I agree with many of the points mentioned in this article, but I think that the author didn't bother to closely examine some of the newest innovations that try to get around some of these problems.
The main example I would use is saving and opening files in MacOS X. The author mentions the file dialog sheets as, "this interface has always been awkward to use, because it's not consistent with the file manager". He goes on to say that opening and saving files should be done through the file manager, but that cruft interferes.
This is not true at all. Pretty much every document can be opened and saved through drag-and-drop from the file manager (the Finder). Not only that, but in MacOS X the standard file dialogs are nearly duplicates of a Finder window type called a "column view". You navigate in these file dialogs just as you would in a Finder "column view". You can even create new folders in the file system in these dialogs in order to better organize your documents.
MacOS Classic works around that problem by using a V shaped buffer zone. If you move your mouseto the right within a certain angle, the submenudoesn't change. MS used an inferior workaround. Submenus open witha delay, and you have to select them slowly or theywon't open at all...Sadly enough, menus in MacOS X now work like the ones in Windows.
Not true at all. Submenus in MacOS X work just the same as they do in MacOS classic. You can approach them at up to a 45 degree angle and you will not lose the submenu. There is planned delay in this action, the only delay occurs when the submenu needs to be loaded or created dynamically such as the case of a listing of available services or open windows.
OSX is a memory hog - even worse that XP. So if you are running it with less that 3/4 of a Gig of memory, invest in the memory. I think you'll change your opinion on speed then.
While I agree that more memory helps MacOS X out, I still think you are overstating the case a bit. I've found that 128 megs is slow, but it works. 256 is much better and is what I'd consider minimal. Above 256 megs you start getting diminishing returns. At 512 megs you are pretty much going to be as quick as it gets, if you don't use a half dozen memory-hogging programs at once.
My parents have a 350 mHz G3, 320 meg RAM iMac and it chugs along just fine for their needs. It doesn't feel slow for web browsing, iTunes, word processing, etc. I have a dual-533 G4, 640 meg RAM PowerMac and I have never seem anything run slow, with the exception of some of the most demanding 3D games. The games run just fine under normal settings, but I can't crank the settings without dropping the framerate too much.
I must ask though why these rather generic OSX discussions keep coming up on Slashdot. They seem more appropriate for some forum rather than "news for geeks."
Hmm, why is it not suited to be "news for geeks"? It is based off of NeXT, a geeky company. It has an easily accessible UNIX-like command line environment. Significant parts of it are open-source. It stands apart from the ordinary, hum-drum, blue collar business world. It is new and cutting edge. I mean, should we talk all day about one operating system, on one platform, using one cpu, etc? No, it's definitely more fun to discuss a half dozen operating systems, running in all sorts of hardware and programmed in a myriad of ways. MacOS X is one of the many things that we talk about on Slashdot and I think that this place is much more interesting for it being here!
Re:Most immediate space challenge? Riiight....
on
Beaming into Space
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I always thought that the likelihood of an asteroid hitting Earth was low, at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing
Yes, it is rare. Yes, we should worry about other, more common problems. The only thing is that with our other problems, even if they become epidemic, they are not likely to ever wipe out the entire human race. One big collision with an asteroid, however unlikely, can easily end the human race (along with many other types of life on this planet).
Even though a calamity such as a large impact is extremely unlikely on the scale of our lifetimes it is almost inevitable over the course of thousands or millions of years. Another big collision could happen tomorrow and there would be nothing we could do to stop it. I for one won't feel totally safe until we have a decent amount of our planet's life on another planet or space station.
Sure let's keep improving as a race and continue our efforts to make life better on Earth, but let's not forget the fact that we really are living on borrowed time until we can deflect those threats from space which could destroy us in a flash.
I can honestly say that the PC in equivelent applications (like Photoshop 7 on Mac or Photoshop 7 on PC, or Acrobat 5.0.5 on PC or Acrobat 5.0.5 on Mac) that my Dell is easily 25-40% quicker on most complex operations in OS 9 or OS X.
Well, it's probably subjective but I've seen the opposite in many instances. From what I've seen a single processor G4 Mac is approximately equal to a 50% faster P4 Windows machine, for most common tasks. This can vary with certain activities but overall it seems to be true. So a 1 gHx G4 seems to perform similarly to a 1.5 gHz P4.
Like go into proxy config and enter a address and a port - whoa - notice something - in 10.1.x it won't let you type in the port until you hit lock type in the password, hit unlock type in the password again - then you can type in a port.
I've never seen or heard of this issue before. Do you have a root account set up? Are you set up as an administrator? Maybe something is misconfigured somewhere, try the Apple Discussion boards to see if anyone else has had the same problem.
type "man tar" from the command line - how the heck do you navigate around the man page?
The default pager for the "man" program is a program called "more". To find out how to navigate using the "more" command, type "man more" into the terminal (don't use any quotes) and hit enter. Basically you hit the space bar when you are done reading a page and it will advance to the next page. MacOS X 10.2 has an updated set of terminal utilities, with a "more" program that allows you to move forward and backward within a file by hitting "f" to move forward 1 screen or "b" to go back 1 screen.
All the anecdotal "I can watch 3 dvds back to back on my mac!" evidence doesn't matter when you are comparing a little iBook to a 2ghz Dell latitude with a 17" monitor.
The difference is that I'm not doing that sort of comparison. I'm comparing Apple's top-of-the-line Titanium Powerbook to anyone else's top laptop, including a 2gHz Dell Latitude with a 15" display (they don't make one with a 17" display). The laptops may have slightly different design purposes, but they aren't that different. Each one is designed to have as many features as possible but still to be able to be toted around and used anywhere it is needed.
Yes, some pc-clones laptops are not designed to have long battery life, but what's the point of a laptop that needs to be charged every 30 minutes? A laptop is supposed to free you of the need for being pinned down in one location, not for the need to always be near a power outlet.
Now, I'm not sure of the battery life on the Dell machine, but what I am sure of is that the Powerbook gets 4 or 5 hours run time per charged battery. This is not anecdotal evidence, it is highly repeatable and can be seen in every Titanium Powerbook out there. Combine this with all of the features contained in such a compact, durable, and beautiful form-factor and you may be able to see why I use a Powerbook. If you have another laptop which suits your needs that is fine, but if that laptop only lasts half an hour then I'm sure you will find it tough to use it wherever and whenever you want.
many consumer and high performance pc laptops couldn't care less. Some of these will have battery life's 30 minutes. When compared with similiar laptops the Apple battery life isn't anytihng to write home about.
Well, considering that my Apple Titanium PowerBook gets 4 to 5 hours of use consistently out of a full battery, I would say that's something to write home about. There is quite a difference between having 4 hours of use and having 30 minutes of use.
The great thing is that even with high-drain activities, such as viewing a DVD, you regularly get 2.5 hours of battery time. I'd love to see a similar high-end non-Apple laptop do that. There might be one or two other laptops out there that can do that with only a single stock battery, but I'm sure that they are rare.
I somewhat remember a diatribe about this from Office Space
And I remember a similar plot used in Superman III, where Richard Pryor's character steals the partial cents from his employer. I think that they even mention Superman III in the movie Office Space.
You'll have to excuse me, I was shooting from the hip and didn't realize that I had made a mistake in my original discussion.
I originally said, "When you bend metal you tend to form more grains in it, due to the movement breaking up existing grains and splitting them into smaller pieces. The increase in grains causes the metal to weaken, even if it is a small amount every time."
This is not exactly true, it had been a while since I studied metallurgy and I didn't have any reference texts to consult. To clarify, the reason the metal weakens is not that the number of grains is increasing and making the material more ductile (easily bendable), but that the dislocations (areas of stress in the metal matrix) and impurities are getting moved to the edge of the grains and are collecting together. This means that less of the metal has flaws distorting its structure and is therefore harder. Since it is harder it is now less flexible and more brittle. This causes micro cracks to form during the bending. Eventually these cracks lengthen and the metal fails.
Work hardening occurs when the metal is plasticly deformed. These deformations cause impurities and other strains to gather together and less distort the structure of the metal. Since more of the metal is ordered, it is harder than it was originally.
One thing you should know is that metallurgy is very complex. There are many factors which enter into the equation, such as grain size, alloys, impurities, many different phases (crystal structures) of the metal, etc. Often simply how the metal is composed, heated, cooled, worked can vastly change its properties.
Here are some sites to study more about metallurgy:
metals have the interesting property that if you leave them long enough after bending, they will `heal'
IAAC (I Am A Chemist), so I know a bit about material science. Here's basically how it works.
Most metals exist in more than one form of crystal matrix. These different types of crystals exist in almost every chunk of metal you find. You will usually end up with a small area of one form of crystal (with all atoms lined up in the same direction) which is surrounded by another form of crystal. These small areas are called grains. The smaller these grains are, the more easily the metal bends, due to the fact that the atoms on the edge of a grain do not bond well to the atoms outside the grain.
When you bend metal you tend to form more grains in it, due to the movement breaking up existing grains and splitting them into smaller pieces. The increase in grains causes the metal to weaken, even if it is a small amount every time. If the metal is allowed to "relax" for a period of time, there is the chance that two extremely close and aligned grains will convert the atoms between them into their crystaline form. This reduces the amount of grains and re-stiffens the material. This re-conversion is very slow under normal temperatures and pressures and thus is a minor effect.
You can increase the grain size and lower the number of grains by heating the metal at a certain temperature for a period of time. If you then quickly cool the metal (quench it in water, for example) you will end up with a harder material (but more brittle). This is how blades are made that hold an edge and stay sharp, the harder the blade is the better it will hold an edge. However, if you make the blade too hard then it will not bend at all and it will be brittle.
metals have an interesting characteristic, in that there is a certain amount of bending that can be done without damaging the crystal, in which case you can keep bending it back and forth forever.
Not exactly true. It is true that the bending process is non-linear. This means that a metal can be bent to a certain amount without changing greatly, but if bent more than that amount it goes through significant changes. What it doesn't mean is that no changes will take place whatsoever.
The problem is that each time the metal is bent it does still go though some changes on a microscopic level. If you only bend it X% then it will last for a long time, but that doesn't mean it will last forever. You will still get changes in the atomic matrix (migration of the atoms, the atomic structure changing from one form to another, micro-fractures, introduction of foreign materials) at the points of stress, enough so that eventually the metal will break at those points.
Yep, the USA set up speakers and blasted Noriega when he was being removed from power in Panama. We played all sorts of music by Guns N' Roses, The Birthday Party, Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth, the Rolling Stones and many more. However, there was one song they did not play which would have been perfect.
Sigh, I reviewed this before posting and still missed an error. My third sentence should have read:
In order for a solid to be a Platonic solid, it needs to be convex and have all its vertices (corners) to have the same number, size
, and shape of regular polyhedrons touching them.
Just to clarify, all of the faces on the solid need to be the exact same regular polyhedron.
John Greschak probably should do a bit more research on the subject of "Platonic Dice". What he is referring to are the Platonic solids.
In order for a solid to be a Platonic solid, it needs to be convex and have all its vertices (corners) to have the same number and size of regular polyhedrons touching them. For example, a cube is a Platonic solid because all of the vertices have 4 of the same size squares touching. There are only 5 Platonic solids possible: the Tetrahedron (4 sides), the Hexahedron (cube, 6 sides), Octahedron (8 sides), Dodecahedron (12 sides), Icosahedron (20 sides).
There is also a class of related solids called Archimedian solids where the solids are convex, all vertices are identical, all faces are regular polygons, but not all of the faces are identical to each other.
Heh, my bad. I was certain that all of the TiBook models had Airport standard. I even looked in the documentation on Apple.com, but where I didn't look was directly at the lower model in the Apple Store. Once I did that I saw that you were perfectly right. Oh well, it's good to be humbled once in a while!:)
I managed to get the use of a 800mHx TiBook from work. What a sweet machine. I haven't turned that baby off for weeks, I just keep on working on it, closing it, recharging it, opening it and working. It starts up in seconds (around 5, maybe less) and it is ready to go, airport and all. Just beautiful...
Darwin is the most ho-hum part of OS X, because all of its Unix-like functionality is reproduced in other kernels (BSD, Linux, etc). The interesting parts are the GUI and the APIs that let it run Mac-specific software. These are all proprietary.
Actually there are many other intresting elements to Darwin, which are being given back to the community in open-source form. Several of the more notable contributions are Rendevous (Zeroconf), Open Directory, the Darwin Streaming Server, OpenPlay, and the Objective-C extensions to GCC.
In other words, Apple is taking a big step here and embracing open-source about as much as you can expect a big corporation to do. Sure they don't give away the whole farm, but they are promoting an environment which is at least friendly to open-source even if it isn't 100% open.
Actually the TiBook has 802.11b built in also, it's called Airport by Apple.
All-in-all, both laptops are very similar in features and price. What tips it towards Apple for me is MacOS X and Apple's great industrial design in its hardware. MacOS X is a perfectly Unix-like system overlaid with a great GUI. It includes tons of free, polished utility programs like iMovie, iTunes, Sherlock, iDVD, iChat, iCal, iSync, iPhoto, and Apple's own mail program - called Mail surprisingly enough. This is before you even start the figure in all of the open-source goodness which works on MacOS X, often with a quick compile at most.
The TiBook is a solid machine. It is light, thin, small but not tiny. It stands up to a ton of abuse and keeps on kicking. Almost every detail of the laptop is perfectly designed. I'm not sure how the BestBuy machine stands up in the durability and mechanical function department, but I do know that it would be very tough to beat Apple's Titanium Powerbook there.
It has nothing to do with math skills, it's to do with English language usage, and that changes all the time.
OK, so English skills are deteriorating also!:)
Actually, I do a lot of tutoring for k-12 students as well as running an education program for a local Boys & Girls Club. I have spoken to many educators and they are pretty much all worried about the decreasing skills of our youth. I know that languages change over time, but many youth are not able to communicate effectively and have severe reading problems. These problems seem to be going much deeper than a simple change in language and they also seem to be manifesting in other disciplines.
It's not the end of the world yet, but something does need to be done now in order to guarantee that the younger generations are able to cope in "the real world". (And not just on that vapid MTV show either...)
Today's off-topic discussion is brought to you by the number 5 and the letter E...
Please explain how something can be 20x quieter...how does this math work?
It doesn't. Something can't be 20 times less than something else. You can either have something which is 1/20 as quiet as something else or something which is 20 times LOUDER than something else. It is complete nonsense to talk about something being 20 times less or 20 times quieter.
This is a common mistake which people make, you can see it all the time even in professional settings. You will often see people saying stuff like, "This will be three times less costly than other solutions." It's a sad state of affairs but I think that math skills are seriously deteriorating.
I hope the 7 K-12 teachers that can afford an Apple enjoy the upgrade.
Actually, Apple offers educators pretty decent discounts on all of Apple's hardware and software. For example, the lowest price Macintosh for educators is a iMac G3 for $750. The lowest price Mac for non-educators is an eMac for $1099. The same eMac for educators is $999, almost a 10% discount.
The eMacs offer Firewire, USB, ethernet, a 17" flat screen monitor, nice speakers, a compact form factor, and they are very durable. Sure if you buy some no-name, do-it-yourself pc you can get a computer cheaper, but these prices are pretty good for a pre-built, quality machine. On top of all of this you get MacOS X, tons of great free software such as iTunes and iMovie, and the ability to run almost any software written for Linux or other Unix-like operating systems. Not a bad deal at all.
Actually, I've been pricing entry level laptops for my company, and imagine my surprise when I found the iBook cheaper than the competition.
The iBooks and Powerbooks are really doing a good job on winning people over to Macintosh. When you do an honest comparison of them to the offerings from other manufacturers you usually find out that they are fairly price-competitive. The main reason for this is that Apple packs in so many standard features that the other manufacturers tend to leave out such as built-in 802.11, DVD/CD-RW, s-video out, etc. Sure you can get these features in other laptops, but they will cost you and you won't get them in as compact of a form factor as the Mac laptops.
Once you combine this with the cool form factors, the ease-of-use, the friendly Unix-like goodness of MacOS X, and the overall stability of the Macintosh platform, you will see that many people are deciding that a Mac laptop is a nice buy. Now I'm sure that other manufacturers have similarly decent offerings, but Apple is certainly to be praised for being among those in the front of the pack.
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I agree with many of the points mentioned in this article, but I think that the author didn't bother to closely examine some of the newest innovations that try to get around some of these problems.
The main example I would use is saving and opening files in MacOS X. The author mentions the file dialog sheets as, "this interface has always been awkward to use, because it's not consistent with the file manager". He goes on to say that opening and saving files should be done through the file manager, but that cruft interferes.
This is not true at all. Pretty much every document can be opened and saved through drag-and-drop from the file manager (the Finder). Not only that, but in MacOS X the standard file dialogs are nearly duplicates of a Finder window type called a "column view". You navigate in these file dialogs just as you would in a Finder "column view". You can even create new folders in the file system in these dialogs in order to better organize your documents.
Not true at all. Submenus in MacOS X work just the same as they do in MacOS classic. You can approach them at up to a 45 degree angle and you will not lose the submenu. There is planned delay in this action, the only delay occurs when the submenu needs to be loaded or created dynamically such as the case of a listing of available services or open windows.
While I agree that more memory helps MacOS X out, I still think you are overstating the case a bit. I've found that 128 megs is slow, but it works. 256 is much better and is what I'd consider minimal. Above 256 megs you start getting diminishing returns. At 512 megs you are pretty much going to be as quick as it gets, if you don't use a half dozen memory-hogging programs at once.
My parents have a 350 mHz G3, 320 meg RAM iMac and it chugs along just fine for their needs. It doesn't feel slow for web browsing, iTunes, word processing, etc. I have a dual-533 G4, 640 meg RAM PowerMac and I have never seem anything run slow, with the exception of some of the most demanding 3D games. The games run just fine under normal settings, but I can't crank the settings without dropping the framerate too much.
Hmm, why is it not suited to be "news for geeks"? It is based off of NeXT, a geeky company. It has an easily accessible UNIX-like command line environment. Significant parts of it are open-source. It stands apart from the ordinary, hum-drum, blue collar business world. It is new and cutting edge. I mean, should we talk all day about one operating system, on one platform, using one cpu, etc? No, it's definitely more fun to discuss a half dozen operating systems, running in all sorts of hardware and programmed in a myriad of ways. MacOS X is one of the many things that we talk about on Slashdot and I think that this place is much more interesting for it being here!
Yes, it is rare. Yes, we should worry about other, more common problems. The only thing is that with our other problems, even if they become epidemic, they are not likely to ever wipe out the entire human race. One big collision with an asteroid, however unlikely, can easily end the human race (along with many other types of life on this planet).
Even though a calamity such as a large impact is extremely unlikely on the scale of our lifetimes it is almost inevitable over the course of thousands or millions of years. Another big collision could happen tomorrow and there would be nothing we could do to stop it. I for one won't feel totally safe until we have a decent amount of our planet's life on another planet or space station.
Sure let's keep improving as a race and continue our efforts to make life better on Earth, but let's not forget the fact that we really are living on borrowed time until we can deflect those threats from space which could destroy us in a flash.
Well, it's probably subjective but I've seen the opposite in many instances. From what I've seen a single processor G4 Mac is approximately equal to a 50% faster P4 Windows machine, for most common tasks. This can vary with certain activities but overall it seems to be true. So a 1 gHx G4 seems to perform similarly to a 1.5 gHz P4.
I've never seen or heard of this issue before. Do you have a root account set up? Are you set up as an administrator? Maybe something is misconfigured somewhere, try the Apple Discussion boards to see if anyone else has had the same problem.
The default pager for the "man" program is a program called "more". To find out how to navigate using the "more" command, type "man more" into the terminal (don't use any quotes) and hit enter. Basically you hit the space bar when you are done reading a page and it will advance to the next page. MacOS X 10.2 has an updated set of terminal utilities, with a "more" program that allows you to move forward and backward within a file by hitting "f" to move forward 1 screen or "b" to go back 1 screen.
The difference is that I'm not doing that sort of comparison. I'm comparing Apple's top-of-the-line Titanium Powerbook to anyone else's top laptop, including a 2gHz Dell Latitude with a 15" display (they don't make one with a 17" display). The laptops may have slightly different design purposes, but they aren't that different. Each one is designed to have as many features as possible but still to be able to be toted around and used anywhere it is needed.
Yes, some pc-clones laptops are not designed to have long battery life, but what's the point of a laptop that needs to be charged every 30 minutes? A laptop is supposed to free you of the need for being pinned down in one location, not for the need to always be near a power outlet.
Now, I'm not sure of the battery life on the Dell machine, but what I am sure of is that the Powerbook gets 4 or 5 hours run time per charged battery. This is not anecdotal evidence, it is highly repeatable and can be seen in every Titanium Powerbook out there. Combine this with all of the features contained in such a compact, durable, and beautiful form-factor and you may be able to see why I use a Powerbook. If you have another laptop which suits your needs that is fine, but if that laptop only lasts half an hour then I'm sure you will find it tough to use it wherever and whenever you want.
Well, considering that my Apple Titanium PowerBook gets 4 to 5 hours of use consistently out of a full battery, I would say that's something to write home about. There is quite a difference between having 4 hours of use and having 30 minutes of use.
The great thing is that even with high-drain activities, such as viewing a DVD, you regularly get 2.5 hours of battery time. I'd love to see a similar high-end non-Apple laptop do that. There might be one or two other laptops out there that can do that with only a single stock battery, but I'm sure that they are rare.
You'll have to excuse me, I was shooting from the hip and didn't realize that I had made a mistake in my original discussion.
I originally said, "When you bend metal you tend to form more grains in it, due to the movement breaking up existing grains and splitting them into smaller pieces. The increase in grains causes the metal to weaken, even if it is a small amount every time."
This is not exactly true, it had been a while since I studied metallurgy and I didn't have any reference texts to consult. To clarify, the reason the metal weakens is not that the number of grains is increasing and making the material more ductile (easily bendable), but that the dislocations (areas of stress in the metal matrix) and impurities are getting moved to the edge of the grains and are collecting together. This means that less of the metal has flaws distorting its structure and is therefore harder. Since it is harder it is now less flexible and more brittle. This causes micro cracks to form during the bending. Eventually these cracks lengthen and the metal fails.
Work hardening occurs when the metal is plasticly deformed. These deformations cause impurities and other strains to gather together and less distort the structure of the metal. Since more of the metal is ordered, it is harder than it was originally.
One thing you should know is that metallurgy is very complex. There are many factors which enter into the equation, such as grain size, alloys, impurities, many different phases (crystal structures) of the metal, etc. Often simply how the metal is composed, heated, cooled, worked can vastly change its properties.
Here are some sites to study more about metallurgy:
PLANT MATERIAL PROBLEMS - a site on metal failure
Metallurgical Terms Made Simple - a site on the basics of steel metallurgy
The Metallurgy Of Carbon Steel - a more in-depth analysis of steel metallurgy
Most metals exist in more than one form of crystal matrix. These different types of crystals exist in almost every chunk of metal you find. You will usually end up with a small area of one form of crystal (with all atoms lined up in the same direction) which is surrounded by another form of crystal. These small areas are called grains. The smaller these grains are, the more easily the metal bends, due to the fact that the atoms on the edge of a grain do not bond well to the atoms outside the grain.
When you bend metal you tend to form more grains in it, due to the movement breaking up existing grains and splitting them into smaller pieces. The increase in grains causes the metal to weaken, even if it is a small amount every time. If the metal is allowed to "relax" for a period of time, there is the chance that two extremely close and aligned grains will convert the atoms between them into their crystaline form. This reduces the amount of grains and re-stiffens the material. This re-conversion is very slow under normal temperatures and pressures and thus is a minor effect.
You can increase the grain size and lower the number of grains by heating the metal at a certain temperature for a period of time. If you then quickly cool the metal (quench it in water, for example) you will end up with a harder material (but more brittle). This is how blades are made that hold an edge and stay sharp, the harder the blade is the better it will hold an edge. However, if you make the blade too hard then it will not bend at all and it will be brittle.
Yeah, I know the processor they used was an Athelon. However, just imagine how hot a Pentium gets if an Athelon can cook an egg!
The problem is that each time the metal is bent it does still go though some changes on a microscopic level. If you only bend it X% then it will last for a long time, but that doesn't mean it will last forever. You will still get changes in the atomic matrix (migration of the atoms, the atomic structure changing from one form to another, micro-fractures, introduction of foreign materials) at the points of stress, enough so that eventually the metal will break at those points.
Yep, the USA set up speakers and blasted Noriega when he was being removed from power in Panama. We played all sorts of music by Guns N' Roses, The Birthday Party, Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth, the Rolling Stones and many more. However, there was one song they did not play which would have been perfect.
:)
That song is "Panama", by Van Halen.
What an opportunity wasted!
Sigh, I reviewed this before posting and still missed an error. My third sentence should have read:
Just to clarify, all of the faces on the solid need to be the exact same regular polyhedron.John Greschak probably should do a bit more research on the subject of "Platonic Dice". What he is referring to are the Platonic solids.
In order for a solid to be a Platonic solid, it needs to be convex and have all its vertices (corners) to have the same number and size of regular polyhedrons touching them. For example, a cube is a Platonic solid because all of the vertices have 4 of the same size squares touching. There are only 5 Platonic solids possible: the Tetrahedron (4 sides), the Hexahedron (cube, 6 sides), Octahedron (8 sides), Dodecahedron (12 sides), Icosahedron (20 sides).
There is also a class of related solids called Archimedian solids where the solids are convex, all vertices are identical, all faces are regular polygons, but not all of the faces are identical to each other.
Heh, my bad. I was certain that all of the TiBook models had Airport standard. I even looked in the documentation on Apple.com, but where I didn't look was directly at the lower model in the Apple Store. Once I did that I saw that you were perfectly right. Oh well, it's good to be humbled once in a while! :)
I managed to get the use of a 800mHx TiBook from work. What a sweet machine. I haven't turned that baby off for weeks, I just keep on working on it, closing it, recharging it, opening it and working. It starts up in seconds (around 5, maybe less) and it is ready to go, airport and all. Just beautiful...
In other words, Apple is taking a big step here and embracing open-source about as much as you can expect a big corporation to do. Sure they don't give away the whole farm, but they are promoting an environment which is at least friendly to open-source even if it isn't 100% open.
All-in-all, both laptops are very similar in features and price. What tips it towards Apple for me is MacOS X and Apple's great industrial design in its hardware. MacOS X is a perfectly Unix-like system overlaid with a great GUI. It includes tons of free, polished utility programs like iMovie, iTunes, Sherlock, iDVD, iChat, iCal, iSync, iPhoto, and Apple's own mail program - called Mail surprisingly enough. This is before you even start the figure in all of the open-source goodness which works on MacOS X, often with a quick compile at most.
The TiBook is a solid machine. It is light, thin, small but not tiny. It stands up to a ton of abuse and keeps on kicking. Almost every detail of the laptop is perfectly designed. I'm not sure how the BestBuy machine stands up in the durability and mechanical function department, but I do know that it would be very tough to beat Apple's Titanium Powerbook there.
L1 is about 5/6 of the way to the moon, along a direct line from the earth to the moon.
L2 is opposite the L1, over the far side of the moon from the earth.
L3 is close to the moon's orbit around the earth, but on the opposite side of the earth from the moon.
L4 and L5 are also in the orbit of the moon around the earth, but one is 60 degrees ahead of the moon in its orbit and the other is 60 degrees behind.
You can find more information at this web site and there is even more detailed information to be found here
Actually, I do a lot of tutoring for k-12 students as well as running an education program for a local Boys & Girls Club. I have spoken to many educators and they are pretty much all worried about the decreasing skills of our youth. I know that languages change over time, but many youth are not able to communicate effectively and have severe reading problems. These problems seem to be going much deeper than a simple change in language and they also seem to be manifesting in other disciplines.
It's not the end of the world yet, but something does need to be done now in order to guarantee that the younger generations are able to cope in "the real world". (And not just on that vapid MTV show either...)
Today's off-topic discussion is brought to you by the number 5 and the letter E...
This is a common mistake which people make, you can see it all the time even in professional settings. You will often see people saying stuff like, "This will be three times less costly than other solutions." It's a sad state of affairs but I think that math skills are seriously deteriorating.
The eMacs offer Firewire, USB, ethernet, a 17" flat screen monitor, nice speakers, a compact form factor, and they are very durable. Sure if you buy some no-name, do-it-yourself pc you can get a computer cheaper, but these prices are pretty good for a pre-built, quality machine. On top of all of this you get MacOS X, tons of great free software such as iTunes and iMovie, and the ability to run almost any software written for Linux or other Unix-like operating systems. Not a bad deal at all.
Once you combine this with the cool form factors, the ease-of-use, the friendly Unix-like goodness of MacOS X, and the overall stability of the Macintosh platform, you will see that many people are deciding that a Mac laptop is a nice buy. Now I'm sure that other manufacturers have similarly decent offerings, but Apple is certainly to be praised for being among those in the front of the pack.