I mentioned? The one with the funny 4-letter name? Run by a company well-known for the shenanigans you accuse others off?
Just use 3D printing to produce injection molds, and use those molds to produce the parts. In this sense the evolution of manufacturing seems to follow the evolution of (book/newspaper) printing, from hand-set to Linotype to offset to laser. 3D-printed molds place manufacturing at the Linotype stage...
I'm fairly certain touch will become a stock feature on any display once the cost of adding it has become marginal. That does not mean it will be the only input source, or even the main input source. It does not need to be as long as it does not cost (much) more to have a touch-enabled screen - which it won't once the feature is embedded in the actual display panel/controller combination.
Somalia is what you end up with in the absence of a functional criminal justice system. It is there that lawyers do the 'good' work - apart from the sleezebags which get off clearly guilty crooks on technicalities of course. Civil justice on the other hand is where the real vermin amongst lawyers can be found. From ambulance chasers to patent troll scum, take your pick.
A society without a functional civil justice system would end up somewhat unbalanced, but it would be no Somalia. As to whether it would be preferable over the current situation is debatable - probably the excesses are still outweighed by the benefits.
A smaller inhibition to giving up privacy and/or a larger urge to 'belong'? I only registered here when they started penalizing anonymous posters, until that time I was happy to discuss shop without having to show any ID.
While that would work for a supermarket loyalty card, it is rather hard to do when you actually want to use the tickets you buy through them since the data on the tickets would not match that on your passport. As you know you have to show a passport (or similar ID token) before you board an airplane to ward off the evil terrorists. That this also happens to make it impossible to resell tickets is of course nothing but an 'unlucky' side-effect...
The same reason as many other religious fanatics. They just so happened to have replaced the usual god-image by that of Stalin. Or did you think that Soviet communism was a textbook example of an atheist society?
That is not what terrorists do with trains. This is what they do with them, amongst other things. Fortunately for us Europeans there is no TSA here so we still can travel in freedom without the risk of being harassed by state-ordained goons - even though there are numbskulls out there who do things like the above.
Homeless? No, not really. In social terms I'd compare a fabless ecosystem with a bachelor - wherever I lay my head, that's my home.
Whenever I get hold of a new drive I run it first through the SMART conveyance test (which usually comes up clean) followed by an extended test. The latter has shown errors in a surprising number of drives, if I'd have to give a rough estimate I'd say around 5%. These are usually read errors, which usually can be 'fixed' by overwriting the sectors in question, but it generally forebodes problems with the drive later on. If a drive shows errors in any of these tests I RMA it. The replacement drive gets a similar treatment.
Imagine what they'd have found in my room back in the '80s... Chemicals of all sorts, the more boom the more fun after all... electronic components disassembled from old broken unrepairable stuff and sorted into categories, ready to be assembled in new things. This including 'scary' stuff like CTV line transformers etc. Half-repaired electronics. A charged tractor battery under the bed with some carbon rods (from old batteries) to be used in carbon arc light experiments. A functional pulse jet engine, scarily-looking, cobbled together with moped parts to be auto-starting. An air gun. An electric guitar made from more moped parts and some pay phone speakers for pick-ups. Need I go on?
And to think that I've never even had so much as a speeding ticket...
Of course I lived in the Netherlands, and it was 30 years ago...
Android is the biggest mobile platform at the moment. It has eclipsed Microsoft in the number of installed systems. Although these typically are not traditional desktop/laptop PC installations, the market seems to be heading more in the direction of Android (and similar systems) than it does towards those 'traditional' PC configurations.
In other words, the biggest platform at the moment is open source. Never mind that are several closed markets which serve this platform, you are not bound to them.
A quick look around the farm here shows that the advent of Android has pushed the last stronghold of closed source - mobile - off the cliff. All our PC's, servers and laptops run Linux in some form or other. All our phones run Android in some form or other. All our tablets run Android in some form or other. There is a television in the house somewhere, served by a DVB-T receiver/decoder. The thing runs Linux. The DSL modem? Linux. The router? Linux (OpenWRT). There is only one remaining 'closed' box attached to the network here: the (HP Laserjet 2200) printer. Guess which of all these devices is the most troublesome?
In contrary to what you state, gaining software freedom has never been as easy as it is now. Even better: it looks like it will become easier still with the advent of open hardware.
Says whom? I've been reading on LCD screens since I started using my original Nokia 'Taco' N-Gage as an ebook reader, and I've never - ever - felt tired from it. From the N-Gate I went to an HTC Prophet, from there to the current Motorola Defy. LCD screens all, not a tired moment, and many books have passed under my thumb. I use a tablet (Ainol Novo 8 with an 8" 1280x800 LCD screen) for reading more complex documents (PDF's etc), no problems there either.
My parents both have e-ink book readers. Nice things they are, sure, but since I tend to read in dark places I'd need a light. My phone has one built in... Also rather slow to update the screen, and less than ideal for paging through large volumes because of the way the screen updates.
Don't project your personal feelings/beliefs on other people. While you might not be able to read from backlit screens, others have no problems doing so.