Even if Sony never breaks even with the PS3 itself, they still come out ahead if the PS3 establishes Blu-Ray as the winning HD format.
I finally had a chance to play a PS3 and, of the three (Wii/360/PS3), it's definitely the nicest in my opinion. I'll get one once the price comes down to $400. I'm hoping that with the capacity of the Blu-Ray, they'll start releasing anthologies of PS2 titles (similar to what they did with megaman and sonic).
I think they use air as the heat sink (with fins and all for more contact with the air). The hot side is more than 1400 degrees, so even if the cold side has a steady state of 400 degrees they've got a 1000 degree differential to drive the engine.
Whatever the details are, we know that these things work since they've had demo units at one of the national laboratories for something like twenty years. The question is whether they're economical.
I certainly fall into this category. I ordered the dell 1420n last week not because I like Ubuntu (which I don't, really), but because I'm confident that I can get everything working on it with a minimum of fuss when I wipe it and install Gentoo.
I'm optimistic that if Dell has success selling the Ubuntu pre-installed machines, that hardware makers will feel more pressure to make certain that their hardware is linux friendly.
Even if the max thermal power is high, there might still be energy savings if the idle power consumption is low and/or if the processor can do more computing per Watt than the CPU it's displacing.
The point is that I can make as many local commits as I need to while developing before I push any changes to another repository. When I'm finally ready to push my changes upstream, I can preserve as much of my local commit history as I want to. This way I can have very high resolution commit histories while I'm developing something, but give others more human readable commit histories in the upstream repository.
I realize that in the grand scheme of things, it's a minor point. But, as I said before, it's convenient.
But then I can't make commits to the code unless my laptop is on the same network as the server. No working from home unless VPN is up (which I have little control over). No working outside. No working when out of town.
No matter where I put the repository, there will be some scenario where I can't make a commit when I'd like to.
If I'm primarily developing code on my laptop, but need to make changes to a test machine, then I'd have to fire up my laptop in order to commit those changes from the test machine if I'm using SVN. With git, I commit those changes locally on the test machine and then, at my leisure, merge the test machine code into the primary code base.
I've never used git on any project big enough to have multiple developers, but I use git for my one-man-projects for the simple fact that it's so easy to create a repository.
Simply move the directory you're working in and type 'git init' and you're off and running. If you're developing the same code on multiple machines, it's simple to develop on them independently and still sync relevant changes. Frustrating.
With SVN, you have to set up a central repository (not difficult, but tedious) and if you're working with the code on multiple machines that aren't always on the same network you either have to have a SVN repository on each one and manage syncing them somehow, or one machine can't make commits when the other isn't on the network. Frustrating.
I still find git to be a little confusing (especially in regards to warnings seen when pushing or pulling changes from one repository to another and merging branches), but I've decided that even if git isn't the best answer, a distributed version control system is closer to the Right Thing than the old way of doing it (for my purposes, at least).
OpenBSD is my favorite platform for purpose-built machines. I do appreciate the security, but the main reason I like it is for the quality documentation (especially the man pages!) and the ease of setup.
The majority of my machines run Gentoo, but Gentoo can't really by used as a fire-and-forget platform like OBSD can be.
The computing world is bigger than the desktop market.
In fact, the desktop market is the only computing market where Linux isn't a major player. Linux is well established in every other market I can think of (servers, mainframe, supercomputing, embedded, etc).
If "Linux on Servers" had been your benchmark, you would have recognized the threat to MS several years ago. Everybody else did.
1. I can buy a laptop without having to cross my fingers and hope that the latest hardware revision will still be Linux friendly by the time my order is processed.
2. Hardware manufactures who aren't Linux friendly will have to become Linux friendly or risk getting cut out of the market segment. This gives kernel developers more leverage with the manufacturers when it comes to getting hardware specs.
I'm glad to hear that someone is having a good experience with the 1420n 'cuz I'm about to get one myself. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a slashdot article when the 1420n was introduced (of course, I could have just missed it).
Slashdot Mirror
Even if Sony never breaks even with the PS3 itself, they still come out ahead if the PS3 establishes Blu-Ray as the winning HD format.
I finally had a chance to play a PS3 and, of the three (Wii/360/PS3), it's definitely the nicest in my opinion. I'll get one once the price comes down to $400. I'm hoping that with the capacity of the Blu-Ray, they'll start releasing anthologies of PS2 titles (similar to what they did with megaman and sonic).
Except over a very narrow frequency range, microwaves, even in high concentration, are harmless.
What do you think your cell phone transmits when it's right by your head?
I think they use air as the heat sink (with fins and all for more contact with the air). The hot side is more than 1400 degrees, so even if the cold side has a steady state of 400 degrees they've got a 1000 degree differential to drive the engine.
Whatever the details are, we know that these things work since they've had demo units at one of the national laboratories for something like twenty years. The question is whether they're economical.
Out of curiosity, what distributions are popular in Latin America?
I certainly fall into this category. I ordered the dell 1420n last week not because I like Ubuntu (which I don't, really), but because I'm confident that I can get everything working on it with a minimum of fuss when I wipe it and install Gentoo.
I'm optimistic that if Dell has success selling the Ubuntu pre-installed machines, that hardware makers will feel more pressure to make certain that their hardware is linux friendly.
A previous slashdot article claimed that the development units were sold out due to unexpected demand.
Anyone have any idea how many development units were made? That would at least give us a lower limit on the demand for such a device.
Somewhere on the order of 1 million erase-write cycles per bit. That should be more than enough even for swapping purposes.
Even if the max thermal power is high, there might still be energy savings if the idle power consumption is low and/or if the processor can do more computing per Watt than the CPU it's displacing.
The point is that I can make as many local commits as I need to while developing before I push any changes to another repository. When I'm finally ready to push my changes upstream, I can preserve as much of my local commit history as I want to. This way I can have very high resolution commit histories while I'm developing something, but give others more human readable commit histories in the upstream repository.
I realize that in the grand scheme of things, it's a minor point. But, as I said before, it's convenient.
But then I can't make commits to the code unless my laptop is on the same network as the server. No working from home unless VPN is up (which I have little control over). No working outside. No working when out of town.
No matter where I put the repository, there will be some scenario where I can't make a commit when I'd like to.
If I'm primarily developing code on my laptop, but need to make changes to a test machine, then I'd have to fire up my laptop in order to commit those changes from the test machine if I'm using SVN. With git, I commit those changes locally on the test machine and then, at my leisure, merge the test machine code into the primary code base.
I find it very convenient to work this way. YMMV.
Oops. Please disregard the first occurance of the world 'Frustrating' in the previous post.
I've never used git on any project big enough to have multiple developers, but I use git for my one-man-projects for the simple fact that it's so easy to create a repository.
Simply move the directory you're working in and type 'git init' and you're off and running. If you're developing the same code on multiple machines, it's simple to develop on them independently and still sync relevant changes. Frustrating.
With SVN, you have to set up a central repository (not difficult, but tedious) and if you're working with the code on multiple machines that aren't always on the same network you either have to have a SVN repository on each one and manage syncing them somehow, or one machine can't make commits when the other isn't on the network. Frustrating.
I still find git to be a little confusing (especially in regards to warnings seen when pushing or pulling changes from one repository to another and merging branches), but I've decided that even if git isn't the best answer, a distributed version control system is closer to the Right Thing than the old way of doing it (for my purposes, at least).
Haha - hope you don't plan on running games :)
Nethack owns me.
How would Microsoft have standing to sue? Does MS own the copyright on any kernel code?
Is that merely speculation or is there some way to confirm that?
That sounds familiar...what's it from?
Funny, I didn't think that SCO's stock was ever optionable. Was SCOX above $5 long enough for them to make an option market for it?
OpenBSD is my favorite platform for purpose-built machines. I do appreciate the security, but the main reason I like it is for the quality documentation (especially the man pages!) and the ease of setup.
The majority of my machines run Gentoo, but Gentoo can't really by used as a fire-and-forget platform like OBSD can be.
The computing world is bigger than the desktop market.
In fact, the desktop market is the only computing market where Linux isn't a major player. Linux is well established in every other market I can think of (servers, mainframe, supercomputing, embedded, etc).
If "Linux on Servers" had been your benchmark, you would have recognized the threat to MS several years ago. Everybody else did.
Near as I can tell, there's only one Linux kernel.
How does that dilute the trademark?
Out of curiosity, which Intel wifi chipset are you talking about?
There are 2 main benefits from my point of view:
1. I can buy a laptop without having to cross my fingers and hope that the latest hardware revision will still be Linux friendly by the time my order is processed.
2. Hardware manufactures who aren't Linux friendly will have to become Linux friendly or risk getting cut out of the market segment. This gives kernel developers more leverage with the manufacturers when it comes to getting hardware specs.
I'm glad to hear that someone is having a good experience with the 1420n 'cuz I'm about to get one myself. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a slashdot article when the 1420n was introduced (of course, I could have just missed it).
Mod parent up! He's spot on!
This is exactly why I find this news so exciting. Now if only HP would get in the game.