It's a nice machine and I use the Linux when I need it (rooted and drop to command prompt, etc). I just wish I could dump Linpus for Ubuntu, but the Ubuntu wiki implies lots of issues.
It's not so bad. I dumped Linpus for Ubuntu on my wifes netbook. I had only minor trouble getting her wireless running, and her sound problems disappeared after running the updates. She's loving it right now -- has no complaints.
Oh, if you want to run 9.10, I'd upgrade the ram -- 8.4 runs perfectly on 512mb but 9.10 demands a bit more on her machine. I tried 9.10 out with *my* 1gb stick (which I have sense stolen back) and it ran beautifully. Odd, as I have 9.10 running on an old Celeron 700mhz w/ 512mb without any speed problems.
I don't play many games -- it's just not my thing -- but I don't see anything in modern games that's very different from older games that ran just fine on older hardware.
I'll admit I'm VERY much out of the loop on games, try not to hold this against me:) The last FPS I played was Dark Forces 15 years ago. It was a Star Wars themed game that ran perfectly well on my 66mhz Aptiva with 32mb of ram. I don't see any reason that the modern equivalents are any more fun. Sure they look a bit fancier, but I don't see why you should need a $500 graphics card to play the latest version of what is essentially the same game you played a few years before.
With FPS games especially, I honestly don't see anything really new being offered. Different weapons and maps, different characters in the few ultra-thin storys. Nothing that makes them more "fun" or significantly different than their forebearers. There isn't any reason why these kinds of games won't run just fine on a netbook without all the graphical extras. Players might even enjoy not needing a $500 video card and the easy to achieve high frame rates on their modern but low/mid-range equipment.
Even with newer social type games like those MMORPGS (muds with a gui, I say) The only one I ever played (on that same 66mhz aptiva) was Ultima Online which ran fine. A quick look at wikipedia tells me that "world of warcraft" system specs aren't out-of-line with the average netbook, which should handle the game just fine. I don't know much about it, but I'm willing bet the only reason it needs hardware as modern as they recommend is for the graphics. I'd guess you get get away with even lower specs if you stripped out some of the extras -- and without seriously affecting the experience.
So, I think I agree with you. Oh, for a CD-ROM alternative, while away from your desk, you might consider a program called MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD -- I have a few disks I use regularly stored as ISOs which I access with that program.
I can't believe I am the only person in the world who does not need a fast machine.
Well, you're very much not alone -- though I'd guess that your netbook IS a fast machine. I'd say it's likely faster than the average 5-year old computer.
I don't know about you, but my computing needs haven't changed much, if at all, in the last 10 years -- and my netbook would certainly be considered a high-end computer 10 years ago (hell, you couldn't buy a computer with specs that high in 2000!). Even 5 years ago it would be considered a top model. Hell, my netbook has better specs than my old laptop from 2006.
I found this old post on google answers from October 2004 -- what an average computer ought to be:
Recommended Specifications for software developed today can be anything from 1.4 Ghz, 256 mb DDR, 128mb 3D Card (Directx Compatible.), 16x + CD-Rom.
Check it out: Specs from 2004 It really puts the power of your netbook in perspective -- October 2004 wasn't very long ago at all. How have your computing needs changed in that time?
While I agree that the netbook as it is now will change and evolve, there is now a proven niche for low-mid cost devices that can do basic computer tasks
This is what I don't understand. 10 years ago, the low-end netbooks of today would have been considered unimaginably powerful machines. 1.6ghz processor, which you couldn't buy back then at any price, 1gb of ram (WOW!) 160gb of disk space!
What are we doing differently *now* than we were 10 years ago? Youtube? Just a band-width issue. Social networking? That's well within the capabilities of the web in 2000 -- even a good number of years before than that. Video editing? That's been well within the reach of the home user for more than a decade.
For the average business user, the changes have been even less exciting. They do the exact same tasks as before, with no significant improvement. Email, word processing, and spreadsheets haven't changed -- Small businesses still use Quicken and similar programs for the same kinds of tasks they've always used it for (with no notable advantages in the new versions). The only reason most business upgrade seems to be file format compatibility and upgrades to industry specific software.
Outside of playing modern video games (Who really buys a portable computer for that? Buy a damn nintendo or whatever it is you play games on nowadays. It'll probably be cheaper than the latest graphics card anyhow.) What qualifies as a NON-basic computer task? What does a netbook NOT do that a regular laptop can?
I have a netbook for travel. It's nothing special as far as netbooks go, but I find myself using it more and more when I'm not traveling. I haven't had any of the problems with flash or other video like some of the other posters have suggested (neither does my wife, who watches lots of videos on her netbook) It took me about two weeks to get used to the smaller keyboard and the tiny touchpad (which I hated at first, but it feels natural now) When I need a larger display, it takes seconds to plug in to a normal monitor -- or pop in a usb keyboard/mouse (which I've haven't felt the need to do for some time).
Really, I haven't found any task that it isn't suited to (well, blackberry media manager refuses to run if I don't have it plugged in to a larger screen, but that's BB's fault for making stupid assumptions about their users. It's also the only problem I've ever had.) I haven't been crying out for more power or speed -- it "feels" faster than my vista computer. (My wife runs linux on her netbook and never touches her vista laptop! While it's a newer and more powerful machine, she says it's just too slow for her.)
I keep hearing how netbooks are only good for "simple" or casual computing tasks. I just don't see any reason that this true.
My wife doesn't have any performance problems with Flash -- and she's running Linux on her old AspireOne netbook (it only has 512mb of ram) running Ubuntu 8.4
Flash games and Flash video run fine. In fact, they run better than they do on her newer and more powerful Vista laptop.
It's fun to denigrate Flash, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons to do so, but it's performance on netbooks and Linux doesn't seem to be one of them.
What on earth are you talking about? You may want to go back and review your Piaget.
Trust me, kids can handle programming well before the formal operations period -- which, btw, starts at about 12 years. Check out some of the research carried out by Hatfield & Kieren for some early work and Papert for a more modern take.
The Logo language in particular has been used in classrooms as early as kindergarten. The language's highly interactive nature makes it well suited for students of virtually any age. (Granted, I wouldn't call the logo exercises you'd have a 5-year-old perform programming.) It's worth noting here that evidence for advance planning (which increased over time) was observed in first graders writing simple logo programs.
You know, there is just too much research on the subject to even try to mention here. I've said enough to give you a start. Go do some reading, you'll be glad that you did!
My Co-workers Are 9000 Miles Away! How to Succeed on a Distributed Team
Doing Business with the Government of Canada
Women in Technology: Special Challenges & Common Ground
Inbox Zero: The Art of Email
Zero to Blogger in One Hour
Email and Blogging? Completely useless. Your attendees are supposed to be IT professionals for goodness sake! Just look at the description for the blogging session:
In this session, Brent Ozar will spend 5-10 minutes showing you why it's important to blog, and then focus on the mechanics of building a blog. By the end of the session, you'll know exactly how to get started blogging and avoid many common pitfalls.
I think IT professions can handle setting up a blog. Even if you only attract the least competent people, why is the session only 5 to 10 minutes? What value could this possible have?
The Women in Technology session comes out of nowhere.
Why your conference sucks: You're trying to be everything to everybody, thinking that this will somehow attract more people. All it's accomplished is to create an unfocused and completely useless conference.
Not that you'll read this -- your goal was to get free advertising on Slashdot. Congratulations.
how many times have you gotten some letter forwarded to half the planet that you spend 30 min reading "LoL' and "OMG" till you finally see the photo of a donkey wearing a rain coat
This has happened to me exactly zero times.
I know for my company i answer nearly 100 emails a day, with no sign of it stopping.
You know, you don't need to reply 'LoL' or 'OMG' to every email forward. No one will be offended, promise!
(an & and * should never be in a language... pressing shift takes time)
If the time it takes to press the shift key makes an appreciable difference in development time, you're either unimaginable good, or terrifyingly poor.
If you are going to make that sort of claim, you are going to need to define what you mean by dualism, since bears little resemblance to the classical meaning of the term.
This is why I think you need to learn a bit more about the problem. Dualism in it's many forms (as they apply to philosophy of mind) are well defined. It isn't necessary that I redefine dualism for you, only that you learn a bit more about it.
As for Penrose -- Again, I think you may want to actually read his books instead of just about them on some blog. You should also re-read my last post -- where you realize that I was only interested in his arguments against the mind being a product of a classical system. (The arguments he makes are not his own, but they're well written and in support of John Searle.) Yes, I agree that his quantum brain ideas are rubbish, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the present discussion.
While I'm on the subject of Penrose, you claim that "but much of his work has serious problems" You don't know much about Penrose! He's the worlds most respected (living) mathematician and the worlds top mathematical physicist. He's also not the first well-respected scientist to drop the ball (and suffer serious criticism) when discussing consciousness. (Francis Crick, for embarrassed himself with the mess that was "The astonishing hypothesis")
Property dualism has no difficulty accommodating the fact that brain injury and drugs affect personality. Though I doubt you'd consider it dualism:)
I think what your arguing in your most recent post is some kind of "dualism of the gaps" (for lack of a better term, correct me if I misunderstand you). I really think this stems from a poor understanding of the problem. And it is an impressively hard problem!
Now, I won't argue in favor of dualism any more than I'd argue in favor of naturalism or materialism. I will say that the problems dualism suffers are no worse (and possibly easier to solve) than the problems that naturalism (and other similar theories) suffer.
The whole point of my original post was to say "Stop. You've made an unfair judgment based on some really big assumptions that you may not have known you'd made." Folks reading your post may get the impression that we can say, with a high degree of certainty, that the mind is a product of our brain. Granted, it's a VERY easy assumption to make (it certainly feels like the most rational position.) The reality, unfortunately, is that we simply cannot make this assumption! Check out John Searle and Roger Penrose. They both do a very through job of tearing down the idea that the mind can be a product of the classical brain (which, interestingly enough, modern science says it must be.)
Slashdot Mirror
I've got the same combination on my luggage!
It's a nice machine and I use the Linux when I need it (rooted and drop to command prompt, etc). I just wish I could dump Linpus for Ubuntu, but the Ubuntu wiki implies lots of issues.
It's not so bad. I dumped Linpus for Ubuntu on my wifes netbook. I had only minor trouble getting her wireless running, and her sound problems disappeared after running the updates. She's loving it right now -- has no complaints.
Oh, if you want to run 9.10, I'd upgrade the ram -- 8.4 runs perfectly on 512mb but 9.10 demands a bit more on her machine. I tried 9.10 out with *my* 1gb stick (which I have sense stolen back) and it ran beautifully. Odd, as I have 9.10 running on an old Celeron 700mhz w/ 512mb without any speed problems.
I don't play many games -- it's just not my thing -- but I don't see anything in modern games that's very different from older games that ran just fine on older hardware.
I'll admit I'm VERY much out of the loop on games, try not to hold this against me :) The last FPS I played was Dark Forces 15 years ago. It was a Star Wars themed game that ran perfectly well on my 66mhz Aptiva with 32mb of ram. I don't see any reason that the modern equivalents are any more fun. Sure they look a bit fancier, but I don't see why you should need a $500 graphics card to play the latest version of what is essentially the same game you played a few years before.
With FPS games especially, I honestly don't see anything really new being offered. Different weapons and maps, different characters in the few ultra-thin storys. Nothing that makes them more "fun" or significantly different than their forebearers. There isn't any reason why these kinds of games won't run just fine on a netbook without all the graphical extras. Players might even enjoy not needing a $500 video card and the easy to achieve high frame rates on their modern but low/mid-range equipment.
Even with newer social type games like those MMORPGS (muds with a gui, I say) The only one I ever played (on that same 66mhz aptiva) was Ultima Online which ran fine. A quick look at wikipedia tells me that "world of warcraft" system specs aren't out-of-line with the average netbook, which should handle the game just fine. I don't know much about it, but I'm willing bet the only reason it needs hardware as modern as they recommend is for the graphics. I'd guess you get get away with even lower specs if you stripped out some of the extras -- and without seriously affecting the experience.
So, I think I agree with you. Oh, for a CD-ROM alternative, while away from your desk, you might consider a program called MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD -- I have a few disks I use regularly stored as ISOs which I access with that program.
I can't believe I am the only person in the world who does not need a fast machine.
Well, you're very much not alone -- though I'd guess that your netbook IS a fast machine. I'd say it's likely faster than the average 5-year old computer.
I don't know about you, but my computing needs haven't changed much, if at all, in the last 10 years -- and my netbook would certainly be considered a high-end computer 10 years ago (hell, you couldn't buy a computer with specs that high in 2000!). Even 5 years ago it would be considered a top model. Hell, my netbook has better specs than my old laptop from 2006.
I found this old post on google answers from October 2004 -- what an average computer ought to be:
Recommended Specifications for software developed today can be
anything from 1.4 Ghz, 256 mb DDR, 128mb 3D Card (Directx
Compatible.), 16x + CD-Rom.
Check it out: Specs from 2004 It really puts the power of your netbook in perspective -- October 2004 wasn't very long ago at all. How have your computing needs changed in that time?
While I agree that the netbook as it is now will change and evolve, there is now a proven niche for low-mid cost devices that can do basic computer tasks
This is what I don't understand. 10 years ago, the low-end netbooks of today would have been considered unimaginably powerful machines. 1.6ghz processor, which you couldn't buy back then at any price, 1gb of ram (WOW!) 160gb of disk space!
What are we doing differently *now* than we were 10 years ago? Youtube? Just a band-width issue. Social networking? That's well within the capabilities of the web in 2000 -- even a good number of years before than that. Video editing? That's been well within the reach of the home user for more than a decade.
For the average business user, the changes have been even less exciting. They do the exact same tasks as before, with no significant improvement. Email, word processing, and spreadsheets haven't changed -- Small businesses still use Quicken and similar programs for the same kinds of tasks they've always used it for (with no notable advantages in the new versions). The only reason most business upgrade seems to be file format compatibility and upgrades to industry specific software.
Outside of playing modern video games (Who really buys a portable computer for that? Buy a damn nintendo or whatever it is you play games on nowadays. It'll probably be cheaper than the latest graphics card anyhow.) What qualifies as a NON-basic computer task? What does a netbook NOT do that a regular laptop can?
I have a netbook for travel. It's nothing special as far as netbooks go, but I find myself using it more and more when I'm not traveling. I haven't had any of the problems with flash or other video like some of the other posters have suggested (neither does my wife, who watches lots of videos on her netbook) It took me about two weeks to get used to the smaller keyboard and the tiny touchpad (which I hated at first, but it feels natural now) When I need a larger display, it takes seconds to plug in to a normal monitor -- or pop in a usb keyboard/mouse (which I've haven't felt the need to do for some time).
Really, I haven't found any task that it isn't suited to (well, blackberry media manager refuses to run if I don't have it plugged in to a larger screen, but that's BB's fault for making stupid assumptions about their users. It's also the only problem I've ever had.) I haven't been crying out for more power or speed -- it "feels" faster than my vista computer. (My wife runs linux on her netbook and never touches her vista laptop! While it's a newer and more powerful machine, she says it's just too slow for her.)
I keep hearing how netbooks are only good for "simple" or casual computing tasks. I just don't see any reason that this true.
My wife doesn't have any performance problems with Flash -- and she's running Linux on her old AspireOne netbook (it only has 512mb of ram) running Ubuntu 8.4
Flash games and Flash video run fine. In fact, they run better than they do on her newer and more powerful Vista laptop.
It's fun to denigrate Flash, and there are plenty of legitimate reasons to do so, but it's performance on netbooks and Linux doesn't seem to be one of them.
What on earth are you talking about? You may want to go back and review your Piaget.
Trust me, kids can handle programming well before the formal operations period -- which, btw, starts at about 12 years. Check out some of the research carried out by Hatfield & Kieren for some early work and Papert for a more modern take.
The Logo language in particular has been used in classrooms as early as kindergarten. The language's highly interactive nature makes it well suited for students of virtually any age. (Granted, I wouldn't call the logo exercises you'd have a 5-year-old perform programming.) It's worth noting here that evidence for advance planning (which increased over time) was observed in first graders writing simple logo programs.
You know, there is just too much research on the subject to even try to mention here. I've said enough to give you a start. Go do some reading, you'll be glad that you did!
Only on Slashdot would someone seriously recommend owl poop and partially digested rodents as an appropriate gift for an 8-year-old.
I hate to break the news to you, but actions have consequences.
Get over yourself and take responsibility for the choices you made.
Just checked out your conference sessions http://www.worktamer.com/conference_sessions.cfm it looks awful. Just awful.
Email and Blogging? Completely useless. Your attendees are supposed to be IT professionals for goodness sake! Just look at the description for the blogging session:
In this session, Brent Ozar will spend 5-10 minutes showing you why it's important to blog, and then focus on the mechanics of building a blog. By the end of the session, you'll know exactly how to get started blogging and avoid many common pitfalls.
I think IT professions can handle setting up a blog. Even if you only attract the least competent people, why is the session only 5 to 10 minutes? What value could this possible have?
The Women in Technology session comes out of nowhere.
Why your conference sucks: You're trying to be everything to everybody, thinking that this will somehow attract more people. All it's accomplished is to create an unfocused and completely useless conference.
Not that you'll read this -- your goal was to get free advertising on Slashdot. Congratulations.
Looks like someone failed computer science 101.
Here's a novel idea: She could try paying for music. (A radical idea, I know.)
You can buy DRM free MP3s from Amazon.com -- Yes, it works with linux.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html
Find what you want on youtube, then go buy it. (Isn't this what all the pro-pirates claim they do anyhow?)
If you're too poor to afford the 89 cents, you could have her dig through some indie music instead.
Wow! Someone found a way to explain this very simple concept without using an unnecessarily complicated analogy involving cars.
Bravo
Is this a Windows 7 troll?
XP's calculator gets the answers right as well.
So does the generic calculator on Ubuntu 8.04, Office XP's version of Excel, and OOo 3's Calc.
I have no Idea. As far as I can tell, the googles do nothing.
Humour. Try it.
My Token Ring fell into the Ethernet.
how many times have you gotten some letter forwarded to half the planet that you spend 30 min reading "LoL' and "OMG" till you finally see the photo of a donkey wearing a rain coat
This has happened to me exactly zero times.
I know for my company i answer nearly 100 emails a day, with no sign of it stopping.
You know, you don't need to reply 'LoL' or 'OMG' to every email forward. No one will be offended, promise!
[quote]You'll never hear from me again.[/quote]
That'll show 'em. They'll rue the day they sold your name and address!
First off, it's been said that people only use 10% of their actual brain power.
This is False.
So 1 billion neurons probably isn't far off from what we would use anyway.
Considering that we use all of our brain, I'd say that 4.5% is pretty far off.
How much greater would the reported growth be without losses due to piracy?
I'm guessing it would be something like 3 billion percent.
This article may be of interest to you
(an & and * should never be in a language... pressing shift takes time)
If the time it takes to press the shift key makes an appreciable difference in development time, you're either unimaginable good, or terrifyingly poor.
There is no middle ground here...
This is exactly what I've been looking for: Something else to do while I'm sitting alone in the dark.
If you are going to make that sort of claim, you are going to need to define what you mean by dualism, since bears little resemblance to the classical meaning of the term.
This is why I think you need to learn a bit more about the problem. Dualism in it's many forms (as they apply to philosophy of mind) are well defined. It isn't necessary that I redefine dualism for you, only that you learn a bit more about it.
As for Penrose -- Again, I think you may want to actually read his books instead of just about them on some blog. You should also re-read my last post -- where you realize that I was only interested in his arguments against the mind being a product of a classical system. (The arguments he makes are not his own, but they're well written and in support of John Searle.) Yes, I agree that his quantum brain ideas are rubbish, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the present discussion.
While I'm on the subject of Penrose, you claim that "but much of his work has serious problems" You don't know much about Penrose! He's the worlds most respected (living) mathematician and the worlds top mathematical physicist. He's also not the first well-respected scientist to drop the ball (and suffer serious criticism) when discussing consciousness. (Francis Crick, for embarrassed himself with the mess that was "The astonishing hypothesis")
There is much still to learn.
Property dualism has no difficulty accommodating the fact that brain injury and drugs affect personality. Though I doubt you'd consider it dualism :)
I think what your arguing in your most recent post is some kind of "dualism of the gaps" (for lack of a better term, correct me if I misunderstand you). I really think this stems from a poor understanding of the problem. And it is an impressively hard problem!
Now, I won't argue in favor of dualism any more than I'd argue in favor of naturalism or materialism. I will say that the problems dualism suffers are no worse (and possibly easier to solve) than the problems that naturalism (and other similar theories) suffer.
The whole point of my original post was to say "Stop. You've made an unfair judgment based on some really big assumptions that you may not have known you'd made." Folks reading your post may get the impression that we can say, with a high degree of certainty, that the mind is a product of our brain. Granted, it's a VERY easy assumption to make (it certainly feels like the most rational position.) The reality, unfortunately, is that we simply cannot make this assumption! Check out John Searle and Roger Penrose. They both do a very through job of tearing down the idea that the mind can be a product of the classical brain (which, interestingly enough, modern science says it must be.)